Bean counting in academia; a position informed by leaders in education and some management wisdom.

Changes in the fiscal envelope, for reasons beyond local control* have created a need to get acutely cost efficient in academia. 
*unexpected high dollar, a drop in full fee paying overseas students, changing immigration patterns,  government changes to funding study... changing government approaches on super-annuation /pension eligibility has impact on international student choices... through to building purchases, construction costs... and an election year when promises to cut taxes get made but which always comes at a cost to services such as education...

This blog post addresses fiscal prudence in education as a factor care and thoughtfulness. 

Drawing on the wisdom of leaders in education,  I begin with an invocation for thoughtfulness and a refusal to accept the all too easy approach being that of a sinking lid.
When you know you work with complexity, then you know (or should know) a single solution is unlikely to address complex concerns.

1. Get a moral compass

There's no app for that!
As Simone de Beauvoir said of ethics, it doesn't lend itself to recipes.
Work out your core business, and what's bottom line.
If you took everything out and then were thinking about what needs to be in, knowing you had a limited budget, what would you put in?
Then consider what can be kept, and what might be dropped?
Differentiate between what's essential and what's nice to have.
What's really at work here is to have a pedagologically driven curriculum, albeit an efficient one.
What's not ok is a fiscally driven curriculum where the pedagogy is secondary.

2. Value added, rather than value substraction, and the problem with bean counting*

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sorarium
*Bean counting is the consequence of a view of the world as consisting of “things” to be counted and then manipulated, rather than accepting that those involved are people to be interacted with and conversed with and responded to.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/02/18/whats-wrong-with-bean-counting/#6245935911a5

Small erosions over time eventually add up and accumulate, as was the goal on the one hand, but on the other there will be an accumulative erosion in brand, a loss in quality, a subtraction from something that took years to add up.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2017/03/counting-beans.html

If I was in the business of coffee making and made coffee with a little less coffee in it everyday, in the short term this could be ok, but do it with the number of rivets holding a plane together and a serious irreversible condition evolves.

Any subtractive method needs to be mindful of the longer term aim for enduring greatness (Fullan). And as expressed by Hargreaves,  depletion should not occur in the value base.

Not replacing staff when a position becomes vacant (sinking lid) is an easy option, but can be destructive. It's an uneven redistribution of work and can risk profound gaps as well as being a recipe for lowering staff morale.
The alternative is to nurture relationships.
If relationships improve, schools get better. If relationships remain the same or get worse, ground is lost (Fullan).

3. On how to get from here to there

Consider the trajectory, the leverage required, and the pace 
The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion John HagleyIII, John Seely Browne

Informed by one and two above:
Revisit what's wanted and needed: the shared vision
Brainstorm
Prioritise
Map out the steps required.

Value adding is also about improving on underperforming staff.
Other alternatives to sinking lids include offering options for leave without pay.

4. Gain control over the miscellaneous
aka shuffling the deckchairs on the titanic...

This is am extension on the concept of bean counting where the activities are ultimately less than needed to address a much more systemic problem.
I once worked in a hospital that took out every second fluorescent tube AND gave the dimwit a hundred dollars for this less than bright idea. 'Snuff said?
In regard to admonishments to cut the catering budget, its probably unwise to cancel the end of year function, the cost to morale is not worth it.

Photocopying:
Nov-Dec at a time when where my workplace has no students,  photocopying was in excess of $2500... 0.05c per black and white; 0.25c per colour
We could go paperless really fast.
BTW One ream of paper (500 sheets) uses the equivalent of 6 percent of a trees It takes approximately 4 tons of wood to  make one ton of paper (there's a lot of water in trees) and a single mature tree can release enough oxygen to support  2 human beings. Green Facts

Time:
In an educational setting, time is money - people's time is bought and paid for and therefore saving time, saves money.

The cost in my workplace of hourly paid teaching assistants, comes in at about 1.5 fulltime salaried staff. BUT these people are employed just as and when needed...they collectively mark something like 7000 (!) pieces of work a year. No full-time equivalent staff member can do that. Cutting this already fiscally prudent measure is not easy. Any tweaks might be restricted to being really clear with time spent on marking or the pre/mid/post marking meetings.

On the subject of meetings:
Are they needed for as long as they are? Do they need all those present?
Imagine a meeting of about 16 exceptionally well paid people. discussing cost savings, They discuss for 2.5 hours the need for the organisation to save money.
16 people x $45.00 an hour = $720
AND they do it all again a week later... $1450...
What I know is that's not working.

Exploring resistance to the needed changes:
An ANT informed analysis
For change to occur, an appreciating doe what's maintaining the current systems is needed.
While ANT can inform this aspect, it does not provide directions; a network is never fully known and there are always going to be unintended consequences. (The example from Edwards and Siddharta in the opening paragraph points to the perverse that can occur when we think we are designing for other ends. See also Latour on Design Cornwall).
First, design is not ex nihilo, there is always something already in existence, and that existence has multiple activities sustaining its current shape.
Bruno Latour: "we are enveloped, entangled, surrounded; we are never outside without having recreated another more artificial, more fragile, more engineered envelope. We move from envelopes to envelopes, from folds to folds"
When we bring our best intentions we do not come empty headed or handed.

There are 'settled controversies' 'black-boxed' as it were that  have a tendency to not be questioned, they are instead treated as standard and not noticed.

But of the settled controversies that we might pull apart, we might also consider that nothing is good or bad but that thinking makes it so. 

Untangling others from what they do may require untangling thoughts and emotions and relationships  (with things both human and otherwise)  that are maintaining what currently is.
It takes work to keep things in the shape they are, just as it takes work to change such  shapes and what is shaping.

Things done:
Value adding:
We mapped a paper that had gone from 3hours a week face to face to four hours a week face to face to five hours a week face to face.
What was shown was no increase in student success on the paper, if anything there was a small downwards trend: Doing more of the same when there's a sense that what is currently being done is not enough didn't lead to the anticipated outcome. We are cutting the course back to four hours, but also doing a content review- what do we really want and what's the best way of getting there. This saved 20% of salaries, implemented through non replacement of a staff member being on leave (saving anticipated of $120,000 in form of salary saving as well as alteration in course components).

We are going paper minimalist:
We wont be printing paper booklets, these are accessible online (saving anticipated $12,000 annually).
The mapping of grades over time will continue, in appreciation of the best intentions in design can sometimes have perverse consequences.

