BlogHer is almost sold out. The folks who have organized it have done an *AMAZING* job bringing together diverse interests and approaches to blogging, all with a woman’s flare. I’m really stoked to gather all of my friends to think about blogging from a different perspective. I really hope you’ll join us!
(And for those who don’t know, male allies are more than welcome.)
::gasp::bounce:: They’re letting me out in public again! Mooo ha ha ha!
I will be a panelist at the EFF’s BayFF on Bloggers’ Rights on July 19 from 7-9:30PM at 111 Minna with some other cool cats. I have no idea what on earth we’ll be addressing (well, blogs and law and whatnot, duh) but i’m sure it will be fun so come out and play!
(Oh, and someone *soo* needs to (re)mix the Beastie Boys for the EFF folks. ::giggle::)
In case you’re bored, check out the McSweeney’s post on a Hardy Boys Submission. It includes great editorial comments like:
Page 60: We encourage including Nancy Drew in the adventure as it represents great cross-marketing with our other adventure series. We would think it goes without saying, however, that she would not have, nor even contemplate, surgical enhancement. Please delete all references to her “killer rack.”
(This is all ab’s fault for helping me procrastinate.)
In the questions, Ehud asked about the state of social software in the academy. It can probably be summed up as paranoia vs. panacea. Of course, this applies to social software with or without the academy involved. Research into how social software is being used is very raw, very new. It’s hard to give meaningful reports because, mostly, people are just experimenting, not researching. That said, it’s great to see the personal experimentation because it’s the first step to research.
All the same, social software paranoia is definitely hitting the press. The Chronicle of Higher Education published an essay entitled Bloggers Need Not Apply. Anonymously, a humanities professor from the Midwest discusses how blogs were received during the hiring process. I agree with him in parts, but i think that his argument fails.
The reason that your blog matters is because it is part of your “brand” and you get an online identity by writing to mailing lists, writing blogs, commenting on things, etc. And yes, it’s disturbing that we’re moving to a culture of individual brands but that’s always been true in academia. In academia, your brand is this aggregate of your eccentricities and expertise. I do think that you can soil your brand in any public or semi-public environment. This is why you put on a particular face during conferences, at dinner with like minds, etc. Certain institutions have more tolerance for eccentricities than others. My guess is that the Midwest humanities department has virtually none. But find me a prof at MIT that is not quirky as hell. In fact, i think that “normals” would be upsetting there. Academia does not have one consistent personality trait and potential faculty have to find an institution where they match, not just in terms of research, but in terms of personality and passions. In turn, quirky students seek out quirky places and quirky research happens at quirky places.
There is no doubt that all faculty searches include a Google search. Hell, i searched all applicants during mine, not just the narrowed candidates. One of the things i hear most frequently about our new hire is how disturbing it is that he doesn’t have a web presence. Something must be wrong, right? Everything that we could find about him online was accidental, not controlled. Abstracts from conferences, posts to academic Yahoo Groups, etc. You worry about people like this, particularly in the more technical realms.
I feel badly for the students at the authors’ university. Any institution that expects people to stifle their quirks is oppressive in many ways. Of course, it’s probably good that faculty find out that they could not get along with a person before they are brought on campus – saves both groups the headache. But i worry about institutions that point blank exclude anyone who doesn’t spend their lives trying to suppress quirks – institutional identities should emerge as the aggregate of the quirks, not the suppression of them. Homogeneity is not what students need and certainly not what knowledge production needs.
I do wonder how my blog will be received when i apply for faculty positions. Or how my tendency to dress up in bright colors, dread my hair and talk with my hands will be seen. But seriously, if i start wearing suits, remove all piercings and pretend not to know what Burning Man is, i might make it past a faculty hire, but would i ever make it past tenure? Of course a “fuck you, like me for who i am attitude” is not necessarily the most attractive thing either. And besides, i’m definitely past my most rebellious anti-establishment days. What it comes down to is that i have to believe that some of the meritocracy of academia is partially there, even if not entirely. I have to believe that if i do good work, my eccentricities will be less problematic, just as the stupid things that i said on Usenet in the early 90s are less visible in my digital performance thanks to my verbose tendencies.
But seriously, what’s the point of telling a bunch of potential academics that they need to be homogenous, unquirky and unlikely to rock the boat? I’d bet that “Ivan Tribble” is trying to protect current PhDs, but he’s also supporting the status quo. Herein lies the greatest tension to the future of academia – be proud of the quirks and fight or go for status quo to be tolerated.
Update: Some amazing folks have commented on this article and others need to read what they’ve said:
Definitely read other academics who think this is utter bullshit and are cranky with the Chronicle for printing such foolish paranoia.
