I just finished reading The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything and have to say that I really enjoyed it.

While the book spends a little too much time in the realm of ‘celebrity worship’ (i.e., there are LOT of celebrities that have found ‘the element’ apparently), the book is still a very good read.

The basic premise is that every person has their own ‘Element’ that they fit the best into.  What is the element?  Basically, the Element is the location where a person’s passion, interests and natural abilities intersect.

The Element is something that a person has to find for themselves. Schools can’t teach a child to find their element.  In fact, many schools and parents do the opposite…they try to drive children into the ’safe’ areas for careers and educational study.

The book contains a lot of stories of people that have found their ‘Element’.  Many of these stories are of people who’ve gone against the ‘normal’ educational route to become their own person.

That said, this book does not slam modern education and teachers. From all accounts, Sir Ken Robinson is very much pro-education and pro-teacher.  What the book does do well is provide examples and discussion around the current state of educational theory and what it is doing wrong.

What is current education theory and practice doing wrong?  Easy…we are teaching everyone the same thing and using standardized testing to examine what has been learned.  In my opinion, there’s nothing worse than killing the creativity of a child by forcing them to fit into an educational and cultural mold.

The book is an easy read and highly recommended to anyone interested in the ideas of creativity and passion and educational ideas.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Ken Robinson talks about creativity and talent (francescofederico.net)
• Passion For Anything (somefoo.net)
• What’s your Element? (knowledgefordevelopment.com)
• Celebrating Books with The Element by Ken Robinson (angelamaiers.com)
• Do Schools Kill Creativity? (theelasticmind.blogspot.com)
• How Should We Educate 21st Century Students? (onlivingbylearning.com)
• Web 2.0, Constructivism, and Creativity (randyrodgers.edublogs.org)

I’ve just submitted my last requirement for my last class in the Spring 2009 semester.  Whew. I’m now 43% complete with the doctoral work…should be done with coursework around this time next year.

Current Status (May 2009)

• 39 hours complete
• 52 remaining (27 hours coursework, 25 hours dissertation)
• 43% complete.
• Coursework completion ~ mid-2010
• Dissertation completion ~2012.

I’m taking another six hours this summer…might be a beating but we’ll see.  The courses are:

• INFS 750 – Telecommunications Technology & Management – Starting May 18
• INFS 892 – Advanced Design Science Research Methods – Starting May 18

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• Danah Boyd’s Dissertation (socialmediatoday.com)
• Scientists dance their dissertations (boingboing.net)

Mark your calendars!

The 3rd annual University of Texas at Dallas Project Management Symposium is taking place August 13 & 14.  Call for papers is open until Feb 6 2009.

I just submitted a paper to be considered for this years symposium…keeping my fingers crossed that it gets accepted.  I was luck to get a paper accepted last year…lets see about this year.

About the Symposium:

Topics will cover project management issues facing medical and heathcare organizations, the telecom industry and more, governance issues and emerging trends in project management, global issues, new product development and more.  More info can be found here.

For those that caught my review of Zinsser’s On Writing Well, you may have noticed that I mentioned picking up Zinsser’s “Writing to Learn“.

This book is an easy read and is worth picking up if you’re interested in writing.  The book is less of a discussion of ‘how’ to ‘write to learn’ and more of an overview of ‘why’ you should ‘write to learn’.

The book is full of examples of good writing in many different topics.  The majority of the book is passages from authors in various fields surrounded by Zinsser’s commentary on why the passage is worth including.

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend this book like I did On Writing Well, but it is worth reading for those of you who are interested in the subject.

I’m quoted in the local newspaper regarding a local City Councilman and ex-teacher who bought a ‘degree’ from a diploma mill.

http://wylienews.com/current_issue/headline_councilman_18.html

Just received a call from his wife asking why I’m trying to ‘deliberately destroy his family’.   I’m sorry Ms Young…but I’m not.  Your husband has done that all by himself.

The first year of my doctorate program is done!

Actually…I finished my last course about a month ago but with the Fall 2008 semester starting next week, I figured I should claim the First Year is complete.

During the first year I took five courses:

• INFS 614 – Introduction to Research
• INFS 720 – Systems Analysis and Design
• INFS 724 – Project & Change Management
• INFS 834 – Knowledge Management
• INFS 730 – Programming for Ecommerce

The Project & Change Management course had me worried (joke!)….i was a little upset that I would have to take the course but it turned out ok…I got 45 PDU’s for my PMP continuing education out of it.

The Fall 2008 Semester finds me taking some interesting courses.   They are:

• INFS 805 – Design Research Methods

Summary: The course develops skills needed for conducting research whose aim is to invent methods and techniques that make information systems more effective and efficient. Students will also acquire skills in developing research proposals that follow the design research paradigm and will learn how to publish such research.

• INFS 830 – Decision Support Systems

Summary: The primary objective of this course is to introduce students to the concepts, techniques and applications of computer-based decision support systems. The course covers issues pertaining to the design, history, theory, practice, methods and techniques, new developments, and applications of computing technologies to support decision processes and decision-making by individuals, groups and organizations

It should be fun!  Look for more info from me as the semester unfolds.  Feel free to check out my Academic page for more info on my progress and/or the Doctor of Science program at Dakota State University.

One of my assignments in my Knowledge Management Class had me read and review am article using PowerPoint. I’ve just submitted the assignment and wanted to provide a link to my readers to take a look at the presentation and provide some feedback.

The article reviewed is:

• Slaughter, S. A., & Kirsch, L. J. (2006). The Effectiveness of Knowledge Transfer Portfolios in Software Process Improvement: A Field Study. Information Systems Research, 17(3), 301.