Attending to pull rather than push:
Sharing the dilemma and inviting solutions but with a focus on what it is we collectively aim for,  shared approach in how to  implement this with concern for prudence and care, and with concern for pace. The changes made are done in our smaller semester.

Improving communications and workplace culture with a five finger meme. Rules of engagement.

Rules of engagement in a workplace renowned for herding cats...Simple rules.


Some simple rules for engagement based on an easy 5 finger mantra:

1. Thumbs up:
Bring your positivity

Engage with shared purpose: we are all in this for a shared reason, improving on what is, or will be otherwise.

Be respectful, polite, assume the best of others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hngBzDDyFE

And give attribution where it is due >^^<


2. The index, pointing finger, or trigger finger.
Don't point at others.
Dont. Point. Fullstop.


 Make "I" statements rather than "you" statements.
Practice assertiveness skills:
The Desc script:
Describe with concrete data not with judgements
Express your concern regarding this
Suggest alternatives, seeking agreement
Convey the consensual consequences of such an approach.

3. The middle finger
Don't be rude.

image via http://charmcitywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/cat2.jpg

4. The ring finger
Engagement and commitment

Be on time
Use other's time respectfully
Follow through, accountability and responsibility matters.


Image by luv2laff(2014)

5. Small things matter:
Everyone plays more nicely when fed, watered, and get toilet breaks.
Treat people well, relationships are the only way we have to collectively move forward.
And remember other lives outside of a work-place also matters.

The last 5 minutes of a lecture

Do i spend the last 5 minutes of a lecture going backwards? Recovering the learning objectives, pointing out the route taken?
 Ive always cnsidered this the worst part of an essay to revisit the signposts instead of the takeaway points.
But its even worse when there is a rush to be heard above the sounds of of people packing up and leaving.
And its also ineffective use of time to be telling students about the assessments due at such points, this just creates a sense of panic if not doom.
On reading James Lang's article in  The Chronicles of Higher Ed on the last 5 minutes I'm amused by the story telling, my experience of reading Lord of the Rings was just as described. It had finished, but wait, there's more. And its a let down for the next umpteen pages as every loose end unravelled in the previous thousands of pages gets tightly tied off. No finish on a high, no curiousity left. Its all been sucked out.So how to put the curiousity back in to the closing spaces?

My preferance is to prompt a question.
I might have prompted an answer, but  possibilities need to be opened up.
Closure on thinking is such a horrid thing.
And, I would have thought an obvious thing in an educative setting where at least one of the challenges is to teach thinking. Albeit, this is a contested outcome of education- some would think our goal is to assist in the acquisition of content. 

Unfortunately in being eclectic magpies where we pick what works from other sectors such as selling and marketing, we conflate  education with buying and selling products. It is so much easier to say at the end of the day that I now know this and this and this, and it is also so much easier to measure such acquisitions. So we come to a Dale Carnegie way of thinking- tell them what your going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what youve told them. A process surely for treating a person as a content repository rather than someone with thoughtfulness.

Avoiding closure I take heart instead from philosophers of education such as
-->

Rancière, with provocation to thoughtfulness, to emancipation rather than dead ends.

The last 5 minutes then I dedicate to thouughtfulness, curiousity, piquing wonder...

Reference
-->

Rancière, J. 1991. The ignorant schoolmaster: Five lessons in intellectual emancipation, Stanford; CA, Stanford University Press.

The first five minutes of a lecture

I'm writing this because of the article in Times Higher Ed about the
the first five minutes
 Its a great attention seeker, but IMHO article does not deliver.

Nonetheless,  its a great provocation. So just what do you do in the first 5 minutes?
Do you, as this article suggests, return to the last session?
Personally, that does little for me.
I would rather have my attention grabbed and run with it. Given alarge part of my teaching has been about human growth and development  I am more inclined to think about what wa slife like for you when you were  5..6...7 etc
And from such imaginings just what do you 'imagine' the theories say of such times. Are they right? wrong Somewhere in between?

Up until now Ive tried to set a scene using music that relates to what is typical af the age  group discussed;
 for example
Barney and the I love you, you love me etc song for early childhood,
You have a fast car with Tracey Chapman   for early adulthood...
24 by Taylor Swift for early adulthood...
Ed Sheeran lego house for later stages of early adulthood
etc etc

 but this has tended to produce a mellow start to the session. I think the provocation to thoughtfulness may be better.

Interprofessional education; some research in progress

Building a Safer Health System (2000) documents risks associated with adverse events in hospitals in the USA. Such adverse events are not new. In 1976 Illich named such adverse events as iatrogenesis, the preventable harm that people experience in association with health practitioners. In a New Zealand study, Davis, Lay-Yee, Bryant, Scott, Johnson, and Bingley, (2002) reported an iatrogeneic rate 12.9% for those hospitalised. This involved a retrospective study of documented incidences across 13 NZ hospitals. The undocumented adverse event rate can be presumed to be much higher.

Evans (2007) reified the staggering size of these preventable events by providing the following provocative illustration: These 1500 deaths are equivalent to four Boeing 747’s crashing in New Zealand every year, a rate that is three times the road traffic death rate, and double the deaths from both homicide and suicide (Evans 2007, p. 16).[Computer generated photo of the collision. Photo/wikipedia.org]
This study set out to investigate the concerns raised with regard to communications being implicated in the preventable harm caused by health practitioners in New Zealand in current times. The safe provision of health and disability services in New Zealand is overseen by the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner(HDC).


Miscommunication is a significant contributor to iatrogenesis in healthcare practice in New Zealand.

In studying this, our analysis of complaints made to the HDC (100 complaints lodged with the HDC between February 2012 and May 2014) we found miscommunications implicated in 99 out of 100 case notes reviewed. Of particular note expanding on earlier research into communications related iatrogenesis is the multi-model nature of health related communications in current times. One third of the cases analysed involved technologically mediated communications, these included telephone calls, text messaging, faxed communications, and computer mediated communications such as emails.
However, while the technology is recognised as having influence, miscommunications do not occur in any of the reported discussions and case notes without there also being human involvement. While media representation tends to conflate what is new with also being causative, this is an attribution error.