Last night, i attended a renegade party buried in San Francisco. We could see the road from our location, but the road could not see us. When we saw cop car after cop car drive by, we knew it was over. But still, as they stopped, we crouched down, climbed trees, hid behind bushes. The officer climbed the hill with his flashlight, shining it on people. He got to the top where he realized there were at least 150 people there.
“Oh. My. God.” was the only thing he could mutter. And he kept repeating it.
In response, someone jumped up and yelled “Surprise!” at which point everyone jumped into singing “Happy Birthday” to the officer. His eyes were wide with shock, jaw still slack. He was too stunned to be forceful, but he made it clear that we needed to get off this land. So as we filtered out, we eached passed by the different officers, all of whom were muttering in shock at how this many people could possibly get past security onto this land. As i walked by, i apologized for the inconvenience. He just looked at me with shock. Here was a large crowd of certifiable (primarily) sober adults, with no teens in sight throwing a ?rave?! ::gasp:: He mumbled “no problem” in response. Poor guy probably had no idea just how this could possibly happen.
How did you first hear of yesterday’s tragedy in London? Where did you search for more information?
I asked random friends these questions yesterday, techies and non-techies. Given timezone differences, many of my friends woke up to the radio telling them about it. Others heard because they peruse mainstream news sites with their coffee. Over and over again, i heard people express frustration when they tried to search in Google/Yahoo for more information. There was none; it was too new. Even the BBC barely updated.
I remember this feeling from 9/11. Knowing that somewhere on blogs, there was information. Knowing that people took photos. Knowing that names of survivors and victims had to be listed somewhere. And having no place to look. When the tsunami hit, a blogspot blog became a central focus for people trying to get information. But that blog still took a couple of days. Then again, it was a different kind of horror.
What amazed me was how my technical, blogging and tech-comfortable friends converged on three sites: Technorati, Flickr and Wikipedia. (The non-technical stuck to the mainstream news and called folks.) The front page of Wikipedia linked to the article that people collectively used to provide information. On Flickr, many photos were collected into community pools, TV images were photographed, and there were press folks asking permission to use different photos. On Technorati, the front page clearly showed that everyone was searching for information on London. Technorati saw traffic spike to 45% over regular levels.
Historically (::cough::), we turned to the TV for up-to-the-minute news of major events. Yet, today, we are finding that this is not enough. We don’t simply want the packaged reports of terror on auto-repeat. We want to know the functional details and have the ability to track down loved ones, narrow in on particular aspects of the situation, and hear from people on the ground. We want real voices, not TV-ified ones. The web allows people to be present across geographical location, to communicate directly rather than through the media, to actually access each others’ experiences instanteously. Now, if only the search process was simpler…
Last night, i went to the Mad Scientist’s Club at Squid Labs. It was mostly a collection of MIT geeks showing off new things they had built or talking about ideas for things to build.
One idea that i really liked concerned the breaks of bicycles. As you slow down to stop at a stop sign, the bike would store up energy in a rubber band so that when you were allowed to go again, you would zoom off, allowing you to stop without losing too much momentum.
My favorite story of the evening came when Saul and gang were discussing rope that they made for Sound and Rope. Apparently, a man from Thailand approached them. He made CDs of music that elephants made. He wanted them to build him a rope structure that would be a harp for elephants.
Mostly though, i enjoyed the social part. I was surprised to find that i knew folks there from three different facets of my life and it was such fun to be back in MIT creativity zone. It’s been a long time since i built anything.
In the questions entry, Ross jokingly asked for me to summarize the period in which i was gone. I actually think that everything about humanity can be summed up in the first event that i heard about upon returning.
On July 4th, a NASA projectile successfully intersected with a comet – a “smashing” success. A Russian astrologer became hysterical.
Can’t you just see it? A bunch of NASA boys sitting around stoned off the gourd imagining what they could do for fun. “Dude, i know! Let’s shoot the moon.” “No, dude. That’s too easy. We need to shoot something moving.” “Dude! I know dude! A comet! Let’s shoot a comet!” “Dude!!!”
The result? Probes and projectiles engaged in “deep impact” conveniently placed in the newspaper next to the latest news on “deep throat.” And really, probe or no probe, it’s basically an aiming mission, the million dollar version of the bulls-eye target practice in boys’ bathrooms. As my friend at NASA pointed out, the impact is equivalent to throwing a penny at a 16-wheeler. And can’t you just see the NASA dudes’ faces when a Russian woman started screaming about the deformation of her horoscope? “But can’t you seeeeeee? Nature is defenseless against your masculine ejaculations!”
Some things never change but they do continue to amuse.
In case you were curious, the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything is still 42.