I successfully defended my prospectus this morning! So now, according to the university and the Communication Studies department, I am officially ABD. Hooray.

Now I just have to write that pesky little paper.

This isn’t work or research-related in the slightest, but I just found out that I get to help conduct exit polls for the upcoming primary here in Texas!

It’s a very interesting time for national politics in Austin and Texas. Senators Clinton and Obama are debating on campus tonight (not that I - or anyone I know - got tickets to go, but still), local media outlets are just buzzing with the excitement of such a tight Democratic race, Texas actually plays an important role in the outcome of this primary, etc… I find it very exciting.

So I get to be there as all this is happening in two weeks, talking to people and gathering data they’ll report on all the major news networks. Neat!

A reader posted this question on Fast Company’s website, and though there are only four responses so far, everyone has said yes. Huh.

Update: I didn’t have time to elaborate any on this before, but I can now. I am not at all surprised that people check their Blackberries while with their families or friends. But I am a little surprised they admit to it so readily. I would have expected a social desirability bias in people’s responses; isn’t it bad to work when you’re with your kids? That’s what TV says anyway.

Looking at their individual responses is a bit more revealing - the four responses use language like “need to stop that” and “wow I have no life.” So maybe these people are comfortable telling the world they check their Blackberries while with their kids, as long as they admit that it might be a bad thing.

I wonder what kids think of Blackberries and their ilk. When I was little, no one had cell phones, especially not my parents. Do they mind that their parents keep their Blackberries around all the time? Do they think their parents are important or cool? Do kids want their own Blackberries?

Finally! I’ve seen these types of arrangements in other cities, but nothing quite like it here in Austin. Until now, at least. LaunchPad Coworking will open this summer, and provide the sort of community workspace those of us who work from home sometimes want, when we just need to get out of the house and be around other people. It’s more than a coffee shop and less than an full-time office. I love this idea! I think that some days, all I need to get my creative juices flowing is some interaction with like-minded others. Being around people who are excited and working hard inspires me to be and do the same.

From their blog:

LaunchPad Coworking is a place for independent workers, telecommuters, business travelers and office escapees to join together and work smarter. Carefully designed as a collaborative workplace with a café, LaunchPad Coworking provides independent workspaces and meeting rooms for rent by the hour, ergonomic chairs, ample power outlets, and secure, fiber-optic connectivity. LaunchPad Coworking is a cure for home office isolation and cubicle craziness.

Awesome! I’m looking forward to learning more about this space. I think it’s a great idea, especially in a town that seems to have so many people who work for themselves or out of their homes. I would pay a reasonable amount of money to have a something like a timeshare on an office somewhere else, for those days when I need to get out of the house but Austin Java just won’t do. My home office is wonderful - I have a comfortable chair and two huge monitors - but sometimes I enjoy being around other working people, and this seems like a great solution.

Note: I guess I do have a desk on campus, but there’s been a dead cockroach under it for more than six months and it’s dirty and old and not at all the kind of work environment one needs to be creative and productive. In fact, it’s just downright gross.

The SXSW Interactive schedule has been posted. I’ve yet to go through it completely, but I’m so geeked out and excited that almost all the panels look good.

Lots of the Core Conversations look interesting - Examining the Different Ways We Can Work, Coworking and the Evolution of the Independent Worker, Next Generation Education: Bringing the New Web to Campus, Mobile Manners: Mobile Presence and the Undefined Etiquette, Do You Have to Disappear Completely to Get Things Done?, Online Identity: And I *Do* Give a Damn About My Bad Reputation, among others.

More on this over the next few weeks.

Why is it, that even when we know months in advance when a deadline is, we always end up working right up to the last possible minute to finish something? I use the generic “we” to refer to all people, not just me or the people I work with. Though there may be unique individual cases (a.k.a. freaks), procrastination seems pretty universal.

I absolutely despise working under duress, and last-minute work is always stressful. And every time a big conference paper submission deadline approaches, it seems to surprise us. Even though the submission date is the same every year! This is a strange phenomenon that seriously demands scientific study.

