Negroponte Seeks a Laptop CEO

Originally published at Lemmingworks. You can comment here or there.

Negroponte Seeks a Laptop CEO “After weathering an acrimonious split from Intel and harsh criticism from critics, One Laptop Per Child is reorganizing—and looking for a new CEO.”

[via OLPC News: A CEO Search Result: Negroponte Leaves One Laptop Per Child]

Who taught you how to write proposals?

Originally published at Lemmingworks. You can comment here or there.

I have been reviewing proposals for conferences and journals for about a decade. I’ve done it for giant conferences and one day symposia. And I’m always struck at how bad some of the proposals are. I usually have a 60-75% rejection rate, and I’m astounded that some that I’ve rejected get accepted in the end. A proposal for anything is your calling card and your resume and your plan for the future all rolled into one. When the adjudication process is double-blind there is nothing else that reviewer knows about who you are and what you’re planning to present on.

So, when I see proposals with spelling and grammatical errors in them I cringe, but I carry on. Technical issues are not that important, but they point to an inattention to details that may suggest a lack of precision in other areas. Worse still are errors in logic. If you cannot explain what you are doing in 250-500 words, why should you be allowed to go on for 20 minutes in front of an audience. What bugs me the most, and this is just personal, is when someone talks about their pet focus without any indication of an awareness of what’s going on in the rest of the universe. Is it too much to expect some contextualization in the field, a sense of similar work going on and perhaps even the history of what is being looked at? Many proposals seem to be functioning in a vacuum. This is particularly true when looking at anything to do with technology. I expect at least some sign that people know what’s going on over the past couple of decades in terms of the literature of the field. Finally, I see a total lack of scholarly apparatus or contextual framework in which to focus inquiry. Where is the ‘taken for granted assumption’ that will guide inquiry? What is the critical lens? Where is the rationale in support of the chosen approach or analytic technique?

It just makes me sad that people don’t care enough about the process to either do it right or learn how to do it right. I guess I’m an old guard-type crying for the days of clearly expressed thoughts and ideas… I rage, rages against the dying of the light.

Ryerson Student faces Facebook consequences

Originally published at Lemmingworks. You can comment here or there.

The Toronto Star reports: Freshman hit with 147 academic charges for online study network at Ryerson University. “Ryerson student Chris Avenir is facing expulsion for taking part in a Facebook study group for one of his engineering courses.” I don’t think it appropriate for me to comment on this because I don’t know the facts, and it seems that some comments in the article do not match what I know about university policies, so there may be some confusion or spin going on. It is an unfortunate situation for all involved, but I hope that this clarifies what is and is not appropriate to do online. Perhaps nothing was done wrong, and I hope they find out soon one way or another.