Kelly in Kansas

During my usual frozen state of "what do I take with me" early this morning, I decided to pick up both a non-fiction and fiction book off the shelf to do some catching up. I have done little but required reading for at least a year now and do miss reading - I enjoy it. And I mean really reading and not racing through a text to get as much possible out of it in the short amount of time I have.

The non-fiction text I picked up was The Cluetrain Manifesto. I remember it being somewhat "radical" but now feel that I have neglected it since the copyright date is 2000. I realize that one of the authors was sitting on the other side of Liz Lawley when we were at SXSW. The first thing I noticed about the book was that, although it is multiple authors, it is not an edited work. I especially like that individual chapters, with the exception of two, are primarily written by individual authors. They don't all have the same voice and I know that most of the time editors (of books, not collections of essays) try to make the voice the same. Maybe this is not a good thing - how can each author speak best when he is trying to speak like someone else.

CM is not "scaring" me in the sense of business since a, I'm not in the business world, and b, I grew up with a commission-only salesman for a Dad and that was NEVER business as usual. His office was at home and even when he went into a corporate office on Saturday mornings (no, he didn't get home in time on Fridays to go by usually and Monday morning by 8 he was already on the road, gas and breakfast included) it was not a thing that was celebrated except that sometimes I was allowed to go with him and I was always "daddy's little girl." I didn't follow him into business because I didn't think traveling 50,000 miles a year almost 50 weeks of the year would be conducive to family life. I also knew he traveled in areas that might not be safe for a female even though for awhile he had a female sales manager that was 20 years his junior. But, the rules never fit. We never had to go to the right parties, be friends with the right people, and Mom never had to join the right garden club. Dad didn't want to be promoted within the organization, his biggest goal was much more internal - a job well done - and the external was symbolized quite simply by $$$. There seemed to be a correlation most of the time with the idea that the harder you worked, the more money you made. The other inherited trait I possess is that we never went on any trip where we did not see one of the up to 11 companies he worked for over the course of his career or to a customer's place of business or house. And he was only friends with a few customers and rarely had to wine and dine anyone he didn't genuinely enjoy the company of. How did I manifest that trait? Well, as a history professors, there's not a place I go that doesn't have some sort of a history. Even if it's as simple as a historical marker on the side of the road. I also inherited the love of good food. And, as I've mentioned before, that isn't always expensive, some times it's simply just good food cooked well with the right ingredients.

As I changed careers over time, I kept thinking I would find a group where I fit. I'm still looking. Yes, I was the kid everyone picked on when I was little. Reading Time magazine at age 9 will cause that. But I thought at least I would fit in once I got to this stage - a college professor. Some of them are great people and quite nice as far as human beings go. But far too many are selfish and insecure and take it out on those closest to them. They also don't understand what it's like to be on a team and will quickly accuse those who are running head of not being on the team instead of it being their unwillingness to come down out of their ivory tower to be part of the team.

Back to Cluetrain Manifesto (notice that I have the word tangent in my blog description - there's a reason for that, too!). It also talks about the human communication core of the internet. I remember getting an IBM PS/1 in 1990 when I arrived at the University of North Texas for graduate school and discovered that it was probably not safe for me to stay either in the library late or stay at the office late trying to use my computer. A Prodigy (some type of connection to Sears although I don't remember what) connection allowed me to speak to strangers (before that became so dangerous) and I remember even hearing from a Kevin Woestman who lived somewhere in Oklahoma. Please note that my last name is so unusual that anyone who has it spelled the way I do is a definite relation.

During my year teaching at the University of West Florida (1992-1993), they had the computer and intranet (although not internet) much more integrated into the inner workings of the university -- including enrollment and grading. I was trying to finish my dissertation and so there wasn't much time to go back to Prodigy - or to Bitnet that Dr. Tony Mares mentioned I would really appreciate and enjoy ( I still show Salt of the Earth in my Modern Mexico and the US Southwest course because of him - I wonder where he is now. Those who are interested in two different disciplines often have a hard time of it. In his case, it was literature and history. At least today there is the possibility of a more seamless tie between history and computers.)

