This is one of my favorite PhD comics – it discussed the tensions between the academic world and the rest of our lives – especially as that tension bears down on us at this time of year. While it is true to some level for all those who live in academia, it is especially true for doctoral students.

Both sides of this tension are right and have a good point. On the one hand it is easy to understand the doctoral student has a family and obligations. As one of our clients told us, “I mentioned that my husband was taking my daughter to Disneyland, of course it was a family trip.” Of course it was, and thank heavens I have moved away from the norm of thinking that work responsibilities are life’s trump card.

On the other hand, this same student is in her last semester and when she tracked all the steps between here and that final set of documents in to her university the timing was tight, very tight. What is she going to do if the semester ends and she can’t pay for another one? Sad but true that momentary choices may get in the way of very long term goals.

So what does this coming vacation – or summer mean in your life? Now is the time to really sit down and plan what you can do to balance the scales so that one side does not suffer for the other one. A few quick suggestions:

1. Plot how much research or writing you want to get done. Can you imagine the number of pages? Think in terms of 2-3 hours a page by the time you put in the writing, the revising, editing, etc. How many hours of work does that equate to?
2. Plan you family events. How many hours of time will they require? If you think through June and July you should be able to get a pretty good picture.
3. Add 1 + 2 and subtract from the numbers of hours left each week after you complete your work duties. Will they all fit? If so, then mark up a calendar and hold yourself to it. If they don’t work then proceed with this list.
4. Negotiate with your family – what will they give up so that you can meet your doctoral requirements? Consider getting up earlier in the morning to write. Perhaps others can take childcare so that you can work?
5. Make sure that your schedule allows regular attention to your research and writing. Nothing derails good work faster than having been gone from the project for a while, only to try to subjugate our desires for summer fun with a marathon. Steady work makes for easier work.
6. Consider joining a group – one hour a week can enliven the rest of the week because of the extra attention others are paying to our work.

What are your helpful hints to others? In the past, when you have been successful in surfing these kind of tensions, how have you managed it? Please share here so we all can learn, take a helpful hint away and then come back and share how it is going.

Pat Thompson wrote an intriguing blog yesterday (you can find it here) on how much is too much when it comes to self-promotion? As she rightly points out, older academics grew up in a time when self-publishing was not expected, but that does not mean that there were not avenues through which to build influence, because, of course there were.

Conferences come to mind as a particularly stilted (in my opinion) way to put out your work, build community, and began to network influence within your field. They are expensive, but interesting. However, with tightened budgets, the social networks are flooded with people discussing the fact that they can no longer afford this particular method of networking.

Social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, Research Gate, Academia.edu etc. can take up an inordinate amount of time. Newbies to the digital era often wonder whether or not this is time well spent. People, and I think Pat would agree that she is in this camp, wonder also whether or not it is “right and proper” to keep touting your own horn. At the end of the day, what is the relationship between followers on twitter or fans on Facebook and academic influence?

I follow Michael Hyatt, a longtime publisher, who writes and speaks on how to develop a platform of influence in an Internet-based world. One of the many things I like about Michael’s work is that he focuses not on fame, but on influence. To me this is the heart of the conversation about self aggrandizement. We are not putting out what we have done over and over in different formats as a way of pointing the finger towards ourselves and saying, “Look at me”. But rather we are continually adding our positive, creative, and yes academic, life energy to a stream of consciousness out in the world. The more we do that, and that more developed our ideas, the more likely people will find it of interest and choose to follow us. Educators would call it part of developing our practice. Michael calls it building a tribe. I don’t see it as much different than when you had a group of people you looked forward to seeing when you went to a conference, except that it requires far more regular output from you for, at least in the early days, far less feedback.

And what does this influence mean to the independent academic? In my life it means that my books will sell better and the potential for businesses which strive reinvent a particular educational niche, such as what DoctoralNet does to the dissertation writing world, will be enhanced. In short, it means we have more flexibility and options. Today’s economy propels PhD’s and other kinds of doctors to look beyond the walls of the University for income from their fields. I suggest that each and every one of us will to some extent be required to develop a platform of our ideas on the Internet in order to earn academic influence in the future.

Increased influence and market flexibility are the good things, what are the costs of platform building? An inordinate amount of time is spent writing blogs, when, at least at first, few read them. A lot of new skills are required. Including, depending on how far you go: video, podcasting, website development, etc. and, finally, like all people in a stream madly trying to build influence, a lot of luck and perseverance are needed to capture the attention of an audience, let alone to maintain. Not everyone’s life allows for that type of focus and many fall by the wayside.

I believe doctoral students will do well to consider these things as they are writing their dissertation or thesis. The one thing about building a platform, or online presence is that it’s always handy if you started yesterday. It does not matter if your first attempts are feeble, or erratic. Most of us started that way. Get out there, start writing, throw it out to everyone you know, and see what happens. Like many things, it’s a brave new world for the independent academic. The only way to proceed, is by trial and error, because none of us have full story. Perhaps that’s why I like it so much.

What are your ideas, interesting, daunting, not worth the effort? We look forward to your comments.

Another set of slides from my exploration of slide share - please tell me your favorites! Note: this set of slides is long, but if you are on the market for resources it is full of them.

Meanwhile, while much of this seems obvious I love its spirit and the one slide that learning should be full of epic wins is a concept that I hear not enough people in higher education alluding to.  I wonder - has your career as a doctoral student been filled with epic wins?  If no, how can we help change that?

I came across the attached slides the other day.  As many of you know, I have been working with ideas of the future of education for the last decade or so - I like this professors clarity.  In case you find this as motivating as I do to make a difference to and in your practice as an educator....

In my last blog I discussed retention in various educational settings and whether or not retention is a matter of pedagogy. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say retention is an indication of fit – the fit of the pedagogy to the student, his or her needs, etc., perhaps also the fit of the educational setting, the content and the teacher to that student as well.

