Academia, comment-fishing, diversity, Education, Ethnography, ivory tower, Learning, professors, qualitative research, ramblings, research, scholarship, schools, soapbox, Teaching, Universities, University rankings

Schools, Research, Relevance

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The following was sent to the Moodle Lounge.

Business schools and research | Practically irrelevant? | Economist.com

My own reaction to this piece…
Well, well…
The title and the tone are, IMHO, rather inflammatory. For those who follow tech news, this could sound like a column by John C. Dvorak. The goal is probably to spark conversation about the goals of business schools. Only a cynic (rarely found in academia 😛 ) would say that they’re trying to increase readership. 😎

The article does raise important issues, although many of those have been tackled in the past. For instance, the tendency for educational institutions to look at the short-term gains of their “employees’ work” for their own programs instead of looking at the broader picture in terms of social and human gains. Simple rankings decreasing the diversity of programmes. Professors who care more about their careers than about their impact on the world. The search for “metrics” in scholarship (citation impact, patents-count, practical impact…). The quest for prestige. Reluctance to change. Etc.

This point could lead to something interesting:

AACSB justifies its stance by saying that it wants schools and faculty to play to their strengths, whether they be in pedagogy, in the research of practical applications, or in scholarly endeavour.

IMHO, it seems to lead to a view of educational institutions which does favour diversity. We need some schools which are really good at basic research. We need other schools (or other people at the same schools) to be really good ast creating learning environments. And some people should be able to do the typical goal-oriented “R&D” for very practical purposes, with business partners in mind. It takes all kinds. And because some people forget the necessity for diverse environments, it’s an important point to reassess.
The problem is, though, that the knee-jerk reaction apparently runs counter to the “diversity” argument. Possibly because of the AACSB’s own recommendations or maybe because of a difference of opinion, academics (and the anonymous Economist journalist) seem to understand the AACSB’s stance as meaning that all programs should be evaluated with the exact same criteria which give less room for basic research. Similar things have been done in the past and, AFAICT, basic research eventually makes a comeback, one way or the other. A move toward “practical outcomes” is often a stopgap measure in a “bearish” context.

To jump on the soapbox for a second. I personally do think that there should be more variety in academic careers, including in business schools. Those who do undertake basic research are as important as the others. But it might be ill-advised to require every faculty member at every school to have an impressive research résumé every single year. Those people whose “calling” it is to actually teach should have some space and should probably not be judged using the same criteria as those who perceive teaching as an obstacle in their research careers. This is not to say that teachers should do no research. But it does mean that requiring proof of excellence in research of everyone involved is a very efficient way to get both shoddy research and dispassionate teaching. In terms of practical implications for the world outside the Ivory Tower, often subsumed under the category of “Service,” there are more elements which should “count” than direct gain from a given project with a powerful business partner. (After all, there is more volatility in this context than in most academic endeavours.) IMHO, some people are doing more for their institutions by going “in the world” and getting people interested in learning than by working for a private sponsor. Not that private sponsors are unimportant. But one strength of academic institutions is that they can be neutral enough to withstand changes in the “market.”

Phew! 😉

Couldn’t help but notice that the article opens the door for qualitative and inductive research. Given the current trend in and toward ethnography, this kind of attitude could make it easier to “sell” ethnography to businesses.
What made me laugh in a discussion of video-based ethnographic observation is that they keep contrasting “ethnography” (at least, the method they use at EverydayLives) with “research.” 😀

The advantage of this distinction, though, in the context of this Economist piece, is that marketeers and other business-minded people might then see ethnography as an alternative for what is perceived as “practically irrelevant” research. 💡

Anthropology, cluefulness, comment-fishing, Ethnography, friendliness, journalism, Malcolm Gladwell, profiles, surveys, Tech

Customer Service on the Phone: Netflix

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An interesting piece about the move, by Netflix, to phone-only customer service.
Victory for voices over keystrokes | CNET News.com

Much of it sounds very obvious. Customers tend to prefer phone support instead of email. Customer service representatives who take more time on the phone with customers are more likely to make people happy. Many customers dislike offshoring. Customer service can make or break some corporations. Customers often have outlandish requests. Hourly salaries in call centres will vary greatly from one place to the other, even within the same area.

In other words, Netflix has done what many people think a company should do. We’ll see how it all pans out in the end.

