Starting a Project with Zero Resources

I have been given hints to this the last few months, but I'm finally moving forward with a new blog and book project on goal setting and productivity.  It seemed like I had a set of impossible requirements for this project and that's why it was floundering for so long.  I have no money to put into it and no time to devote to it.  Yet, I want a highly successful, highly ranked blog and a blockbuster book.  Impossible?  It may seem that way, but I found a way.

So, how did I find the time to write?  I didn't.  I hired a writer.

But didn't I just say I had no money?  How can I afford a writer?  I can't.  He's agreed to work on commission.

Luckily, the guy I'm hiring has such confidence in my ability to monetize his writing, that he's willing to work without getting paid up front.  Boy do I have my work cut-out for me to realize his expectations.  But he's also going to skin me alive if the money does come in, so he judged it worth risking his time early for the payoff later.  What's best, we both win.  We both get richer by this arrangement, and both realize our goals.

Yes, I need to put time into organizing the management of the project and marketing of the blog and book.  But depending how quickly we can start making money, I might be able to outsource some of that as well.  But with my new house settled, my new job going well, and my family happy and healthy, it was time to get this project under way.

3 down - 2 to go

In this my 300th post, I'm going to do a little happy dance.  I just received news that a 3rd article of mine this year was accepted for publication.  Only two more to go to reach my 2012 goal.  With two additional articles already under review, two articles over 75% complete, and several new projects in the works, I feel like a research rock star. 

What's even better, I am getting to the point where I can read my own research and objectively evaluate its quality.  It's a great feeling to be able to critically evaluate it, identify problem areas, and know how to fix those problem areas.  Pretty soon, I might actually be good at writing.

This summer my time will be split between up to 3 research projects.  That's not counting any time I may throw at a revise and resubmit should one arise.  Today, I'm working on Evaluating Information Systems Ethically: A Case for Objectivism."  My goal is to finish and submit this article by the end of May.  My social media project is also a top priority for me.  Although, we're in a holding pattern waiting to hear back from a potential sponsor.  Depending on how these two projects go, I have a third project in ethical decision making I can work on as well.

Thinking Your Way to Productivity

The popularity of Getting Things Done (GTD) system may have as much to do with its focus on efficient thinking as anything else.   The breakdown of conscious, slow, deliberate thinking is paired with subconcious, fast, inspirational thinking such that each process is performed at diffferent times and with different goals.  But when done in the proper order, leads to effective results.  The steps in GTD bare a striking resemblance to how Ayn Rand described the most efficient writing process in The Art of Nonfiction.  She broke up the steps to writing into clear functional processes that best utilize your conscious and subconscious thinking. Brainstorming what to write about is largely a subconscious and emotionally driven process.  Once a topic is decided, the conscious process begins with writing the outline.  Once the outline is completely thought out, Rand recommends letting the subconscious process take over while writing the content of the article, letting words flow from your mind on to the page without limiting yourself.  Lastly, Rand recommends a thorough edit, reverting back to a fully conscious process.

In many ways, the steps in GTD are similar.  David Allen recommends breaking your thinking up into descrete steps such that conscious and subconscious processes are in full effect at appropriate times.
While filling your inbox throughout the day, you are letting any brainstorm or inspirational idea that strikes you be saved for further review.  This process is subconcious oriented.  In fact, Allen strongly suggests spending zero time consciously thinking about the ideas - at that time.  Then, once or twice a day, Allen recommends you clear your inbox by engaging your conscious thinking - considering what to do each and every item in the inbox, identifying how to classify each item, breaking down projects into sub-tasks, and evaluating next action items.  The rest of the day is then spent performing tasks, which if fully thought through, should become more subconscious oriented where inspiration and flow drive your actions.  That's not to say all of your actions should be fully subconscious or emotionally driven, as there will likely be many times when completing tasks will require thoughtful, conscious engagement.  But by breaking projects into next action items, it is possible to fly through each action item with less deep concentration and fewer distractions because some of that thought has already been accomplished.  Lastly, Allen recommends a periodic review, which again engages the conscious process to evaluate whether you are still on track (or not) with your long term goals.