It is cliché to point out that learners have changed and the ways in which courses are delivered have changed as the Internet has taken over content delivery in our lives. When I was getting my Masters degree in the 90s I thought nothing of going to the University at their convenience, sitting in uncomfortable chairs for hours, arranging my life around their schedule, etc. In fact there was no other way education was delivered that I knew of. I was fortunate because I lived in an urban center, and had a variety of institutions choose from, while at the same time I was limited to the degrees available through those institutions. Later when I was getting my doctoral degree, I chose to fly five times a year across the country to New York City, in order to attend what was a progressives program at Teachers College. In short, I had to completely rearrange my life, to get the education I wanted. At such a cost none of us were willing to let our investment down, and I believe about 2/3 to ¾ of my cohort, maybe more, eventually graduated.

Today learning is different. More and more courses are delivered online, at the students’ convenience, and while certain requirements for amount of contact are maintained, we as students required a flexibility that would not have been possible earlier. The same system at Columbia would likely run with webconferences. We also have amazing amounts of information available, and with those new options for education. This educational feast includes MOOCS, Masters and Doctorates from universities, online courses at all levels, specific adult learning portals such as Udemy, and an enormous ad hoc set of platforms in all media through which we can cruise any time we want to find almost all the information in the world at our fingertips.

What it means to be literate has changed. We now need to be able to scan documents quickly to comprehend meaning at a glance, but we may not be as good with critical in depth analysis. Media literacy is a requirement. We not only write, but we produce audio and video files, and people who are desirous of building academic influence, find themselves required to learn how to be masters across publication platforms.

Our interaction within learning environments with other learners has also changed. I still believe that I get the most out of the classes I put the most into, but it becomes hard or not time effective to develop long distance relationships in massive online courses. My need for a feeling of connection and a personal level with other learners and my teachers also has changed. A good Skype conversation feels as relevant as driving for an hour and a half to meet face-to-face. In fact, I could not have enjoyed the international relationships, some of which are weekly, if it were not for technology such as Skype and web conferencing.

There is nothing startling in any of this. Rather I mention it all to draw out the variety of tastes we pick through in what I am calling our educational feast. How does this level of choice effect our degree of motivation? Because after all, what motivates us to learn in the first place may partially determine how much we apply ourselves to the task. How will these motivations effect changes in educational content delivery and design?

The motivation of the learner falls into two basic levels: internal and external. Internal motivation carries with it two challenges: the challenge of our desires changing, which therefore creates a change in the outcomes we seek, and the challenge of maintaining a high enough degree of focus so that we obtain a level of mastery or expertise. Ad hoc platforms, such as the people we follow in blogs, podcasts, or videos maintain no control over our lives. Some may catch our attention enough that we sign up for a regular program, but that does not mean we are committed to following through. While we may learn as much from them as we would learn in any class, they do not often give us the same level of outcome and we do not give them any measure of control over our behavior, unless, of course external motivation comes into play as well.

I try to tease these ideas out with a mind map. Next to MOOCS I have noted that they are like a “tasting feast,” the 90% who drop out of the class early probably only wanted a bite or two, to get their feet wet as it were, in the subject. For others the motivation to take the course was entertainment as much as a desire for learning. Likely competing needs in other aspects of their lives took their attention and it was easy to let go.

Educational situations in which we find ourselves due to external motivation such as a desire for advancement, or because we need to learn a skill in order to go the next step somewhere else in our lives, hold us in place past the challenges of changing outcomes, or we leave entirely. If we are in a formal educational environment because of a desire for advancement, we are likely to “tough it out” whether or not the learning turns out to be truly what we desired.

Next to Higher education in the mind map I noted “degree envy: credentials.” The outcome difference between universities and every other delivery system for education is the credential at the end and standing it maintains within the person’s community. This allows them to maintain a huge amount of control over our lives and we continue to submit to them more than in other learning situations. Learning is additive. It enhances everything that has gone before in our lives, and it is our challenge to merge the new with the previously discovered as we reform ourselves and our relation to our world. It is my belief that however education changes it will be incumbent on the new learner to take responsibility for this merging and reforming.

So where do all of these somewhat disjointed ideas take us as we consider changes in education? We have to consider that the new learner comes to us with enhanced literacy skills, and a deeper understanding as to the potential for learning to meet their needs. Depending on in what type of educational setting we find ourselves we need to meet their needs and understand their motivations for being there. Also, they have less patience, for courses, teachers, pedagogy which does not meet their human needs. As an educational leader, unless I work for University, I can no longer set up a system and expect everybody to just run through it. Education is a consumer’s marketplace.

How do you feel about this? I think this is great. As a student, I can take charge and demand exciting outcomes. As a teacher, I can require the same. The reason I like doctoral education is because it requires so much of the student. Doctoral work requires independent thought and an ability to carry out innovative research, and after that it requires precise explication of those ideas on paper. It is reaching that standard which sends us out into the world having convinced ourselves of our worthiness to take on issues such as how do we change pedagogy, and educational theory, to better meet the needs of the next students.

I treasure the feast of educational opportunity even as the format changes around us.

A friend of mine sent me an article by Sir John Daniels on MOOCs (massive open online courses) which I have attached here for others who are interested in MOOCs as a topic. In it he discusses both the first MOOCS, some of which were put on by George Siemens, and in which I participated. Later in the article he brings up the paradox of quality pedagogy and retention in relation to these courses. This article is focused on retention issues in education and I’ll use the Daniel’s article as a stepping off point. Let’s look at the statistics first, approximately 50% of all doctoral candidates, across disciplines and nations, graduate. Online universities quote somewhere between 30 and 60% (University of Phoenix 2012 as cited by Daniel’s). There is evidence that the 50% doctoral retention rates are worldwide (China census, 2011). The MOOCS completion rates run about 10%. We have to remember that 10% of 2,000 is still 200 who succeed and finish.

Daniels clearly adheres to the assumption that the better the pedagogy on which the course is developed, the more likely people will finish. Do you agree with that assumption? He points out that the large MOOCS organizations such as Coursera do not have a pedagogy to which they subscribe, no particular instructor support system in place. Is it the pedagogy, instructional design sophistication, of the educational world in which you are involved that keeps you there? Personally, I doubt it. I suspect that most of us choose our educational arena according to what we perceive we can achieve and at what cost. We put up with educational exercises that do or don’t suit us according to the payoff we are after.

