Category: PhD

  • Twitter – your first ten follows

    Today is Twitter’s tenth birthday so it feels timely to write a post that’s been brewing for a while. Increasingly people I meet in researcher development workshops have come around to the idea of using twitter to support their activities as a researcher, so the discussions are less “what’s the point?” and more “where do I start?”. This post will suggest ten categories of people and organisations to follow if you are struggling to find your first handholds. Clearly this is the tip of the iceberg and within a few hours of posting this I was back on adding in new names and ideas. Please continue to prompt me to put your favourites in.

    1. funders – pretty much every funder now has a twitter feed. The UK Research Councils, Leverhulme, Wellcome, Royal Society of Edinburgh, European Research Council – they are all there filling their streams with news of funding calls, opportunties to engage with them through committees and events, sharing success stories. Start with… the funder who is already supporting your research and the ones you are most likely to apply to in future.
    2. research support professionals – if you are based in a University in the UK the chances are you have access to a range of professionals to help you. Many of them kindly share their gems of wisdom openly on twitter. So even if your local office is “less than helpful”, you can still benefit from the best of the support that is out there. Start with … Phil Ward, Deputy Director of Research Services at the University of Kent (in the interests of efficiency he can also count towards category 10); Elizabeth Adams, Researcher Development lead at the University of Glasgow; Manchester PG Careers, Pat Thomson (Professor rather than researcher support, but writes often and generously on academic writing), Research Whisperer  and Sarah Blackford (Bioscience research careers specialist)
    3. academic context – as a researcher (especially if you are on a fixed-term contract) you may feel a stronger sense of connection with your research network than the institution that employs you. However, if you’re going to manage a career in academia in the longer-term it’s important to build a broader view of the academic system (if for no other reason than to be reassured that it ISN’T just you and it DOESN’T make sense). Start with… your institution (which is likely to have a number of twitter feeds – general, faculty level, department and support services), Times Higher Education, WonkHE,  Jobs.ac.uk and the LSE Impact feed.
    4. decision makers and influencers – it’s useful and interesting (if you are an HE geek) to get an insight in the decisions, experiences and reactions of senior academics and university management to the challenges and opportunities they experience. With time you will find the academics in your field or institution, often when they tweet or are mentioned at conferences. Start with… the experts and leaders in your field. Until you work out who they are try Athene Donald, Cait MacPhee and Dorothy Bishop (I was also going to suggest Philip Moriarty, but he’s decided to quit twitter. A loss.)
    5. communities – although not strictly speaking individuals accounts, there are a number of communities that are easy to find and connect with on twitter. These are associated with “hashtags” which are basically labels that are tied to tweets so that people can find them. Start with… #AcWri (academic writing),  #PhDChat and #ECRChat.
    6. experts and specialists – on a similar theme to the research support professionals, there are also people with expertise in a range of subjects which relate to academia. Some are, like me, consultants who provide services to institutions, others are experts in related fields. Start with…  Fast Track Impact, James Hayton, Daniel Soule, Andrew Scott and Andrew Derrington. (Other researcher developer accounts are available… Ahem.)
    7. the latest thing – in the same way that a topic or event becomes the talk of the department from time to time, you also get academic trends on twitter. As your account becomes active and the twitterbots start to read your mind you’ll see these appear in a bar on the LHS of your feed, but there are also sites and accounts that tend to retweet these. Be aware that during conferences in your field people have a tendency to tweet the highlights. This can be a great way to spot people with similar research interests, but can get annoying – there’s a “mute” feature on twitter which allows you to temporarily silence someone (without them knowing). Might also be useful during other events people like to tweet about. Start with … The Conversation – a blog written largely by academics and researchers which picks up on current events, research breakthroughs and pop culture and presents an academic view of them.
    8. interests and values – if used well, twitter can be a place of great reassurance and a source of “like-mindedness”. Look for people who have interesting things to say about things that are important to you. My feed reflects my professional interests and personal values. Start with… Nadine Muller (surviving as an academic, mental wellbeing), Institute of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow Athena Swan (equality and wellbeing) and Glasgow University Knitting (you know you want to…).
    9. peers – another key group of people to connect with (and support) on twitter are your peers. They are likely to be interested in what you’re doing and should retweet information about your work if you develop a positive reciprocal relationship with them. My peers are in researcher development, research support and research. Start with… Clare Taylor, Janet Wilkinson, Tracey Stead and Andrew Derrington
    10. … and relax! Shit Academics Say, Very British Problems, Associate Deans and Lego Academics lighten the load of my feed on bad days. And if the Orkney Library feed doesn’t make you want to go to Kirkwall NOW then you’ve died inside.

    As always, interested in any suggestions to add via twitter.

  • A badge of honour?

    Yesterday I spoke at the “Taking Control of your Career” event for the Institute of Physics (there’s another blog based on the day here). The event was aimed at young female physicists and it’s perhaps inevitable that the topic of imposter syndrome came up. As I listened to the first speaker, Dame Professor Athene Donald talk about her career and acknowledge that she had made mistakes and that she felt imposter syndrome I could feel the relief from the audience as they realised “It isn’t just me”. Athene’s talk is available on her blog and many of the ten messages she shares can be related to imposter syndrome. As a regular reader of her warm and wise blog I found her earlier post “Getting Away with It” struck a similar chord last year.

    My day job of running researcher and academic development workshops means that the topic of imposter syndrome comes up regularly. Most people feel at some point or another that they are “getting away with it” and although I feel this most of the time, the more I hear talented and successful people talk about it, the more I see it for what it is.