Our findings provide irrefutable evidence of the need for healthcare practitioners to have well-developed interpersonal communication skills. The analysis also identified the need for health practitioners working with emergent technologies to understand how these technologies enhance or hinder practice. Of further significance is the amount of error that occurs involving communications between health practitioners.


Conclusions: As has been previously reported in the literature, the incidence of miscommunication within the health sector remains a serious and critical concern, one implicated in preventable deaths, as well as in the development of significant and ongoing disability, delays to treatment and the development of needless distress.
What is reported on here is an uncomfortable truth. However, there is scope to alter how communications are taught and learned by health professionals. Shifting the acquisition of communication skills from mastery of content to instead sharing a common skill set and practicing these inside of processes where we as health professionals learn to talk with each other,is but one step forward on this much needed path. This argument supports providing greater opportunities for interprofessional education, of having diverse groups of health professionals learning with and from each other rather than within siloed curricula.


References

Davis, P., Lay-Yee, R., Briant, R., Ali, W., Scott, A. J., & Schug, S. (2002). Adverse events in New Zealand public hospitals I: Occurrence and impact. The New Zealand Medical Journal, 115(1167).
Evans, S. (2007). Silence kills--challenging unsafe practice. Kai Tiaki: Nursing New Zealand, 13(3), 16-19.
Illich, I. (1976). Limits to medicine; Medical nemesis: The expropriation of health. London, England: Marion Boyars.

Interfering in Hinterlands of Discontent: Making a difference, differently

Given youth work is frequently entered into with the intention of making a difference in young people's lives, this article has been undertaken with the intention of making a difference differently. Drawing on actor-network theory, and the concept of hinterlands, influences shaping the practice of text counselling at a youth oriented helpline are discussed. This is however a contested space. There is no evidence base for such practice; but for new practices there never is. How then does novel practice come into being and become accepted? And how does this occur for people whose ways of engaging involves being neither seen nor heard? In presenting stories of practice as it is shaped there is opportunity to consider whose stories are heard and perhaps whose should be. In uncovering relations that would hold this particular practice more and less stable, scope is also provided for considering how making a difference might also be done differently.

Introduction
Realities get made for better, or for worse, in practice. That some people’s realities might be made better or worse through the provision of a helpline service draws attention to the practices provided. Taking Law’s stance that practices always demand effort (Law, 2009) and therefore that such effort might be channeled otherwise, I argue for making a difference differently in the lives of young people.


Haxell, A. (2015). Interfering in Hinterlands of Discontent: Making a Difference Differently. International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation (IJANTTI), 7(2), 30-40. doi:10.4018/IJANTTI.2015040103 New Zealand (hereafter referred to as Youthline), provides a 24/7 crisis helpline for young people, and has done so since 1976. With recent changes in mobile telephony their helpline hardly rings anymore; young people still have problems, and Youthline continues to provide help through this helpline, however, to a large extent, this now occurs silently. Mobile telephony provides us with more options than making a phone call, and as with any technology, those who would make use of a technology as well as the work that would be undertaken, are simultaneously being reconfigured. That work predicated on talking therapies would shift to a near silent medium, and one that places extreme limits of brevity on each interaction, was not an anticipated outcome in the provision of a text messaging service. The expectation that was described in the launch of this service by Youthline, was that this service would be a portal to the telephone helpline or to the face to face counselling services Youthline offers (Simpson Grierson, 2004).

There was no planned roll out of this innovative practice such as diffusion of innovation studies might suggest (see for example Rogers, 2003). Nor was it the result of reflective practitioners actively seeking a solution to named and framed problems (see for example Argyris, 1997; Argyris, 2004; Schön, 1990; Schön & Rein, 1994). And while a community of young people could be described as having influence on the changes that occurred and which continue to occur, this was not the outcome of a group of people coming together to effect change; the young people making use of this helpline never met to share ideas on the shape of the service. For these reasons it would also be wrong to name this as a user-initiated consumer innovation (see for example van Oost, Verhaegh, & Oudshoorn, 2009). The use of text messaging was initiated by Youthline, albeit, with an expectation that texting might provide a means for young people to contact the service when they might not otherwise. Texting for young people, at least in New Zealand and at least in these times, is very much the commonest way of reaching out when at a distance (Office of Film and Literature Classification and UMR Research, 2010). Youthline’s provision of a text service at least in the form of texting being a portal to other services, was a considered response to the ways in which young people were relating. To attribute such changes to a disruptive technology (see for example Bower & Christensen, 1995) would, therefore, also be wrong. While this change has occurred for Youthline, the technology has not resulted in texting being widespread in similar services, not even by other helpline services that this organization helps to staff. Attempts to explain this in terms of contextual determinants (see for example Schatzki, 2002), are similarly flawed. With the context of same staff and same building, and even same-target population, the unique phenomenon of a silent helpline is accordingly worthy of further exploration.

However, more than curiosity is at stake here; the practice of providing a texting service is one for which there is no evidence base for practice (EBP). How then does an organization justify new practice? How might it be known as to whether new practice is “doing good” or at least that it does no harm? And if a practice is to make a positive difference for people, what might be needed to support such difference making? While there is no evidence base for this particular practice it is also worth noting that for new practice there never is. This provides a conundrum: how can practices evolve when tied to measures developed in a past? In wanting to be responsive to current demands how is this space of past and present to be traversed? The current article explores these concerns through use of the metaphorical construct of hinterlands.


This article is available at

Haxell, A. (2015). Interfering in Hinterlands of Discontent: Making a Difference Differently. International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation (IJANTTI), 7(2), 30-40. doi:10.4018/IJANTTI.2015040103

actor-network theory and blogging

I found myself at Patter (Pat Thompson's blog on a post on blogging, and while smarting from a hopeless #acwrimo month where promises made did not get adhered to I found myself writing a response about writng on blogs. Next year I think i will promise to blog in #acwrimo, it might free me from guilt beceause on the blog I write without 'overworking the paint', as it were.

My response to Pat Thompson's account was:

Blogging is not 'one thing'. It's writing and as with any writing, it can serve many purposes.
It may be scholarly, or not. It may be the testing the waters of interest, exemplifying academic literature with local examples.... For myself its a playful space where i do not sweat the small stuff, or if i do, i sweat it less. Writing in a less confining space (than an academic journal or a book chapter) my blogging is a bit like art- its not been overworked. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes not.
But i find myself wanting to write here such a long response....i am now going off to my own blog to construct a more fullsome response...
In my doctoral writing it was the thoughtful space somewhere between my data and the word.doc called the thesis, and also somewhere between my exploring how others in my field write and my finding my own voice. In my academic life, it again serves multi purposes: it's the space I can q-code to for conference posters, it's also the space i go to for inspiration and engagement with self and with others.