It would be interesting to discover if there are more similiarities between productive achievement and the deliberate usage of different thinking processes that best take advantage of each process's strengths and avoid each process's weaknesses.

Measuring productivity

One of my 5 year goals is to improve my productivity by 20%.  How will I measure success with this goal?   Well, the most obvious place to start is with my other two goals in Research and Instruction excellence. 

How to measure research productivity?  I could measure the number of publications per year.  I can always crank up the number of hours devoted to research.  But that does not mean I have increased my productivity.  It definitely means I have increased my time commitment, but it must be done at the expense of other values.  I consider productivity as output/input, but for me, my input is primarily time, so we can simplify productivity as output/time.  To improve productivity, I either have to increase my output in the same amount of time or decrease the time it takes to output the same amount.  Output in this case can include both quality and quantity.  My options:

1. I can improve the quality of my research - measured by publications in higher quality journals.
2. I can improve the quantity of my research - measured by the number of publications.
3. I can reduce the time it takes to complete my research - measured in the time spent researching.
4. A combination of all three.

If my current rate of research productivity is 1 average article a year, I can improve that by publishing more often, publishing higher quality articles, or continue my current publishing objective with less time invested.  While my university has certain expectations for publishing (at least 5 articles prior to tenure), I am not letting that be my benchmark.  Rather, I picked this university because their benchmark coincided with my already selected goals.  Up until recently, my thoughts were on improving on the third option, reducing time.  However, I came to a realization that the best way to reduce the time was to learn how to write and research better.  To do that, I need to consider options one and two as well.  So I have started a new research project aimed at a high quality journal.  My expectation are that the knowledge and skills learned from working on this project will help me reduce the time necessary for subsequent projects.

Instruction excellence was also an interesting.  How should I measure productivity in instruction?  For me, the output is similar to research.  I can:

1. I can improve the quality of my instruction - measured with current conceptual understanding and long-term rention. 
2. I can improve the quantity of my instruction - measured with my reach to more students.  If I can extend conceptual understanding to more students simultaneously, the more productive my instruction efforts will be. 
3. I can reduce the time to prepare the classroom environment and evaluate results. 
4. A combintation of all three.

How can I measure conceptual understanding?  Perhaps the best way is by their ability to write about the concepts, which unfortunately is difficult to track over time and very time consumming.  A new possibility, which I have been exploring, is using concept maps.  If concepts map evaluation can be automated, that will alleviate a major time hurdle.  My focus at this point is on the first, improving quality.  However, I am looking at the third optoin as well so as to enable the second.

IT business value density

While struggling today with an article I'm writing on IS evaluation and Objectivist Ethics, I integrated two ideas that have been on my mind lately, IT business value and value dense living.  If value density is the principle that individuals should seek to maximize values gained from their actions and resources by rationally evaluating synergies across goals and objectives, then IT business value density would be the principle that organizations should seek to maximize values gained from their IT resources and IT activities by rationally evaluating synergies across business goals and objectives.  I believe this concept would help to explain a number of issues in IS evaluation literature, including the productivity paradox, IT infrastructure investments, IT infrastructure flexibility, IT adoption and diffusion problems, and political issues in the evaluation process. There are probably more issues to discuss, but this is just a start to my brainstorming.  However, I can see enough value in this concept to warrant a massive review article for MISQ.  It would require a ton of work and would likely require a co-author or two.  But the reward would be immense.  And all of these issues can be tied to Rand's theory of ethics - at least I see the road map in my mind, I just need to translate it onto paper.

While this could be an exciting paper, I'm struck by the notion that I would virtually have to scrap my existing IS evaluation paper to write about this new concept.  But then again, I'm struggling with my existing paper because I lack a clear take-away.  As one researcher put it, there has to be a "so what?" moment.  I don't have that yet.  And I'm hesitant to put forward half baked article because other researchers will immediately pick up on that and slam the article (as they should) along with possibly Objectivism and me (as I do not want).  So unless I can find my hook soon (other than IT business value density), I may have to put the current article on hold and divert my energies elsewhere.