The main reason this piece caught my attention is that I have been doing surveys (over the phone) about the quality of the service provided by customer service representatives over the phone. Not only am I working in a call centre myself (and can certainly relate with the job satisfaction which comes from empathy). But several of the surveys I do are precisely about the points made in this News.com piece. The majority of the surveys I do are about the quality of the service provided by customer service representatives (CSRs) at incoming call centres for a big corporation. So I hear a lot about CSRs and what they do well. Or not so well. One answer I’ve been hearing on occasion was “I’d appreciate it if I could talk to people who are a bit less courteous but who know more about the services the company is providing.” After interactions with several CSRs and tech support people, I can relate with this experience on a personal level.

The general pattern is that people do prefer it if they can speak directly (over the phone) with a human being who speaks their native language very fluently and are able to spend as much time as it takes with them on the phone. Most people seem to believe that it is important to be able to speak to someone instead of dealing with the issue in an “impersonal” manner.

Sounds obvious. And it probably is obvious to many executives, when they talk about customer service. So email support, outsourcing, offshoring, time limits on customer service, and low wages given to customer service representatives are all perceived by customers as cost-cutting measures.

But there’s something else.

We need the “chunky spaghetti sauce” of customer service. Yes, this is also very obvious. But it seems that some people draw awkward conclusions from it. It’s not really about niche marketing. It’s not exactly about customer choice or even freedom. It’s about diversity.

As an anthropologist, I cherish human diversity. Think of the need for biological diversity on the level of species but through the cultural, linguistic, and biological dimensions of one subspecies (Homo sapiens sapiens).
Yes, we’re all the same. Yes, we’re all different. But looking at human diversity for a while, you begin to notice patterns. Some of these patterns can be described as “profiles.” Other patterns are more subtle, harder to describe. But really not that difficult to understand.

The relationships between age and technology use, for instance. The common idea is that the younger you are, the more likely you are to be “into technology.” “It’s a generation thing, you know. Kids these days, they’re into HyPods and MikeSpaces, and Nit’n’do-wee. I’m too old to know anything about these things.”

Yeah, right.

All the while, some children are struggling with different pieces of technology forced unto them and some retirees are sending each other elaborate PowerPoint files to younger people who are too busy to look at them.

To go back to customer service on the phone. Some people are quite vocal about their preference for interactions with “real human beings” who speak their native language and are able to understand them. Other people would actually prefer it if they could just fire off a message somewhere and not have to spend any time on the phone. On several occasions having to do with customer service, I do prefer email exchanges over phone interactions. But I realize that I’m probably in the minority.

Many people in fact deal with different situations in different ways.

One paragraph I personally find quite surprising in the News.com piece is about the decision to not only strengthen the phone-based support but to, in effect, abolish email support:

Netflix’s decision to eliminate the e-mail feature was made after a great deal of research, Osier said. He looked at two other companies with reputations for superb phone-based customer service, Southwest Airlines and American Express, and saw that customers preferred human interaction over e-mail messages.

Sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to me. (It’d be fun to read the research report!) I’m pretty sure that most business schools advise future executives against knee-jerk reactions.

One thing which surprises me about the Netflix move is that, contrary to Southwest Airlines and American Express, the Netflix business is primarily based on online communication and postal services. My hunch is that a significant number of Netflix users are people who enjoy the convenience of one-click movie rentals without any need to interact with a person. Not that Netflix users dislike other human beings but they may prefer dealing with other human beings on other levels. If my hunch is accurate to any degree, chances are that these same people also enjoy it when they can solve an issue with their account through a single email or, better yet, a single click. For instance, someone might like the option of simply clicking a button on the Netflix website to put their rental queue on hold. And it might be quite useful to receive an email confirmation of a “Damaged Disc Report” (SRC: DISCPROBLEM) instead of having to rely on a confirmation number given on the phone by a friendly CSR in Oregon or, say, Moncton.

Yes, I’m referring to the specific instances of my interactions with Netflix. While I’d certainly appreciate the opportunity to speak with friendly French-speaking CSRs when I have problems with plane tickets or credit cards, I like the fact that I can deal with Netflix online (and through free postal mail). Call me crazy all you want. I’m one of those Netflix customers who find it convenient to deal with the company through those means. After all, Netflix is unlikely to have such an influence on my life that I would enjoy spending as much as ten minutes on the phone with friendly Oregonians.

As an ethnographer, I have not, in fact, observed Netflix to any significant extent. I’m just a random customer and, as it so happens, my wife is the one who is getting rentals from them. What little I know about the Netflix business model is limited to discussions about it on tech-related podcasts. And I do understand that Blockbuster is their direct target.

Yet it seems to me that one of the main reasons Netflix has/had been succeeding is that they went into relatively uncharted territory and tapped into a specific market (mixed analogies are fun). Even now, Netflix has advantages over “traditional” DVD rental companies including Blockbuster the same way that Amazon has advantages over Barnes and Noble. It seems to me that Amazon is not actively trying to become the next Barnes and Noble. AFAIK, Amazon is not even trying to become the next Wal-Mart (although it has partnered with Target).

