Panic sets in (for Jill)

The "Paradigmatic Partnership" paper has reached first draft stage -- and there's much to be done tomorrow before Ulla leaves! I'm in panic mode, because, to my reading, our argument has fallen apart -- or maybe it never really exisited. We're claiming that a paradigmatic analysis reveals potential areas for collaboration between design and management research, but at the moment I'm not convinced! There's LOTS more work to be done; it's a good thing I'm on sabbatical and can devote my time to hunting down refererences, reading obscure papers for needed details, and waiting for the inspiration that will put the finishing touch to our conclusions. Ulla is more sanguine. "Look at what a lot we've done," she says. "Two weeks ago we just had an abstract. Now we have 5,000 words and it's quite interesting." But," I say, "It's not good enough." "We'll see", she says, somewhat mysteriously.

Jack wears the chili apron

Jack has been practicing his skills in coffee-making, grapefruit segmenting, and dishwasher manipulation.

He has qualified to wear the chili apron!

Achievements of the day

During our morning work period, Ulla finished her Endnote library of sources for design perspectives, and Jill completed the final formating "Designers dancing within hierarchies" and commissioned a passing seagull to fly the signed copyright to Oxford.

As a reward for finishing our afternoon writing, Ulla went shopping, and Jack and Jill read by the pool.

Dinner was delicious "Swedish Salmon" from Nigella Express that Ulla said wasn't how it would be served in Sweden (and promises she'll make me the "correct" version when I'm staying with her in April.)

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Link to this site to keep yourself productively amused while you wait! FREE RICE

A cold day

This morning when we woke up the temperature was 20 degrees Fahrenheit lower. Brrr!

It was very windy and desolate on the beach.

So we stayed inside and wrote. And looked forward to going to see Evita at the Sarasota Dinner Theater this evening.

Highlights of the day

We wrote, we walked on the beach, we administrated, we ate lunch, our electrical system did not fail, we wrote, Ulla discovered how to import articles directly from the library in Vaxjo into her Endnote in Florida, Jill made more editing changes than original text so our paper is now over 5,250 words, we went to the beach, we swam, we wrote, Ulla cooked, we ate chicken schnitzel with bacon and white wine (Nigella, 2007, p. 143), Jack did the dishes while we wrote, and sometime we will stop and go to bed. We can't wait to wake up tomorrow to do more of the same!

Monday

Petter returned to Chicago. Ulla and Jill went back to work: First working alone, then a walk on the beach followed by writing together. More work after lunch, then "professional reading" while sitting on the beach, before a swim (Ulla in the ocean and then the pool, Jill just in the pool) to finish the work-day. Our paper is in the "quiet phase": the argument is outlined and now we each need to fill in different parts. This is detailed, painstaking work, searching for references, editing each sentence till it's just right. At the moment we feel as if we have plenty of time and have the luxury of enjoying the process. Give us a couple of days before we move to "panic mode," when we'll need to put aside craft just to have the paper finished. We hope.

This afternoon we went to Myakka River State Park.

We went on an airboat ride to see the wildlife (i.e., alligators),

And on a canopy walk in the "palm tree jungle."

Here are some quotes: Ulla, "I saw more than a dozen alligators." Jack, "The alligators were as ugly as ever." Petter, "I expected to see one alligator in the distance, and I saw (many) more than expected." Jill, "If you've seen one alligator, you've seen them all."

A picture is worth a thousand words!

And a harddrive is worth $75!

But the data are priceless.

Petter's first full day in Sarasota

Today, Petter woke up surprisingly early -- at 8:50 he got out of bed to eat breakfast. Of course, by then Ulla and Jill had already been working for a while. Petter left the house to buy some new flip-flops, because the only footwear he brought from Illinois was a pair of winter boots. They were suitable for the wintery streets of Chicago, but not for the beaches in Sarasota.

After that, Petter rented a bike for four hours, to be able to explore the whole island. The bikeride resulted in a nice farmer's tan and a strange encounter with a unusually annoyed fisherman. The beaches in Sarasota are truly wonderful and the ocean was very warm.

Ulla made a delicious pasta salad, according to Kaj's principles of cooking. After that, it was time for the evening activity.

The evening was spent in the Sarasota's circus, with many excellent preformances. Petter's favourite was the german juggler and the girl on the russian bar. The children-juggling family was also appreciated our group.

--Guest writer Petter

New writing + Ulla's nephew arrives

Writing and writing.

That's why we are here (at least we think so).

Ulla wants to have the big picture ready before we deal with the details. Jill wants to have the big picture emerge from a detailed search. Together it becomes very good - we go back and forth and take two steps forward and one backwards... Kaj (Ulla's fiancee) says the relationship is magic!