    I feel imposter syndrome when I stretch myself. Even though I intensely dislike the feeling that I’m about to be caught out and humiliated (and it has happened on a few occasions) it is far, far preferable to the mind-numbing alternative of living my life safely cocooned in my comfort zone.

    As I wrote my slides for the Taking Control event I added a line to my final messages which conveyed this:

     Imposter syndrome is a sign that you are stretching and learning.

    When it actually came to say it, I went even further.

     Imposter syndrome is a badge of honour.

    Which makes a great tweetable soundbite, but I think warrants a bit of explanation for those who weren’t in the room. On my (long, long) journey home I started to worry that this might be interpreted as trivializing the impact imposter syndrome can have on people. Earlier in the week I had read a beautifully written guest blog post on Professor Pat Thomson’s site by an anonymous PhD student on her fears and how they are affecting her confidence in her academic abilities.

    I’d encourage anyone reading this to look at the post, but perhaps more importantly the comments at the bottom which are filled with empathy, advice and a constant stream of “me too”. Although it definitely helps to know that you aren’t alone in feeling this and to recognise that imposter syndrome comes as part of learning and stretching, it is critical to have a strategy for coping with those feelings and managing the impact they have on us.

    When I talk about this in workshops I use the word resilience and point people to some of the resources that helped me to ensure my coping strategies were all they could me. I also wrote a blog post containing these links and my own resilience strategy.

    If you feel the grip of imposter syndrome, recognise it as a sign that you are working towards your ambitions and congratulate yourself on having the courage to stretch yourself. But don’t do this in isolation – talk to people about the triggers (in the case of the student on Pat Thomson’s blog this seems to be partly down to the imbalance between critical and positive feedback from supervisors) and see if you can make changes. A resource I seem to point people towards pretty much every time I leave the house is the excellent “We Have To Talk” – a guide to difficult conversations.

    When I summed up the day in my closing comments I made a few other points:

    • Capture your successes and get credit for your effort. Most of the CVs I looked at during 1:1 appointments barely scratched the surface of what was on offer. Take some time to stop and think about what you’ve achieved and keep your CV up to date (this is also a great reminder of what you have acheieved which is another resilience strategy)
    • Don’t be the person who say no to you – there are plenty of other people who can do that. This advice came from Professor Eugene Kennedy who spoke at the Dublin launch of the funding guide I wrote for the IOP. (You can find his slides on the Dublin launch page – full of advice.) He was making the point that we often don’t put ourselves forwards for opportunities because we assume we aren’t good enough – let someone else make that decision as they may be less harsh than you are on yourself.
    • As an early career researcher you have LOTS of time but you need to use your time wisely. The point I was making is that you have time to make mistakes and to have false starts but don’t just drift and wait for things to happen or for career inspiration to strike. Be proactive and show initiative but don’t worry about deciding on your whole life when it’s barely begun.
    • Be comfortable marketing yourself. I think this is more than a gender issue, but I see many incredibly talented women who are uncomfortable celebrating their successes. Even Professor Dame Athene Donald shied away from describing herself as successful at this event. We all need to be more comfortable accepting praise and describing our worth.
    • Finally, I emphasised the value of networking – being part of a supported community has given me the confidence to pursue opportunities and I get nearly all of my consultancy work because other people celebrate my successes. Build a network, be active in it, be generous with your praise and support of others and the karma fairy will ensure someone does the same for you.

    In summary I still see imposter syndrome as a badge of honour, but I take resilience seriously. I hope that the fantastic women I met yesterday felt as inspired as I did by the end of the day to continue to push themselves into the “stretch” zone but also to look after themselves and each other along the way.

  • Networking – benefits for young researchers

    This blog post is principally written for the PhD students who attended the SULSA Young Scientists’ Event in May 2013. However, the links and themes will be relevant to any researcher interested in developing their networking, collaborative and communication skills. This is the first post which will focus on networking.

    I’ve previously blogged on the approach I take to networking (this includes my thoughts on starting conversations), but at the event we discussed the benefits and challenges for research students. I think this is an essential first step for the reluctant networker – working out what the benefits could be. Three stand out from my PhD

    1. meeting someone who we were considering as an external examiner (he didn’t like our work, so we thought again and I was spared a viva that would have been particularly challenging)
    2. explaining a problem I had fabricating samples with a research engineer, who solved it in about 35 seconds (and sent me the spacer material through the post a week later)
    3. learning about other meetings that were potentially more valuable (I was a bit of an outlier in my research group, so it wasn’t obvious which meetings were right for my interests)

    It probably helped hugely that I had to go to conferences on my own – if you go with your group try to spend as much time as possible away from them!

    The SULSA students came up with a lot of positive reasons to develop networking skills – hopefully there’s something here to convince you to overcome your reticence and find ways to network more effectively.