When Daniels pointed out that only 10% of the people complete a MOOCS course, my immediate thought was, “that seems right, I did not complete the Siemens course.” Why? Because I had gotten as much out of it as I thought I was going to get. Much like not finishing a nonfiction book, I find that most authors, course developers, put the most provocative ideas about their topic in the first third to half of the system. I am not wired to need to complete all the paperwork, to feel a sense of closure around a learning situation and therefore, I would probably almost always be one of the 90% that dropped out.

What about the 50% who do not graduate from their doctoral courses? Are they leaving because they think they’ve learned all they need to? In this case I doubt it. It has been our experience that DoctoralNet that people come to us so frustrated they are about to drop out but would still be dedicated to the goal of becoming a doctor, if they can find the support system that works for them to allow them to complete. It is the goal that drives them to try to finish and rightfully so, because a doctoral degree carries with it entre’ to greater life options.

Support systems were not discussed in the Daniels article at all, unless he sees them as a component of pedagogy, which I think would be a stretch. Pedagogy more often discusses how something is laid out, a belief in how people learn, and a system through which content is delivered in such a way as people can learn it. I think that much of the reason people drop out of education settings is because they do not feel their personhood, that which makes them unique, is honored or even understood. Does this make sense to you too?

Social media has made advances into online education, although frequently it stops at the level of forums. Nevertheless, instructional design has begun to require educators to consider support, personal as well as intellectual, as part of pedagogy. This makes me think of the stereotypical “good teacher,” someone who will put their students’ needs above their own.

Systems need to change. Support to busy students includes structures that meet them at their convenience on their schedule as they require, not the other way around. It is my belief, that the 40 to 60% drop outs reported by the University of Phoenix, and the 90% reported by Daniels in MOOCs both add up to a similar problem situation – that of education not being able to keep up with today’s world of meeting people where they are rather than the other way around. We are no longer passive absorbers of ideas.

This blog is the first in a pair, come back next Monday for my ideas on how this question of personal needs, and its interface with education, plays out, in the discussion of lifelong learning in these changing times.

One of our graduate ambassadors, Dr. Ken Long, wrote an email the other day thanking several people who had shaped his thinking in powerful ways, in his own words, “and provide some evidence that whatever I was able to retain from the abundant goodness you sent to me is rippling outward.” It was always fun to work with Ken because he was always so optimistic and grateful, my experience is that he left a person feeling as though they had done something good, often in much greater proportion than what was probably real.

He makes two points which I find of interest, and which segued with a larger theme I am developing-that of what doctoral students need to do to build a platform from which they can launch their careers. For the rest of this article I will discuss his two points in that light. First, he pointed out that qualitative research dialogues/storytelling are useful to the extent that they trigger more engagement from the audience, and second, and a very similar comment, he said “we have to get out of the choir room and into the congregation, we have to offer reasons for folks to join the congregation for the goodness to begin.”

Both statements are about the importance in academic life and academic writing to use the humanity held within our data and our research to develop meaningful relationships with non-academics. A few years ago I might have said “develop an audience,” but with the advent of social media, I believe we all are coming to realize that engagement requires active participation, not mere passive awareness on the part of those who read and appreciate our work.  Michael Hyatt, an author whose blog I follow, would say we are building our tribe. He puts the engagement or active participation in a readership context of having influence upon others, an influence given to us by their choice. This, I believe, gets to the heart of the desire of most academics, for our work to have influence on our worlds and Dr. Long would say this is inherent in them joining the congregation; and our being part of the congregation as well.

DoctoralNet works with candidates prior to graduation, but we have been asked recently to enlarge our offerings to include journal publication. This might be useful for students who are taking a five article route instead of writing the full dissertation or thesis, but it also would be useful to the postgraduate. While it is not in our immediate future, as we are, as a business, still pinning down our market and our population, I also believe that there are other writing steps to be taken prior to journal articles in a path towards developing a platform of influence.

A couple of years ago I was working with the Cork Nonfiction Writers Group in a workshop on getting published. At its core, publication requires influence. You need to demonstrate to a publishing house: your expertise, your knowledge of the market and your influence upon it. Therefore, very few people write a book first. Other work needs to scaffold the author to a position of influence, where it is possible, that the marketing of the book will be successful. The writers group chose to start the journey by publishing a blog.

Newly minted PhD’s face a similar challenge. They have really great research, and they know a lot, in fact maybe an expert, on their topic. Yet, at the same time they have been hidden away in the ivory tower, and may have little or no real influence. To use Ken’s words, they haven’t joined the congregation.

I’ll leave this blog here, with a promise to come back to this topic over the next few months. I’m sorting out for myself, as much as for the population of our readers who are doctoral students, what I believe to be the relationship between writing for blogs, in social media, for publication, what their relationship is to media of other types, and finally their place in the independent academics’ platform. Statistics for the last 10 years have shown that in many parts of the world graduate doctors are not often employed by universities, but rather in industry, as consultants, etc. Each of these paths would require a slightly different mix in the platform. I hope to find examples, and do some simple interviews, there for being able to “use my qualitative research dialogues/storytelling to trigger more engagement from the audience.”

Do you know of an independent academic who has developed a diverse platform and who has a large “tribe” or following?  If so, please let me know and I will add them to my potential interview list.

This is one of my favorite PhD comics – it discussed the tensions between the academic world and the rest of our lives – especially as that tension bears down on us at this time of year. While it is true to some level for all those who live in academia, it is especially true for doctoral students.

Both sides of this tension are right and have a good point. On the one hand it is easy to understand the doctoral student has a family and obligations. As one of our clients told us, “I mentioned that my husband was taking my daughter to Disneyland, of course it was a family trip.” Of course it was, and thank heavens I have moved away from the norm of thinking that work responsibilities are life’s trump card.

On the other hand, this same student is in her last semester and when she tracked all the steps between here and that final set of documents in to her university the timing was tight, very tight. What is she going to do if the semester ends and she can’t pay for another one? Sad but true that momentary choices may get in the way of very long term goals.

