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We all aspire to have better ideas, to be more innovative and creative in what we do. Let us consider ideas in their smallest form, hunches. Often, the things that turn hunches into breakthrough ideas are combinations and collisions with other people’s hunches, the collisions of smaller ideas leading to greater ones. In the past, the great driver of scientific and technologic innovation has been the historic increase in connectivity. Our ability to reach out and exchange ideas with other people, to share and borrow their hunches and combine them with our own to make something special.
I was, until recently, a Twitter virgin. Shameful, I know, but for all my Web 2.0 wisdom, Twitter had long seemed like a strange, foreign land, full of tweets and hashtags, trending and linking. Friends of mine would sometimes travel there, even perhaps choose to stay, but when they invited me along to the wild climes of the Twitterverse, I would politely decline. After all, I reasoned to myself, what could I possibly say in one hundred and forty measly characters?
However, when I started my PhD back in October, I soon began to hear of a strange twist on the Twitter game. Some people, it seemed, were using it to promote their research, and – shock horror – it seemed to be working. I heard stories of people finding jobs, opportunities, and connections. But still I kept my distance from the Twittersphere, always wondering in the back of my mind whether it wasn’t time to get involved.
In the end, all the encouragement I needed was a Wolfson Research Exchange workshop, run by the veritable foundation of experience that is Charlotte Mathieson.
The workshop was split into two halves, a practical session to get us onto Twitter and tweeting like pros, and then a discussion of the possible uses and issues of this exciting new toy. Signing up for Twitter was simple, and after a few clicks here and there, we were all soon taking our first 140-character steps. Soon I was following everyone whom I had ever met or remotely heard of, academic or otherwise, and tweeting my every thought, which usually considered of something like ‘I’m on Twitter. Woah.’ Of course, Charlotte is herself an avid Twitter-er, with, at my last count, just under forteen hundred tweets, so she knew all the tricks and shortcuts. Seen something you want to pass on? Retweet it. Want to squeeze in a link to a webpage? Shorten that URL. I soon found myself gleefully using hashes, probably for the first time outside of an automated telephone service. #ifinallyunderstandwhatthismeans
After a quick break for tea, coffee, and further tweeting, the group sat down with Charlotte and Peter Murphy to exchange our thoughts on and first-impressions of the strange world of Twitter. The biggest theme was how to best utilise Twitter to help our own research, disseminate our ideas, and get in touch with those people who would want to hear what exactly we were up to. There were some simple tips here: make sure to tweet regularly, to keep things coherent, and perhaps most of all, follow if you want to be followed. In the end, we all felt that Twitter was just a new form of blogging, with many of the same advantages and risks. Some people asked whether there was any danger of having their ideas stolen, perhaps one of the nightmares of the hardworking research student. Others raised concerns about the time needed to plough through the many tweets floating around, not to mention devising your own scintillating contributions. The problem of balancing the personal and the professional was another worry discussed. Ultimately, it was a case of practice and discretion. Twitter is a great tool, but it can be easily abused. Done properly, however, it’s a gateway to a new and exciting way of networking. Your next collaborator, inspiration or mentor might be only 140 characters away.
Since the workshop, I have found myself wandering through the Twitterverse with relish. Quite simply, there is a whole world to discover, and I personally have only scratched the surface. Perhaps my biggest problem has been finding things to tweet about: whereas with Facebook I was recommending videos of cats and commenting on the weather, Twitter was different. Here I actually wanted to give my avid followers (nineteen so far, not quite the fourteen and a half million who follow social critic Kim Kardashian) something to think about, some proper academic sustenance. After a while, however, I realised that it was really about reflecting the ups and downs, ins and outs of research, about creating your own narrative of PhD life. That might sound a little heavy: in the end, Twitter is really just a way of chatting to the world, and if the world thinks your research is the best thing since bread came sliced, then so be it. Tweet, tweet away. The Twitterverse is waiting.
Oh, and by the way, just sayin', nudge nudge wink wink, you can follow me @ThomasBray12, and even better, you can follow the Research Exchange @Researchex. #averygoodideaindeed
We discussed how companies enforce punishments or fines inorder to make employees follow rules, to make them wear a helmet or shoes for their own benefit. That is when my trail of thought went onto a completely different line. Is it more effective to give an employee a warning or a punishment inorder to make them follow a rule or a reward?