    Networking benefits research –

    • talking about your work helps you to understand it
    • you hear about funding streams you might not be aware of
    • you can share problems and challenges rather than getting stuck
    • you can hear about things others have done that haven’t worked (as these rarely appear in the literature)
    • learn about different tools or approaches that might benefit your work
    • help answering technical problems
    • access to facilities or materials
    • have novel or creative ideas from discussions
    • of specific benefit to viva preparation:
    • access to constructive criticism
    • fresh perspectives from outside your group
    • hear about new opportunities – vacancies in other groups, jobs in related fields, other conferences and meetings, prizes, internships,
    • share your skills

    Networking benefits you and your career

    • talking about your work makes people aware of what you are doing (and the fact YOU are doing it)
    • learning about yourself (reflecting on what you enjoy talking about, who you engage with most positively)
    • learning about other opportunities (vacancies in other groups)
    • learning about alternative paths to research or academia
    • build your contacts
    • find potential mentors
    • get careers advice
    • gain confidence about communication your research, connecting with people

    As a platform for longer-term enhancement

    • knowledge exchange
    • meeting potential future collaborators
    • develop relationships with other sectors which could enhance impact activities
    • opportunities for travelling/secondments abroad

    A final note for this post – networking shouldn’t  just be about asking people for help, so this isn’t intended to give you a checklist to take to any conference, ruthlessly rejecting people who don’t offer anything useful! Rather, this post is to help to get motivated to engage and start looking for opportunities.

    Two links to blog posts that might help you take this thinking further:

    6 secrets to better networking at conferences

    Conference social skills

     

    And a final link from my friend Paul Spencer about the Matthew Effect. To quote this article, “a term coined by Robert Merton to describe how, among other things, eminent scientists will often get more credit than a comparatively unknown researcher, even if their work is similar; it also means that credit will usually be given to researchers who are already famous”. Networking as a young researcher begins to build your visibility and reputation.

  • Planning and Managing a PhD

    This post is to support the project management, managing your PhD and getting started with your PhD workshops we run for students. If you attended one of these workshops, you’ll have been told how to access the slides (via email or on Blackboard). If not, we hope we’ve written a good substitute for the workshop, but encourage you to look into project planning training in your own institution.

     

    The workshop is usually run for PhD students who are in the first 6-9 months of their PhDs (or part-time equivalent) so we’ve based this post on that audience. By this time, you’ve hopefully had time to settle in, done some initial research or conducted a review of your research area. At this point you should know enough about your project to be in a position to start planning (even in loose terms) the next stages of your project.

     

    The basic process is the same for researchers and principal investigators who are starting to manage more complex project. In these workshops there are other more sophisticated tools we will have mentioned and we will have spent longer on the “tuning in” stage of the project. For most projects, these steps will give you a good start and enable you to use project management software more effectively.

     

    Your Research

    Once you are ‘tuned in’ to your new environment, it is important to understand the wider context and aims of your research work. As a PhD researcher you should also be clear on your own personal motivations for conducting research.

    You should be able to summarise your project simply:

    Context – a brief explanation of the area of your research

    Aim – your project and its intended outcome

    Methodology – how will your research project meet its aims?

     

    Reflection point – in the workshop, you will have been asked to discuss this with a partner. Were you able to describe your project comfortably? Are there any aspects your supervisor can clarify? Being fluent with the core attributes of your project will help you to set priorities and plan your research. You should keep asking yourself “how is what I am doing today taking me closer to the ultimate goal of my thesis?”

     

    At the start of a project you should also be as clear as possible on your responsibilities and the responsibilities of others – have you discussed your respective roles? Are you aware of all the stakeholders of your project? The workshop considers two key roles:

    What should a PhD student take responsibility for?

    What should a supervisor take responsibility for?

     

    Reflection point – most workshops on PhD planning and management will also look at the role of the supervisor. As part of this it is common to discuss potential problems. Don’t let this demoralise you – problems are usually small and can be solved by being honest and open. Keep good research records and good meeting records (see below) so you can demonstrate your commitment to the project and be able to measure and monitor your progress. If you aren’t sure about the respective roles of you and your supervisor, check your institutional Code of Practice and consider discussing the Griffith questionnaire with your supervisor. [http://www.griffith.edu.au/higher-degrees-research/current-research-students/…]

     

    Advice on avoiding/overcoming problems in professional relationships 

    ·       Keep things in perspective – your supervisor is human and may have good / bad days or be affected by other pressures; remember they share your long term goal (PhD success) and their eligibility for future funding may be damaged if your research fails 

    ·       Any criticism is directed at your actions, not you (even if it feels personal at the time)

    ·       Be organized – organise FORMAL meetings if useful informal ones are not happening; prepare for meetings with your own ideas and points for discussion

    ·       Be honest – report mistakes (before your supervisor hears on the grapevine) and raise difficulties whilst they are SMALL so you can discuss solutions. Remember that your doctorate is a period of training and no-one expects instant perfection 

    ·       Be professional – during your working life you are unlikely to always ‘get on’ with colleagues so learn how to cope now

    ·       Ask for feedback – then accept criticism as a way to improve and not an insult

    ·       Show your enthusiasm – many supervisors are disappointed and disillusioned by apparent apathy from students; if possible don’t wait to be told what to do or read

    ·       Meet deadlines – if you want to be treated with respect, you must respect your supervisor’s time and instructions

     

    Much of your supervision will take place in meetings, so learning to manage and organise these early on will help you to maximise the value of your supervisor’s time.  Effective meeting can also help to maintain positive, professional relationships.

    ·      Always have a clear purpose. Think in advance and decide what the meeting is for – transfer of information, update on progress, decision making, problem solving, etc.

    ·      Understand the agendas / expectations of all concerned

    ·      Agree the best time and place for the meeting and choose these to maximise attention and minimise disruptions. Look at the aim of the meeting and ensure all necessary people are invited or have a chance to contribute in other ways

    ·      What are the implications of the meeting and preferred outcomes? What needs to happen after the meeting and how will you ensure it happens?