The Art of Nonfiction

After reading about 3/4 of the way through the book, I can safely say that The Art of Nonfiction is the best writing advice I have ever heard.  It has filled all the missing links in my knowledge of how to write, enabling me to be a successful writer.  I still need tons of practice to perfect those skills, but now I understand the "why" for many of the best practices I have learned over the years, such as how to outline, how to write a first draft, and how to edit. She articulates the role of both your conscious and subconscious minds in writing and how to tap each at appropriate times for maximum effectiveness.  She discusses common writing problems (I have my share) and how to overcome them. 

While I don't apply her suggestions much to this blog (because I write more extemporaneously here), I have noticed an impact in my research articles I'm writing.  And if/when I start writing books, theses skills will provide the foundation for completing the books effectively.   The Art of Nonfiction is a book I will have to revisit often over the coming years to remind myself how to be a good writer and to avoid pit falls that many writers succumb too.  I highly recommend it to anyone that writes any nonfiction. 

Yep - I'm on track

I've started using ActionComplete for the Web and Android to much success.  ActionComplete complements the Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity methodology.  In this app, I have created tags for all of my major career and personal goals.  I try to tag every project, activity, and idea with at least 1 tag.  This provides me with a means to quickly review my goals to determine what I am currently doing to accomplish them.  Because I had some down time between prepping for class and lunch, I did a quick review to see how well my day-to-day activities match these goals.  Here's where I'm at:

My three career goals:

• Improve productivity - Only 1 project currently, focusing on improving my writing skills, with associated activities.  Because writing has a big impact on my research goal, its a great syntheses project.
• Research - 9 current projects (3 active) and consuming most of my time.  In part, my overemphasis on this area is because I'm playing catch up.  But I'm starting to get where I want to be... which is good.
• Instructional excellence - 3 projects - 1 dealing with my current class, 1 pushing me toward advanced skills, and 1 for class this fall.

Personal goals:

• Home maintenance - There always seems to be something here and will probably stay that way as long as I live in a home. 
• Financial independence - Long-term, I would like to achieve a state of passive income that allows me and my family to enjoy life without major financial limits.  I have a couple projects in the works now (like selling our house) and some larger ideas that I may try to implement in a few years (like writing books or starting businesses).  
• Build relationships - While my relationships are important for me, I don't currently have a project or many activities designed specifically for this.  Generally, I treat this as an ongoing habit, so there is nothing big I want to accomplish at the moment.  But I may want to brainstorm projects and activities that help facilitate relationship building, especially after we move.
• Health - Again, no current projects.  I try to eat well and workout occasionally, but I have no major projects and only occasional activities marked in my to-do list.  I've considered running in a 5k or training until I can break a 6:00 mile, but nothing definitive yet.  I hope to add some emphasis back in this area after we move.
• Personal happiness - Basically, my everything else list.  While all of my other goals bring me personal happiness, this tag is applied for any other project or activity that I enjoy. Our move to NC meets this category quite well.  

What a great way to live consciously!

What should I write about?

In the second chapter in Rand's The Art of Nonfiction, she discusses choosing a subject or theme.  This chapter covers a number of topics, but one had the most impact for me - write about something meaningful to you, but within your context.

What should I write about?  First and foremost, I should be interested in the subject.  It should have meaning to me.  Two of my most popular posts on this blog were written on subjects that were extremely meaningful to me, Writing 5 Year Goals and the History of Information Systems.  Both topics had been on my mind at the time and the content just flowed out of me.  They perfectly fit within my context of knowledge and were high values in my life.  I enjoyed the process thoroughly.