In noting that for me the blogging intent is about engagement and not habitus I begin to differentiate a theoretical underpinning in how I blog in contrast to Pat Thompson's Bordieu inspired understanding of a Blog.
A space then for a Latourian analysis, because the blogging space has me writing differently than the journal or chapter writing spaces. It also has me writing differently than i would in a notebook. The blog becomes an actor of influence, and when in 'her' presence my writing is engaged with differently.
In the blog space I can try out a new idea (Latour and blogs).
I can connect other actors; and refer the reader to Austin Kleon's book titled "steal like an artist".
(Freeing myself from conventions of propriety, I segue from what Pat has identified with Bourdieu and blogs and align instead my analysis to my own preferred theoretical underpinnings)
Actor-network theory and blogging would have me looking at the social life of the text, how its shaped as well as shaping others; and with my engaging with the medium, how the medium engages with me. The push and the pull of it. And inside of this is the push and pull of identity work- i write differently here than there...I am a different Ailsa here than the one who authors academic journals. (And so the network deepens and broadens, a passing reference to Lucy Suchman (2007), Karen Barad, Judith Butler, and into a more distant past to Simone de Beauvoir - for what I am is made in association). And in referring to these other authors I feel like an alchemist, drawing in the threads both of time and of spaces (networking garlands in time as Latour once beautifully described citing Serres). A blogging space is a space to gather in.

my favourite powerpoint/presentation advice sites

• A colleague asked me for advice on presenting  so i shared with her the library  i have accumulated on delicious and which is replicated on diigolet. These sites allow me to bookmark a web site every time its useful and tag it with a lable such as powerpoint. The joy of such spaces is to also see what others in these spaces also are tagging as relevant.
  
  
  
  Presentation Zen: Felix Jung's Pecha Kucha presentation Tips
  tags: presentation pechakucha pecha kucha ppt
• Your prezis | Prezi
  tags: presentation prezi presentations ppt powerpoint
• Seth\\\'s Blog: Really Bad Powerpoint
  tags: presentations presentation powerpoint ppt
• Seth Godin's Presentation Hierarchy
  tags: presentation ppt powerpoint
• Garr Reynolds/Presentations
  tags: powerpoint presentation ppt
• National Museum of Australia - Audio on demand - Bendable learnings
  tags: media language literacy ppt
• Gettysburg Cemetery Dedication
  tags: ppt presentations technology media powerpoint
• Enemy Lurks in Briefings on Afghan War - PowerPoint - NYTimes.com
  tags: presentations ppt communications technology education media powerpoint
• TBS very funny - The Daily Flog
  tags: presentations ppt presentation powerpoint
• Presentations: Stop Death by PowerPoint
  tags: presentations ppt powerpoint
• think:lab: I Can See Clearly Now (And I'm Smiling)
  tags: presentations teaching ppt powerpoint presentation
• think:lab
  tags: ppt

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Are we there yet? After submtting journal articles, what happens next

Having completed a commitment of the postdoc writing scholarship (3 articles/3 months), what happens next is acceptance, rejection and something in between.
Having submitted 3 articles, one nationally, two internationally plus a conference paper, I looked forward to what others would make of them.

Article one; I thought this was the easiest of my papers. It was a descriptive and hopefully (so i thought), a persuasive account of new practice.
What came back was a thankyou letter.
"The subject matter looks very interesting and ground-breaking.
Thank you too for ensuring that (named organisation) has approved the submission of your article.
We will send your article out to two referees in our double blind review process, and we will be in touch with you
as soon as we have their feedback.

They appeared to like it. I have heard nothing more.
This journal publishes only twice a year. The closing date for submissions for its June publication has only just passed. I chose the journal because the information i present is local and contextually based. Letting others know of whats available locally, how and why it has evolved was written with the intent of local impact on practice. I owed it to my participants to have their knowledge shared locally as a priority.


Article 2; conference paper. This was the most fun one to write. It pushed boundaries on layout and language.
It's a provocative piece.
What came back was an automated acceptance of submission.
Then a few weeks later some more detailed commentary: very positive on form, and some concern on its function.
Under "Changes required for acceptance":
The paper is intriguing and innovative in form but isn’t centrally focused on xxxxx. It really deals with research issues and how to report research ...
Detailed comments
We really like this paper and its bold, playful style. A couple of points for addressing:

1. The focus is methodological, to do with research dissemination, and that is itself a useful contribution to the conference: however, as stated above, it would be good to see more linkage ... connections are currently left unstated.
2. This links to our second point, ... we’d like to see a bit more on the project here as a way of grounding the theoretical/representational work of the paper.
And, as an aside, rather than a requested amendment, the author makes it a bit too easy for the reader not to engage with the txtspk paratext: s/he might include a final sentence or two which is txtspk only, and deny us the comfort of the translation.

For this particular audience, the changes requested were well deserved,: relate it more strongly to the conference.
This was done and it has been accepted.


Article 3; An advance on article 1 for an international audience. Its a better article than article 1; i had mulled it for longer and read a bit more.
What came back was an automated acceptance of submission.
Followed two weeks later by requirement of further anonymity- remove names of ethics boards, remove name of organisation where the study occurred.
Followed by acknowledgement of the resubmission and it being sent for peer review.
10 weeks later the peer review feedback is received, and is very positive:
"The reviews are in general favourable and suggest that, subject to minor revisions, your paper could be suitable for publication. Please consider these suggestions, and I look forward to receiving your revision."
This is followed by commentary from the editor pointing to what seemed contradictory: dramatic use of prose- nonetheless liked by the reviewer and by the editor, but noted as unusual in (this) journal publishing.
The area of emotional support versus counselling, one reviewer and the editor hold the view that helpline work is not counselling but is emotional support. Change the words used.
This is then followed by the detailed feedback of the two reviewers.
"An excellent and timely paper"
develop the relevance section more, persuade reader of what they might do/apply (fair comment, but can i do it in the word count?)
From the other reviewer:
One of the points i thought i had made insufficiently persuasive. (S/he is right).
Clarify term: reference to a PDA, even when also written as a personal digital assistant, needs describing further.
More detail of how to actually do this new practice, how tensions are resolved, a more operational account wanted.