    Try to come to meetings with ideas and some anticipation of the potential debate. Prepare yourself by gathering all information together, decide on questions / opinions. For formal meetings it may be appropriate to draft an agenda stating the meeting’s objectives and listing topics to be covered and circulate to all attendees (and other interested parties) in advance. Similarly, distribute any outcomes or decisions to arise.

    Finally, evaluate the meeting against any expectations you had in advance. If the outcome was very different analyse what happened to avoid problems in the future.

     

    SMART Objectives

    Specific, measurable, agreed, realistic and time-bound objectives as targets and deadlines help a great deal with motivation, planning and assessing progress.

     

    There are many sites which explain the acronym and give advice on how to set effective objectives.

     

    Perspectives from a PhD student at Manchester University on SMART goals http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/researchexchange/entry/keeping_em_goals/

     

    The doctoral planner from Vitae includes advice on objective setting

    http://www.vitae.ac.uk/CMS/files/upload/Planning%20your%20doctorate_wallplaner.pdf

     

    More generic advice (i.e. not aimed at PhDs) from Mindtools http://www.mindtools.com/page6.html

     

    Reflection point Take the time to record your own SMART objectives for the next six months of your research. Make sure you evaluate progress against them regularly, perhaps using the futureme website. http://www.futureme.org

     

    Project Planning

    Projects are about delivering specific pieces of work – these can range from short reports on a specific topic to multimillion-pound research projects. The techniques that are used in industry to manage projects are just as applicable to your research. This session therefore aims to introduce the main project management tools and techniques, but with the activities being focussed on your individual projects.

     

    In the workshop we look at mind maps, drill downs, Gantt charts and risk analysis.

     

    Mind maps – are great for the exploratory stage of a project. Good for capturing all the ideas and issues around the central topic. Mind mapping software and apps are now commonplace so ask in your institution for details of which you can get free access to, or which are recommended. Your library or information services unit should be able to help with this.

     

    Some quick links

     

    Mindtools again http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_01.htm

     

    Two blog posts from a PhD student trying to get to grips with mindmapping which might strike a chord if you haven’t “got” MindMaps before – the “before” http://thephdpimpernel.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/mind-mapping/ and “after” http://thephdpimpernel.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/mind-mapping-ii/

     

    Once you’ve put together a map of possibilities surrounding your project it can be a useful resource as you start to identify:

    –       things that aren’t clear or known to you, and have affected your ability to plan

    –       areas which will need particular support or training to complete

    –       aspects which are central to your work and those that are more peripheral or secondary

    –       your priorities

     

    Drill downs, or Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) are good for the next stage of planning. The core elements of the project are identified and the tasks which must be completed broken down. If your motivation is low, break down the tasks into small chunks, giving yourself a set of achievable goals. (“Write literature review” is lot more daunting than “Summarise the key points in Bailey’s papers”). You can also use the WBS to estimate the time different tasks will take – usually the smaller the task, the more likely you will be to estimate the time accurately.

     

    There’s some generic advice to help your “drilling” from the “For Dummies” website http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-create-a-work-breakdown-structur…

     

    Gantt charts take the tasks from the WBS and map them against time. This is great for seeing potential bottle-necks, interdependence between tasks, possible over-commitment and for planning back from a deadline such as a conference or transition point. Gantt Charts also offer a great monitoring tool. At any point you can draw a line through the chart and see if your progress is in line with the plan! If you are behind on some tasks, these become your priorities; if ahead on others, you need to reflect on why this is (could they be more fun?). If the chart (plan) doesn’t reflect the project (reality) then rewrite it!

     

    Risk analysis is an important part of the project plan as it leads to good practices which should minimise problems throughout your PhD. We use a “likelihood –vs- impact” grid in our workshop.

     

     

    Think of everything that could go wrong with your research, supervision, motivation and life (if naturally fatalistic, you might want to do this with an optimistic colleague to ensure you don’t give up and walk away at this point!). Then think carefully about how likely these things are to happen and what the impact would be if they did. Map them out on the grid.

     

    The next step is to think about the two elements of the process.

     

    What can you do to make this less LIKELY to happen?

    What can you do so this has less IMPACT if it can’t be avoided?

     

    We tend to suggest you think about this question as you consider your risk analysis:

    If you knew this was going to happen tomorrow, what would you do today?

     

    Risk analysis is the basis of COSHH, health and safety, good data storage, good lab management, good supervisor relationships, improved career planning and almost anything that will give you a little more control and peace of mind as a PhD student. It’s worth the investment in time and worth developing the good habits.

     

    Useful websites and resources

     

    Newcastle University students : The slides for this workshop are available to download from Blackboard.

     

    Some recommended books

    The Postgraduate’s Companion, ed by Gerard Hall and Jo Longman, ISBN 978-1-4129-4025-3

     

    The Research Student’s Guide to Success, Pat Cryer, 3rd edition, ISBN 0-335 22117-3

     

    Postgraduate Study in the UK: The International Student’s Guide. Nicholas Foskett, Rosalind Foskett, ISBN: 1412907195 

     

     

    Selected Websites

    The Vitae website includes a section for research students (click on the orange ‘researchers’ tab, then the ‘postgraduate researchers’ tab) with lots of advice:

    www.vitae.ac.uk

     

    This site also contains an accessible summary of the Researcher Development Framework (RDF) that replaces the earlier Joint Skills Statement and encompasses the skills, attributes and behaviours of successful researchers:

    www.vitae.ac.uk/rdf

     

    ScienceCareers is a huge searchable careers site that includes some great stories from successful scientists

    http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/

     

    For mind mapping and other software tools, check out

    www.mindtools.com/                www.businessballs.com/

     

    FreeMind is free mind-mapping software

    http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download

     

    There are also umpteen apps available for smartphones and tablets. If you have the option, trial the free version to see if the interface suits you.