It’s an interesting article with some interesting results but I’m going to make you watch/listen to my presentation to hear more about it

This is my first presentation using PowerPoint and recorded narration and I’m anxious to hear some feedback. Due to the assignment, the presentation is about 30 minutes long and is probably very boring if you aren’t interested in Knowledge Transfer. Even if you are interested in KM, it may be boring too!

Please drop me a message or leave me a comment about the presentation and/or ideas for how I could improve it.

Presentation with Narration:
http://ericbrownmedia.com/infs834/articlereview/start.html
*The presentation was converted from PowerPoint into Flash using a product called Pointecast.

PowerPoint Presentation without Narration:
http://ericbrownmedia.com/infs834/ArticleReview-slides.ppt

I’ve just completed my first semester of my doctoral program and I’m ready for a break.

I took 2 courses this semester worth 6 hours. The courses are:

• Introduction to Research (INFS 614) -  This course was a bear.  I did more research and writing in this course than I’ve done in the last 5 years I think.   I’m glad this course was required as it made me sit back and really think about research, research methodologies and Information Systems.
• Systems Analysis and Design using CASE Tools (INFS 720) – This course was your normal graduate level IS course but was very informative.  I’ve never taken an IS Systems Analysis course and did enjoy this one for the most part.

Time to take a few weeks off….Spring semester starts in exactly one month (Jan 16).  I’ll be taking two courses (6 hours) in the Spring: Project & Change Management (INFS 724) and Knowledge Management (INFS 834).  I’m really looking forward to the Knowledge Management course as it should cover a lot of really interesting material.   Look for another post in January once the semester starts.

[tags] Doctorate, Dakota State, D.Sc. [/tags]

Starting September 5, 2007, I will be a student in the Doctor of Science in Information Systems program at Dakota State.

The school is one of the very very few non-profit, regionally accredited universities in the country that offers a doctoral program in information systems via an external (or distance learning) program. The DSU D.Sc. program is still fairly new with only about 15 students and the faculty seem very good and very experienced.

The program looks very interesting and very thorough and my specialization will be Decision Support, Knowledge Management and Data Management Systems (DSS for short) although I have no real idea what my research and dissertation topic will be yet.

If everything goes according to plan, I will be done sometime in 2010 or 2011 if everything goes according to plan. Yikes…another 3 to 4 years of school.

Why do I want a doctorate? Personal satisfaction is the biggest reason and the only one that will really drive me to finish but I also have an interest in the process of earning a doctorate. The research, writing and pure critical thinking that is utilized during the doctorate program is something that I’m very interested in and can’t wait to get into. Ask me in six months and I may say that those things don’t really interest me as much.

A by-product of the journey to my doctorate will be the my improved research and writing abilities as well as my knowledge in the field of Information Systems. I hope to be able to leverage this knowledge and experience into an interesting consulting career down the road.

If anyone out there has an interest in the non-traditional education methods (e.g., external research, distance learning, etc) then you should read the page that I created titled “Education“. This page has a brief outline of my journey over the last 1.5 years to find a doctoral program that works for me as well as a good description of why I didn’t choose some of the other programs out there.. There are a lot of programs out there, but few that focus on IT & Technology, are non-profit and regionally accredited.

For those that are interested, I looked very closely at the following schools during my search…all have great programs and should be considered by anyone else looking for an IT/Technology type of program:

• Univ of Alabama @ Huntsville – PhD in Engineering Management – Little emphasis on business & IT but that may change soon according to the school. Would be a great school for someone from an engineering background and who wants to stay in engineering.
• Indiana State University – PhD in Technology Management – Good program but limited specialization options. I think this program’s use of a ‘consortium of schools’ should be the model for other schools around the country to follow for DL doctorate programs.
• Grenoble – DBA Program – Great program with excellent credentials but just not what I was looking for.
• Walden - PhD in Applied Management & Sciences – Expensive compared to the others + it is a for-profit….but well regarded around the country by people ‘in the know’.
• Colorado Tech University – Doctor of Management – Good program. Another for-profit school that has some detractors and some cheerleaders. The lack of a dissertation bothered me…but also intrigued me.
• Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Lille – PhD in Strategy & Project Management. Good program for someone looking to specialize in PM for their career.

There were a few other schools that I ran across, but none that really tweaked my interest like the above schools.

Keep checking in…I hope to keep posting updates to this blog to let everyone know how the program is going.

[tags] Dakota State University, Doctor Science, Doctorate, Education, Information Systems [/tags]

Charles Green over at “Trust Matters Blog” has a pretty good post titled “Credentials, Elitism and Web 2.0” that discusses the ‘credential’ problem in the world today.

Take a read of Charles’ post…it has a very interesting discussion about some ‘library traditionalists’ vs Wikipedia that is good all by itself…but the best part of the post is the following few sentences (emphasis mine):

Credentialism is a disease in academia these days. Universities brag about the number of faculty with top-school PhDs. The BA now does what the high school diploma used to do—serve mainly as the cutoff point for any meaningful job. The line of sight between education and any meaningful sense of competence is getting more obscure, not less.

If someone earns and MBA, does that automatically qualify them to run a business? Does earning a law degree automatically make someone an expert attorney? Not in my opinion it doesn’t.

Expertise and experience must accompany a credential to give it some weight. Credentials are worthwhile things to have but an overemphasis on them and underemphasis on experience and expertise can lead a person or organization down a dark path.

[tags] Education, credentials [/tags]