Getting back to this article, so much later, is difficult, my time is dedicated to other things.
I finally got back to it, some 4 weeks after receiving the feedback, checked with the editor that this was ok, for the life of me i could not find where it was written that i have until May.
8 pomodoros later and some peer support, and i have made all the changes requested regarding change of words, describing the PDA, and some deleting in anticipation of making a little more space for readers to ahve more info about what they might actually do.

Article 4.
Received an automatically generated acknowledgement of receipt. Followed by a polite, supportive rejection letter.
We have pre-reviewed your manuscript and decided that it is not a good fit for xxxx. Although the paper makes some nice observations, and we appreciate your efforts, the manuscript as a whole lacks the clear focus and solid grounding in the literature that would be necessary for it to make its points effectively. For this reason we feel that it will not be of significant interest to a broad spectrum of xxxx readers.
I was not too surprized. I felt i was rushing it, I also felt it was more a show and tell rather than being suited to the theoretical stance of this journal. At some point i need to select a better space for this one.


I am feeling positive about the peer review process.
Its been a good thing to have some expert knowledge and academic focus on the content of what i had written of. While having had excellent feedback previously from my PhD supervisor and fellow peers on the PhD journey, I had not yet had feedback specific to the content rather than the process of research.

Here's some other expert advice on peer revew from the Emerald Publishing group
It really is great that others have taken the time to look at what i might do better. This article also provides a format, and example, for responding to comments so the next submission post revisions might be itemised.

And some advice on phrasing rebuttal of comments made in the peer review.

And from Springer publishershttp://www.springer.com/authors/journal+authors/journal+authors+academy?SGWID=0-1726414-12-837830-0 a similar request for a covering letter to address the points raised, and for the tone to remain respectful.

If feeling somewhat deflated on having to resubmit or even resubmit elsewhere, take heart, here's some research that suggests more citations occur for resubmitted papers, though seemingly counter intuitive, it provides a reasonable argument that the process of rejection is making better articles than those accepted on a first run.
Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2012.11583
Discussed here

post phd writing

I committed to writing 3 articles in 3 months, with my phd university having advertised writing scholarships. I hadn't taken this up imeediately on handing in the phd because at that stage of not knowing if it had passed, my voice was stifled...so was my energy and creativity, but 6 months after gearing I had passed was perfect for me and fortunately my phd uni was re-advertising these.
My own workplace uni i then had to negotiate this time with. My inline manager was very supportive figuring it was a win for them also, so all my teaching time (just about) was bought out. Juggling my other roles continued.

I achieved 3 articles and a conference paper done in 3 months 3 weeks. Thanks hugely to my phd supervisor, and particularly also to my friendship with Anne a colleague that shared the phd student and post-doc writing journey.
It still involved late night writing, my time management never seems to stay within 'normal working hrs'.
And now they are coming back to bite me post the scholarship time with changes/amendments.
Still it was an excellent opportunity, I cant imagine being so productive without the impetus of the scholarship committment having driven me.
Success at this was also made possible by undertaking 4 writing retreats across this time, one with two friends from my phd at a distance student days with fellow phd journeyers Anne and Heather at a hired bach in Waikenae on the Kapiti coast north of Wellington.

This was just before starting the post doc scholarship so i used it to read Heather's copy of Thomson and Kamlers book on writing for peer review journals. There is now an ebook version, but at the time i was waiting 3 weeks for my own copy so had photographed pages from the copy borrowed :)
This was followed by a work-place organized writing retreat of 5 days at Waiwera,30 mins north of Auckland,not quite so good- workplace conversations intrude. At this one ai slavishly attempted an article in the 5 days, done but dull and deservedly got the feedback from my phd supervisor that I had vanished in it, my own voice gone..rewrote it over the following 10 days.

I then did one a month later with Anne at her family's bach at Waimarama, about 3/4 of an hour south of Napier. Particularly challenging, and surprizingly advantagious to have no internet, sms could be achieved halfway along the beach if desperate

but also working within the constraints of charged computer time with a dodgy generator made for extreme bursts of concentrated writing alongside enforced thinking time.
Then at the beginning of the third month I did a further writing retreat with the Tauhara academic women's writing retreat. Well structured with small group work for 4/4 an hour each night that could edit or do a sustained conversation on one's 'work in progress' plus optional hr sessions on things like first sentences, last sentences, pomodoros,, and at which myself another colleague also introduced Thompson and Kamler's tinytext method of abstract through to article writing. Excellent role models/resources to call on, and lunch and dinners catered. Well balanced time between writing, getting feedback, creative writing, and fun.

The timing for this was good: end of academic year so minimal teaching load to escape from, and summer 'holidays' when amendments can be considered in an unrushed way.
Some time with a colleague online via skype for pomodoros and also at a uni library with another colleague in the week before Christmas got things done.
Other useful learnings along the way; formulaic writing does not work for me (or perhaps for anyone?). The book by Thomson and Kamler writing for peer review journals was useful, providing the confidence of a tinytext where i could check what i was doing was meeting the 'needs of editors' but it was an error on my part to skip past the section on voice. Rewriting with voice greatly improved the writing i was doing.
However there is no silver bullet, no paint by numbers solution and writing a journal article in 7 days defied my best intentions. Writing 3 in 4 weeks was more doable. This one was one of the resources i accessed on the women's writing retreat, I know Ive looked at this one before but didnt consciously use it this time around, Writing your journal article in 12 weeks
Mapping out potential articles in advance and revisiting it during the writing was also useful so i would not be repeating myself in different venues and so i could sustain the momentum. Choosing journals was something i became more comfortable with as my 'voice' altered and as i became more conscious of the spaces those articles i liked were coming from.
And Marianne at the Tauhara retreat was beautifully grounding in pointing out the cinderella ness of trying to put a thesis into a journal article and how hard if not impossible a task this was. Loved the empathy.
The other success to be gained from the scholarship was in confidence gained.
The feedback gained so far extends this, there is nothing as sweet as getting real feedback saying things like:

"We really like this paper and its bold, playful style. A couple of points for addressing..."