So what does this coming vacation – or summer mean in your life? Now is the time to really sit down and plan what you can do to balance the scales so that one side does not suffer for the other one. A few quick suggestions:

1. Plot how much research or writing you want to get done. Can you imagine the number of pages? Think in terms of 2-3 hours a page by the time you put in the writing, the revising, editing, etc. How many hours of work does that equate to?
2. Plan you family events. How many hours of time will they require? If you think through June and July you should be able to get a pretty good picture.
3. Add 1 + 2 and subtract from the numbers of hours left each week after you complete your work duties. Will they all fit? If so, then mark up a calendar and hold yourself to it. If they don’t work then proceed with this list.
4. Negotiate with your family – what will they give up so that you can meet your doctoral requirements? Consider getting up earlier in the morning to write. Perhaps others can take childcare so that you can work?
5. Make sure that your schedule allows regular attention to your research and writing. Nothing derails good work faster than having been gone from the project for a while, only to try to subjugate our desires for summer fun with a marathon. Steady work makes for easier work.
6. Consider joining a group – one hour a week can enliven the rest of the week because of the extra attention others are paying to our work.

What are your helpful hints to others? In the past, when you have been successful in surfing these kind of tensions, how have you managed it? Please share here so we all can learn, take a helpful hint away and then come back and share how it is going.

Pat Thompson wrote an intriguing blog yesterday (you can find it here) on how much is too much when it comes to self-promotion? As she rightly points out, older academics grew up in a time when self-publishing was not expected, but that does not mean that there were not avenues through which to build influence, because, of course there were.

Conferences come to mind as a particularly stilted (in my opinion) way to put out your work, build community, and began to network influence within your field. They are expensive, but interesting. However, with tightened budgets, the social networks are flooded with people discussing the fact that they can no longer afford this particular method of networking.

Social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, Research Gate, Academia.edu etc. can take up an inordinate amount of time. Newbies to the digital era often wonder whether or not this is time well spent. People, and I think Pat would agree that she is in this camp, wonder also whether or not it is “right and proper” to keep touting your own horn. At the end of the day, what is the relationship between followers on twitter or fans on Facebook and academic influence?

I follow Michael Hyatt, a longtime publisher, who writes and speaks on how to develop a platform of influence in an Internet-based world. One of the many things I like about Michael’s work is that he focuses not on fame, but on influence. To me this is the heart of the conversation about self aggrandizement. We are not putting out what we have done over and over in different formats as a way of pointing the finger towards ourselves and saying, “Look at me”. But rather we are continually adding our positive, creative, and yes academic, life energy to a stream of consciousness out in the world. The more we do that, and that more developed our ideas, the more likely people will find it of interest and choose to follow us. Educators would call it part of developing our practice. Michael calls it building a tribe. I don’t see it as much different than when you had a group of people you looked forward to seeing when you went to a conference, except that it requires far more regular output from you for, at least in the early days, far less feedback.

And what does this influence mean to the independent academic? In my life it means that my books will sell better and the potential for businesses which strive reinvent a particular educational niche, such as what DoctoralNet does to the dissertation writing world, will be enhanced. In short, it means we have more flexibility and options. Today’s economy propels PhD’s and other kinds of doctors to look beyond the walls of the University for income from their fields. I suggest that each and every one of us will to some extent be required to develop a platform of our ideas on the Internet in order to earn academic influence in the future.

Increased influence and market flexibility are the good things, what are the costs of platform building? An inordinate amount of time is spent writing blogs, when, at least at first, few read them. A lot of new skills are required. Including, depending on how far you go: video, podcasting, website development, etc. and, finally, like all people in a stream madly trying to build influence, a lot of luck and perseverance are needed to capture the attention of an audience, let alone to maintain. Not everyone’s life allows for that type of focus and many fall by the wayside.

I believe doctoral students will do well to consider these things as they are writing their dissertation or thesis. The one thing about building a platform, or online presence is that it’s always handy if you started yesterday. It does not matter if your first attempts are feeble, or erratic. Most of us started that way. Get out there, start writing, throw it out to everyone you know, and see what happens. Like many things, it’s a brave new world for the independent academic. The only way to proceed, is by trial and error, because none of us have full story. Perhaps that’s why I like it so much.

What are your ideas, interesting, daunting, not worth the effort? We look forward to your comments.

Another set of slides from my exploration of slide share - please tell me your favorites! Note: this set of slides is long, but if you are on the market for resources it is full of them.

Meanwhile, while much of this seems obvious I love its spirit and the one slide that learning should be full of epic wins is a concept that I hear not enough people in higher education alluding to.  I wonder - has your career as a doctoral student been filled with epic wins?  If no, how can we help change that?

I came across the attached slides the other day.  As many of you know, I have been working with ideas of the future of education for the last decade or so - I like this professors clarity.  In case you find this as motivating as I do to make a difference to and in your practice as an educator....

In my last blog I discussed retention in various educational settings and whether or not retention is a matter of pedagogy. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say retention is an indication of fit – the fit of the pedagogy to the student, his or her needs, etc., perhaps also the fit of the educational setting, the content and the teacher to that student as well.

It is cliché to point out that learners have changed and the ways in which courses are delivered have changed as the Internet has taken over content delivery in our lives. When I was getting my Masters degree in the 90s I thought nothing of going to the University at their convenience, sitting in uncomfortable chairs for hours, arranging my life around their schedule, etc. In fact there was no other way education was delivered that I knew of. I was fortunate because I lived in an urban center, and had a variety of institutions choose from, while at the same time I was limited to the degrees available through those institutions. Later when I was getting my doctoral degree, I chose to fly five times a year across the country to New York City, in order to attend what was a progressives program at Teachers College. In short, I had to completely rearrange my life, to get the education I wanted. At such a cost none of us were willing to let our investment down, and I believe about 2/3 to ¾ of my cohort, maybe more, eventually graduated.

Today learning is different. More and more courses are delivered online, at the students’ convenience, and while certain requirements for amount of contact are maintained, we as students required a flexibility that would not have been possible earlier. The same system at Columbia would likely run with webconferences. We also have amazing amounts of information available, and with those new options for education. This educational feast includes MOOCS, Masters and Doctorates from universities, online courses at all levels, specific adult learning portals such as Udemy, and an enormous ad hoc set of platforms in all media through which we can cruise any time we want to find almost all the information in the world at our fingertips.

