Disqus - Latest Comments for jayjay

Re: Purpose for Posterous: PhD Research Journal

jayjay — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:05:42 -0000

Thanks Jo! :-)

Trying to reign in my online activity to make it worthwhile and inclusive to research (especially now it is full time, need to make the distinction!)

Re: Disgusted of Liverpool

jayjay — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:14:41 -0000

I went into it. But there was no corn to harvest - and I couldn't get hair shade just right. I'm fickle.
I'm trying to see what it does that can't be done using something else, need to have an experiment when you are free.

Re: All Change!

jayjay — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:06:33 -0000

I think I was about to grind to a halt with the current PhD - this situation works out for everyone (and I'm already planning projects with others, and it is only in the first week, rather sitting around on my own like I did most the time in Leicester, more to do with blending of research interests, rather than feeling like I'm dragging people into places they don't like.)

Hopefully we'll get the chance to catch up at another BSMC (or something else in the area) :-)

Re: All Change!

jayjay — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:03:46 -0000

Thanks love - trying to switch my mindset from looking for stuff to do that relevant - to actually making the time to think. It's all very exciting and I'm glad I get to spend time in Scotland again! :-) x

Re: All Change!

jayjay — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:48:22 -0000

Thanks! Been bursting to tell everyone but I've had to be careful with how much I shared etc - especially when I didn't know if it would be this semester, or next. It's been a tentative 2 months (probably aiding my frustration at the rest of the research/social media world!)
The knot in my stomach has gone so that's got to be a good thing!

Re: All Change!

jayjay — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:47:01 -0000

LOL - I know. I am crap at keeping things quiet when I'm offline - it's been really frustrating not being able to talk about it (or my work at that!), but now all loose ends are tied with Leicester, I can actually start getting going with stuff.

Seems like madness this morning, but when we've got spare moment we can start to plot ways in order to take over the world. 5 year plan innit. ;-)

Re: Virtually Useless #fote09 #fote09vw

jayjay — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:30:46 -0000

I have no problem with Second Life.

I have a problem reading about how much money is spent (wasted) on something that can only be introduced to PHD STUDENTS through the medium of physical supervision (i.e. someone needs to watch them on the computers while they use it incase they violate ITS rules and regulations)

I think you should do a study of second life researchers in education. Stats on how many of them use it beyond the work place, how many teach (successfully) using it - and some interviews measuring the discourse of defense when talking about their magical wurld.

Re: A social media proposal (and you’re not going to like it) #oxsmc09

jayjay — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:35:46 -0000

Yes, I think I will. Thanks for your comment!

Re: A social media proposal (and you’re not going to like it) #oxsmc09

jayjay — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:32:38 -0000

Hi Maxine - thanks for your comment. I agree, it is easier to criticise (especially online) but when you are at an event, tweeting under your own name, it should be just as easy to challenge - in the break, on the twitter fall (low barrier to entry and all that) -

I doubt I can impress you, as I'm not in your field nor have the experience to challenge in that way(although was very interested in your panel about scientific dissemination - which I did write about briefly in the live blog) - this is something that I don't know much about, but from communicating with several science academics and librarians (and following Ben Goldacre's work) I have a developed an interest in the debate. I'm not qualified enough to really have much to say on that. Will keep following however, in particular anything about open access.

Having put on my own social media topic seminar (http://usesandabuses.wordpress.com http://usesandabuses.pbworks.com) - I completely understand how hard and challenging it is to put a conference of this nature. It completely clashes with traditional notions of events - let alone challenging trad media studies. It's almost hypocritical to put a 1 to many event on when we're talking about many to many, interactive cultures- it can make for awkard, conflicting experiences. I had a challenging backchannel who actively critiqued my speakers (some of which had never experienced the backchannel before) - but it showed some fascinating activities - how people deal with it, how it effects the day, what it does to the dynamic of the room etc

I think mainly, I was really looking forward to hearing Oxford's Internet Institute's take on it - and unfortunately I was disappointed. The value is probably proportional to the opinions of the bloggers I have in my network.

