Pieces of a Man

Day 90

2010-04-01T05:55:00.009Z

... April Fool's Day! Feeling a bit nauseous this morning, not because my 90 days are up but probably because of last night's takeout. As I lay in bed groaning earlier I was pondering whether to now push on for completion in the next 10 days to hit that 100 or whether I might now relax a bit and polish away at it in a more organic and sane fashion and get it done when it's done.

For the last three months I wouldn't have considered pausing at all for fear that if I turned the engine off I might not get it started again, but now it feels different. I've processed, coded and cross-referenced all the transcripts and now formulated an outline of the findings and discussion. All I need to do now is fill in the words, and it feels like a downhill stroll. Or maybe it's just the MSG talking and I will feel different after a rest.

Today Jo needs to see 'Into the Wild' before it goes back and I might try to watch it again. Sometimes a story comes along that just completely knocks you sideways and, for me, this was definitely one. Haunting.

Day 87

2010-03-28T14:57:00.005Z

... 3 to go. Everyone's gone down to Norfolk so I've reverted to assignment mode - dressing gown, stubble and takeouts. Woohoo! On Thursday I finally got to the end of all the interviews and now I'm nearly at the end of all the transcription - just one left, but it's with a subject who talked fast for a hour, barely pausing for breath, so that'll be about 3-4 hours typing. Might start that after this post, actually, since I've been at it for 12 hours already today and now feel too brain dead to do anything else.

Over the last few days it's become apparent that this bugger won't be finished on Wednesday, which was where my official countdown above was heading. The main reason for this has been the change of research methodology from Plan A - relatively familiar quantitative methodology - to Plan B, which is complex, new and unfamiliar qualitative analysis. The change of plan has been unfolding for weeks now, but it's only in the last week that I've grasped what this will really mean for the analysis and write up.

For a start, I now have about 80 pages of interview transcripts to read through and code. I'll be starting that tomorrow morning, but first I've had to spend today getting to grips with a new piece of software called Nvivo. Although I'd heard of it vaguely before, I didn't realise what it was for and I had no idea it was so darned impressive. It enables the coding and analysis of texts, audio and video, so in a day or two I'll able to slice and dice my interviews in no end of ways to discover patterns and discern meaning emerging from the data.

While I'm a bit disappointed that I won't hit that long-awaited deadline, I'm finding this process so interesting that I'm actually pretty relaxed about it. It's like arriving unexpectedly in a new country you never knew existed, so I don't mind adding an extra few days on my itinerary to explore. The strange thing is, though, had I not followed a hunch that a piece of software like this must exist and gone looking for it yesterday off my own bat, I would never have been any the wiser...

I've had three conversations with my supervisor around this new research direction and was basically guided to print off five copies of EACH transcript (i.e. 80 sets) and go through them repeatedly with different colours of highlighter pen as the primary means of analysis. Given what I know now, this would have been like boiling rice a grain at a time because no-one mentioned saucepans!

I just can't imagine why my supervisor never mentioned the software available to help with this. He's young and fairly switched on, not some doddery 80-year old professor. It's more likely it wasn't mentioned because they don't have the resources or the time to explain how to use it and don't know who else can. Whichever, it's pretty scary to know how close I came to wasting a good chunk of my life on techniques that probably disappeared in the 80s, and it's another sobering insight into what students sometimes get from us.

So, anyway, now I'm going to be working away on coding and analysis for most of the next few days before heading down to Norfolk. I'll still have next week to get some of the actual writing done. Final hand over at the end of Easter would be nice - almost exactly 100 days - but if not, at least all the effort seems worthwhile.

Day 84

2010-03-25T03:46:00.004Z

... 6 days to go. Suddenly into single figures now, so it's strange that I've not done anything all week. Jo's been typing up the transcripts, though, which has helped me no end, and I've got the last three leftover interviews today. From tomorrow it will then just be dissertation straight through to Easter, pausing only to go see Macclesfield v Cheltenham, strangely. My countdown will end on Wednesday. I doubt that I'll have a completely finished article on that day, but instead something that should just need some reviews and tweaks after Easter so that I can hand it in on the first day back in Sheffield. Then I will advance straight to the iPhone shop, pausing only to collect £200 - half for the iPhone, the rest for beer.

Day 79

2010-03-20T05:53:00.005Z

... 11 left. Pretty knackered. Just finished my week of study leave, although being in the office meant it was peppered with random meetings to keep things ticking over. I have 10 interviews to transcribe and since it's boring as hell, I'm in full displacement mode, especially on the holiday websites as the finishing line gets close. There are some nice Med flight deals from Stansted, but spring weather is a gamble. Florida is what everyone wants, but it's proving impossible to find a 2-week window and the summer is just too hot for our lot, so September is probably the earliest that could happen.