     

     

     

    For Newcastle students – any regulations quoted in the slides are at: 

    http://www.ncl.ac.uk/regulations/docs/2012.html

     

    For lively discussions, read #phdchat on Twitter

    Twitter will lead you to all kinds of interesting, useful and supportive resources which would be difficult to find without devoting FAR too much time to the Internet. Professor Pat Thomson’s great blog about academic writing is just one of the reasons to start looking into social media as a research student. [http://patthomson.wordpress.com]

    To be further convniced and get started, download this guide to social media for researchers from RIN [http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/social-media-guide-researchers]

     

     

  • Creativity – different for me, different for you

    As the Christmas break approaches in the UK and we are enjoying our first real fall of snow in Southern Scotland, there is a real ‘end of term’ sense in the air. A good time therefore to focus on a skills/attribute/behavior that really benefits from a little space and opportunity to step back – that of creativity.

     

    Until about 5 years ago I limited myself with the mistaken belief that I wasn’t creative. I knew I was able to work well and to deliver ideas really effectively, but I thought that really off-the-wall thinking was beyond me. Then, through my involvement in the Crucible programme and with encouragement (more accurately, irritation that I held such a preposterous notion) from a good friend, I started to realise that (a) I was as creative as the next person and (b) further creativity could be developed from a set of behaviours.

     

    I’m going to share some of these in this post and to link to the resources I’ve found useful. Let’s start with a health warning though – my creativity isn’t the same as yours. The techniques that help me to think in a more innovative way might not help you – we all need to recognize our existing strengths and weaknesses and to be able to characterize our own brand of creativity before we can find tools to develop it further or in different directions.

     

     

    • Know your own creativity

     

     

    I’ll start with a great presentation from Jason Theodor, a Canadian creative director and speaker. Jason shares his ideas and developmental tools in a brilliant workshop available on slideshare. Once you get to grips with the ideas he introduces, you can start to see where your own creativity can be developed and then to understand which changes to your thinking and habits will have most impact. The element that I want to develop is “deviation” and the prescription for boosting it is, in Jason’s words “exposure to new things”. I think of it in slightly different terms – in order to develop better ideas I need to shake off (for a time) my preference for ideas which are useful and readily applicable.

     

    I’d encourage you to use Jason’s ideas and other resources such as MBTI and Honey and Mumford’s Learning Styles (both tools should be readily available to university-based researchers, probably for free) as a starting point. My familiarity with these really helped me to “let go” of my preferred style and to embrace the alternatives. 

    This process of self-awareness should also include reflection on when you are and aren’t creative yourself. This is really key – in the workshop I ran on this topic last week we discussed our own creative preferences and had people who were most creative under pressure and least creative under pressure. Find your own creativity and be aware that the rest of this post is about MY creativity.

    • Write it all down

     

    My next tip is to become a scribe. Get into the habit of capturing thoughts, observations and ideas. This has been a hard habit for me to acquire, but I now never travel without a notebook and use it constantly to write down anything that strikes me as interesting, useful or curious. It’s taken me about 3 years to start doing this reglarly and effectively. I don’t find this easy – which is why I do it.

    •   Collaborate

     

    Working with others gives an instant ‘hit’ of alternative perspectives, but not everyone will boost your creativity. Think about who adds to, and who detracts from, your creative life. Aim to spend more time with people who help you develop better ideas. When you are with the right people your creativity will feel like a pinball – ideas will bounce around in a frenzy and the brilliance will flow.

    •   Draw, don’t write

     

    Perhaps draw is taking it too far, but mapping ideas out in graphical terms gives a different view. To get you started, you might like to use some templates, such as these or something as simple as a mind map. I don’t find this easy – which is why I do it. With a bit of help…

     

    • Suspend your judgement

     

    We often stifle our own creativity by allowing the inner critic to stop the flow of possibilities. Creativity comes from embracing the mad, weird and dangerous. We’re all (well mostly) sensible enough to weed out these ideas at a later stage, but in the divergent mode, we need to let the mad ideas out – there might be a brilliant one hiding behind them. Anyway, does it really matter if you get it wrong first time? (Clearly for pilots and brain surgeons it does matter…)

     

    • Do different things, go to different places

     

    If you look at a problem from the same seat, in the same building, surrounded by the same people, breathing the same air, you are making life very tough for yourself. GO for a walk. Learn to knit. Visit a gallery. Read something as far removed from your own perspective as possible. Give your brain a chance to think differently.

     

    • Learn from the experts

    In addition to the insights I got from reading Jason Theodor’s presentation, there are a few other ‘creativity gurus’ that help me. These guys help with my brand of creativity – no guarantees they’ll help you!

    Jurgen Wolff’s book Creativity Now! and the accompanying blog

    Dr Kevin Byron runs brilliant workshops on creavitiy – you can get a glimpse of his ideas in the setting up a researcher blog booklet.  Hopefully he’ll be persuaded to write a book one day…

    TED talks are a fabulous source of ideas and challenging thinking. A couple on this theme include Ken Robinson on creativity in schools, or rather how education kills it, and John Francis who personifies what you can achieve by being different. Radically different. I found John’s talk thought the Imulus blog. Ken’s talk was recommended by my partner in crime at Bang Goes the Borders.