What it means to be literate has changed. We now need to be able to scan documents quickly to comprehend meaning at a glance, but we may not be as good with critical in depth analysis. Media literacy is a requirement. We not only write, but we produce audio and video files, and people who are desirous of building academic influence, find themselves required to learn how to be masters across publication platforms.

Our interaction within learning environments with other learners has also changed. I still believe that I get the most out of the classes I put the most into, but it becomes hard or not time effective to develop long distance relationships in massive online courses. My need for a feeling of connection and a personal level with other learners and my teachers also has changed. A good Skype conversation feels as relevant as driving for an hour and a half to meet face-to-face. In fact, I could not have enjoyed the international relationships, some of which are weekly, if it were not for technology such as Skype and web conferencing.

There is nothing startling in any of this. Rather I mention it all to draw out the variety of tastes we pick through in what I am calling our educational feast. How does this level of choice effect our degree of motivation? Because after all, what motivates us to learn in the first place may partially determine how much we apply ourselves to the task. How will these motivations effect changes in educational content delivery and design?

The motivation of the learner falls into two basic levels: internal and external. Internal motivation carries with it two challenges: the challenge of our desires changing, which therefore creates a change in the outcomes we seek, and the challenge of maintaining a high enough degree of focus so that we obtain a level of mastery or expertise. Ad hoc platforms, such as the people we follow in blogs, podcasts, or videos maintain no control over our lives. Some may catch our attention enough that we sign up for a regular program, but that does not mean we are committed to following through. While we may learn as much from them as we would learn in any class, they do not often give us the same level of outcome and we do not give them any measure of control over our behavior, unless, of course external motivation comes into play as well.

I try to tease these ideas out with a mind map. Next to MOOCS I have noted that they are like a “tasting feast,” the 90% who drop out of the class early probably only wanted a bite or two, to get their feet wet as it were, in the subject. For others the motivation to take the course was entertainment as much as a desire for learning. Likely competing needs in other aspects of their lives took their attention and it was easy to let go.

Educational situations in which we find ourselves due to external motivation such as a desire for advancement, or because we need to learn a skill in order to go the next step somewhere else in our lives, hold us in place past the challenges of changing outcomes, or we leave entirely. If we are in a formal educational environment because of a desire for advancement, we are likely to “tough it out” whether or not the learning turns out to be truly what we desired.

Next to Higher education in the mind map I noted “degree envy: credentials.” The outcome difference between universities and every other delivery system for education is the credential at the end and standing it maintains within the person’s community. This allows them to maintain a huge amount of control over our lives and we continue to submit to them more than in other learning situations. Learning is additive. It enhances everything that has gone before in our lives, and it is our challenge to merge the new with the previously discovered as we reform ourselves and our relation to our world. It is my belief that however education changes it will be incumbent on the new learner to take responsibility for this merging and reforming.

So where do all of these somewhat disjointed ideas take us as we consider changes in education? We have to consider that the new learner comes to us with enhanced literacy skills, and a deeper understanding as to the potential for learning to meet their needs. Depending on in what type of educational setting we find ourselves we need to meet their needs and understand their motivations for being there. Also, they have less patience, for courses, teachers, pedagogy which does not meet their human needs. As an educational leader, unless I work for University, I can no longer set up a system and expect everybody to just run through it. Education is a consumer’s marketplace.

How do you feel about this? I think this is great. As a student, I can take charge and demand exciting outcomes. As a teacher, I can require the same. The reason I like doctoral education is because it requires so much of the student. Doctoral work requires independent thought and an ability to carry out innovative research, and after that it requires precise explication of those ideas on paper. It is reaching that standard which sends us out into the world having convinced ourselves of our worthiness to take on issues such as how do we change pedagogy, and educational theory, to better meet the needs of the next students.

I treasure the feast of educational opportunity even as the format changes around us.

A friend of mine sent me an article by Sir John Daniels on MOOCs (massive open online courses) which I have attached here for others who are interested in MOOCs as a topic. In it he discusses both the first MOOCS, some of which were put on by George Siemens, and in which I participated. Later in the article he brings up the paradox of quality pedagogy and retention in relation to these courses. This article is focused on retention issues in education and I’ll use the Daniel’s article as a stepping off point. Let’s look at the statistics first, approximately 50% of all doctoral candidates, across disciplines and nations, graduate. Online universities quote somewhere between 30 and 60% (University of Phoenix 2012 as cited by Daniel’s). There is evidence that the 50% doctoral retention rates are worldwide (China census, 2011). The MOOCS completion rates run about 10%. We have to remember that 10% of 2,000 is still 200 who succeed and finish.

Daniels clearly adheres to the assumption that the better the pedagogy on which the course is developed, the more likely people will finish. Do you agree with that assumption? He points out that the large MOOCS organizations such as Coursera do not have a pedagogy to which they subscribe, no particular instructor support system in place. Is it the pedagogy, instructional design sophistication, of the educational world in which you are involved that keeps you there? Personally, I doubt it. I suspect that most of us choose our educational arena according to what we perceive we can achieve and at what cost. We put up with educational exercises that do or don’t suit us according to the payoff we are after.

When Daniels pointed out that only 10% of the people complete a MOOCS course, my immediate thought was, “that seems right, I did not complete the Siemens course.” Why? Because I had gotten as much out of it as I thought I was going to get. Much like not finishing a nonfiction book, I find that most authors, course developers, put the most provocative ideas about their topic in the first third to half of the system. I am not wired to need to complete all the paperwork, to feel a sense of closure around a learning situation and therefore, I would probably almost always be one of the 90% that dropped out.

What about the 50% who do not graduate from their doctoral courses? Are they leaving because they think they’ve learned all they need to? In this case I doubt it. It has been our experience that DoctoralNet that people come to us so frustrated they are about to drop out but would still be dedicated to the goal of becoming a doctor, if they can find the support system that works for them to allow them to complete. It is the goal that drives them to try to finish and rightfully so, because a doctoral degree carries with it entre’ to greater life options.