Ehara i te mea

Feeling quite touched that YL acknowledged my doctorate today, fo rplacing Youthline into a stronger position from which they can move forward.
These lovely people who were so willing to share their stories with me, their openess and honesty in disclosing what they hoped for, feared, and worked to create; while they do the work, i got to tell their story and i get a doctorate off their work...
They asked me if i had a favourite waiata, So i chose ehara i te mea

This love it is not a new thing,
but is a taonga handed down by those who have gone before,
from one generation to the next

Ehara i te mea
Nō nāianei te aroha
Nō nga tūpuna
Tuku iho, tuku iho

Te whenua, te whenua
Te oranga o te iwi
Nō nga tūpuna
Tuku iho, tuku iho

Whakapono, tumanako
Te aroha te aroha;
Nō nga tūpuna
Tuku iho, tuku iho.

Not the thing
of recent times, is love
but by the ancestors it has been
passed down, passed down.

From the land, the land
comes the wellbeing of the people;
by the ancestors it has been
passed down, passed down.

Faith, hope
and love;
by the ancestors they have been
passed down, passed down.

#acwrimo (academic writing month) day 5

Today my goal is to work out how to use scrivener. I've known other tweeps rave about it, and popped it on my to do list post phd.
I'd glanced at it before but it had seemed not quite intuitive at the stage i was at in my wriitng, I suspected it was more prepatory oriented than useful most of the way through a big project.

My intention: writing this months journal article and/or for organizing my research wriitng ideas for the coming year

First step started googling scrivener, for a paint by numbers guide on how to write a journal article using it
Found nothing that simplistic in 20 mins.
Have since st myself Scrivener as a series of pomodoro sessions, as i am really feeling avoidant of writing at the moment. Might be why Im investigating the software....but half a day dedicated to this and i assume i will know if it will suit me.

First pomodoro:
Found some descriptive accounts.Skim read them
Posted on #acwrimo my intent to use scrivener for the month, and got guided to the thesis whisperer.
Have now downloaded the free trial for a month.
and posted here.

Five pomodoro later
Ive worked my way through the essentials of the free scrivener download package.
Seems it has an ok template, which i can adapt for writing a paper.
Seems it does not do the scoping that I thought it might do.

Finding voice as a writer

I would never have completed the second journal article in two months had i not finished the month with a writing retreat.
What changed?

Talking with Anne.
I was able to clarify what i hated in the article I was writing.
Hearing myself saying it, I could now follow cj's advice: write an article i would want to read.
The world does not need more dull articles.
Snapped the shackles locking me down.
I dont have to pretend to be a dissociated writer. If painting i would be telling myself dont have to stay inside the lines.
Im still finding my way on this, but there's a bit of a transformation happening.

The other significant change was an absence of internet. I'm really glad for my endnote library in that i have articles there, and reasonable notes about them, taht makes retrieval efficient.
I know also had i had internet available, id waste time searching for who else said something rather than trusting my own thinking things through.
The tiny bits that needed follow up could be asterixed and returned to when i had internet. (These areas i fixed inside of 1 hr)

A further contributing factor was an extremely dodgy generator at the bach we were at. Day 1 was good, but days 2 and 3 and 4 would give short bursts of generator; at most 30 mins at a time...then id write frantically till i ran out of juice...then forced thinking and planning or resting time. Couldnt have planned this. But it felt very pomodoro like.

And the company and the setting were great. There were hills that could be climbed. no. sea to swim in. no. beach walks yes. cafes no shops no.

The article is now finished.

I had thought (since i had not taken it with me, and because i abandoned the plan after the first draft of a "tiny text" that Thomson & Kamler's (2013) book on writing for peer review had not worked for me this time (similarities to a previous article kept blocking me)
I think i had missapplied Thomson and Kamler's work trying to turn it into a paint by numbers style ... (my error, not theirs i hasten to add).
However, what i found on reflection was:
I did attend to voice (the first half of their book
I revisited the overall balance of the article, adjusting the front load so there was room for my argument
And I attended to 'the take home message'.
Hadnt realized at the time how much of their advice I had absorbed.

In the last month Ive had an article sent for a conference, and an article written. Ive read some books on getting ideas known. And Im now going to go back to these, they have a style i find inspiring.
so Im 8.5 weeks into the 3 month writing scholarship, Ive produced 2 articles and a conference paper.
Ive read one book about how to write academic articles for peer review and two popular writing books that present ideas.

My next goal, to move the writing into the future, as Im feeling a bit locked into the past.
I've #acwrimo dedicated for this.

Reference
Thomson, P., & Kamler, B. (2013). Writing for peer reviewed journals: Strategies for getting published. London: Routledge.

Academic journal writing and post doc writing angst

Either i, or the article i struggle with are not made for a 7 day plan. Four days later and i have made progress, but not without huge angst.
The article has writhed and refused to settle.

I have undertaken further reading. Usefully.
I now have a better consideration for where this article is going.
It will not replicate the prior one.
It will not be the prior one with a variation on examples either.
Its evolved a little further, and its exploring through examples a little more detail if the therapeutic relationship as experienced by young people.
Retrospectively that is so easy to say. A week after i thought i had it mapped, i now know where it is going,
This is no paint by numbers but an organic process that until i have written, i have very little knowledge oof where it will go.

I suspect to think otherwise is to be quite seriously deluded.

I am now at 2000 words of a max 60000.

They are so much better structured though than when i was last near this point.

Seriously htough, this is a self torturing endeavour and I wonder where the joy of writing has gone.

I know the conference paper was fun. I also now that ifI had not made commitments I would have blown this particular article off.

1 day down; 6 to go. Publishing a paper on a 7 day plan.

That was a productive day; the map got written; the writing flowed.
Biggest hurdles were in finding examples not previously used, and in updating the background to NZ ers and their predilections for texting.
I learned an oddity along the way:
In 2011, the NZ Commerce Commission identified that NZers make phone calls versus sending texts at a ratio of 1:10
Youthline receiving calls actually sits at 12% when compared to the number of text messages they work with.
This suggests young people do actually make contact with YL by phone calls at a higher rate than they might use for their other interactions.

Hurdling is not my preferred past time.
Writing at this rate of knots still feels really time pressured.
I like that Gladwell describes to 10,000 hrs rule for practice to proficiency, it suggests the more I write the better i will become at it.
I live in hope.
Meantime I know that 10,000 hours of me jumping hurdles is never going to make me a hurdler....and that telling a goldfish to spend 10,000 hrs climbing trees will never result in that happening either...There is, of course, critique of Gladwell's assertion.
The difference might be i actually like the art of writing, of being so focussed, and of word-smithing...