Thanks!

Re: A social media proposal (and you’re not going to like it) #oxsmc09

jayjay — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 11:56:15 -0000

Yeah exactly. If we talked about going to the pub with similar grandeur, we'd all be laughed at. It *can* be incredibly superficial (as a topic) when there isn't any substance to it. It's not hard to add some, just need to case study a tiny little bit of it and then we could actually compare it to other things.

Having a bunch of "experts" sitting around on panels, all of which pretty much agreeing with each other, does not maketh a conference. I assume that most people there weren't present for a social media circle jerk (pardon my expression, but I can't think of anything else to describe Friday) People went to learn something new about the subject that has been dominating mass media for the last year or so. I doubt many got much from it - and I betcha that any one of the panel would have been far more interesting if they were asked to present something a little most substantial about their interests or backgrounds.

There were too many people asking "how do we make money?" - well, it's the same way we've always made money - either hard work and determination and/or exploitation and clever bullshit marketing. I think we're already seeing the examples that you've suggested - but the wonderful, great thing (that nobody mentioned) is that we can ignore it all if we really, really want to. :-)

Re: A social media proposal (and you’re not going to like it) #oxsmc09

jayjay — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 11:46:16 -0000

Yeah completely agree. I'm disheartened that I'm only 10 months into this and I've managed to become this cynical. I was expecting at least a year before I started wanting to scream during a conference! ;-)

Re: A social media proposal (and you’re not going to like it) #oxsmc09

jayjay — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 11:44:10 -0000

Thanks for your kind words. It's hard to be open about things like this when you have the Guardian saying the complete opposite (were we at the same event?) - I think you may like this post about the hashtag (http://bit.ly/325lsU) , and Brian Kelly's interesting observations about the lack of social activities pre and post event.
Heard a lot of good things about Kara Swisher's discussion (I'm assuming because she didn't get wishy washy or fluffy with the details) - I wish I'd have seen it, but you'd have never got me in a session on corporate blogging from the first impressions (been there, done that - biggest problem, I feel, is trying to get your colleagues on board, and that's enough to put a plug in it) But then again, I didn't learn anything new from the sessions I did choose to go to, so I'd have probably been better off sticking a pin in the programme and picking something random!

I'm glad I went - gives me an idea what to do differently. And it won't take much to try something different! ;-)

Re: Reflections on #tedxtuttle

jayjay — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:08:42 -0000

Yeah I agree. It can't be resisted for much longer. As city projects begin to grow outwards and beyond their initial concepts, it won't be long before the smaller towns, villages and communities will have their chance to shine. Anything to make living outside the big smoke as engaging as it can be!

Re: Reflections on #tedxtuttle

jayjay — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:07:13 -0000

Hi Lloyd, thanks for taking the time to respond!

I took a lot from the day - and I hope it is a starter for attending more frequent things in London - I know this is very much a personal reflection on my part - and I hoped to document exactly how I was feeling, at the time, in order to remind myself of those "first day of school" moments. In terms of research, these are the moments that can be brushed aside pretty quickly as time goes on, so I wanted to make sure I captured it without hurting or treading on other people's toes.

I would very much like to continue this conversation - and in retrospect, I think attending a straight-up Tuttle would have been a better place to start. Hopefully we can watch this grow organically over time. (And currently I'm a a stage where I'm not quite ready to share PhD stuff online - due to some moving around and rejigging, I'm chomping at the bit to add more context to the proceedings!)

