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Quantum Physics

Someday, I will understand quantum physics. But since in the past few weeks I’ve been unpacking, unpacking, unpacking, unpacking, unpacking… (you get it)… OK, never mind. Here’s a video about quantum physics. It should be the beginning of any research methods class.

Thanks to Twitter user @c4chaos for pointing to a link that lead me to this video.

Things I’ll miss

As we get ready to move out of S.C., I’m making mental lists of things I’ll miss, and hey, why not share the good stuff with you?

First, foremost and most badly I’ll miss practicing yoga at North Main Yoga, and specifically, my teacher, Liz. I am hopelessly addicted to her teaching style, kind energy, and the complete bliss I experience after practicing under her guidance.

Second, I’ll miss working with Clemson students. They’re bright, honest, nice people; excellent writers; and once you figure them out, it’s SO easy to help them succeed. I’ve never worked with students who have made me so proud in such a short time!

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The Village Baker, Pendleton S.C.

Then, there’s eating. The Village Baker in Pendleton is a little European piece of heaven: pastries, cookies, sandwiches, more pastries. I’ll miss our late Saturday lunches there, and in Greenville: the pecan pie at High Cotton, the chef’s creativity at Lazy Goat, the Thai food at Sweet Basil on Pelham, and of course, the gelato at Luna Rosa.

I’ll miss my hair stylist, kind and attentive Maggy – now at Tangles in Clemson.

I’ll miss the colorful flowers, and the scent of gardenias on warm summer nights.

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To all the things and people I won’t miss (y’all know who you are): I wish you’ll find confidence and peace, so you can open your minds and hearts, and maybe experience kindness now and again. Namaste!

Monkey trap

stupidMonkey
I heard my husband yesterday explain to a friend the concept of a monkey trap – maybe you’re familiar with it, but for me it was new and interesting, something to meditate upon:

One method of capturing monkeys is to place a piece of fruit in a cage or a vessel with an opening just large enough for the monkey to put its hand through it, but small enough that if the monkey makes a fist, holding on to the fruit, it cannot take its hand out.

That’s quite a lesson in letting go!

Sometimes, you can achieve your goals -or freedom!- if you just let go.

Do you have a monkey trap story of your own? Care to share?

Death is dead, you’re all wrong, and everybody’s lying

Recipe for getting traffic to your blog while alienating your readers:

STEP 1: Start with catchy title that relies on overgeneralization & exaggeration to make a sweeping statement:

Options:
a) ________________ is dead
b) ________________ (famous, respected person) is wrong
c) ________________ (profession or large category of people) is/are: unethical, lying, etc.

STEP 2: Write pseudo-argumentation supporting a much weaker version of your title, one that actually specifies the conditions, contexts, and audiences for which the statement in the title might sometimes apply

STEP 3: Publicize on twitter. Sit back & enjoy counting number of RTs

STEP 4: Watch comments coming in. Sit back & enjoy spike in blog traffic.

STEP 5: Respond to comments. If they disagree with you, act all offended that they didn’t read the small print buried halfway through the 4th paragraph of your post.

If you know me, you know I’m no big fan of the academic writing style. But, while we make fun of the long 2-part titles, we have to give them this: They’re specific. Precise, specific, accurate language is -even if not practiced much- valued in academia. Try it when you can.

People -and pets!- do a lot of crazy things to try to get attention. Before you use this recipe, consider:

– am I doing my readers a service?
– is this post helping me build long-term relationships with people I care about?
– do I really need this?
– do I really believe this?

Leaving Clemson

I broke the news on Twitter last week, but here is a more detailed account of the events in my life. In the past 10 days, I:

– accepted a job offer at Purdue University
– resigned from my position at Clemson University
– looked for a house in West Lafayette, Indiana
– found a house in West Lafayette, Indiana
– put an offer, negotiated, etc., etc. – and now my husband and I are this close to being home owners.

It’s been a whirlwind: Things are happening much faster than my bewildered mind can process. So maybe writing will help.

As I write this, I think of my Clemson PR students, who I will miss dearly. They’ve been the best students I’ve ever worked with, and my heart is breaking knowing I’m leaving them. They’re bright, quick learners, amazing writers. If you haven’t hired them already, there might be a couple left. 🙂

So, why am I leaving? (actually, both my husband and I are leaving).

Many of you know that during the past 3 years it has become clear to both Krishna and me that Clemson (and Seneca), South Carolina cannot ever feel like home for us. We both come from large, crowded cities, and the quiet, rural lifestyle is … killing us (softly).

We’ll both be tenure-track faculty at Purdue, Krishna in Engineering Education, and I have a joint appointment in the College of Technology, shared between two departments: Computer Graphics Technology and Organizational Leadership & Supervision.

There will be some changes in my research and teaching focus: less PR (possibly no PR), a lot more technology – and its impact on culture, society, and communication. I will be teaching mostly graduate courses, at the Master’s and Ph.D. level.

This move is a bit sideways and up, and although I am very sad to step away from teaching PR (it will still be part of my research agenda), I am excited to tackle some research projects I’ve had in mind for a while now, that didn’t quite fit in with my PR-oriented research agenda.

I’ve done my best to make sure my PR students at Clemson are well taken care of. Dr. Denham has agreed to take over as PRSSA adviser, and I am so grateful and relieved that he’s stepping in!

Next semester, two wonderful instructors will be teaching a section each of the PR Principles class – and one of them might already be your twitter friend!

Dr. Hawkins, the CU Communication Studies Department Chair, has expressed a strong commitment in maintaining the momentum we have built here in PR @ CU, and I will do whatever I can to help her – and you.

If you were my student, I want you to know that I will always think of you as my student – and possibly friend. I will always be happy to hear from you and to be in touch. Follow me on twitter (@prprof_mv – should I change my user name?), friend me on LinkedIn – stay in touch.

To all of my wonderful PR friends from Greenville (you know who you are) – with twitter, facebook, linkedin, and whatever comes up next, we have no excuse for not keeping in touch! So, let’s.

To all my blog readers (both of you 🙂 – I don’t know which way this blog will go, but it’ll keep going, with some break while my life settles down into a routine after the move.

Like all big life changes, this one is bitter-sweet, exciting, exhausting, exhilarating… send me good thoughts, and you know you’ll get them back 🙂

How Twitter can make history

Here’s a talk by Clay Shirky about how the changing media landscape is changing the world.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

A few takeaways from this talk:

* technology starts making a difference in society when it’s not shiny anymore, when it’s mainstream

* before the Internet, communication media that were good at conversation were not good at creating groups, and media that were good at creating groups were not good at conversation

* the Internet is still changing as it becomes more social

* May 2008 China earthquake: reported on Twitter several minutes before U.S. Geological Survey had any information online; BBC got the news from Twitter. Previous major earthquake in China: took China 3 months to admit it even happened. This is no longer a choice.

* the major change is that media consumers are also media producers. Not only can they talk back to organizations (“a bit freaky, but organizations can get used to it”, but they can talk to each other, building huge, powerful networks)

* mature use of social media: to convene supporters/people, not to control them

* “professionals broadcast messages to amateurs” – this model is over; social media is an environment for convening and supporting groups. It might not be the media model we want, but it is the media model we’ve got.