Distractions, reflections

David Ing, at large … Sometimes, my mind wanders

Mon. Dec. 5, 2005: Blogging off

David gets signals of overload, and decides to retreat from blogging.

Well, I guess I’ve found my limits.

The combination of a return from a two-week non-vacation, jumping back into a consulting engagement two weeks underway, two appointments for dental restoration, plus a request for a referral to an opthamologist — that has resulted in my doctor requesting a physical, and ordering blood work that may have had complications — put me into bed for most of the weekend.

It looks like I’ll have to take lifestyle change seriously, and this includes spending less time on the computer (and maybe more on exercising).

Thus, I’ve done enough blogging to understand a lot of the dynamics of technology, and have obtained a learning of how it works. I’ll be sticking to Wikis!

Sat. Nov. 20, 2005: Big breakfasts, little dinners

After spending the whole day in the hotel on the computer, David is hosted at Restaurant Töölönranta.

(by David): I’ve been continuing my pattern of waking up early (somewhere between 4:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.) — not because I want to get up early, but just because I wake up. It’s dark before 8:15 a.m. I’m usually on the computer for a few hours, then shower and go down for breakfast. I may or may not take a nap in the afternoon (willingly or unwillingly!)

I’m really eating breakfast like a king, and dinner like a peasant. I’ve been having almost the same thing every morning. Lingonberry juice. Smoked salmon, grilled tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, Swiss potato cakes (like hash brown cakes). If I’m not planning on lunch, I’ll have a 5-minute boiled egg on wonderful whole grain bread. Fruit salad (canned peaches, pineapple, lichees), with fresh red berries (lingonberries?). I don’t have much appetite left, after that.

I spent most of the day working on one slide, which is actually a good thing. I’ve been mapping out the research territory, so figuring out how things fit together has been interesting.

Karlos invited me out for dinner, with the professor visiting with him, Hans, and his Ph.D. student. (Annaleena got confused at the invitation, and came over a bit later). We had dinner at Restaurant Töölönranta, which has been reviewed Architectural Review. Very Scandinavian. Quite a large restaurant, although it’s divided into sections so it doesn’t seem large. I decided to order all appetizers, although I maybe should have taken into account that restaurants here serve European-sized portions, instead of American-sized portions. No matter, since my stomach is still running on breakfast time!

Everyone else seemed to order the dorada, which is a small Mediterranean fish served whole. We asked about the arctic char, which the waitress claimed was a red fish that’s a speciality of Finland. Funny, in Canada, arctic char is considered one of our unique foods, and it’s a white fish. Karlos said that by the Finnish translation, he thought it was a white fish, too.

Fri. Nov. 18, 2005: Lecturing at the Polytechnic

Instead of the usual “English class” lecture, David speaks on “social software”.

(by David): Minna had asked if I could talk with her friend, Taina, who had opted out of Nokia in favour of teaching at Stadia, which is the Helsinki Polytechnic. Taina finished her Ph.D. at HUT, probably a year or two ago. Minna told me that the Stadia building was actually the original home of HUT. It’s on the Bulevardi, beside the shipyards and waterfront in central Helsinki. The institution started as a Polytechnic, became a Technical University, and then grew out of those buildings for new labs to be built in Otaniemi, which must have been a forest west of the city back then. (They must have put those bridges in, because there are two choices to cross that expanse of water).

As it happens, one of the few times that our schedules lined up was during a class, so Minna and I went over to speak to the class. When I walked in the classroom, this seemed like an IBM meeting — every student had a laptop, and their screens were up. (There was a uniformity to the HP machines which makes me think there’s sponsorship going on). Taina introduced us, Minna talked about knowledge management, and I talked about my experiences with Instant Messaging, wikis and blogs.

When Minna introduced herself, she said that she was a mechanical engineer, but she actually gave quite a managerial talk. I remarked that my degrees are in business, but I was going to be giving the technical talk!

The director of IBM Almaden Services Research, Jim Spohrer, was here about 3 weeks ago, giving talks on how IBM thinks that universities should be reoriented to teach classes in “Services Science, Management and Engineering“. Minna actually was leading a research project at HUT before she went to the New Jersey, and had thought that her research was 20 years behind. In fact, it’s proven to be six years ahead, as her content is much the same as the IBM message now.

The Finns have a knack for industry and universities to be working together in a way that we find foreign in North America. Minna and Taina are cooking up plans to have a services course in early short order — by the spring — and are working a plot that I might get involved. There’s a possibility that we might get the Finnish managers to request that I be involved somehow related to my day job, rather than the vacation time I’m currently on. This would be welcomed….

Thurs. Nov. 17, 2005: Lecturing, ma po tofu

David does the teaching thing, and cooks at Minna’s house

(by David): For some reason, I’ve been sleeping irregularly on this trip. I seem to wake up around 4:30 in the morning. This morning at 7 a.m., I had a Skype call with Simon, who is in L.A. It’s bad enough to have a 7 hour difference to Toronto, but with a 10-hour difference, one window of opportunity was the 7 a.m. call here on Thursday morning in Espoo, while it was moderately late on Wednesday night (9 p.m.) in L.A.