Recently, however, I found myself struggling to complete a research article.  With a little introspection, I realized it was because my motivation for the subject had died.  It was no longer meaningful to me, even though I was capable and willing to finish it.  Luckily, I was able to inspire myself in other ways to finish it, but only after I identified my issues with motivation.  This is a good reason to finish a writing project as quickly as possible, because after time, your natural progression of interests may evolve and move on to other areas.  When this occurs, procrastinators will be left with a number of unfinished projects and possibly a dissatisfaction with the direction of their life.

On an email list I belong too, a number of bloggers noted a similar recurring problem.  They would create a list of great ideas for blog posts, but only follow through on a few of them.  This is not so much a problem with the bloggers, but with the list.  The list did not keep up with changing contexts and interests.  The post idea that sounded great today, may only be moderately interesting tomorrow, and old news by next week.  If a blogger did not finish the post immediately, there was danger that it will never be finished.  I have deleted a number of half finished posts from my queue for that very reason.  There may be different motivation level too, if I were getting paid to write.  But I'm not, so I might as well cut out the uninteresting as quickly as possible and move on to what really inspires me.

The Art of Nonfiction, Chapter 1

I identified three important concepts in chapter 1; 1. Non-fiction writing is a skill, 2. the goal of writing is clarity, and 3. writing problems can be overcome.

Non-fiction writing can be systematically improved through focus and practice.  While there is some debate as to the extent creativity can be learned for fiction writing, non-fiction writing does not depend on creativity.  As such, learning how to improve the skill at which I write enables me to communicate more effectively.  This makes since, as I spent 12 years in school learning how to write more effectively.  I only wish they had made the purpose of writing more explicit.  Writing can also facilitate capturing my thoughts, allowing me to refer to my ideas at a later time.  As my capacity to think improves, so does the necessity for appropriate skills to translate those thoughts unto paper.  As my thoughts become more complex, my writing should reflect that using more complex sentences, more advanced sentence structures, and a larger vocabulary.  When I go back and review my writing from college, I already witness the evolution of my writing skills.  Unfortunately, they have not evolved enough.  Hopefully, the remaining chapters of this book will help with this process.

The second concept from chapter 1 was that the goal of non-fiction writing is clarity.  At one point, Rand states that similar to fiction, where the three most important elements are plot, plot, and plot - in non-fiction, the three most important elements are clarity, clarity, and clarity.  Clarity exists on a continuum.  If I were to write gibberish, obviously no one would understand it.  As I learn to organize my thoughts on paper, the level of clarity should increase.  The optimal goal is to write as clearly as possible for maximum transfer of the communication message.  This does not mean that the recipient will listen to the message, but that is their problem, not mine.  My goal should be to make my message as apparent and complete as possible.  When writing, I should assume I am writing for someone of equal intelligence as myself but without my knowledge of this topic.  Clarity should come from improving my writing skills.

The last take away from chapter 1 is that problems with non-fiction writing can be overcome.  They should not be seen as faults with my self or self-esteem.  As with the two concepts above, I am in firm agreement.  In fact, the idea that writing problems cannot be overcome is rather foreign to me.  One of the reasons I started this project was because I firmly believe that they can be (and should be) overcome.  But apparently, there are other people who struggle with writing and then blame themselves as somehow inadequate for the task and incapable of improving.  Its hard for me to relate to that mantra in my own life, but I should be cognizant that my students could fall victim to that belief.  Now that I reflect, I do know students who claim they are incapable of learning how to program computers.  That idea is categorically false.  It may be harder for some students to learn how to program, but like writing, programming is a skill (a skill very similar to writing itself) and everyone can learn it.

How to Improve my Writing

I've completed my outline of study for my project in improving my writing.  The best place to start is in a review of my study methods, particularly reading.  For that, Study Methods & Motivation by Ed Locke is where I start.  Then, a general overview of non-fiction writing is in order, so The Art of Nonfiction and The Brief Holt Handbook are next on the agenda.  Lastly, the applied discipline of academic research will be reviewed, where Writing in the Discipline and various academic articles in MIS should complete my study and engender further integrations.