    And to finish, a few musings of my own from a year or two ago.

     

    If you were at the workshop which prompted this blog, the slides are on the Blackboard site – for anyone else who wants them, leave a comment and we’ll connect!

     

  • Confident Networking

    The natural networker is at an advantage in the modern world where relationships and connectivity are so vital. The rest of us can reflect on the behaviours and habits of life’s “schmoozers” and apply these to improve our own personal impact.

    This posting is based on a short workshop I’ve given at Dundee University for the last few years as part of their OPD researcher developer programme. The slides from the workshop are available on-line through my slideshare account and below.

    Confident networking 2

    The slides are hopefully self-explanatory, but there are a few messages I want to emphasise.

    The concept of networking and the word itself have pretty heavy connotations of strategic conversations, spotting “useful” people and getting what you want from people. All this is a bit of a turn-off even to those of us who are converts to its value. Far better to stop thinking about networking as a thing that has to happen at a certain time or place – just become familiar with what you want to say and why it is interesting to others and then let the conversations flow more naturally.

    Imposter syndrome is a big barrier for many people – there’s a great blog post from Professor Dame Athene Donald : Getting Away with It, which I hope will reassure you if you suffer from this.

    There are also additional cultural barriers in academia – we are likely to either be networking in a “foreign” culture or to be networking with people who don’t share our cultural background. Although models of national cultural behaviour are, by definition, sweeping generalisations, they are also useful starting points. We mention two:

    Geert Hofstede

    Nanette Ripmeester

    (Interesting that they are both Dutch. Is that a national stereotype?)

    The fantastic jobs.ac.uk site also carries country profiles which may be useful background when talking to people.

    There’s far more “give” than “take” in networking – it is much easier to think about the value you can give to other people than worrying about how you will ask them to give you something. Focus instead on what you can offer – these ideas are expanded in the slides.

    Use social media to develop and sustain relationships before and after face-to-face meetings. Contribute your ideas and opinions if you have something to add to another researcher’s postings and be generous in sharing information. Hopefully the karma fairy will pay you back when you need it.

    I’ve found this excellent blog post from Rosie Redfield on Conference Social Skills. Her very wise words are consistent with my own messages in this workshop. I found this great blog post via another – Athene Donald’s post on Conferences and Courage. Both are strongly recommended.

    We talked about the importance of first impressions – here are some of the ideas we shared:

    when you describe your research think about the key facts and memorable highlights that you want to leave in people’s minds. How do you want them to describe you in a few words if they talk about you later to someone else? Are you giving them these phrases in the way you introduce yourself?

    aim to make the interaction an exchange of information; ask questions and encourage the other person by smiling and nodding as they talk; try to put them at their ease. Leave gaps in the conversation so they can come in and talk about their work. If the person you are talking to seems nervous, focus on the things they are competent on in order to build their confidence.

    look for common ground in terms of interests, background, shared motivations.

    convey your enthusiasm through your body language, the tone of your voice, smiling, being relaxed as you talk about why your work is important and interesting.

    if you think there is an issue because of age, gender, your topic etc look for ways to convey your credibility – explain where you are from and who you work for (if this helps)

    make it clear where to go next – ask the person for a card or if they mind connecting with you through social media, suggest a time to catch up later in the day, or simply thank them for their time and say you enjoyed talking with them.

    The links on the session handout are:

    www.academiccareer.manchester.ac.uk/

    setting up a researcher blog

    http://www.hhmi.org/educational-materials/lab-management/for-early-career-scientists 

    http://www.cio.com/article/164300/How_to_Network_12_Tips_for_Shy_People

    www.slideshare.net/sachac/the-shy-connector

    http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/social-media-guide-researchers

     

     

     

     

  • Social Media: Need convincing?

    Today I’m working with a group of researchers the value of social media to their careers and doctoral training. A short workshop can only scratch the surface, but hopefully in this post I can point to a range of sites and share my thoughts on why it should be part of your life as a research student.

    Twitter – not just about celebrity minutiae, this micro-blogging site is a constant source of information, comment and opinion. By selecting the organisations and individuals who are most relevant to your interests, you can personalise the flow of knowledge. I follow funding bodies, individual academics, researcher networks and selected journals. As well as information, twitter connects me with a wide community. Unlike other networking sites, I can follow anyone who posts public information. I don’t need to know them or get their permission (although some people prefer to post privately to approved followers). If you fancy following me, please do. You’ll find my twitter feed reflects my interests and my personality, which I think is a good way of helping people connect with my work.

    Each time I scroll through the timeline on Twitter I find something useful. Either a blog posting from a professional in my field, news from a researcher about a conference, a news story which relates to research – I’m hardly ever disappointed.

    With time, I’ve also found that I can use twitter as a consulting pool – I posted a question recently about software for research project management and received many suggestions (these will be collated in a future post!). I can also comment on discussions or even take part in brief Tweet-meetings where you happen to coincide on-line with a group commenting on the same topic or idea.

    A recent tweet from Professor Dorothy Bishop pointed me to a great blog post aimed at nervous academics – this gentle introduction might convince you if I can’t.