Day 69

2010-03-10T05:59:00.002Z

... 21 to go. Only three weeks but they'll be tough ones. I've just been transcribing the first two of my interviews. They were about 40 minutes each and the transcription took an hour for each, which isn't bad. I'm going with partial transcription of the key points and the dictation machine is a major timesaver. Once it's up and running you just need to press the right foot pedal to play the tape back, and after pausing it automatically rewinds and plays back the last few seconds before you stopped which makes it very natural and easy to continue the thread. The only problem, sitting here at 4.30am doing this, is that my feet have to poke out the bottom of the slanket to operate the foot pedals and I've also taken my slippers off so that I can feel the pedals properly so they're FREEZING!

The last couple of weeks have been absolutely non-stop 18 hour days. I've taken to falling asleep on the sofa about 7pm and then trying to get to bed with the kids at 8pm. Last night I fell asleep on the bed with Louis and woke up about ten minutes later to find him looking at me, wide awake, probably wondering why I'm such a lighweight!

Day 61

2010-03-02T12:37:00.003Z

... 29 to go. Gearing up for interview fortnight starting Thursday. It has again been bizarre to get a direct taste of the student experience provided by my employer. Getting a recording device has proved virtually impossible - we've some in the library apparently, but they're issued on a first-come-first-basis. In practice this means I've asked them for about 9 days straight, only to be met with blank looks and shrugs of shoulders because they're all out. How the hell are you supposed to coordinate your research interviews when the equipment loan is like the national lottery?

Anyway, one good thing has come out of this farce, which is that in the course of my bitching and moaning about my predicament, my friend Cathy told me about transcription devices with foot pedals. These apparently enable you to jump back and forward in your interview recording with a footpedal, so you don't have to keep stopping the typing. Brilliant! It should save hours and hours. I've sourced a supplier in Cheadle and will be off there tomorrow to pick one up. Cost is a bit steep - £160 - but I should be able to sell it on eBay afterwards for about the same. So, bring it on!

Day 57

2010-02-26T06:37:00.001Z

... 33 days to go. This is the week the big words came into clearer focus. Since talking with my supervisor on Tuesday I've been re-reading some theory, reflecting, and developing a new understanding of where I am.

I realise now that my approach up to now - gearing up to test hypotheses with control groups, operationalised variables and 'classic' experimental design - has been influenced too strongly by my scientific, logical, rational background.

I've realised through the recent coaching that the subjects' perception of the process, especially around their goal-setting and motivation, is messier than this world view would suggest. As a result, I'll still be assessing some of those original hypotheses, but I'll also be focussing much more on understanding the subjects' inner meaning and experience as they've engaged with the training and coaching processes. Apparently this reflects a more constructivist epistemology and an interpretivist, phenomenological theoretical perspective. Phew, glad we got that straight.

I must admit it's a bit uncomfortable inhabiting this post-positivist world, and I don't know what I'll be able to assert at the end of it all, if anything, but it feels much more like a learning and development experience, for sure.

Day 54

2010-02-23T11:50:00.008Z

... 36 to go. So, why did the chicken cross the road? Because earlier in the day a 2-3 metre length of scaffolding fell about 100 feet off the top of the new Stockport College construction site and landed on the pavement where the chicken had been walking 10 seconds earlier. Yes, that chicken was me and that's what happened yesterday.

I think you're supposed to sell all your possessions and walk the earth barefoot after something like that happens, but this morning finds me again studying sentences like this;

"Ideographic methods that enable verstehen such as ethnography are, for the pluralist, the methods appropriate for fulfilling their commitment to exploration of actors' phenomenological worlds."

I can't make any sense of it. A dyslexic student once told me that they experienced words 'swimming' on the page; that's just what it feels like. I can be reading something for a good 10 seconds before I realise I was reading it a couple of minutes ago. This is what being a goldfish must be like. The funny thing is, though, my dog-eared text is littered throughout with Chinese translation in pencil. I can't even conceive the will power involved in getting your head round this tosh in another language. They shall inherit the earth, deservingly.

Day 50

2010-02-19T06:15:00.010Z

... 40 to go. A whole 11 days has passed since I last posted anything, much of which was gearing up for and coming down from Nick's wedding. What a great day, and what a perfect reflection of the love in the world for Nick. A highlight for me was meeting my cousin, Catherine, and Nick's mate, Toby, again for the first time in over 20 years. It was wonderful to see how well two shy, unassuming teenagers have blossomed into such fine people. Toby's speech, especially, was something to cherish.

