I’m looking for people to interview for round two of my dissertation data collection.

For this round, I would like to talk to people who either a) consider themselves always on (or almost always on), or b) used to be always on but have made a decision to be on less or not at all. I’m most interested in Austinites right now, but can definitely arrange phone interviews if you’re not local.

Interviews are 30-45 minutes (can be longer if you’re up for it). They’re actually pretty fun; I’ll be asking you to talk about your job(s), the kinds of communication technologies you use, and work-life balance. Plus, you’ll be contributing to science, and everyone knows science is cool.

If you’re interested, find me on Twitter or email me - jenn at deeringdavis dot com. Thank you!

Here’s an unoriginal thought: writing a dissertation is hard! It’s not because this paper is conceptually more difficult than other papers I’ve written, and it’s not because my people are expecting so much more from this paper than others. It’s because I’ve got a year stretching out ahead of me (that’s after six months of prospectus writing and first round interviews) and that kind of time starts to make this project seem ginormous.

But it really isn’t that big. It might end up being a few hundred pages, but it’s not like I’m Tolstoy, penning the great Russian novel that weighs in at more than 1,000 pages. So why does it feel so big?

It probably has something to do with the solitary life of a doctoral candidate, at least when it comes to this particular project. The candidate is off in her own little world, left to her own (usually woefully unprepared) defenses to navigate through the process. Sure, she has a committee and colleagues and friends and family to help her through this, but no one really wants to talk in much detail about someone else’s project when they have their own things going on. It’s hard to not have an intellectual companion with whom I can traverse this vast terrain. I would never start a company without an enthusiastic, energizing and motivated business partner, yet that’s basically what happens with a dissertation.

So maybe we should write dissertations in pairs? No, of course not! So it looks like we’re all left to fumble our way through this. It’s been done thousands (millions?) of times before, so it can definitely be done. It’s just a weird feeling to stare at my calendar and think that I have a year (a year!) to write this paper. That seems like so long. It must be quite the paper to take so long to write.

I’ll be in NC next week collecting interview data for my dissertation. If you live in the Raleigh/Durham or Lexington/Winston-Salem areas and want to participate, let me know.

I’m looking to talk to most any working adult, regardless of industry, job, position, etc… I’m particularly interested in talking to you if you consider yourself always on, as well as if you’re not always on, for whatever reason, especially if you’ve made a specific decision to not be always on. So let me know if you want to be interviewed.

It’s time to conduct interviews for my dissertation. Everything’s been approved by the IRB, so I’m ready to go.

So, if you’re interested in talking about the ways you use communication technologies (cell phones and smartphones, laptops, instant messaging, email, the web, PDAs, etc…) to be connected, I would love to interview you!

I’m specifically looking for people in the Austin, San Francisco and Raleigh/Durham areas. Let me know if you’re interested!

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.

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…

One of the main goals of my dissertation is operationalizing this idea of “always on.” But something I’ve been wrestling with this week is the difference between being always on and being always available. I’m still working this out, but I’m starting to wonder if what I’m actually interested in being always available.

Being always on implies action, behavior. A person who is always on is constantly engaged, always doing something or talking to someone.

Being always available suggests something more akin to a state of preparedness. It’s being ready for interaction, but not necessarily always engaged in interaction.

Theoretically, I think there are a few key differences suggested by these two terms. There’s a difference between degrees of participation; always on is active participation, but always available is more passive. There’s also a difference between communication direction and control; always on implies individual as sender and seeker, always available implies individual as receiver.

Then again, the popular use of the term “always on” suggests that a person is constantly connected to the world via the internet and any number of ICTs, even if that person is not actively using those connections. The fact that I can check my email and get directions on my cell phone whenever and wherever I want means I’m always on. Or does it?

Looks like I’ve got some thinking to do.

They suck really hard. I thought that once I got to the dissertation stage, when I was finally done with coursework after a combined 8+ years of all this higher education, that I’d flourish and really start to crank out the work. Ha ha, I was so wrong!

I’m already far too subject to my own moods and whims; I am the queen of rationalizing taking an afternoon or a day off. Combine that with this newfound independence and bam! All of a sudden I realize that, until yesterday, I haven’t made any progress in a month. How does a person lose a whole month??

Anyway, it looks like I’m going to have to work on the whole discipline thing. I know I’m not the first person to get to this point and realize this, but it’s funny how staunchly I believed it wouldn’t happen to me. I just love these reminders of how normal I am. Really, it makes me feel so special. Like a snowflake.

I’ve finally completed revisions on my prospectus! (Maybe later I’ll post about how hard it is for me to make and meet my own internal deadlines.) I’m pretty pleased with the general direction in which I’m heading, but of course there are myriad areas for improvement. I guess that’s why I have a committee - nothing like getting your hard-fought work ruthlessly critiqued by those who are older and wiser.

My working title is: How does being “always on” impact our experience at work?: Exploring continuous connectivity from an organizational communication perspective. Here’s a brief overview of my project (excerpted from the prospectus itself):

The list of significant information and communication technologies (ICTs) gets longer every year. As of right now, this list includes well-established technologies such as cell phones and email, as well as more recent innovations like Blackberries and the iPhone, instant messaging (IM), and increasingly ubiquitous wireless internet access. Together, these technologies form a nearly seamless web of connectivity, a state of perpetual contact, where an individual is “always on.”

With my dissertation, I seek to understand the implications of being always connected to the world via these technologies, with the ultimate goal of developing a model of being always on. We are quickly approaching the point of perpetual contact, where we can be reached at any time in any place, anywhere in the world. Cascio and Shurygailo (2003) refer to this as the “new paradigm of work—anytime, anywhere, in real space or in cyberspace” (p. 362). How does this state of being always on impact communication?

Technology use tends to fall along a continuum; some people cannot seem to ever turn their cell phones off, even when they are at home or on vacation, yet others refuse to buy a cell phone at all. Some people are required to keep phones or pagers on at all times because of their jobs, and others are constantly using their phones to project an image of status or importance. By talking to individuals at all points in the continuum of perpetual contact, from the non-users to the super-users, I will get a more comprehensive and complete view of the important issues of being always on. I want to learn how individuals make sense of being always on (or being always off). I want to learn about the positive and the negative effects. I want to know how this shapes their experiences at work, as well as how this affects their home lives. My ultimate goal is to develop a comprehensive model of being always on, from antecedents to processes to consequences.

This research has real implications to our everyday lives, both as members of organizations and as people living in contemporary society. These implications range from learning more about how to be productive at work to how to effectively communicate across physical and temporal distances, from how to manage a multitude of communicate technologies and an increasing amount of information to how to balance work and life concerns. These are issues all of us deal with every day, even when we are not at work. Understanding these issues can help us be more productive and more healthy.

Just because I like the feeling of accomplishment when I finish something, I figured I’d share this exciting news. I turned in a draft of my prospectus to my advisor today. It feels great to get that out of the way before I take a break for the holidays.

I’ll write more about the specifics when I get feedback from my advisor, but basically, I’m proposing a qualitative project exploring what it means to be always on. I’m going to do a ton of interviews, some observation and then a questionnaire. I’m pretty excited about it!