Why should Netflix try to beat Blockbusters?

What does this all mean for corporate America?

comment-fishing, Digital Life, Facebook, online privacy, social networks

Facebook Platform: Post-Game Analysis

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Just read Marc Andreessen’s very insightful analysis of what happened with the Facebook Platform (the development of new applications) during the first three weeks after its launch.

blog.pmarca.com: Analyzing the Facebook Platform, three weeks in

Andreessen’s entry was written in June and provides an appropriate snapshot of what people must have been thinking at the point.

What now?

Well… My perceptions are only as a lowly user of Facebook, not as a developer. And though I’m fairly active on Facebook, I can’t claim to be a Facebook “Power User.” Yet, as an ethnographer, I can’t help but notice something going on.

The Facebook Platform was an important event in Facebook’s history but many things have happened since Facebook started out, a few years ago. I only joined during the Fall semester, 2005 and I wasn’t very active on it until February, 2007. But I now use Facebook rather extensively and end up talking about it on several occasions. I’m really not sure about the timeframe and I’m too lazy to look things up but I’m hoping to find out at some point. Comments are obviously welcome.

One of the most important things in Facebook’s history was when they opened registration to the wider world of (English-speaking) Internet users as a whole. Prior to this, Facebook was restricted to university, college, and school campuses. For a little while, some businesses could have their own networks. But a real shift happened when Fb opened the gates and let everyone in. There were some discontentment on the part of long-time users but, on the whole, it was a rather smooth transition. At about the same time, the “Mini-Feed” feature was set up. With it, users can see pretty much everything their friends are doing, from status updates and friend adds to wall posts and pokes. This feature also occasioned some controversy but the Fb team reacted promptly and rather openly. On the whole, this was handled rather well.

I think one of the first killer apps, before the release of the actual semi-open platform, was Facebook Mobile, which lets users interact with Fb through SMS. The reason I think this was an important application is that the Canadian Fb community seems to have at the same time Fb Mobile became available on Canadian providers. Oh, sure, it might be pure coincidence. But the feature probably made me more active on Fb and chances are that it happened with other users.

Over the past year, there has been a fair deal of coverage of Fb in both tech and general media. Much of it has been rather critical if not outright alarming or inflammatory. But the end-result was increased exposure to Facebook. For instance, the first time I heard about Facebook was in a podcast version of a talk at Indiana University about online privacy (still a very important issue). The presenter had analysed some trends in what information students were willing to share on Facebook. Being interested in online networks, I decided to join Fb out of mere curiosity and, right away, some of my students added me as a friend. Concepts like “network effect” and “viral marketing” apply too obviously to such cases to be worth explaining.

The launch of the Facebook Platform happened in this context. As a non-coder, I was personally impressed by the rapidity with which developers were able to release Facebook applications. It felt as if new applications sprung up within hours of the platform release. It probably took longer but it really looked like an almost-synchronised release for the platform and new apps.

Andreessen talks about the platform launch from the point of view of application developers. As a non-coding Fb user, I think the apps were quite important in intensifying the buzz about Fb but I don’t think applications themselves have changed Fb that much. Yes, people are much more active on Fb thanks to cool apps. And some of these apps are actually very useful. But, to me, there’s a clear continuity between Fb groups and apps (even though they are completely different in other ways). In fact, an important similarity between apps and groups is summarized in the name for a Facebook group: “I read the group name, I laugh, I join, I never look at it again.” Andreessen alluded to this, in a way, but the important point is that both group memberships and application additions are more toward the “passive” than the “active” part of the online behaviour continuum. In all the discussions about online “bubbles” and “busts,” such issues should be kept in mind.

Many application developers seem not to understand this. They create apps which create very little value to users and try to monetize by forcing application users to invite friends or to click on some irrelevant links. Bad form, IMHO. Like most other Fb users, I add apps when I see friends adding them. But I’m increasingly weary of the adding apps which seem too eager to disseminate quickly. IOW: please, pretty please, stop the “application invite” madness!

I also notice that several Facebook users are sorting out their applications and groups. Part of it is pure information overload (many people left a local group after being sent daily updates of blog posts in their Fb mailboxes). But part of it is simply about finding what place Fb plays in our lives. Sure, many of us were excited about the possibilities and most of us are increasingly active on Fb. But after the initial excitement, we go into a phase during which Fb is just a tool.

And that might be a Good Thing(tm).

comment-fishing, confessions, linkfest, memes, ramblings, randomness, social networks, tags, Teaching

Tagged Again?