So, we’ve reached another annual NCA submission deadline. My last paper was just submitted, only minutes ago (not by me, thank goodness, because 40 minutes before the submission site closes really is pushing it), so now we can all relax. But I really do want to know why we always wait so long to get started. It probably has something to do with behavioral economics; somewhere someone like Steven Levitt is ready to tell me that procrastination is an expressed preference for valuing present time over future time. Or something having to do with rational utility maximization. Probably that one. It sounds so technical; it must explain this.

My last post (and various on and offline responses to it) have gotten me thinking about what sorts of things we’re always connected to. I’ve been thinking in terms of simply being “always connected” and not paying much attention to the blank that follows (being “always connected to _______”). Or maybe I’ve been filling in that blank with something along the lines of “telecommunications grid.” Either way, I think I need to consider what else can complete that phrase.

So, just off the top of my head, here’s a list of a few things we can be connected to: faith/God (as discussed in previous post), family and friends, the community, our past/heritage, nature.

But the kind of constant connectivity I’m talking about is a literal connection. Though there may not be an actual wire connecting my device to the telecommunications grid, with it I have a connection to the internet and through that, the world. This physical connection can lead to being in perpetual contact with family, friends and co-workers. But it has nothing to do with a more spiritual connection to nature, faith, etc… Like I said before, that connection - when it exists - does not require a cell phone or the internet.

So, what have I learned from this little thought exercise? That the “always connected” I’m talking about is the communication-enabling internet connection one gets with laptops, smartphones, PDAs, etc… And as an organizational communication scholar, I am interested in the ways we talk about and make sense of that kind of constant connection. How does being always connected to the telecommunications grid impact being (always) connected to work?

I’m working on the pilot study for my dissertation - a content analysis of blog posts about being always on. In searching for appropriate posts to analyze, I’ve come across a number of references to being “always connected” to God. This is by no means the focus on my study (nor an area of my expertise), but I find the use of these terms - always on, always available, always connected, perpetual contact and so on - in terms of faith and religion quite interesting.

My study focuses on the ways people talk about being always connected to others through communication technologies; specifically I want to know how this impacts communication with and about work. But I might learn something about this by paying attention to the other ways people use these terms, as they do when talking about their connections to their faith. Faith and work are two incredibly important spheres in many people’s lives, so it makes sense that they would be the focus of this kind of talk. For many, their relationship with God is the original always-on relationship. I’m not even going to begin to discuss how the always-on relationship with work interacts with that relationship with faith (I don’t want to even suggest that one might supplant or take away from the other); I just think it is interesting to look at the other things people are always connected to. And this particular one doesn’t require an iPhone or even an internet connection!

I’m excited - my next defense is scheduled! I’m not going to reveal the date and time (you know, in case I don’t pass and I’m too embarrassed to tell anyone), but it’s in about two weeks. I’m a bit nervous. This defense is more anxiety-producing than my comps defense was; though I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because my committee is reviewing this project that is extremely important to me or something. If they don’t like it, they must not like me. Their criticism is certainly a reflection of their feelings of dislike for me.

Oh, I’m just kidding. I am nervous, but that’s just because I really don’t know what they’ll think of my proposal. It’s always hard to sit in front of people when they critique your work. I hope it goes well!

I am excited to have it scheduled though. This means I’m making progress…

We got our SXSW Interactive passes today! I’m very excited; for two years now, I’ve regretted not going after hearing all the cool things people were talking about. So this year, the husband and I were both determined to go.

So maybe this will be the motivating, energizing conference I’ve been looking for. Tons of the scheduled panels seem relevant to my dissertation, I am definitely looking forward to hearing Steven Johnson and Frank Warren speak, and even the kid from Facebook might be interesting. I can shop my dissertation project around, recruit some interviewees, maybe get some leads on post-graduation work. Anyway, it should be a good way to spend spring break this year. More on this in March…