The 'boundaries' of social media in research

Interesting stuff, this social media. Being someone who uses Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Blogger (obviously) and is famed for never being further than 2cm away from his mobile phone (well the football results are important!), i never realised how much more social media could offer for a research students. Aside from this self-reflective blog and my use of Twitter as a 'lurking' mechanism that keeps me in touch with the really clever people and what they're thinking and writing, there is a certain etiquette, or so i thought, about HOW MUCH you should share of your research. I'm not planning to get into a big debate about intellectual property rights and so on, but since 'PhD research' and 'originality' are supposed to be close bed-fellows, it does make you wonder where the boundaries might exist between safeguarding your own research career and sharing with and learning from others.

So anyway, what i learned yesterday thanks to one of those Clever Social Media People, is that this sort of technology can help to define your research identity and build your own research brand. And there are a million other really useful social media tools beyond the well-known multi-national FTSE100/Fortune500/BlueChips, such as Delicious (for creating index tags, useful for keeping track on key areas of the literature), Wordle (for word clouds and seeing prominent research themes) and Hashtags.org that have amazing potential for being useful to researchers.

BUT...and there's always a but, how do we engage with all of this whilst we're supposed to getting on with our research and with those aforementioned IPR issues? I know 'sharing' is the new socialising, but as we know from the music industry's fight with filesharers and how closely guarded academic publishing is, there is money to be made from all this - and yes, potentially, from that very research we are all doing right now. And if not cold hard cash, then at least individual and institutional prestige, reputation and more interesting work awaits those that 'know things'.

Like waiting for a bus, three brilliant connections come along at once

On Wednesday, i attended The King's Fund's NHS Leadership and Management Summit where they launched the findings of a six month consultation into, yes you've guessed it, management and leadership in the NHS. By the good grace of my university i was able to attend, firstly because i teach health care management and thought it would be relevant to me and my students, but secondly because one of the 'streams' was on emerging leaders, with a particular focus on clinical leaders...so two birds with one stone and all that.

My research is about how change is introduced into healthcare organisations, specifically the recent introduction of management and leadership elements into medical training, so i was, of course, hopeful that i could glean a bit of information from the sessions and perhaps make a contact or two, but what i didn't expect is for me to make three very good contacts, all of whom are keen to help me with my work. So, in one of the plenaries, i just happened to be sitting behind a trainee doctor involved in management and leadership from the East Midlands (we're going to catch up again soon); in a workshop, i met a trainee doctor who's already working with a trainee manager (likewise we're arranging to meet soon) and from one of the speakers, i have a contact working with trainee doctors encouraging them to get more involved in management and leadership (email sent, awaiting reply).

Now, these may come to nothing, but it made me appreciate how a combination of pushing to attend a seemingly relevant event, added to the slightest bit of 'networking courage' can add up to a lot. No one else was going to make that happen for me, so perhaps that's a lesson that can be filed under 'how to get ahead in your PhD.' Oh and i got to meet Gerry Robinson, you know, the bloke off the telly...

Research Training 1-0-1

So, having spent the last couple of weeks powered-down and in the offline world, i returned to things today with some slight trepidation facing an all-dayer of research training. The trepidation stems from the fact that my experience of research training to date has been, how can i put it...mixed. You can understand that there will always be a focus on getting students through their PhDs and ensuring they all receive a consistent approach to the PhD training process. The problem with that is that the PhD, by its very nature, is such a specific and individualised programme it's difficult to see how generic, one-size-fits-all training can help the individual.

My previous research experience has been threefold: one dissertation as an undergrad and two as a masters student, with the universities i studied at offering some basic training in research (quant vs qual etc...). That means i started my PhD not knowing my ontology from my epistemology and being continually frustrated with trying to work out what my various research framework, strategy, methodology, approach, design etc looked like (P.S. not much clearer a year in).

So my point is, where is that point at the start of the PhD process that says, "Simon, you are a somewhat unique individual and we can see from your previous experience that you are sadly missing an understanding of basic research philosophy, so we're delighted to tell you that we have laid on this personalised plan to get you up to speed on all things research." Quite! Now i realise that producing a package tailored to every individual would be nigh-on impossible, but where is the recognition that, despite my dearth of research knowledge, i may actually have done other things, learned other things, damn it, might even be good at some other things and that some of that could be taken into consideration/mitigation when forumlating my training programme?

I'd like to have had that imaginary conversation at the start of my PhD, one that recognises i'm busy with my teaching commitments as a full-time member of staff, so the research training i subsequently attended was then targeted at what i really needed, rather than having to have ticked every compulsory course box. After all, without beating the point to death, the PhD is a highly-personalised programme of research so the rhetoric that supports that ideal needs to itself be supported by those responsible for ensuring PhD progression with personalised and targeted research training for the benefit of the PhD student. And on that point, today's training was, happily, something i had nothing to worry about.