In just 7 days: My muse returned and its time for another peer reviewed journal article

At least that's the goal.
However the intent does presuppose prior work; being on a post-doc writing scholarship I have a thesis to draw on.

After a month that needed some time out to graduate, and in which I also produced a conference paper, I'm back ontask.
Yesterday produced an abstract and the first 500 words of the article.
I also rewrote my own table to follow based on Thomson and Kamlers (2013) writing the abstract as a tinytext that provides the mindmap/roadmap for the article. It's here for anyone interested:

Todays goal: write the tiny text by midday.
The alternative would be my prior habit of writing me a river that meanders and has banks put in afterwards (afterwords) that would be really really time consuming and suffer from a plethora of messages as I attempt to address everything for the reader.

Opening those flood gates has me putting on some music...Louisianna 1927, Original by Randy Newman,
I prefer it sung by Marcia Ball....music to muse by.

http://youtu.be/p4NNM5IaoB8

Finding my writing mojo; writing through writer's block

Ive tried to enter into this months task: one journal article per month.
Instead I wrote a conference paper. Ok. Then went to my own capping. Ok. And thenwas meant to start writing.
I have looked at the two abstracts i had scoped. they are OK.
And IVe not progressed them.

So whats going on?
Tired of writing? A possibility.
The last conference paper was exceptional fun: bilingual in txtspk and plain speak. And now the pedantic holds so much less interest. A possibility.
The paper to write for an international audience rather than the NZ journbal- written once, writing twice has lost its appeal. Its a formal starchy space.

So what have i done. Ive turned up for work to write. Ive allowed distractions.
Ive turned up to work again, and stared at it, toyed with it like a plate of broadbeans gone cold.
Ive revisited some chapters on writing.
Ive read some articles i could think to emulate.
Ive talked with cj. This was a good option.
I have spent today reading good writing; or at least the type of writing i would rather read.
I still have a niggle that this is procrastinating, however it feels a whole lot better than self flagellation.
I have a suspicion writing from a space of self flagellation is pretty ineffective.
Might as well try the more fun approach.
Today ive completed 6 pomodoros of reading. I finished a Gherardi article

Gherardi, Silvia. (2010). Telemedicine: A practice-based approach to technology. Human Relations, 63(4), 501-524. doi:10.1177/0018726709339096
on telemedicine- it structured an argument around things not totally intuitive and then analysed the data to the structure.

Ive also read some more accessible type of reading:
Cowen, Tyler. (2013). Average Is over: Powering America beyond the age of the great stagnation. New York, NY: Dutton Adult.
some good ideas about artificial intelligence through to Turing test, that could lend itself to fears of technology and working alongside technology, strengths identified in the hybrid relationship similar to Latour and Haraway

And am now reading Gladwell- though I started with a web page on what makes Gladwell such a good writer at http://qz.com/132669/heres-why-everything-malcolm-gladwell-writes-is-so-compelling/
And the one idea thing is strong in this, take one idea and exemplify it through the storytelling. This is something i hope to work with.
Gladwell, M. (2013). David and Goliath: Underdogs, misfits and the art of battling giants (Kindle ed.): Penguin.
And there is scope for finding the number one idea , theres working with weak ties, the counterinutitive success made possible because of distant-presence, visibility counterpoised alongside visibility, being heard silently...

In between i also signed up fro #acwriMo, a writing commitment for November.
Did housework- fixed the vacuum cleaner and vacuumed.
And put out at least one workplace fire.

Now to keep reading Gladwell's David and Goliath, hoping to get my mojo back.

I just rechecked the writing scholarship and am feeling less troubled. My conference paper was identified on it as an outcome, so this wasnt a distraction after all.
And my goal which was accepted did not specify the dates of completion as per calendar month, hence my fear i wont have one done by months end may be a little premature. Will just settle in with the plan and keep trucking along.

Post Doc writing scholarship:3 articles/3 months

This is a midway point in my writing scholarship from Deakin University.
To recap: the scholarship was based on a propsal of three articles in three months, I had scoped some abstracts and identified appropriate journals for sending these to.
The first month, I rewrote the plan, and included a conference paper (published in proceedings as additional to the plan.
I met the first months deadline, albeit with some angst around (re)finding voice.
In the first week of the second month I wrote the conference paper.
In the second week i took a break for capping; I am now back.
And struggling.
Ive put on my favourite writing music (Norah Jones) hoping to find my muse.
Ive made an online commitment with a study/writing scholarship buddy, to Pomodoro the day away.
And Im following the Barbara Grant advice of writing about whats stopping me writing; also hoping to find my muse.
Wish the damn muse was less ethereal today.
skimming Howard Becker: "reading this book will not solve all your writing problems. It will hardly solve any of them. ...no one can solve your problems. They are yours.

well aren't i the lucky one, eh?

Taking a turn then from ...Steven Brookfield... on academic imposter syndrome, i can at least try faking it till i make it.

I know whats stopping me. The task is like a mountain and i dont want to climb the hill, but there's a deadline.
I know that there's drudgery. Ive done the article i owed my participants and my site of study. And Ive done the conference paper that was fun. Now there's just chopping wood and drawing water to quote a Zen saying. Academic labour to quote Thompson and Kamler (2013)

There's an inkling of hope. I have yet to hand in anything dull. It might start that way, there's some formuleic processes i can work with.
I have a couple of abstracts to work up.
One bite at a time
Turn them into tiny texts, and let them latch on to me (hopefully, my energy will rise more in proximity to one or other of these) So its back to T&K and the tiny text road mapping to build up the abstracts as a road map and ensuring the movements of Swales "CARS" gets addressed in the article. (for more on CARS: http://sdsuwriting.pbworks.com/f/u33+CARS+and+STRATEGIES+materials.doc )

Todays goal, relates to How to eat an elephant; one bite at a time. Today I need do no more than map the article.

The 7 day wonder; a paper completed

After two exceptionally late nights and also getting up today at 4.00 AM the paper is written.
I have only to print and edit, and then after duplicating it, try out some stylistic layout options.

No i did not stay up all hrs just trying to meet a self imposed deadline of the 7 day wonder of a paper write, the deadline for the conference paper was yesterday. I have an extension till monday but since i am catching a plane tomorrow, I need to send it today.

