New gig in the private sector

I’ve been following the discussion and insight over at Invisible Adjunct with more than casual interest lately. There’s been some passionate and articulate discussion on the essential folly of getting a Ph.D. in the humanities (and many other disciplines for that matter). The problem being the huge imbalance between supply and demand for Ph.D.s in academic settings.

This discussion comes too late for me, since I already did the “piled higher and deeper” game (although to be technically correct my degree is not a Ph.D., but a D.B.A. – doctor of business administration, which has more to do with the academic politics of different graduate schools at Harvard than with anything else). I also went into the process with a clear notion of what the job market was likely to be.

I’ve actually spent the bulk of my post-doctoral career on the non-academic side of the fence and I’m headed back there again. You can see the details here, although I try to avoid wearing a tie whenever possible. I find that I’m happiest working in rapidly growing environments. Kellogg has been great fun and it was particularly rewarding to be able to develop a course on knowledge management, but what I’m interested in isn’t at the heart of what Kellogg does best. Time for a new adventure.

I’ve been at Huron now for a couple of months so I can say that I expect the blogging to continue. Managing knowledge work hasn’t gotten any easier and I expect I’ll continue to write down my questions, observations, and suggestions about how we can design our way into some useful answers. I just think of it as a participating in this colllective action research program from a slightly different location.

Punting the SAT

Scholastic Aptitude Test: Answering All Questions Incorrectly. This is a knee-slapping account of one person’s attempt to achive the lowest possible score on a SAT examination. The project is fully documented, with lavish illustrations, from the original application to take the test to the white-knuckle stress of finding the wrong answer in a testing environment. Some biting commentary – and from the examples provided I see that the tests are still very culturally biased. Every person planning to take a SAT should read this article. By Colin P. Fahey, May, 2003 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily]

Don’t know how many of you caught this elsewhere around the net. It demonstrates just what you can accomplish if you have a goal.

Customized Bumper Stickers via the web

BumperActive is live!. The BumperActive site is live and running: build your own bumper stickers (like this one), on the cheap at get them shipped to you as a one-off. Your friends (and people who see your sticker) can order more. Fund your charity! Express your PoV pithily! Put stickers on things!

The sticker design here — I WarChalk WiFi — is the first sticker I put on my new laptop. I get tons of compliments on it.

(Funny stuff: Kyle from BumperActive has put together a table in which he catalogs all the celebrities who did “Got Milk?” ads and also took a public stance on the war.)

Link Discuss (Thanks, Kyle!) [Boing Boing Blog]

Who says the web isn't contributing to the advancement of society? Something fun for the weekend.

Congratuations to Sebastien Paquet

Good news.

Last friday, the d partement d’informatique et de recherche op rationnelle of Universit de Montr al, as represented by a jury composed of profs. Guy Lapalme (president), Esma A meur (advisor), Gilles Brassard (co-advisor), Marc Kaltenbach (jury member), and Tommaso Toffoli (external examiner, from Boston University) granted me a Ph.D. in Computer Science.

The room was chock full with students, professors, friends, and family members (the department director even had to sit on the floor!). I had to give a 45-minute talk summarizing my research contributions and to field questions from the jury and the audience.

I believe it went reasonably well. Several of my friends and family members were pleasantly surprised to find that they actually understood all of my presentation and the question/answer session that followed. I was really happy to see their faces in the room. Thanks to everyone for your support!!

I am extremely grateful to my advisors, who believed in me and had courage enough to let me go way off the beaten path while supporting and advising me every step of the way. THANK YOU!

Oh, and YULbloggers Karl Dubost and Ed Bilodeau showed up and very competently blogged the event. Both wrote that the experience of being there had made them enthusiastic about doing research. That’s cool!

[Seb’s Open Research]

Congratulations to S bastien for “piling it higher and deeper”. Although it is a bit unusual, particularly for a new Ph.D., to be comprehensible to such mere mortals as friends and family :), this bodes well for Seb’s future work.

Rube Goldberg Honda Commercial

Rube Goldburgh + Honda ==> an amazing commercial.


My mom was a “gifted and talented” teacher in an elementary and middle school.  Each year her kids had to design and build a Rube Goldburgh devices to compete in the Olympics of the Mind

I'm sure they'd appreciate this an amazing commercial. (Flash 6 required)

[Micah's Weblog]

 

Brilliant commercial. Of course, most of the systems we live with day to day have the complexity without the payoff.