Eleven days of non-posting on the study front is a bit scary since it takes me past the half way point. A lot of that nervousness comes from knowing that I've not been doing much 'study' in this period in the sense of sitting at home hunched over books. I should really have an understanding of research methods pouring out of my ears at this point, whereas in fact I've been resisting Messrs Gill and Johnson ('Research Methods for Managers') for weeks and finding other things that need to be done.

However, maybe things are not as bad as they seem because during this period much of the nuts and bolts of what needs to happen has been progressing steadily - questionnaires, training and coaching. This must be the equivalent of cruising at 36,000 feet - less nerve-wracking and interesting than take-off and landing, but actually comprising the bulk of what is needed to get from A to B.

So today I'm going to grit my teeth and tackle those research methods in the hope that I don't look like a tit next week when I catch up with my supervisor. If I can do it successfully then hopefully it will spur me on to start gearing up for the two weeks in March when I plan to write everything up. At the moment the prospect is looming on the horizon like a prison sentence, but I just keep telling myself that one day I shall be free.

One man who's already free - literally - is Gil Scott-Heron, and quite a lot of my recent displacement activity has been driven by a growing frenzy about his April UK dates. Talking to siblings at the wedding, I realised that it must be strange for them to see a grown man in a state of such fevered excitement about seeing a grizzled old poet growling away at the organ. However, I've literally been waiting years for this; I can't even count the number of times I sat searching the web in the early hours to see if he'd been released yet, and then it happened.

Even after that, though, I never, ever imagined that he'd actually work again, let alone get back into the UK. It's truly a dream come true. Enjoy...

Nick's Wedding

2010-02-13T10:47:00.002Z

Day 39

2010-02-08T05:10:00.000Z

... 51 to go. So much for slacking on the early starts. This last few days I've somehow managed to wake at about 2.30 and not be able to go back to sleep. There's stuff to do, of course, but there are also limits, and for some reason I just can't bring myself to sit reading 'Research Methods for Managers' in a cold room at 3am. I will try and make a start before the weekend, though, since the wedding will take over after Thursday, and I at least want the ideas for the next phase to start percolating this week.

Day 35

2010-02-05T03:35:00.007Z

... 55 to go. I'm just now flying past Wembley on the Virgin Invader Pendolino, headed back up North after a day in London. I'm expecting hot towels and champagne for the £270 ticket that my dumb institution provided through its outsourced travel agent, but all I have is a woman opposite me sneezing. I told them very clearly that the trip was £95 on thetrainline.com but I guess it was more than someone's job was worth to act on it. One to remember next time we're being lectured about the current economic climate and the need for efficiencies.

Next time I pass this way it'll be for something truly priceless, though; the return of Gil Scott-Heron at the Royal Festival Hall in April. He was on the Today programme this morning, sharp as ever, to promote his new album;

Still reasonably on track study-wise despite slacking a bit on the early starts lately, although since I'm progressing a lot of the work at work, so to speak, this isn't a showstopper right now. I trained my group of guinea pigs yesterday and it went well, so I now have 2-3 weeks of phone coaching ahead and a meeting with my supervisor in a fortnight to hash out my research methods. I have a general sense of where to probe in the final evaluation interviews, but I'll need to wrap it in some theory and big academic words. I have my heart set on epistemological.

Day 31

2010-01-31T07:17:00.006Z

... 59 to go. Just catching up with GP and tweaking my coaching materials for the week ahead. This week is mainly about me training the second experimental group while Graham hits the phones to get his coaching lined up for next week. I'm really looking forward to my session; I always exploit an air traffic control metaphor to talk about task management and this week I'll be adding a little extra visual sparkle with a movie trailer and a groovy piece of ATC simulator video.

Continuing the aviation theme, we saw a little piece of history yesterday as we stood on Alderley Edge during the weekend consitutional. In the bright winter sunshine, I spotted a Nimrod take off from Woodford Aerodrome in the distance and start doing circuits over the Cheshire plain, coming pretty low over our heads on the first couple of passes. Great sight. Woodford is a BAe production facility for the Nimrod MRA4 but it's closing in 2012; it was a bit poignant, like seeing the last Vulcan at Southport in the Autumn.

Day 27

2010-01-27T04:58:00.005Z

... 63 to go. Good return rate on the questionnaires today with the first training session. Eight out of nine brought it in and at the end of the session seven of them agreed to sign up for the coaching, too. Not bad at all. It helped that the session was delivered by our Graham, who's such a charismatic and popular guy in the classroom that it'd be difficult not to want more of him given the chance. Let's see how they are after a day with me next Wednesday; a proper Pepsi challenge, with Graham as the Real Thing.