Support systems were not discussed in the Daniels article at all, unless he sees them as a component of pedagogy, which I think would be a stretch. Pedagogy more often discusses how something is laid out, a belief in how people learn, and a system through which content is delivered in such a way as people can learn it. I think that much of the reason people drop out of education settings is because they do not feel their personhood, that which makes them unique, is honored or even understood. Does this make sense to you too?

Social media has made advances into online education, although frequently it stops at the level of forums. Nevertheless, instructional design has begun to require educators to consider support, personal as well as intellectual, as part of pedagogy. This makes me think of the stereotypical “good teacher,” someone who will put their students’ needs above their own.

Systems need to change. Support to busy students includes structures that meet them at their convenience on their schedule as they require, not the other way around. It is my belief, that the 40 to 60% drop outs reported by the University of Phoenix, and the 90% reported by Daniels in MOOCs both add up to a similar problem situation – that of education not being able to keep up with today’s world of meeting people where they are rather than the other way around. We are no longer passive absorbers of ideas.

This blog is the first in a pair, come back next Monday for my ideas on how this question of personal needs, and its interface with education, plays out, in the discussion of lifelong learning in these changing times.

One of our graduate ambassadors, Dr. Ken Long, wrote an email the other day thanking several people who had shaped his thinking in powerful ways, in his own words, “and provide some evidence that whatever I was able to retain from the abundant goodness you sent to me is rippling outward.” It was always fun to work with Ken because he was always so optimistic and grateful, my experience is that he left a person feeling as though they had done something good, often in much greater proportion than what was probably real.

He makes two points which I find of interest, and which segued with a larger theme I am developing-that of what doctoral students need to do to build a platform from which they can launch their careers. For the rest of this article I will discuss his two points in that light. First, he pointed out that qualitative research dialogues/storytelling are useful to the extent that they trigger more engagement from the audience, and second, and a very similar comment, he said “we have to get out of the choir room and into the congregation, we have to offer reasons for folks to join the congregation for the goodness to begin.”

Both statements are about the importance in academic life and academic writing to use the humanity held within our data and our research to develop meaningful relationships with non-academics. A few years ago I might have said “develop an audience,” but with the advent of social media, I believe we all are coming to realize that engagement requires active participation, not mere passive awareness on the part of those who read and appreciate our work.  Michael Hyatt, an author whose blog I follow, would say we are building our tribe. He puts the engagement or active participation in a readership context of having influence upon others, an influence given to us by their choice. This, I believe, gets to the heart of the desire of most academics, for our work to have influence on our worlds and Dr. Long would say this is inherent in them joining the congregation; and our being part of the congregation as well.

DoctoralNet works with candidates prior to graduation, but we have been asked recently to enlarge our offerings to include journal publication. This might be useful for students who are taking a five article route instead of writing the full dissertation or thesis, but it also would be useful to the postgraduate. While it is not in our immediate future, as we are, as a business, still pinning down our market and our population, I also believe that there are other writing steps to be taken prior to journal articles in a path towards developing a platform of influence.

A couple of years ago I was working with the Cork Nonfiction Writers Group in a workshop on getting published. At its core, publication requires influence. You need to demonstrate to a publishing house: your expertise, your knowledge of the market and your influence upon it. Therefore, very few people write a book first. Other work needs to scaffold the author to a position of influence, where it is possible, that the marketing of the book will be successful. The writers group chose to start the journey by publishing a blog.

Newly minted PhD’s face a similar challenge. They have really great research, and they know a lot, in fact maybe an expert, on their topic. Yet, at the same time they have been hidden away in the ivory tower, and may have little or no real influence. To use Ken’s words, they haven’t joined the congregation.

I’ll leave this blog here, with a promise to come back to this topic over the next few months. I’m sorting out for myself, as much as for the population of our readers who are doctoral students, what I believe to be the relationship between writing for blogs, in social media, for publication, what their relationship is to media of other types, and finally their place in the independent academics’ platform. Statistics for the last 10 years have shown that in many parts of the world graduate doctors are not often employed by universities, but rather in industry, as consultants, etc. Each of these paths would require a slightly different mix in the platform. I hope to find examples, and do some simple interviews, there for being able to “use my qualitative research dialogues/storytelling to trigger more engagement from the audience.”

Do you know of an independent academic who has developed a diverse platform and who has a large “tribe” or following?  If so, please let me know and I will add them to my potential interview list.

This is one of my favorite PhD comics – it discussed the tensions between the academic world and the rest of our lives – especially as that tension bears down on us at this time of year. While it is true to some level for all those who live in academia, it is especially true for doctoral students.

Both sides of this tension are right and have a good point. On the one hand it is easy to understand the doctoral student has a family and obligations. As one of our clients told us, “I mentioned that my husband was taking my daughter to Disneyland, of course it was a family trip.” Of course it was, and thank heavens I have moved away from the norm of thinking that work responsibilities are life’s trump card.

On the other hand, this same student is in her last semester and when she tracked all the steps between here and that final set of documents in to her university the timing was tight, very tight. What is she going to do if the semester ends and she can’t pay for another one? Sad but true that momentary choices may get in the way of very long term goals.

So what does this coming vacation – or summer mean in your life? Now is the time to really sit down and plan what you can do to balance the scales so that one side does not suffer for the other one. A few quick suggestions:

1. Plot how much research or writing you want to get done. Can you imagine the number of pages? Think in terms of 2-3 hours a page by the time you put in the writing, the revising, editing, etc. How many hours of work does that equate to?
2. Plan you family events. How many hours of time will they require? If you think through June and July you should be able to get a pretty good picture.
3. Add 1 + 2 and subtract from the numbers of hours left each week after you complete your work duties. Will they all fit? If so, then mark up a calendar and hold yourself to it. If they don’t work then proceed with this list.
4. Negotiate with your family – what will they give up so that you can meet your doctoral requirements? Consider getting up earlier in the morning to write. Perhaps others can take childcare so that you can work?
5. Make sure that your schedule allows regular attention to your research and writing. Nothing derails good work faster than having been gone from the project for a while, only to try to subjugate our desires for summer fun with a marathon. Steady work makes for easier work.
6. Consider joining a group – one hour a week can enliven the rest of the week because of the extra attention others are paying to our work.