When I moved back to southwest Missouri/southeast Kansas to take another job, I was too busy the first year to do much of anything - even trying to recover from the dissertation. I accepted the new job, defended my dissertation, and taught summer school at UWF all pretty close together - plus graduation and my hooding ceremony.

Within a year of moving into my first home in Pittsburg, I remember having someone from the local computer company in Joplin spend almost half a day setting up my dial-up connection. This was before we had school email. We did have an internet connection and I used Lynx long after Netscape was available only because there was no internal mechanism to inform us of such things. I can remember one boyfriend getting frustrated because I was always on the internet when he tried to call. I also remember being able to read a Time magazine during my 2-hour sessions online waiting for pages to load. The instant that cable modem access arrived in my neighborhood, I paid the big bucks and have been grateful (although don't ask me to comment during outages) ever since.

At various stages of the growth of the internet and my access to it, it gave me an outlet to colleagues I had never known before. We had had a professor who made numerous hours-long (not hour, but hourS) to his home country of India and thus we had to pay for our own phone calls - even those on professional business. Typical of a bureaucracy - punish everyone instead of stepping up to tell one professor they can't do something. I also remember going up to the dept. computer prior to my having home access and being so excited when, after 30-45 minutes, I could print 3 pages of text from another academic library somewhere. Now, I still love libraries and hope I will always be able to browse shelves. But being at a relatively small regional state university, it opened up entire other worlds to have the internet.

As soon as departments had web pages, I volunteered to do ours (www.pittstate.edu/hist) even though I knew no HTML. I quickly accessed (read: bought with my own money) Hot Metal Pro and alter Net Objects Fusion to build an integrated web site (remember this was before accessibility considerations). All the click and point was definitely a lifesaver. Recent battles over standardization cloaked in terms of state mandates for accessibility have made life much more interesting on that front. But they haven't ripped down our page yet. I just went to a text-only page with one picture of Gus the Gorilla so that we maintained some identity. (Is anyone counting the tangents in this discussion? . . . )

As you can tell, I quickly notice similarities between how the computer and, more importantly, the internet, have altered the academic workplace and the "norm" workplace. And much of Cluetrain applies. The university is still an institution and thus has similar problems with promoting individualism - we won't even discuss entrepreneurial spirit. So, let's see what rules would apply to my environment - especially in light of recent events:

The 95 Theses (hum…………….Luther redux?0 start on p. xii. I'll only mention those that I can translate:

1. Universities are conversations.
These conversations, however, are often just too one-sided when professors and instructors find ourselves with students who sometimes want to be too passive (ie get the notes and go home - if they even have to bother to come to class at all).

2. Universities consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
We need to look at students more as individuals instead of specific groups - even within these groups, they act differently.

3. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.
This is exactly why the conversational style of lecturing/teaching works best.

4. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.
When you add cell phones into the mix with the internet, IRC, and instant messaging and email, the university classroom is no longer as isolated as it once was. What will happen when wireless internet access seeps into the mix?

5. In both internetworked markets and among intranetworked students, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way.
There has always been an informal grapevine among students - most notably in organized social groups like fraternities and sororities. Indeed, the internet has opened up this network to more people.

6. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.
See above.

7. As a result, market are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked environment changes people fundamentally.
Students in online classes that would not normally speak up in a F2F class often do because of their perceived cloak of anonymity. Email allows students to ask a professor questions any time of the day or night - even if they don't always understand why they don't get an instant response at 2:47am.

8. Universities do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.
Many components of the "institutional side" of the university need to take heed of this one.

9. Universities can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.
Answering email promptly or even just answering at all for some professors and university officials.

10. Universities need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.
Students will quit talking if we do not figure out how to listen. We are only part of their busy lives and we are no longer doing them a service to open the doors.

11. Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor.
One of the most challenging things for universities to do is to evolve and change - at any rate of speed at all. In general, the institution needs to be willing to task risks. the students WILL understand as long as they perceive that we are trying to serve them better.