1. Study Methods & Motivation

• Reread Chapter 3. How to do Abstract Reading, Chapter 4. How to Do Abstract Integrative Reading, and Chapter 5. How to Identify and Designate What is Important
• Identify a plan of action for improving my reading skills

2.  Brief Holt Handbook

• Review basic language terminology and rules by skimming chapters 2-14
• Review my writing over the past few years and identify common grammatical errors I commit
• Identify a plan of action to avoid these errors in the future
• Edit all academic articles with lessons learned.

3. The Art of Nonfiction

• Read every chapter
• Write up a summary of each chapter
• Write 1 op ed
• Write 1 book review
• Edit all academic articles with lessons learned

4. Brief Holt Handbook, again

• Chapter 1 and Chapters 36-40
• Compare with Art of Nonfiction - write a comparison article
• Write 1 op ed
• Write 1 book review
• Edit all academic articles with lessons learned

5.  Writing in the Discipline

• Read Preparing to Write Research, Developing an Argument, and Writing in the Social Sciences.
• Compare with Holt and Art of Nonfiction - write a comparison article
• Edit all academic articles with lessons learned

6. MIS Quarterly and Information Systems Research

• Review articles published in the past 5 years (particularly Best Paper awards)
• Identify common formats and styles
• Write a blog post on these identifications
• Edit all academic articles with lessons learned
• Identify a plan of action to continue to improve my writing skills

These six reading assignments and various writing assignments will make for a heavy workload this summer.  With selling our house and moving, I may not be able to complete everything on this list.  But I at least I have something to push myself into being the best writer that I can be.  I should, however, be able to make a large dent into this project over May and June.  July will be mostly consumed with moving.  I may find time in the evenings, if I'm not too tired.  Then, I have have just 2 weeks in August before returning full time to academic requirements.  I would also like to spend some time during the summer learning some advanced web techniques, so occasionally, I may put this project on hold.

What are you doing this summer?

Next week, final will be done and my summer vacation officially begins.  I do have one class to teach in May-June, but its one I've taught before so it will require minimal time and effort (8-10 hours per week).  Unfortunately, I'm not quite as ambitious as Phineas and Ferb, but here is what I'm going to do this summer.

My number 1 project this summer - Move to North Carolina.
That's right - for those of you who haven't heard yet, I have accepted a position at East Carolina University as an Assistant Professor of Information Systems.  This move will likely be our last for a very long time.  So my primary goal for the summer is managing our move and handling our house.  While ideally we will sell our house, the market in southeast Michigan is horrendous for sellers.  So there is a distinct possibility that our house will not sell.  In which case, option two is to rent it.  Either way, we have lots to keep us on our toes.  And then, when move time comes, we have to finish packing, drive cross country, and settle into our new home.  Lots and lots of stress, but worth it in the end.

My second most important project this summer - Improve my writing skills.
I consider myself an okay writer, but not great.  What I lack is the capability of writing fast and with high quality. Too often, I find myself writing a blog post or a research article that upon review, contains numerous mistakes and/or poorly worded sentences.  When I attempt to edit these mistakes, I rush through it, leaving additional problems.  With practice, focus, and feedback, I am confident I can improve my skills in writing.  The Art of Non-fiction by Ayn Rand, Writing in the Disciplines, and Brief Holt Handbook will guide my study.  Blog posts and research articles (I have two in mind) will provide material for practice.  And hopefully I can work with various friends to perform copy-editing on my completed materials (I will pay if you are interested).  As our budget allows, I may follow this summer project with an effective writing/communication class.  Eventually, I would like to write a book or two, so the better my skills, the greater the payoff!

My third project this summer - Improve my skills in advanced web development.
I am still debating between PHP and ASP.NET.  One the basics of each, but have not actively built websites in a number of years.  Whichever one I choose, I want to experiment and improve my ability to create new, slick, high quality websites quickly.  If I focus on PHP, I will probably combine that project with learning the content management system called Drupal. Perhaps I will even create a web site for making a little money on the side.  There is also a 9 hour video on learning Flash sitting on my desk.  Watching those videos and practicing some Flash programming might be rocking good fun too!