Thanks! :-)

Re: September.

jayjay — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:29:53 -0000

Oh yes, looking forward to winter coats and getting to wear my new pink beret! :-D
I don't even bother looking at things that are going to cost more than 50 quid. I always seem to get emails from my department to attend £3000 summer schools in different countries - not including travel costs. Considering that would allow me money to live on and not worry for a few months, I doubt i'd ever consider it. There are plenty of interesting and engaging people on the Internet to get me by for now. (Academic jollies are off the cards when you are looking at unconferences as part of your research...) >.<

Re: My Twitter Strategy

AJCann — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:25:14 -0000

There are lots of good Twitter clients out there now, but multiple account handling has been disappointing in all those I've tried other than Twhirl. Tweetie looks interesting, but I still have several machines on 10.4 (I'm a 10.5 hater, hope that changes when 10.6.1 comes out :-)
Handling multiple accounts is a difficult balancing act between sufficient information and overload.

Re: My Twitter Strategy

jayjay — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:17:33 -0000

Won't be useful for you (because it is a mobile app for android :-D) but Twidroid have just launched an upgraded with multiple account management - it is actually really good, one touch and you are tweeting from different accounts (without logging out, and it notifies you when you change account). My point is that perhaps other applications are beginning to think about this multiple Twitter account/identity dilemma.

Re: Why are scientists so dull?

jayjay — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:36:23 -0000

hear hear!

Re: Predictable reaction to calls for open government

jayjay — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 04:48:47 -0000

This is fantastic. The council and the newspapers relationship has became complacent for SO long (especially local news - I couldn't imagine my hometown's paper taking the council on for anything (I wish they did!)) and it's about time the press fought back and helped moderate politics for the people of the city.

Open journalism and open politics is (and has to be) the way forward!

Re: Living in the Post-Internet Age

jayjay — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:57:24 -0000

I find it almost hard to believe that universities are still wired together like that. It's a completely different world I have no idea about. I'm just used to everything being open and available (in one form or the other) Stepping stones, not a bridge.

Re: There is no such thing as a crap city, only a crap network!

jayjay — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 05:26:12 -0000

Cheers Ben! :-)

This is major progression for me as I was convinced since I was a little girl that the reason I didn't "fit in" was because I was forced to sit with people and therefore forced to be part of a group I had nothing in common with. Partly true, but nice to see that there are tools and platforms online that allow people to "get to know each other" at a distance and plug themselves into lightly connected networks that they feel that they want to part of. Not just people they've lived beside, or worked with or studied with - which in online terms is what sites like Facebook reinforce.

I can feel very lonely when all you see of a city and town is drunk-zombies and primark-robots but there is so much more beyond it and you just have to dig around a bit and take a bit more risk.

Re: There is no such thing as a crap city, only a crap network!

jayjay — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:08:10 -0000

Amazingly, I wasn't referring to any web platform - at all - when I wrote this. But reading back, it could totally apply to Facebook. Too many strong ties and your network don't grow beyond the locale and the historical - opening things up, lets you see new things, meet other people and go further than before. It works in so many different ways. I think my Scottish network will be so much better now that I've mastered the transferable art of forming weaker ties. Thanks Leicester for demonstrating the art of open source relationship building! ;-)

Re: A bit of a dashboard

jayjay — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:35:04 -0000

I don't use dashboard (apart from when I want a calculator ;-)) - I think with spaces is you can get a set number of applications to open and run in multiply screens - so one can be purely writing so you've got document up, couple of browser windows - could have a space with comms in it (twitter, email, skype etc)

I really should look into data displays, I tend to keep it all browser based - but as more and more things come in, I guess I need to organise it a bit more formally.. Only just getting round to exploring Leopard properly on Mac Mini (MBP has tiger and I know that inside out!)

Re: A bit of a dashboard

AJCann — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:28:05 -0000

Interesting. Tell me more :-) What OS X Dashboard tools do you use for data displays?

Re: A bit of a dashboard

jayjay — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:23:16 -0000

Oh I remember who it was with now - @gillmcl on twitter, the same day we spoke about dashboards.

You can set up different desktops on Leopard and it allows you to switch between agencies - work, personal, writing, clients etc - the desktop icon looks like this:

http://www.twitpic.com/c05w5

Not tired it properly yet, but I can see it being useful if you are juggling with screens.