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I seem to be one of few bloggers fellow anthroblogger Nancy Leclerc (aka Gary Dickinson) wishes to tag:

Music, Books and Spirit: 8 things . . .

So, even though I’ve been tagged very recently,  I’ll play along. But just because I’m lazy and reveal a lot about myself anyway, I’ll just say eight random things about myself, regardless of how well-known they may be. What’s funny is that Nancy and I have never met IRL.

Anyhoo…

  1.  I’ve had a crush on a number of women when I was a kid, including some fictional characters. One crush I had as a teenager was with Simone Foster from Head of the Class. I still love humanists.
  2. Not only did I have imaginary friends when I was a kid but I kept imagining all sorts of things throughout my childhood, some of which were just too extreme in terms of megalomania. I still have a very active “internal life.”
  3. I don’t really have an alter ego but people are telling me that I act very different whether I speak English or French. Does that count?
  4. I decided to go into anthropology when I was 13 and never really deviated. Between ages 8 and 11, I wanted to become a lawyer (to defend innocent people). I eventually decided (at age 11) that law had too much to do with personal profit for my tastes.
  5. Despite being a single-parent household, my family (my mother, my brothers, and myself) has mostly been quite unified. Actually, I revealed quite a bit about this in a blog post in French.
  6. I’m not shy at all and I probably appear to be overly eager, assertive, extrovert, or friendly to a number of people. Though I’m sorry if I rub people the wrong way, I probably won’t change on this point.
  7. I’m in love with someone who lives 460km away from here. For the past 10 years, we spent about half of our time away from one another. The cool thing is, we’re going to settle down in Austin together, come December.
  8. I love teaching so much that I’m not sure how I can envision my life without teaching opportunities. Oh, I may get other jobs and I may spend some time without any formal teaching duties. But I’ll still get withdrawal symptoms.

Oh, kay… This was, erm, different. Whom should I tag?

Let’s go semi-random, this time.

Andi, Steve,  Anne-José, Gary Lee, Vanou, Kevin, Debbie, Sarah

café, Coffee, coffee scenes, culture, espresso, Montreal, WiFi

Montreal Coffee Renaissance?

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Just posted a message about my Caffè in Gamba, a new café in Montreal.

CoffeeGeek – Regional: Eastern Canada, Caffè in Gamba (Montreal Intelligentsia)

Because this café’s website isn’t online yet, I would need to repeat the info. The café is located in a new building at 5263 Park Ave., between Fairmount and Bernard. It’s first claim for fame is that it’s the first place in Montreal to have Intelligentsia coffee on its regular coffee menu. But I think it’ll become much more than this.

Owner J.F. Leduc is surprisingly soft-spoken for a passionate coffee lover. But I think he prefers it if the coffee “can speak for itself” instead of him having to hype coffee enjoyment out of existence. In fact, he has a bit of the same humble attitude you would notice in an actual barista in Northern Italy. They know what they like but they remember that they’re in the service industry! 🙂

I think Leduc can become a key player in the broader movement to make Montreal a real coffee destination.

Granted, I tend to be overly enthusiastic about such things. And I’ve been disappointed in the past. But I have a good vibe, especially after I got a chance to chat it up with Leduc.

I also notice something bigger, happening in town. There’s a number of Montrealers who really care about coffee. And Montreal’s ready for a new phase in its coffee history.

Veritas, in Old Montreal, is home to Anthony Benda, whom I consider the best barista in Montreal. They sell the Epic blend from Vancouver roaster 49th Parallel. My hope is that Veritas can help people understand the beauty that is West Coast style espresso in a culinary context.

Gamba has a different role, in my opinion. It may become a local hangout and certainly has the potential to educate people about the pleasures of espresso drinking. But my feeling is that it may spread other aspects of café culture and/or be part of something more specific to Montreal.

I’ll certainly go back to Caffè in Gamba in the near future and, as soon as they have their site up, I’ll link to it from this blog as well as other online venues.

In the meantime, maybe somebody can help J.F. set up his wireless router? 😉

collaborative learning, Concordia University, learning materials, podcasting, Teaching

Free, Open, Online: Rethinking Learning Materials Online (Slidecast)

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Now that Slideshare has a “slidecast” feature, we can synchronise slides with audio to create audiovisual presentation

Case in point, here is the “slidecast” of a presentation I gave during a session at the Spirit of Inquiry conference, in May.