As for early impressions, it's as I anticipated with few really specific training goals emerging across the group; a more typical wish is to 'improve skills' or 'learn more'. I suspect that this particular course - Excel Tips and Tricks - invites a 'suck it and see' attitude, but it'll nonetheless be interesting to see how it affects the coaching, and I'll be devoting tomorrow's trip down to London for the Learning Technologies Show to deciding the goal-setting approaches for Graham to employ over the next fortnight with them.

I must say that although it's been a mad few days of only just managing to stay ahead of the headlong rush of appointments and communications, it feels good to be developing something at work properly, i.e. taking the time to explore it, understand it and test it out. I started wanting to just get it done, but it's proving to be better than just a chore.

Day 23

2010-01-24T08:39:00.006Z

... 67 to go. It's been a hectic week pilotting and finalising my first questionnaire. Once that was done I had to then hit the phones on Friday to get the first participants on board with it for next week. It's a bit late in the day, creeping up rather suddenly in this compressed schedule. Managed to get 8 out of 10 promises, so let's see what they bring on Wednesday.

Also this week we had the latest take from the Vice-Chancellor on what lies ahead. He's realised the error of his ill-chosen Titanic metaphor and is instead talking in terms of a slope with varying gradients due to Lord Mandelson's HE cuts and election aftermath. My guess is 12-18 months to build a lifeboat.

On a cheerier note, massive news this week that Gil Scott-Heron is touring again to promote a new album. Along with most people, I didn't think I'd ever see him again after the drugs and prison problems of the last few years. Assuming he gets a visa - he was also banned from the UK for some narcotic misunderstandings in 1990 - he'll be here in March and I'll be waiting to greet him, grinning like a schoolkid.

Day 19

2010-01-19T06:21:00.003Z

... 71 to go. So I have my first play with live ammo today; a training room full of guinea pigs on whom I shall inflict questionnaire number one. So what's the plan? Basically, I'm planning to take several groups of university staff doing IT training courses, give follow-up phone coaching to half and see what difference it makes. Essentially it will therefore be a study into the effectiveness of distance coaching on transfer of training. As far as I know, there's only one existing, formal study that's looked at using coaching like this, but that was with groups and discussion boards. I'm going to be doing 1-1 phone coaching supported by a desktop sharing tool, so it's a form of eCoaching.

Part of the study is also going to be looking at whether pre- and post- training support from managers and colleagues makes a significant difference to the coaching so today's trial questionnaire will be all about that. Once today's session is done I'll be getting pretty quickly into doing the coaching - which I'm really looking forward to - and the trials proper starting next week. Two of the groups will be doing an Excel course delivered by one of my team, two will be doing 'Advanced Personal Productivity' delivered by yours truly. What could possibly go wrong...

Day 17

2010-01-17T06:41:00.013Z

... 73 to go. This was very much a weekend off the studying to do some nice things, catch up on some jobs and just have a bit of a rest. First off, there was some unfinished business from that dark, sunny day back in August. Revenge - in the mid-winter mud - was sweet;

We celebrated afterwards with the home-made sushi that Jo learnt to make at Samsi on Friday. Unfortunately for them, we were then so sushi-ed out that we repaid them by cancelling Sunday lunch there and going down the Curry Mile instead while Nina took the kids off to Dunham Massey - thanks, sis - to see the deer. Finally, after three days of celebratory birthday gourmandizing, the icing on the cake was actually going to see a film, 'Up in the Air' - George Clooney's latest - at the Cornerhouse. I won't link to any reviews for fear of an accidental spoiler, I'll just say it was excellent. Go see.

Day 15

2010-01-15T04:30:00.007Z

... 75 to go. Had my first meeting with my supervisor yesterday since the initial one a month ago. He's just back from Xmas in Australia and is looking suitably tanned and pissed off about the weather.

Anyway, we ran through the plan that I've been putting together these last few weeks and he thinks it's more or less OK. Phew! It means I can now lift my head out of the research and crack on with questionnaires and training and coaching and interviews, which will feel much more like proper forward motion, I'm sure. In fact, in my mind's eye it feels like the start of the Grand Prix where the 5 red lights have just gone out!

So next up I'll be knocking together a questionnaire over the weekend to trial with a bunch of guinea pigs that I'm training next Tuesday. Also over the weekend Jo and I will be going for a sushi splurge at New Samsi to celebrate her birthday. She's also heading down to their Spinningfields branch this afternoon for a sushi-making course we've organised, too.