What are your helpful hints to others? In the past, when you have been successful in surfing these kind of tensions, how have you managed it? Please share here so we all can learn, take a helpful hint away and then come back and share how it is going.

Pat Thompson wrote an intriguing blog yesterday (you can find it here) on how much is too much when it comes to self-promotion? As she rightly points out, older academics grew up in a time when self-publishing was not expected, but that does not mean that there were not avenues through which to build influence, because, of course there were.

Conferences come to mind as a particularly stilted (in my opinion) way to put out your work, build community, and began to network influence within your field. They are expensive, but interesting. However, with tightened budgets, the social networks are flooded with people discussing the fact that they can no longer afford this particular method of networking.

Social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, Research Gate, Academia.edu etc. can take up an inordinate amount of time. Newbies to the digital era often wonder whether or not this is time well spent. People, and I think Pat would agree that she is in this camp, wonder also whether or not it is “right and proper” to keep touting your own horn. At the end of the day, what is the relationship between followers on twitter or fans on Facebook and academic influence?

I follow Michael Hyatt, a longtime publisher, who writes and speaks on how to develop a platform of influence in an Internet-based world. One of the many things I like about Michael’s work is that he focuses not on fame, but on influence. To me this is the heart of the conversation about self aggrandizement. We are not putting out what we have done over and over in different formats as a way of pointing the finger towards ourselves and saying, “Look at me”. But rather we are continually adding our positive, creative, and yes academic, life energy to a stream of consciousness out in the world. The more we do that, and that more developed our ideas, the more likely people will find it of interest and choose to follow us. Educators would call it part of developing our practice. Michael calls it building a tribe. I don’t see it as much different than when you had a group of people you looked forward to seeing when you went to a conference, except that it requires far more regular output from you for, at least in the early days, far less feedback.

And what does this influence mean to the independent academic? In my life it means that my books will sell better and the potential for businesses which strive reinvent a particular educational niche, such as what DoctoralNet does to the dissertation writing world, will be enhanced. In short, it means we have more flexibility and options. Today’s economy propels PhD’s and other kinds of doctors to look beyond the walls of the University for income from their fields. I suggest that each and every one of us will to some extent be required to develop a platform of our ideas on the Internet in order to earn academic influence in the future.

Increased influence and market flexibility are the good things, what are the costs of platform building? An inordinate amount of time is spent writing blogs, when, at least at first, few read them. A lot of new skills are required. Including, depending on how far you go: video, podcasting, website development, etc. and, finally, like all people in a stream madly trying to build influence, a lot of luck and perseverance are needed to capture the attention of an audience, let alone to maintain. Not everyone’s life allows for that type of focus and many fall by the wayside.

I believe doctoral students will do well to consider these things as they are writing their dissertation or thesis. The one thing about building a platform, or online presence is that it’s always handy if you started yesterday. It does not matter if your first attempts are feeble, or erratic. Most of us started that way. Get out there, start writing, throw it out to everyone you know, and see what happens. Like many things, it’s a brave new world for the independent academic. The only way to proceed, is by trial and error, because none of us have full story. Perhaps that’s why I like it so much.

What are your ideas, interesting, daunting, not worth the effort? We look forward to your comments.

Another set of slides from my exploration of slide share - please tell me your favorites! Note: this set of slides is long, but if you are on the market for resources it is full of them.

Meanwhile, while much of this seems obvious I love its spirit and the one slide that learning should be full of epic wins is a concept that I hear not enough people in higher education alluding to.  I wonder - has your career as a doctoral student been filled with epic wins?  If no, how can we help change that?

I came across the attached slides the other day.  As many of you know, I have been working with ideas of the future of education for the last decade or so - I like this professors clarity.  In case you find this as motivating as I do to make a difference to and in your practice as an educator....

In my last blog I discussed retention in various educational settings and whether or not retention is a matter of pedagogy. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say retention is an indication of fit – the fit of the pedagogy to the student, his or her needs, etc., perhaps also the fit of the educational setting, the content and the teacher to that student as well.

It is cliché to point out that learners have changed and the ways in which courses are delivered have changed as the Internet has taken over content delivery in our lives. When I was getting my Masters degree in the 90s I thought nothing of going to the University at their convenience, sitting in uncomfortable chairs for hours, arranging my life around their schedule, etc. In fact there was no other way education was delivered that I knew of. I was fortunate because I lived in an urban center, and had a variety of institutions choose from, while at the same time I was limited to the degrees available through those institutions. Later when I was getting my doctoral degree, I chose to fly five times a year across the country to New York City, in order to attend what was a progressives program at Teachers College. In short, I had to completely rearrange my life, to get the education I wanted. At such a cost none of us were willing to let our investment down, and I believe about 2/3 to ¾ of my cohort, maybe more, eventually graduated.

Today learning is different. More and more courses are delivered online, at the students’ convenience, and while certain requirements for amount of contact are maintained, we as students required a flexibility that would not have been possible earlier. The same system at Columbia would likely run with webconferences. We also have amazing amounts of information available, and with those new options for education. This educational feast includes MOOCS, Masters and Doctorates from universities, online courses at all levels, specific adult learning portals such as Udemy, and an enormous ad hoc set of platforms in all media through which we can cruise any time we want to find almost all the information in the world at our fingertips.

What it means to be literate has changed. We now need to be able to scan documents quickly to comprehend meaning at a glance, but we may not be as good with critical in depth analysis. Media literacy is a requirement. We not only write, but we produce audio and video files, and people who are desirous of building academic influence, find themselves required to learn how to be masters across publication platforms.

Our interaction within learning environments with other learners has also changed. I still believe that I get the most out of the classes I put the most into, but it becomes hard or not time effective to develop long distance relationships in massive online courses. My need for a feeling of connection and a personal level with other learners and my teachers also has changed. A good Skype conversation feels as relevant as driving for an hour and a half to meet face-to-face. In fact, I could not have enjoyed the international relationships, some of which are weekly, if it were not for technology such as Skype and web conferencing.