So those are my plans.  What are you doing this summer?

Reading and Writing in Information Systems

Edited notes from the Writing Across the Curriculum workshop.

Purposes for writing in our field

• To inform
• To record thoughts
• To communicate problems/solutions
• To document ideas/work
• To plan

Genres of writing in our field

• Documentation – technical & user
• Diagrams and mockups 
• Reports
• User manuals
• Meeting minutes
• Message boards
• Blogs
• Email

Audiences for IS writers

• Clients
• Users of a system
• Other IS professionals
• Management
• Self

As an IS professional, what are my reading purposes

• Learning new skills and knowledge
• Integrating ideas from multiple sources
• Conducting literature reviews for research
• To better understand requirements
• Enjoyment

Kinds of documents I read

• Business books
• General IS books
• Technical books
• Research articles
• Web sites
• Blogs
• Trade publications

Strategies I use for reading

• With blogs and message boards, I scan headings to find interesting content to read
• With books, I tend to read in depth
• With articles – depends on context, but often skip to parts of interest.
• An over arching strategy I use is dedicate time slots for reading.  This is done to minimize distractions and allow better focus and comprehension of material.

The Difference between Novices and Experts

Edited notes from the Writing Across the Curriculum workshop I completed recently.


Write down 3-5 qualities of effective writing in your discipline

• Unique or fresh perspective on an issue
• Well structured
• Good use of evidence to support claims

Write down 3-5 qualities of effective student writing

• Error free
• Well structured
• Logical arguments
• Broad understanding of an issue

Compare the two lists.  What stands out?
Since students are novices (not experts), I generally expect them to be developing the knowledge and skills of topics or issues, but not necessarily bringing a fresh or unique perspective to the topic.   Especially in a field such as information systems, with detailed technical knowledge necessary for professional work, the emphasis in an undergraduate program is on developing the knowledge and skills of programming, networking, data modeling, analyzing systems, designing systems, security, etc.  While some of the more advanced students can bring fresh perspectives, that level of integration of ideas is beyond most students.

My typical writing process

The following set of posts are my edited notes from the Writing Across the Curriculum workshop I recently completed.


My typical wring process for research articles: 
I generally start with a research proposal.  In this proposal, I start with various research questions that have a common theme, perform a literature review of the area, develop hypotheses, design the method for answering hypotheses, and identify analysis to be used.  I generally seek some feedback from other academics at various points in this process, either one-on-one or at conferences.

Once I am satisfied with the proposal, I conduct the research and analysis.  With the results, I complete the paper, by adding discussion and conclusion.  Then its back to editing, editing, and more editing.  Lastly, I start the publishing process.

According to WAC, the stages of writing development:
Prewriting (brainstorming, planning, outlining, lists, reading and reviewing other successful approaches to writing in a genre)
Drafting - Free writing, writing sections/chunks, fill in an outline, audience
Revising – restructuring arguments, adding/deleting sections, rethinking, and rewriting
Proofreading – spelling and grammar checks, reading carefully, having someone else read it
Publishing – sharing the work with an audience
Reflecting – helps writers to analyze their own writing process.

Why do I write?

The following set of posts are edited notes from the Writing Across the Curriculum workshop I recently completed.

Why do I write?
My writing usually consists of 3 goals. 
1. To publish my thoughts and/or research about a topic of interest
2.For clarity or to receive feedback from other friends on my thinking
3.To advice and/or instruct others

Do I enjoy writing?
Yes!!!  Considering I was not a strong writer in high school or college (more math oriented), its surprising that today I enjoy the process of writing so much.  But I attribute that to my realization that it helps me think through problems.  The process of writing forces me to articulate my thoughts in a systematic way.

What makes writing fun and/or challenging?
The challenging parts to writing are my lack of skills at quickly writing something well.  I did not receive the type of training in writing that I wish I could have had.  So grammatical mistakes often plague my early drafts.  When I’m done with drafts, I often want to publish before I completely edit my work.  Unfortunately, poorly edited writing does me no favors.