Do punishments actually make the employees realize the reason the rule is being enforced? Do they see how they company is looking out for their own benefit and hence make them more loyal to the company? I personally have no work experience but I am familiar with the concept of punishments. In school I remember my math teacher would make us recite tables. 2*2= 4 etc etc.. When someone would get it wrong he/she would have to write the whole table 100 times in their notebook. That did not make us love our teacher or the subject in any way.. It only made us pray to god that the teacher would not come to class at the beginning of each day. But now that i think back, why was she teaching me how to multiply? For my sake!! so that i pass school and come to warwick! but it took me alot more than 5 years to start appreciating her efforts.
On the other hand when teachers would bribe students with the incentive of a games period or a free class or even a piece of candy, I remember how hard we would work on our homework and recite anything and everything they wanted perfectly.
A company which bases its rules on rewards would also ultimately have happier employees and which company doesnt want happy employees!! Also the employees would appreciate and respect their seniors much more than I did my math teacher!!
With the taught half of each AS:MIT, Systems and MOAC complete, I feel now the perfect time to reflect on the past half year.

Coming into AS:MIT the main thing I was told was that it would be intense, I believe similar synonyms were used to describe the other courses. On hearing this I drew comparisons to previous experiences; my degree, balancing a job and social life, and the word began to lose its meaning. Little did I know that I would lose that balance, quicker than I pushed my account into my newly acquired overdraft just three years ago as a young fresher.
With home time and the end of the day wondering how they grew apart so quickly I soon found my ‘free’ time haunted by unfinished work, impending deadlines, or merely knowledge of the timetable. Effective time management became a necessity, with procrastination no longer an enjoyable past time, but bringing on a facepalm with a wonder of why I hadn’t yet matured beyond this.
Modules were introduced, taught, learnt, examined, then replaced by new modules, and the cycle began once again. But with little time to adjust, or indeed rant, you take it in your stride, and with interesting work and great teaching, alongside new friends the week is soon over, providing you with the weekend (two days untimetabled).
With my project now starting my days are reaching a new equilibrium, and a better balance is being regained, though somewhat like an overweight gymnast. But any twist to the structure of my average day is always welcomed and I look forward to this next page.
Writing about web page http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01g4vv1
I listened last night to the BBC's new radio production of Twelfth Night, starring David Tennant, Ron Cook, Naomi Frederick and a host of other fantastic actors. I'm not going to offer a review, as I can't claim to particularly like or enjoy radio drama. It did, however, force me to ask a couple of questions of myself regarding how I experience the form.
Quite simply, I struggle to see what people get out of the form. I have always held up my hands and admitted that my interest in Shakespearean performance is in staging. The language is, of course, an important part of that, but the dialogue is contextualised by blocking, proxemics, expression, visual elements, audience response etc. While I have no objection to a purely auditory experience of listening to actors speak Shakespeare's verse, I don't personally get a great deal out of it.
Further, on the basis of this production and others I've heard, I'm concerned that radio productions of Shakespeare tend towards the most conservative possible reading of the play. The use of sound effects throughout evoked in me the impression of a 19th century theatrical production, obsessed with accuracy of set and setting - to the extent that, at the end of the gulling scene, Malvolio and Fabian triumphed in the garden; and then there was a quick break, the sound of a door slamming, and the clowns arriving back at the house to congratulate Maria. Throughout, the aim appeared to be to create the impression of a lived, naturalistic setting, yoking the play to real places rather than the fluid spaces that characterise early modern drama.
The performances were fine. I particularly enjoyed Tennant's growling Scots Malvolio and Cook's belching, slurring Sir Toby (reprising a role he's played very effectively on stage, of course). But the medium appears to me to appeal to the most ingrained, obvious readings of characters. I can understand why purists might enjoy this kind of drama - what it does do is focus attention on the text, and forces actors to work with the humour of the words rather than, in the current RSC fashion, inserting crotch-grabs and fart jokes as easy cues. Still, I long to hear a radio production that does something truly extraordinary with a play, something that innovates rather than consolidates.
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