12. Universities need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.
This was just too easy to translate to the academic world with the term Ivory Towers.

13. By speaking in language that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, they build walls to keep markets at bay.
I'm finally discovering that sometimes professors speak this way because they are scared of what's outside the walls of the ivory tower.

14. Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what's really going on inside the university.
Ditto

15. Elvis said it best: "We can't go on together with suspicious minds."
Has there been an Elvis sighting at the university?

16. Smart markets will find suppliers that speak their own language.
Online universities possibly???

17. Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can't be "picked up" at some tony conference.
Maybe we can learn this by talking to students more? There is a current over-emphasis on student reactions without actually discussing what they are really telling us. We're still only dealing with it at the surface level. In addition, there needs to be more long-term follow-up. Sometimes a 19-year-old is not the best one to discern the challenges of the road ahead of him.

18. Universities make a religion of security, but this is largely a red herring. Most are protecting less against competitors than against their own market and workforce.
Security concerns also appear in the university - while we also discover that most hacking attempts into the main system come from our own dorms. . . .

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OK, enough of that for awhile. My own anal retentive nature had me trying to go through all 95 but I think you get the idea now. And since universities move much, much slower than business does . . . .

I'm on the Chicago to Boston leg of my flight. Much to my pleasant surprise, I am not on a hopelessly small jet. there are five seats across and my seatmate tells me there is indeed much more leg room on American flights than on others. I was going to start looking into Delta flights because of American using so many more smaller jets even out of St. Louis and Chicago. But maybe not now.

My seatmate is a history professor - he noticed I had a history journal. He is an environmental and colonial historian currently at the Newberry Library on a fellowship. he has a speaking engagement outside Boston and his wife is flying up from Atlanta to meet him. He is friends with James Henretta and is currently writing a book on James Audobon. I will have to ask his name - I know I have seen some of the books he mentioned he wrote. He spent 7-9 years in administration and the last few years on leave in the spring and will go back to more teaching at Georgia Tech in the fall he says. We had some interesting conversations on technology and its use in the college classroom. He has a drawer full of CDs and wondered how many history professors actually use them when I told him about my work with Houghton Mifflin and @history (that might even be one he has in his drawer). I don't think we know the answer to that question yet. We have to make technology much more useful to professors before they will fully integrate it into their work. I did mention the dohistory.org site that allows viewers to roll their mouse over handwritten text and it turns into easier-to-read typed text.

I had forgotten that I would be landing in rush hour traffic but I should still make my dinner reservations at 6:30. I don't think the hotel is that far from the airport and I know the restaurant is not that far away - in fact, they said you could walk it in under 15 minutes but in 40 degrees at night I doubt I do that. I left 70 degrees yesterday and almost 65 this morning.

I did grab some McDonald's in the O'Hare airport - too bad the fries were cold. I thought they were busy enough serving people that they wouldn't be but they probably fry them up way ahead of time to make sure they're not caught short. Maybe people expect them to be cold?

OK, I should start working on my blog workshop proposal for Mike. I also forgot that I should have worked on my Truman paper this past week. But, I imagine Gus and I will have worked on our papers about the same amount when all is said and done. He and Karin are off visiting the new grandbaby in Denver. I collected quite a few of the reviews off of J-STOR while I was in Austin. I just did that so early I forgot to follow-up when I got back home. But I did make a big dent in cleaning up my office - now that we've been moved back for over 2 years. I think it was my way of silently protesting having to move mid-semester BOTH times. It's amazing how much you can throw away when you let a pile of papers sit there long enough. . . .

I'm not getting a nap in but that's okay, too. It will be an hour later in Boston anyway and so I won't feel like I’m going to bed at 8pm. I also leave to go out to the National Archives in the morning by 7 so I can be there by 8. Thank goodness there is a Starbucks at the hotel if all else fails. Cary emailed me back late last night and we're (he and Paul and I and whomever else) on for dinner tomorrow night. So 2 of the 4 nights are taken and Legal Seafood isn't even in there yet!