    And on the subject of blogging …

    Advice on setting up a researcher blog and a list of examples of blogs written by researchers from Tristram Hooley are available on the Vitae website. Rather than try to come up with something as good as this, I shall simply point you towards these and an article from Science Careers on the same topic. 

    Networking is one of the most important skills in modern career management and social media is a brilliant tool for keeping your network active and interested in you. I have a number of profiles on different sites – I tend you use Facebook as a personal space and tend to connect with people as friends, although I have set up a company page for Shinton Consulting Ltd. My professional network lives on LinkedIn and although I am regularly tempted by specific sites like academic.edu, they aren’t really set up for my kind of work. I think they are great for academics though and give you a showcase for work, papers, interests and collaborations.

    Content sharing

    A range of sites of available to help you disseminate your research to a wider audience. I am pointing you towards large general interest sites rather than research specific ones. Please add any suggestions for more niche sites to the comments below.

    Slideshare is for presentations – I post my slides here and find the visual impact and style of some of the materials on this site really inspiring – great for ideas to develop dazzling presentations.

    Flickr is for photographs and images. I’ve heard of students putting images of their conference posters on here. I use it for holiday snaps. Which I won’t bore you with…

    Delicious is a social bookmarking site which I use to capture great sites as I find them. I can also theme them for specific audiences or interests. A great way to use the cloud as it means I can point people to my bookmarks wherever and whenever they have internet access.

    Research specific sites are proliferating. Rather than duplicate the excellent guide that has been written for the Research Information Network I shall simply point you to it : Social Media- A Guide for Researchers is a must read.

    In the discussions I’ve had with researchers new to social media, there are also a number of concerns expressed about sharing information in open. I have to say that I remain convinced that the risks are outweighed by the benefits, but my golden rule for any post is ” am I happy for my clients, family and friends to read this?”. I think if you keep the potential employer of the future in your mind as you engage with social media, you shouldn’t do too much harm.

  • Something special in researcher training

    In about an hour I’ll be kicking off the 2011 Edinburgh GRADschool. For those of you not familiar with the term, this is an intensive, residential course aimed at 2nd and 3rd year PhD students at UK universities. During the next 4 days, students will work in multi-disciplinary teams on a variety of tasks with the aim of developing their communication skills, understanding of team-working and personal effectiveness.

    I attended a GRADschool as a PhD student back in 1994 just as I was preparing to write my thesis and plan my next steps. At this time there were no researcher training programmes, so the course had a huge impact on me and my attitude to my future career. I can still remember the moment when I realised that my PhD was part of what I could offer the world of work and that it was up to me to work out what the whole picture of my career would include beyond my research expertise.

    The research experience is very different now – students can expect to access extensive training programme and by the time they reach their final year they could have had weeks of generic skills training. So why should they commit to an intensive four day residential course?

    The “something special” that the GRADschool offered then and still offers today is the chance to work with a group of people under pressure, but in an environment where you get feedback on your performance and the opportunity to develop, review, develop through the course.  I hope that the students who leave on Friday will have much better insights into the way they tend to behave in a team, interact with others and with some clearer thoughts about where they can take their skills and values as they identify future careers.

    The GRADschool I went on in 1994 changed my life – I came back fired up with enthusiasm for post-PhD life and my motivation was much greater during the dark months of thesis writing. It planted a seed that grew into my current career (even though at the time I never imagined that I’d be tutoring on courses within 4 years and directing a GRADschool 7 years after attending as a student). I know what a difference good training and development can make and I feel a responsibility to the students I’ll meet over the next week to give them the best possible opportunity. 

    Even in today’s academic environment with access to a whole calendar of training, the GRADschool is something special and I urge those of you who are presented with the opportunity to take it.

     

  • Social Media – slides and notes

    The first two “showings” of my new Social Media and your Career workshop happened yesterday in Utrecht. Many thanks to all who attended and made them such a success.

    By sticking to the core principle of a workshop about careers and introducing social media as a “shiny new wrapper” to boost your profile and impact, there was something for even the most expert Social Media (SM) users who found themselves in the workshop. Particular thanks to them for their engagement despite their concerns I was about to teach them to suck eggs (I’m not sure this translates into Dutch but they all smiled at the image – here’s a note on this curious phrase for my perplexed Dutch readers!).

    So, here I’m going to continue the workshop by posting the annotated slides and some additional links; by reminding those who were there (and informing those who weren’t) of the sites we visited during the session and by inviting comments and further suggestions from the audience (this includes you!).

     

    First the handout:

    social_media_and_your_career

    The format is A3, folded into an A5 booklet (thanks to Janet Wilkinson for this excellent idea).

     

    The slides we used during the workshop are now on SlideShare including notes from the two discussions we had on the potential value of SM and the steps that individuals can take to bolster their SM presence. (To view the notes for each slide, from the SlideShare site click the notes tab behind the comments box.)

     

    We looked at a range of sites during the workshop to illustrate the value of Social Media.

     

    Twitter – the off-putting thing about Twitter is the home page that you see when visiting for the first time. All the trivia and nonsense in the world appears before your eyes, with (if you are lucky) the occasional vaguely interesting post. Like all SM the beauty of Twitter is only revealed as you begin to identify interesting and informative feeds to follow. I’ve created a starters’ list after the workshop to give a flavour of the posts I follow and my fabulous Dutch speaking research careers expert Tennie has done the same.