I am still unclear on the how to write a journal paper form this edition of a conference paper.
T&K's book writing for peer review does mention conference papers but pretty much only as a water test for the journal. They are also very direct in saying if your going to write a paper , write it as a journal article. It being easier to have that specific brief in mind...guess its easier to scale down to an audience than up???)

The conference paper is a bit exegesis, a bit avant-garde.
Next i may also be sourcing journals that are in to radical.
I also suspect the journal version could do with a bit more local contextual stuff about the use of text speak...then again if the stylistic stuff saves me more word count space, i may add some of that.

And I still need to make a decision what article to complete in the 3 weeks post the trip away.

I could live in hope that my having done this one inside the time i set, is that my writing is getting faster- or it could just be the lack of outside eyes on it...or the heavy deadline imposition...

Seems really working at a tinytext is good for me in clarifying where its got to go structurally.


Postscript; a lack of internet at the apartment meant the feedback on the paper from the symposium generated a day of working on it while overseas. Its looking good though, always wanted to do a split page as per Mol. Now i have one. Also the argument moved as i wrote, had an inkling of staying true to form and therefore justifying the txtspk, but during this a more persuasive argument than the aesthetic emerged. Looking forward to the feedback.

Writing a paper in 7 days; day 4

Day 1 instead of starting the writing, had me revisiting an abstract already accepted, writing another abstract for next months paper, and writing a writing plan and sharing it with my supervisor via google docs.

Day 2 seemed to be totally absorbed with recreating the tinytext- whereby an abstract provides the roadmap for an article,
it took 2 days, it took longer than it should have; it was unbalanced.
The structure Thompson and Kamler suggest of "Locate, focus +- anchor, report and argue"
I had a huge front end locating the research; establishing its territory.
Perhaps this shouldn't seem so odd, what i am writing is quite odd and requires significant justifying.
The focus though was almost absent. I was pretty much all over the show:
- was this about the data in my thesis and how it got to on of my many conclusions (young people being maligned because of their use of text)
- was this about the article being written, a performative turn in txt spk
And decided the focus was really about collateral damage; collateral damage whereby 'we' continue to perpetuate discrimination by not allowing other voice (txtspk) to be heard. Hence the new reading required as my thesis had not addressed issues of identity and oppression and language in this way.
The anchor (not always essential unless entering into specific discourse/s) has me address this calling principally on actor-network theory (ANT), (John Law and collateral realities) and 'the performative turn' in ANT, but Ive been having to do more reading (Judith Butler identity formation and excitable speech, and others such as Linda Tuhawai Smith and Kumashiro regarding decolonization and oppression)
But I'm really not feeling strong enough or well enough read in those areas to do more than point to the fields and say this sits alongside.
The reporting has involved pointing to how txt language gets positioned, and how it then positions those who use it. Being performative, the paper then becomes its own report...a demonstration of text speak used to talk of the non trivial.
The argument becomes one of challenging what is 'othered'' and our own 'othering'.

However it also took a while because I was rewriting the abstract , both in English and in text spk.
Oddly i found myself recrafting the language, nuanced to NZ txt spk- yes it appears to be different to what transl8.com provides :)
And also oddly, while i word craft my english for look,canter, syntax, prose... and i found myself altering the txt spk differently - they are not identical, word by word translations differ! The look on the page makes me choose different words. And txt word choices also differ. No one writes "unnecessary" when texting; the words chosen tend to be simpler- its "not needed".
Then having a minor meltdown of how would i ever achieve the writing goal for the month.
Telling myself intellectually that last month would have been impossible if i had seen what wss coming, so this month- knowing what was coming- must be a bonus!
I then went through my calendar cancelling everything i could.
And set up my email autoreplies so i didnt have to feel bad about turning people down- upfront stating i would be writing october- november so unless a repeat email with urgent in the title line..." . Not being a speaker of foreign languages i never quite understood how word for word translations never really work, nonetheless this surprised me and was probably wasting time.
But for getting the tinytext sorted, the abstract needs to be sorted, and this made for a bit of a time absorbing black hole.

Then there is my artistic concern for what comes first, an English or txt spk version...
Still not totally sure, could be all in one version then the other, but which comes first...or could be an abstract then a txt abstract then article then translated article etc etc... and ideally it would be written in 160 character bites , the size of SMS...but at present I am just staying with paragraphed prose.

It is taking a while because this paper is less about 'reporting' but is a performance...so not sure if T&K's writing for peer review journals lends itself to this so readily.Plus i might be trying to do too much- write it for a journal and for a conference...it may be that this is something that suits conference (due date is 2 days away for submission) versus the journal article (scholarship condition- end of the month).
How to do both had me twittering with Pat Thompson (a very generous woman) and going back to their book- another section i skimmed but pages 170 is about this - in bold..."Never write a conference paper, always write a draft of the article that will be submitted for publication". Still think more was needed on this regarding how conference papers can be drafted and how they actually are nuanced differently...

Day 3 converting the already large introduction, locating this paper in a literature, finding its niche, posing the issue... into the first couple of pages of the article. This morphed (segued nicely) into the focus of collateral realities...

Day 4 collateral realities and doing difference differently...


So thats the content stuff above; meantime there's process stuff below:
Cant sleep, its 5.00AM, so Im up blogging about my writing, and reading the pages from T&K's book re conference paper vs article...
Am feeling anxious still about the months goal= 1 conference paper and one journal article.
Then having a minor meltdown of how would i ever achieve the writing goal for the month.
Telling myself intellectually that last month would have been impossible if i had seen what ws coming, so this month- knowing what was coming must be a bonus!
I then went through my calendar canceling everything i could.
And set up my email autoreplies so i didn't have to feel bad about turning people down- upfront stating i would be writing october- november so unless a repeat email with urgent in the title line...or unless i want to look, i wont be responding...

At the end of the month though I will be doing a writing retreat with a friend...wondering if beginning of month are better for these as its getting the stuff sorted that would reduce anxiety better.
Then again, last month started with a writing retreat weekend, and a week later a further 4 days of retreat. But it was the end of the month with seriously rewriting the paper that felt frantic.
Really wishing my writing could be efficient hence the intention of 'the plan',
as next week Im off- time to get capped for the phd which means a short sojourn in Melbourne :)