Day 11

2010-01-11T05:51:00.007Z

... 79 to go. Going over some literature today I was amused to come across a little theoretical underpinning for this blog and the final push on my Masters;

"Salancik's (1977) notion of behavioural commitment may explain the effectiveness of goal setting in this particular situation. Behavioural commitment implies that commitment to a task actually follows behaviour rather than precedes it. The more explicit, public , volitional, and irrevocable a task-related behaviour, the greater will be an individual's resulting commitment to the task."

Somewhat less amused, though, to see in today's Guardian this other justification for hurrying to finish the course (which is a staff perk);

"It has taken more than 800 years to create one of the world's greatest education systems and it looks like it will take just six months to bring it to its knees under swingeing cuts to the funding of higher education and science recently announced by the government. Exactly how much will be slashed and where the axe will fall is unclear, although it has been put at up to £2.5bn. Such huge cuts in university budgets would have a devastating effect on students and staff." Read more...

Day 9

2010-01-09T06:42:00.008Z

... 81 to go, and today I thought it might be worth capturing my study habits, just so I can aspire to keeping them going in the coming weeks.

I usually wake about 4.00 and get out of bed straight away, although that's been a bit harder the last few days when temperatures in Manchester have hit minus 18! It takes about 25 minutes to make tea, feed the cat, get dressed and read the latest from Tomasky. There's stuff like other blogs and new email but I usually have the discipline to leave that till later, so unless there's some breaking news that absolutely has to be read about immediately, now we're good to go.

From 4.30-6.00 is prime time for my brain, when I have sharpness and perspective (it's all downhill for the rest of the day). From 6am onwards I'm starting to subconsciously wind up because I know that Oscar will wake up anytime.

So that's it, and if I can manage it at least 5 days a week, I'm happy. The main threat to all this is alcohol; even a single drink leaves me foggy the morning after. The challenge, then, is to get to bedtime without buying any Coke, as there's a bottle of Mount Gay in the kitchen which is calling me sweetly like a Siren. Mmmmm... Snowballs and sledging today. More noodlings next week.

Day 7

2010-01-07T04:12:00.008Z

... 83 to go. I've finally reached the bottom of the big pile of research papers including that 100-page monster. Until yesterday it had only known life as an inch-thick drinks mat. Today also marked my return to work and the point at which focus and momentum will start to deteriorate as my life is flooded with workplace bullshit anew. A year ago I wasted weeks of time and energy fighting a turf war with internal university competitors. This year, within hours of stepping from the train, it's apparent that we'll start the fun in 2010 by having to justify our existence to a senior university star chamber which includes the head of finance. Oh joy.

Day 5

2010-01-05T08:32:00.003Z

... 85 to go. Heavy, heavy snow this morning as I pulled open the curtains...

...so the kids have been off school and running in and out of the house on snowball skirmishes all morning. Fortunately my new noise-cancelling headphones rode to the rescue and I was still able to put in a decent shift until lunchtime.

I've been trying to tease a sensible and focussed research methodology out of the mass of interesting things that could be asked about. Need to be realistic and not bite off too much or I'll regret it come February. I've still got a week of mulling and sanity-checking before I share it with my supervisor next Thursday. Next up is a bit of work on a draft questionnaire that I might be able to bounce off some guinea pigs next Tuesday if I can get it together in time. I've also got a 100-page research paper to read which I've been avoiding since early December.

Day 3

2010-01-03T09:40:00.005Z

... 87 to go. The literature review is starting to emerge from the brain dump of references that's been piling up over the last few weeks. I also have a title, 'Beyond a Boundary', which refers to the focus on the use of eCoaching beyond the traditional end point of the training course. (It's also a reference to the title of CLR James' seminal book about cricket and colonialism, which is the more interesting reference of the two.) Jo and the kids also returned from Middlesborough this afternoon and I've turned the heating back on, so no more sitting swathed in the Slanket with clouds of freezing breath fogging up the monitor.

Day 1

2010-01-01T18:28:00.006Z

... 89 to go. It's New Year's day and this is day one of my dissertation blog. This is primarily a self-motivational tool created in the hope that an external and public commitment will force me to get the job done. The plan is to finish in the next 90 days; i.e. by Easter. I hope to give progress updates at least weekly, so if you see me slacking feel free to give me a prod; the public shame will help no end. If I'm still a student at the start of the World Cup, please just shoot me.

Marloes 2009

2009-12-25T06:27:00.002Z

Another lovely christmas break down in Marloes;