Remember me flipping out a few weeks back? I decided i should listen to some of you and try to put some structure into my life. Thankfully, some fantastic people decided to help me out. I want to take a moment to announce some of the changes that will (hopefully) make it possible for me to be more productive and more engaged (and ideally more active here).
First, i went and gots me an agent who thinks i talk real goot. ::blush:: Thanks to Wes Neff at Leigh Bureau, i will again be available for professional speaking gigs. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to engage with people from a variety of different industries about the significance of social media. (Plus, the fangirl in me can’t believe that i’m on the same bureau as Malcolm Gladwell. ::drool::)
Second, Jonathan Aronson over at the Annenberg Center has agreed with most of you that i desperately need a research assistant/admin to help me manage what i’m doing. Together, we’re looking for a USC undergraduate who thinks this social media stuff is kinda cool and wants to get paid to help out. (If you know any, let me know!)
Finally, i’ve restructured my relationship with Yahoo! such that i will no longer be a resident social media researcher but will continue to consult for them on social media projects. This will hopefully give me more flexibility to work on my youth research projects.
My hope is that by springtime, i will be speeding along quite dandily, getting some publications out and otherwise producing what has been building up in my head for quite some time. This is also all in preparation for the dissertation writing phase which you will be painfully subjected to for the next 18 months or so as i prepare to draft a book about all of this goobly gook. If all goes well, i will have three additional letters to my name by spring 2008.
Anyhow, thank you to all who have been supportive (and continue to be supportive) and to your very deeply appreciated suggestions. I really do appreciate it immensely. I’m still struggling in what it means to be a grown-up and balance has never been one of my strengths. But i’m trying… i think good things can come out of a more balanced danah. Tehe.
Hi Danah – warmest greetings from London.
I read this post with great delight – you had us worried for a while girl! You sound so much happier 🙂
You’re an inspiration, and I’m glad you’re back on track and ready to shake things up again. Good luck with the new life plan!
All ra best
Stu 😉
More human computation … cool for U.
great for us.
You’re a great inspiration, indeed! Too bad I’m not a USC undergraduate. 🙂 Looking fwd to whatever you’ll be sharing with the world at this place.
Good moves, Danah. Good luck!
This leaves me wishing I was at USC instead..
great news (or, as we’ll say in 2008: great news, PhD)
hello dana, it’s great to come across your blog! i remember you when i took cs15 as a freshman at brown, and i am now at usc as well (phd in urban education at rossier school of edu)… my emerging research interests touch on computing and education, so i look forward to reading through your stuff!
hey! even though it’s become a commercialized monster-have “yer self” a good safe holiday danah!
danah-
ah, yes, the awesomeness of you…the awesomeness of structure! i am working on trying to balance everything here too…most recently i wrecked havoc at my university because they wouldn’t put me in a dumb required english class. i couldn’t register normally for it because i didn’t take the preliminary english at the university (i was exempt). then the class closed and they told me to “pick another”. i told them “no,” that i had tried to register while there was still plenty of room and that the only reason they give students who took preliminary english at the university first preference is because they paid for another course. more credit hours = more university money = the politics and monopoly that drive my school. they told me to bring in my writing from the past year and they’ll exempt me from this class too. i guess sometimes it does pay to fight the system.
take care, stay safe..
-erica
Hi, I just discovered your site and posted some thoughts under the Bush/birth control issue. I’ve also been reading through some of your back posts – Why blogs aren’t safe, etc…- and wondered if you’ve come across Marshall Rosenberg and his work on non-violent communication? He works with the United Nations and has initiated community level workshops as well. You might find it useful. I am just beginning with it and already I find it invaluable.
Also, You Are Great! and thank you for blogging all of this and what you are going through. It is greatly appreciated.
I just want to know if you’re going to demand that Ph.D. be spelled in all lowercase.