[slideshare id=49573&doc=free-open-flexible-rethinking-learning-materials-online-10255&w=425]

The audio is available here:

Free, Open, Online: Rethinking Learning Materials Online (Audio) « Disparate

The presentation file is available here:

Free, Open, Online: Rethinking Learning Materials Online (Files) « Disparate

Slidecasting could become quite interesting and it could go really well with the approach I was discussing during that session.

critical thinking, Google, news

Spending Time on Media

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Seems like the August lull in news coverage is accompanied by interesting news about news (how meta). For instance, Google announcing plans to let “newsmakers” respond to news items about them. Such plans could have important ramifications for people  with an interest in critical thinking and media literacy.

Another “metanews” item, the ‘Net is getting more timeshare than newspapers or recorded music.

Study: More time spent on Web than newspapers | CNET News.com

Rutherfurd also pointed to a potentially worrisome development for the media industry–the overall time spent with media declined slightly last year, a spillover effect of the consumer shift away from newspapers and other traditional sources of news and entertainment.

For the first time in a decade, the study found, consumers spent less time with media in 2006 than they did in the previous year. Usage per person dropped 0.5 percent to 3,530 hours annually, according to the study, which said digital media typically requires less time than traditional media.

Maybe I’m missing something (and I should read the original report) but it doesn’t seem to me that the decrease in “overall time spent with media” could be worrisome to the media industry. Unless they only measure effectiveness in the time spent with media, the data may more readily show that people are increasingly becoming savvy media processors instead of passively ingesting whatever is in the media. I’m not cynical enough to see this as a bad thing.

Blogging, Coffee, Facebook, memes, personal, playfulness, podcasts, politics, Quiet Revolution, randomness, social networking, tagging

Keeping Up With the Loshes

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Elizabeth Losh has tagged me:

virtualpolitik: Pieces of Eight

I actually feel honoured. I met Losh randomly, on a rather high-profile blog she contributes to. I simply posted a comment. And here I am, tagged by a high-profile blogger (and, it seems, a very interesting person).

This “meme” seems to be about revealing eight random things about yourself. As silly as this may sound, I like the idea.

What Losh did was pretty neat. She used eight (presumably consecutive tracks on her iPod Shuffle as inspiration for her facts. Since I can’t get coolness points for doing the same thing, I’ll reverse the randomness factor by using Losh’s facts as inspiration for mine. I’ll then associate some music with every fact.

  1. My family has never been into partisan politics and none of us has been very faithful to a political party. I did attend, as a child, a meeting of Parti Québécois during the 1980 referendum. (Stéphane Venne, Le début d’un temps nouveau, Renée Claude)
  2. Though I’m not a sports fan by any stretch of the imagination, the only time in my life I skipped school was to see the parade when the Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley cup in 1986. There was a riot later that day, IIRC. (Dolores Claman, The Hockey Theme)
  3. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I archive episodes that I want to blog about. I only use a very small fraction of those archives. Guess I should find an easy way to nanoblog based on podcast episodes. Too bad iTunes doesn’t have any blogging/sharing feature. (Fabio FZero, Samba do Aeroporto, Gerador Zero)
  4. I pretty much never had a hero. My role models have been my mother, my paternal grandmother, and my wife. No wonder my “PersonalDNA” has me at the 72th percentile for femininity and at the 10th percentile for masculinity. (Claude Dubois, Femme de rêve)
  5. I never got my driver’s license. As surprising as it may sound, not driving hasn’t been so much of an issue for me, even in car-intense parts of the United States. (Tracy Chapman, Fast Car)
  6. The comment I originally left on one of Losh’s blog entries was about addictions. I don’t think that I’m addicted to anything. There’s a number of things I do quite regularly (drink coffee, play solitaire on a PDA, spend time online…) but none of them I ever feel compelled to do. (Robert Palmer, Addicted to Love)
  7. Though I haven’t been baptized, I’m culturally Catholic meaning that I probably behave like a Catholic by mere virtue of having been raised in Catholic Quebec during the end of the Quiet Revolution. (Jacques Brel, Les Flamingants)
  8. Among the first things which tickled my philosophical curiosity was thinking about an infinite universe. I kept thinking about what would lie beyond the Universe. I was quite young (10yo) and didn’t know much about (astro)physics. I still wonder about the grander scheme of things. (Nancy Hamilton/Morgan Lewis, How High The Moon, Ella Fitzgerald)

(Can anyone guess what took me longer while preparing this entry?)
Now, who should follow this meme? Here’s a list of people I’m tagging:

Sydney Hutchinson, Mireille Caissy, Jean Crawford, Yara El-Ghadban, Erin McLeod, Aurora Flewwelling-Skup, Hélène Recule, asphaire

(Notice a pattern, here?)

Let’s see who goes along.

A bilingual blog on disparate subjects. / Un blogue disparate bilingue.