     

    LinkedIn – the groups feature of LinkedIn was the facet discussed in most depth during the workshop. This enables users to engage with other like-minded individuals without having to link to them directly. It also allows for discussion threads and posting of material. The PostDoc Forum group has just started a discussion about being a researcher in another country which invites members to share personal insights and advice. We also talked about the power of the recommendation facility on LinkedIn and I suggested that the best way to benefit from this is to start by writing recommendations for others.

     

    Facebook – although largely social, the value of Facebook for researchers was illustrated by two examples from the group of Facebook community pages created by researchers for researchers. (I’ll post details of these in the comments once I’ve heard from the researchers who run them.) Again, this is a way to broaden your reach on Facebook without having to “befriend” people. GIven the fact that most users view Facebook as a networking tool for personal friends, rather than professional contacts, this allows researchers to tap into the huge audience using Facebook without having to compromise on a more relaxed style of postings. The ShintonConsulting Facebook page welcomes all!

     

    Blogging sites – once your SM confidence grows, blogging is a great tool for sharing your thoughts and ideas in more depth. Most sites also allow for posting of material such as slides, video, documents and audio files so you can create a multi-media experience for your readers! I also find blogging is a great reflective tool – one of the core career management skills – allowing you to review experiences and develop your thinking. Blogging also usually allows for a dialogue with your readers (although some bloggers prefer all comments to be fed through their Twitter feed).

     

    Content sharing sites – a huge variety are available so I’m going to focus on the academically oriented. Vidiowiki can be described as YouTube for researchers who post 3 minute presentations describing their work to a broad audience.

    Another researcher video worth viewing is Dominic Walliman’s prize winning description of his research into Quantum Computing (and while you are in the YouTube universe why not check out the RUG Wetenschapsdag, Spinoza Prizewinner Marten Scheffer, the SENSE Research School channel, Leiden University Faculty of Science.) Had enough research? Time for a little light relief…

     

    I’ve also just heard from Keith, the other half of Shinton Consulting, that many researchers are uploading their conference posters to Flickr. Another great use of SM for research.

     

    To illustrate the way that SM can deliver information you would never have found otherwise, here are two final sites we looked at:

    EmployKyle – don’t know what you want to do with your life but think you have something special to offer the right employer? Don’t let it put you off – embrace the uncertainty, like Kyle

    Unconvinced SM is anything other that a flood of trivia? Researchers are finding it a rich source of information and scholarly activity.

     

    So, a final thanks to all involved and if I’ve missed anything, let me know via comments. And don’t forget…

    1. Social Media is a wonderful rich source of information, but without a clear objective it will be a HUGE time-eater (to be honest, even WITH a clear objective it can take over your life) so enter the universe with a question that needs an answer.

    2. Remember that SM is like a shiny new wrapper – what counts is the quality of the thinking and the personal integrity underneath. Only post comments or material that you would be happy for a colleague or potential employer to see.

     

    I hope those who couldn’t attend the workshop find enough material here to help them benefit from the ideas we discussed – if you’d like to come along in the future, just let NWO know!

     

    If this experiment with social media is of value, I’ll post future workshops here as well.

  • Social Media and your Career tamed

    After a lot of research (most of which was a classic display of displacement activity) I’ve finished the first draft of a short workshop on “Social Media and your Career”. It’s taken a lot more preparation than many of my workshops because I felt I needed to build up my credibility by developing a higher profile on various sites.

    I think I also needed to engage in a lot of information absorption, divergent thinking, playing with possibilities and ideas, then some lying down and making the web induced headache go away. (There you have it – the Shinton creative process* in a nutshell.)

    Even with all this taken into account, I was struggling to come up with a framework for the session. My problem is that I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, an expert on social media. I spoke to people who were and was given all kinds of interesting leads to follow, but the cloud of information just grew. At about 3am last night I realised that the reason I’ll be in that room is that I am an expert on careers issues for research students and staff (or at least can pass for one in a dim light). Social Media brings career management into a new light, but the fundamentals which I’ve been working with for the last 15 years are still there. SM gives us a completely brilliant set of tools, but if you forget the fundamentals you can’t use those tools with clarity. Social Media quickly overwhelms and distracts. I’m aware that this post might be an exercise in “stating the bleedin’ obvious” but was an important moment for me as I had been rather dazzled by all the shiny toys and forgotten why I’d gone into the toy shop in the first place.

    I took a deep breath and came up with a set of  core career questions, which the workshop is now based around:

    Who am I? 

    What choices are out there? 

    What do I want to do? 

    What do employers want? 

    How do I find a job? 

    How do I market myself? 

    What am I worth? 

    I’m sure questions will occur to me as the session is finalised but these have brought my focus back. 

    The annoying thing is that up till this point, it is exactly how I had been using Twitter, posterous, LinkedIn etc – as resources for other ideas and to add value to the sessions I’ve been running for the last 6 months. The temporary loss of my focus is an insight I’ll be sharing in the workshop which is for researchers who are hardly known for having a lot of free time on their hands. It may be that it is a “growing pain” which all SM users have to experience, but if I hadn’t had the commitment of a “gig” to push me through, I might have run away and hidden in a library or book shop.

    I’ll be posting information on the workshop in October.  For now I’m just feeling a lot more comfortable about the event and now looking forward to spending the next few weeks looking for sites and apps that will breath new life into all my work.

     

     

    * there may also have been some knitting, BBC7 and coffee consumption.

    (and if this post goes directly to my twitter and facebook page, then I have the excellent Tristram Hooley to thank, as he explained how!)