In the evening Jack and Ulla went to pick up Petter Strandmark, Ulla's nephew, from the airport. Being a student in the winterly University of Illinios at Urbana, he enjoyed a swim the Mexican Gulf as soon as he arrived. Look at the Viking and his aunt today!

Wednesday

We did not go to the beach today -- at all! Instead we read, annotated, conceptualized, and wrote -- we now have a "zero draft" of our paper. Afterwards we went to the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. Enjoy the link and the photos below!

Today was a work day

Scholarly work consisted of completing and sending our revision of "Designers dancing within hierarchies: The importance of non-hirearchical power to design" for the Design Journal (it should be published in the September issue), and continuing to work on our paper for the Design Management Institute conference in Paris in April. We've written about 2,600 words (out of 7,000 needed) on "A better paradigmatic partnership between management and design" and still have lots to discuss.

Adminstrivia consisted of confencing in to a training session on Digital Measures (Jill) and dealing with about 40 emails (Ulla).

Domestic duties included grocery shopping and cooking a new recipe for grilled tuna and black bean salad.

Jack's role was to stay out of harm's way as best he could!

Ullas Floridablogg v 8-9

Har ar jag.

Pa attonde vaningen med utsikt over Sarasota o havet. Och en dator dar jag kan ha kontakt med slakt, vanner o kollegor. For att skriva ett paper och samtidigt ha kontakt med jobbet hemma.

Idag har vi skrivit. Fixat upplagget till hela paperet.
Och tagit hand om cirka 200 mail.
Och vandrat pa stranden en halvtimma.
Och varit i gymet en kvart
innan jag hoppade i polen och simmade ytterligare en kvart.

Nu bar det av mot stranden for eftermiddagens lasarstund. Det blir lawson "How designers think" som behover gas igenom igen.

Hej da -vill du se fler bilder over hur vi har det - kolla in Jills blogg!

Ulla

P.S. Bilden overst ar fran stranden - som har bland varldens finaste och mest vita sandkorn. De andra bilderna ar fran var middag med svensk sill...

Co-authors and chief assistant, day one

Extreme experience!

I'm back from two days spent closeted with eight colleagues in a conference room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at LaGuardia Airport. The newDean search committee interviewed seven candiates for 90 minutes each, with half an hour inbetween to debrief and take a bathroom break. Breaksfast and lunch were eaten as we worked. Tom Forget was in the "Provost's Office" in a 6th floor suite, and he interviewed each person for an hour after our interview. Tom also picked up the Friday evening bar tab -- Thanks, Tom!

And the candidates? Interesting! Talkative! (Some very) Accomplished! Prepared! engaged! And surprisingly easy to pick our top two finalists!

For WCOB readers who may be bursting at the seams to learn about our potential newDean, all I can say is -- s/he is not the least bit like Steve or Ben, and some of them will shake us up, for sure! I hope you'll be on campus March 11-18, the dates reserved for on-campus interviews. I'm sorry I won't be there in person to watch and listen to your reactions, but enough sabbatical service is enough! However, for my efforts I was rewarded with an upgrade to first class for my flight back to Tampa! Back to research!

A day of minor annoyances

For example, washing a tissue (maybe several) with a load of dark laundry, discovering while I was collating the lasagna that I was missing key ingredients -- then needing to find substitutes when I ran out to the corner store -- plus checking the beds for the guest who will arrive while I am away, to find that the bed had been remade with the sheets inside out! Nothing serious, but enough to make me decide not to try to send any important emails tonight! Off north tomorrow to the Dean Searh Committee meeting with potential candidates. And I'm NOT taking my computer, so no blogs for a couple of days!

Back to a regular workday?

Today was "ordinary." It began with some preimum thinking time and exercise, followed by a long A-sq meeting, during which I committed to some new teaching activities and realized that I need to do some follow-up work on a project. After lunch I dealt with the chores of copying and email, then some "light research" (reading, annotating, and categorizing) before abandoning my desk for domestic duties. But it didn't "feel" ordinary. The "gym" is a far cry from the Pitt, I could silence my esteemed colleagues by hanging up the phone, and the copy machine was a pleasant stroll away. Teaching seems like a far-away pasttime, and when I put down my research I know it can be -- by choice -- the very next thing I pick up. Life is good! Long may it last!

Saw dolphins this morning!

There was a tremendous flock of birds diving into the water some way from shore. Such behavior inidicates many small fish just below the surface. Which in turn means that something disturbed the fish. Suspect - dolphin. Confirmed by observation! I don't think you can spot the fins breaking the surface of the water in this short video. so you'll have to take my word for it.

Cutting down the weeds ...

