Friday marks the end ... for a while

How many times have I said, "We're almost ready to put the Fairfield Condo on the market"? That day has arrived. Even the basement is "ready"! It will be listed tomorrow. To celebrate our final work day we stopped at the Equinox Diner at the corner of I95 and Rt27 for supper on our way home. The place opened earlier this year, (there was a Howard Johnson's there for years) and we've joked so many times about stopping there that this time we actually did it. Like getting the condo ready for sale, it was an experience I'd prefer not to repeat.

The difference that makes a difference

8 AM and I was at work - at a BDL (Business & Design Lab) meeting about a paper for the Design Management Review. There were 6 of us - 4 in Gothenburg, 1 in Stockholm and 1 in Connecticut -- connected via group Skype. Ulla had some initial thoughts, Ana, Markus, and Katerina had ideas for the different sections, I kept us focused on a practitioner piece, and Mary-Jo came up with the title. Now everyone is writing a short piece, then Ulla and I will create the one page proposal due before the end of November. If it's accepted, the 3000 word paper is due for a March edition. This is an interesting collaboration: industrial designers, an artist, a critical feminist, and an ironist, or broken down in a different way: doctoral students, an established professor, a post-doc, a rogue researcher, and a visiting professor. Quite a diverse group! That's why we're writing about stereotypes and meaningful differences.

Crisis midday when I discovered that I had been eliminated from the Sacred Heart University system so could no longer access the library. What a terrible shock! IT support couldn't help me, so it was Lynda to the rescue with an email to "Sys-Op". Apparently a request from the Registrar to remove my name from a distribution list was misinterpreted as "remove from across all systems." Poof! and I was gone! So far efforts to reinstate me have not been successful. I hope I'll be back tomorrow.

The other major accomplishment of the day was the F-pie, no, not swearing, but Frozen Marble. Ingredients were cream, butter, chocolate, sugar, sherry -- it had to taste good!

But I had trouble adding the melted chocolate to the whipped cream, egg white, and sugar so the "marble" wasn't as much of a contrast as it should have been. The result earned a "3 pie" rating (out of 5)

Working, not designing

I've been in Fairfield for the last couple of days so haven't thought much about design or anything other than getting the condo ready for sale. We organized the patio and I vacuumed and dusted like the white tornado. Must return on Friday for the final touches -- it's "going live" on Saturday!

Worldview in view

Today was worldview day. Jeanie and I met and now have the paper within striking distance of being finished. We're both comfortable with the focus and placing it in a lesser journal (Cabells listed, 60% acceptance). It's about the development of an assurance of learning rubric for a short travel course, and provides an example of using the rubric for programmatic AOL using the data from three courses. We sat together and hammered out details -- the rubric needs to be inverted (again - back to original rows and columns!) and our demonstration data cleaned up. Plus the conclusion needs writing and various sections of the text have holes in them. So we each have a list of tasks to be completed before I head for California on Monday. Then we can email final touch-ups back and forth and submit on time. I started my new research notebook - the backup notebook, not my original choice -- so there's no going back now! The photo is of a poster in Jeanie's office - today's inspiration for Worldview - if you click on the picture you will enlarge it so you can read the text.

Intersections - or clashes?

Today my three of my current writing projects clashed - and crashed. Just as I was finishing a Skype conversation with Ulla about our abstract, "In praise of fads," for a DMR article (due 11/23) and a "state of the BDL" brochure/CD to be in print by the middle of April, Diana was at my door to work on "wicked problems" symposium proposal (due 12/7). By the time she left there was something in my email from Jeanie for our meeting tomorrow to finish our "worldview rubric" paper (due 11/20). The rest of the day my mind flitted from one project to another -- as soon as I started developing a line of reasoning for one, I'd convince myself that one of the other projects should have priority, so I moved on -- and kept on moving round the triangle. Truth be told, I' was at the stage of bouncing ideas about, not yet ready to write, so I might as well juggle with three balls as just toss one up in the air and catch it.

Fortunately I had a diversion this afternoon - Brahms Requiem with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and Hartford Chorale. No clashes there! The conductor, Constantine Kitsopoulos, is a candidate for the Music Director position. He's the first of seven (5 men, 2 women) who will be visiting over the next two years. I think it takes about 5 years from the start of a serach to the new conductor being installed -- even longer than a Dean search!

Conundrum

Yesterday I used the last page of Research Daybook 8 (started 4/10/07). Some time ago I picked out Daybook #9 and have been carrying it about in case I finished the current one. But now, can I find the new one? No! I've looked in every place I can think of. Not there. I have a couple of other empty books that I could use, but I'm sure that as soon as I actually write in one of them, my chosen book will appear -- and it's against the rules to switch without using every page. What shall I do -- have no new research ideas or plans? (Or "grow up" and not take these notebooks so seriously?)

Unable to generate new ideas (ha!), I spent my workday doing some linguistic editing - or "De-swinglishing" as it is affectionately called. I worked on a couple of interesting papers on user-driven innovation. It's a clandestine way of learning about current topics!

I read a few more pages of Tim Brown's book. I'm enjoying it less now -- I'm finding his "narrative" lacking in structure - or recognizable themes. Ever so often there's a page that makes absolute sense, but the context for that particular thought is elusive.

Thursday's accomplishments

Work: Washed outsides of kitchen cabinets, cleaned venetian blinds, washed and waxed hardwood kitchen floor = kitchen is "done"

Fun: Visited Steve Brown's BU299 Decision-making class to act as a resource for the Where to make the charitable donation exercise. Great to see the different ways the teams started to tackle the problem = going back next week.

Thinking: The first question Bruce Nussbaum asked yesterday (18 of 20 responses to his tweet asked it) was, "How do you start?" None of the panelists answered it. It's a question I'm thinking about too. Here's as far as I've got: First you need to have a personal experience of the design process -- this frequently happens when working with an architect on a building. Second, you need to have a group learning experience about the nitty-gritty of tools, techniques, and processes (with both designers and managers as instructors.) Third, you need a period of individual reflection, then have (shared) responsibility for a real project. = sounds just like Kolb's adult learning cycle!

Craving: This came upon me during the drive back to Fairfield -- I haven't made one in ages (check earlier posting for actual date.) So, in less than half an hour, I produced the "L" pie!

(My-T-fine lemon meringue package mix.) = Delicious!