Category Archives: Study

In praise of Evernote

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Image result for evernote

 

With just a few weeks until my final version of my PhD research proposal is due I have been reading frantically all the while petrified that I will forget something important. Since commencing my research journey nearly 3 years ago I have read hundreds of journal article, book chapters and newspaper articles. How do you remember what’s important?

I have always been one for writing it down, as simply reading it doesn’t seem to get it into my head. Revision used to see me renoting all my work. I have followed a similar approach to my reading for my research but as I am reading information today that I might need in two or three years time, how do you make it logical and more importantly able to be found?  Continue reading →

Explaining myself

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Just over a year after retiring from my firm I attended the Annual Retired Partner Dinner. It was  my first as a retired partner. I walked into a place that I’d known so well for over 20 years but this time as a guest rather than a host. It felt quite strange. I was greeted by my former partners as a guest, no longer as a colleague. I was no longer an insider, this wasn’t my place anymore.

This was definitely a “What’s Next” moment.

I certainly hadn’t gone “cold turkey” on my old firm. I had been in contact with a number of people since but for those who I hadn’t seen there were the inevitable questions. What was I upto? What had I been doing?

Cefalu

Cefalu, Sicily

I talked about our  travels  and then there were questions about whether I was consulting on boards etc?

This is where all conversations seem to head. The assumption is very much that after a career in consulting that I’d continue but in my case I haven’t. For me the process of “What’s Next” was reaching the decision that consulting was not a key part of my post professional life.   Sure I have a couple of consulting roles, but really I had taken  the student route and I definitely feel most comfortable  with being described as such.

As the conversations over the evening continued, I said that while I’d loved my time in professional services that I was now really enjoying being out of it and being incognito. Continue reading →

What streaming service to listen too

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If you were a regular coffee buddy of mine you’d already know that my life runs on music. You’d also know that I am in the first year of a PhD program that follows on from completing Honours last year. My study has been fueled on coffee and a lot of music. I estimated that I listened to more than 20,000 songs during my Honours!

So as we catch up on coffee I’d ask you what are you listening to and how are you listening to it? I’d get into the specifics and quickly I’d get to my current dilemma – Apple Music or Spotify supported by a Pandora. You of course were expecting the topic of conversation over coffee to be on the US elections and its impact on us in Australia!

Before you had a chance to change the topic I’d continue with my topic telling you pandora-thumbprint-862x647that I like all three. I’d quickly explain that I see Pandora as a great companion to my mainstays of Spotify and Apple Music. Pandora is easy as the music is selected for me and with the best part of a thousand Thumbprints Pandora makes listening easy.

However if I want to listen to something specific Pandora’s greatest asset, that it does it all for you becomes a problem, so its off to either Spotify or Apple Music.

I’d explain to you the history of how a couple of years ago I moved from iTunes to Spotify. As I transitioned away from CDs I’d found iTunes an easy way to carry all my own music with me.  This was because I had downloaded my hundreds of CDs to my iTunes Library via iTunes Match. That way my CDs were available everywhere on my iPod, particularly with the work travel timetable I was on at the time. About the same time as my iPod froze for the last time I also  decided that buying CDs from the almost nonexistent CD Stores in Adelaide was no longer satisfying as they didn’t have the range and with that I moved to Spotify.spotify

It was initially a bit  of a hassle finding what I liked but I got used to it and at the same  time Spotify got better. As a Premium user, that is I pay for it, I was able to download music so I could listen offline solving a dilemma of listening while traveling which I was still doing. Continue reading →

So it’s been 6 months and where am I – my PhD

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Menotti’s Coffee Shop -Venice Beach, LA

I have just submitted my first milestone document in the PhD program at my University; a document that took many weeks (months actually) to prepare that I doubt will ever be be looked at!

The document is a compliance step, due 6 months into the program. It is the first of two important milestones along the way to moving from being provisionally accepted into the program as a PhD candidate.

My lodged (and I suspect now filed completely unread) document  included a

  • basic Research Proposal  (which has raised more questions with me than it has answered),
  •  Gantt Chart of how my PhD journey will look (my I have a lot to do),
  •  Data Management Plan (I can’t tell you how often the message of back up and safe storage has been rammed home. It’s a message I don’t need having nursed my laptop with a failing hard drive to the end of my Honours Program), and
  • minimum resources document (the minimum resources the Uni will provide – generally pretty good including unlimited fast internet access on campus, 24/7 IT support and I think the world’s only steam powered desktop – it’s still running Vista!).

The  process while procedural provided me with the opportunity to order my thoughts and get feedback from my supervisors. Continue reading →

Diary of a Slow Traveler – Conference trip to California

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This morning was our last coffee with our daughter before we depart for a quick trip to the USA.

I was successful in having the paper I wrote based on my Honours Thesis accepted into two conferences in California. I was so surprised as it never occurred to me that a paper based based on Honours Research would be accepted into a leading management conference. it made the time spent reformatting it whilst we were in Siracuse very worthwhile.

My desk - Siracuse, Sicily

My desk – Siracuse, Sicily

 

 

 

 

My research area was Small Family Wine Businesses, For some reason this was of interest to the organisers of 2 conferences and not just me, my long suffering supervisor and 2 very generous examiners! It gives me some hope that my PhD which I expect will extend this research may also be of interest to others.

In recent weeks the pressure has been on to get take my paper and convert its content into 2 short presentations. No easy feat I have to say and confirms one of my favourite quotes

I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one instead     
– Mark Twain

My original thesis was about 20,000 words and the conference submission reduced this to 8000 and now my 2 presentations Continue reading →