Decided that I can get yesterday's problematic paradigms reduced to beach-style proportions. And I -- I mean Dilly -- had a Second Life voice IM with TallGuy Woollahra who taught me how to transport. Found a skating rink in the mall -- much better than the weeds!

Tangled in the weeds

Today I feel like my avatar, Dilly Wrigglesworth, who cannot find a way off Orientation Island in Second Life. I've been trying to cut through the weeds of different frameworks -- paradigms in a grander sense -- for design(ing). Why, you might ask? Well, back in December, when it seemed like a nice idea to go to Paris in April, it was easy enough to dash off a two page abstract on the topic. Now, faced with the prospect of crafting a 15 page paper, all those grand ideas and metatheories have disappeared into the undergrowth. Subjectivity and objectivity are blurred, reality exists only in my laptop, and I've lost all contact with Herman Eutics. Who or what can help me? Alexander with his logic, Simon with his constructuvism, or Buchanan's rhetorical approach? Each one is seductive, but none of them answer the wicked problem parsimoniously. I need to find my own way out.

Friday @ 5:30 (EST)

and I need a edgy blog post to round out two weeks in this location! I'm reminded of my Friday AACSB postings -- via email in the pre-blog days -- I couldn't go "on weekend" until the message was out!

Progress is harder to quantify in the sabbatical mode. Yes, I can count lines written, books annotated, hypothoses discarded, but I have no need to mark the passage of time. Only happy hours remain!

Here's something other than a photo of me to look at

Click here and wonder what else I am getting into! (Thanks to student blogs in Anca Micu's MK299 class for helping me realise links are possible, and to Anca for showing me how to do it)

Further evidence of scholarly activity

My SHU copy-card doesn't work here!

Working

I spent most of my writing and thinking time today working through just two pages of revision of the section "What is design?" One reviewer liked it, the other wanted us to remove it, saying it was written for a management rather than a design journal. At first I thought to leave "as is," but when I looked further, I could see how we had put all the theorists we referenced into context, and that might seem condescending to readers who were well versed in design issues. By the end of the day 1,110 words were reduced to 940, but every word was a struggle!
I took time out to reconoiter two local university libraries -- at the Ringling School of Art and Design (primarily fine arts and some visual design) and University of South Florida at Sarasota (undergraduate liberal arts, no management). Neither has reciprocal borrowing privileges with SHU, but I'm sure I can do all that I need to while sitting at the libarary tables.

Dissenting opinion

Email from academic friend who read my blog:
"Truly, you are a sick and twisted individual if you think I might enjoy seeing pictures of pelicans and thermometers with 80 degree temperatures while I am whiling away the winter in New England! What is the world coming to when Jill Woodilla is blogging on her sabbatical? Isn’t that what Jack is supposed to be doing??"

Get back to work!

Enough of wandering the sands looking for different viewpoints on life -- it's time to hunker down editing the first revision (but already accepted) of the "Dancing within hierarchies ..." paper. Only then can I return to the sophorific task of reading obscure articles in the hopes of making (new) sense out of them. After all, the AVP may be reading this blog!

You may need to click on the photo to enlarge it for the full effect of this presentation of "beach artifacts." I don't know who made it, or why they left it on the beach for others to enjoy. (Yes, that's sand, not snow!)

Tempertaures

Air temperature (on balcony, out of direct sun) as above.

Outdoor pool temperature = 86 degrees (@ 6PM)

Gulf ocean temperature = 66 degrees

Phoning ...

It was hot walking on the beach today, so I did not mind returning to my local office to wait for scheduled phone connections to Fairfield. I will probably be pleased to escape back to the beach as soon as they are over!

Reading ...

Lot's of reading today! Daughter Karen sent her draft dissertation prospectus on the development of the California coast, setting out an ambitious and interesting project that inolves research in San Mateo, San Francisco, Mystic, and New York! Then the materials for the NewDean search meeting on Monday (I plan to attend by phone) arrived by FedEx just as we were returning from our morning walk, not to mention the fact that I now have sufficient notes from my reading on paradigms to need to re-read and digest them. Enough for one day! Off to the pool -- I can't read with my head under water!

Where is YOUR ironing studio?

Today, when we were at Home Despot buying energy-saving lightbulbs, I saw a car advertising "Leona's Ironing Studio." I was so overcome with awe that I ommitted to take a photo or even record the phone number to inquire about the range of services. But the experience did prompt me to visit "Jill's ironing studio" to dispense with the winter clothes still waiting processing.

Milestones of the day included clebrating being here one week, making the "pork chops with mustard sauce" recommended by daughter-the-younger (yummy, but I have to work on my sauce reduction techniques before taking a photo), and doing precious little "real research." Am I settling in to a sabbatical mode?