I had done slightly more prep for the “Innovation and Services” lecture of the Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation class than usual — I had a long list of articles for students to pre-read, and this material is a new direction for me. I had to prepare more Powerpoint slides than normal.

Even with slides, though, I really don’t work from a script. This lecture included stories about the car sharing co-ops in Toronto, the skills of taxi drivers in Beijing (for which Adam had to learn to say “Renmin Daxue”), and our plumber Alex as a knowledge worker (since I rely on him for his experience, and was chauffeuring him around while paying him that day, shopping for a toilet). I cringe at the thought of ever being quoted on these lectures, but I still record them to minidisc for transfer to MP3 files anyway, because the stories seem to get the academic ideas across. I’m usually cautioned that Finnish students are the strong, silent types, but they almost always speak up for me in class. (I always get remarks from other instructors, because the students almost always give me applause at the end of the lecture). This class also seemed to have quite a few Chinese students. Annaleena says that they have to fulfill a number of credits, and she teaches classes in English, so this subject is a likely target for foreign students. (English outweighs Finnish as a probable language for foreign students, even on campus)

Minna took me over to her house for the evening. We went grocery shopping — definitely not an abnormal event for me, and an opportunity to get a few unique Finnish products for people back home. Minna still has black beans from my last trip — I bought quite a few packages last time, they’re so cheap in Toronto — as well as soy sauce and oyster sauce, so the meal was ma po tofu, and beef and broccoli with eggplant. At the Big Apple mall in Espoo, there’s two major hypermarkets. I’d forgotten why I shop at one more frequently than the other, but this time bought the super-dense tofu that vegetarians likely use for steak. (The other store sells a brand with Chinese writing on it).

Fatigue is catching up with me. I asked Minna to take me back to the hotel after dinner, and falling asleep on the short 10 minute ride over.

Wed. Nov. 16, 2006: Advising, Indian dinner, trams

There are a few things that David can’t do over the Internet.

(by David): Although I really would prefer to be an introvert, it’s important for me to come to Finland to keep the ties strong. When I’m on the Internet, though, I begin to wonder if it really makes a difference.

I’ve spent most of the day searching out software packages for journals and memberships for the ISSS site. I think that I’ve found two candidates that will work out, and have requested they be installed to try out.

The faculty sometimes ask me to meet with a few students who are close to my profile, i.e. business people back doing their Ph.D.s. I’ve been a researcher for a while, and have published a few articles, so I know which way is up. This candidate came over to the hotel for morning’s conversation over a coffee, which extended into a 3.5 hour advising session. The Finns are getting their return on social capital invested, this trip.

Since I didn’t leave the hotel for all of the daylight hours, Annaleena and I went out to Namaskar, which is reputed as the best Indian restaurant in town. I would agree with that assessment. We ordered a meat thali and a vegetable thali, each with three little stews and side dishes, so we got a good sample of tastes.

Annaleena picked me up at the hotel with her car, and we parked near her apartment. We took the tram into the centre of town, because it’s hard to find parking there. I did the Finnish thing, and paid for the tram fare using my mobile phone. Create an SMS message, and send it to a phone number, and the return message gives an electronic ticket with an expiry time. Neat feature.

Tues. Nov. 15, 2006: Book before dissertation

David doesn’t behave like the normal Ph.D. student, which is acceptable in Finland.

(by David): I had to prepare for the dissertation seminar, which is mostly a coaching session for people who haven’t done extensive research in their careers. I have to say that I’ve found this a strong point in the training at HUT. This seemed to be something that was missing in my education when I was at UBC. Last year, I was sitting in a class taught by my friend Annaleena, where she stepped the master’s students through how to do library searches (e.g. the Web of Science database). Annaleena has said that the professors at HUT may not be the most dynamic speakers, but they’re good researchers. I would add that they’re generous with their time with Ph.D. students who are apprentices. This is despite the fact that in North America, where a professor supervising five students would be considered heavy, and Stanford chaired professors aim for one — Finnish professors may supervisor as many as 25 students. They’re really overworked, so I mostly try to stay out of their way.

That being said, I’m still a Ph.D. student here, and participate in the doctoral seminar. To be up front, I haven’t done that much writing on the dissertation since I was here in the spring, but I’m not going to hide behind that. One result of aligning my dissertation research on innovation with the research relevant to my day job is that I’m now making advances on book, to be co-authored with some friends at work. Thus, it’s become an interesting pitch at the university. I’ll probably get the book done and published before I finish the dissertation, which itself will be done sometime before I finish my course work. It’s certainly everything backwards from the normal student.

In my university role, I’ve come to prepare fewer slides, and find that writing on the blackboard works well with students for whom English isn’t the first language. It slows down my talk — I really work on speaking slowly, already — but for the dissertation seminar, I put together a lot of the slides that I used at the conference in Florida in September. I created three slides up front to explain the outline and direction of the book. The whole presentation deck was 35 slides.

At the dissertation seminar, I decided to only speak to 3 slides. I’m sure everyone was happier.

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