There is nothing startling in any of this. Rather I mention it all to draw out the variety of tastes we pick through in what I am calling our educational feast. How does this level of choice effect our degree of motivation? Because after all, what motivates us to learn in the first place may partially determine how much we apply ourselves to the task. How will these motivations effect changes in educational content delivery and design?

The motivation of the learner falls into two basic levels: internal and external. Internal motivation carries with it two challenges: the challenge of our desires changing, which therefore creates a change in the outcomes we seek, and the challenge of maintaining a high enough degree of focus so that we obtain a level of mastery or expertise. Ad hoc platforms, such as the people we follow in blogs, podcasts, or videos maintain no control over our lives. Some may catch our attention enough that we sign up for a regular program, but that does not mean we are committed to following through. While we may learn as much from them as we would learn in any class, they do not often give us the same level of outcome and we do not give them any measure of control over our behavior, unless, of course external motivation comes into play as well.

I try to tease these ideas out with a mind map. Next to MOOCS I have noted that they are like a “tasting feast,” the 90% who drop out of the class early probably only wanted a bite or two, to get their feet wet as it were, in the subject. For others the motivation to take the course was entertainment as much as a desire for learning. Likely competing needs in other aspects of their lives took their attention and it was easy to let go.

Educational situations in which we find ourselves due to external motivation such as a desire for advancement, or because we need to learn a skill in order to go the next step somewhere else in our lives, hold us in place past the challenges of changing outcomes, or we leave entirely. If we are in a formal educational environment because of a desire for advancement, we are likely to “tough it out” whether or not the learning turns out to be truly what we desired.

Next to Higher education in the mind map I noted “degree envy: credentials.” The outcome difference between universities and every other delivery system for education is the credential at the end and standing it maintains within the person’s community. This allows them to maintain a huge amount of control over our lives and we continue to submit to them more than in other learning situations. Learning is additive. It enhances everything that has gone before in our lives, and it is our challenge to merge the new with the previously discovered as we reform ourselves and our relation to our world. It is my belief that however education changes it will be incumbent on the new learner to take responsibility for this merging and reforming.

So where do all of these somewhat disjointed ideas take us as we consider changes in education? We have to consider that the new learner comes to us with enhanced literacy skills, and a deeper understanding as to the potential for learning to meet their needs. Depending on in what type of educational setting we find ourselves we need to meet their needs and understand their motivations for being there. Also, they have less patience, for courses, teachers, pedagogy which does not meet their human needs. As an educational leader, unless I work for University, I can no longer set up a system and expect everybody to just run through it. Education is a consumer’s marketplace.

How do you feel about this? I think this is great. As a student, I can take charge and demand exciting outcomes. As a teacher, I can require the same. The reason I like doctoral education is because it requires so much of the student. Doctoral work requires independent thought and an ability to carry out innovative research, and after that it requires precise explication of those ideas on paper. It is reaching that standard which sends us out into the world having convinced ourselves of our worthiness to take on issues such as how do we change pedagogy, and educational theory, to better meet the needs of the next students.

I treasure the feast of educational opportunity even as the format changes around us.

A friend of mine sent me an article by Sir John Daniels on MOOCs (massive open online courses) which I have attached here for others who are interested in MOOCs as a topic. In it he discusses both the first MOOCS, some of which were put on by George Siemens, and in which I participated. Later in the article he brings up the paradox of quality pedagogy and retention in relation to these courses. This article is focused on retention issues in education and I’ll use the Daniel’s article as a stepping off point. Let’s look at the statistics first, approximately 50% of all doctoral candidates, across disciplines and nations, graduate. Online universities quote somewhere between 30 and 60% (University of Phoenix 2012 as cited by Daniel’s). There is evidence that the 50% doctoral retention rates are worldwide (China census, 2011). The MOOCS completion rates run about 10%. We have to remember that 10% of 2,000 is still 200 who succeed and finish.

Daniels clearly adheres to the assumption that the better the pedagogy on which the course is developed, the more likely people will finish. Do you agree with that assumption? He points out that the large MOOCS organizations such as Coursera do not have a pedagogy to which they subscribe, no particular instructor support system in place. Is it the pedagogy, instructional design sophistication, of the educational world in which you are involved that keeps you there? Personally, I doubt it. I suspect that most of us choose our educational arena according to what we perceive we can achieve and at what cost. We put up with educational exercises that do or don’t suit us according to the payoff we are after.

When Daniels pointed out that only 10% of the people complete a MOOCS course, my immediate thought was, “that seems right, I did not complete the Siemens course.” Why? Because I had gotten as much out of it as I thought I was going to get. Much like not finishing a nonfiction book, I find that most authors, course developers, put the most provocative ideas about their topic in the first third to half of the system. I am not wired to need to complete all the paperwork, to feel a sense of closure around a learning situation and therefore, I would probably almost always be one of the 90% that dropped out.

What about the 50% who do not graduate from their doctoral courses? Are they leaving because they think they’ve learned all they need to? In this case I doubt it. It has been our experience that DoctoralNet that people come to us so frustrated they are about to drop out but would still be dedicated to the goal of becoming a doctor, if they can find the support system that works for them to allow them to complete. It is the goal that drives them to try to finish and rightfully so, because a doctoral degree carries with it entre’ to greater life options.

Support systems were not discussed in the Daniels article at all, unless he sees them as a component of pedagogy, which I think would be a stretch. Pedagogy more often discusses how something is laid out, a belief in how people learn, and a system through which content is delivered in such a way as people can learn it. I think that much of the reason people drop out of education settings is because they do not feel their personhood, that which makes them unique, is honored or even understood. Does this make sense to you too?

Social media has made advances into online education, although frequently it stops at the level of forums. Nevertheless, instructional design has begun to require educators to consider support, personal as well as intellectual, as part of pedagogy. This makes me think of the stereotypical “good teacher,” someone who will put their students’ needs above their own.

Systems need to change. Support to busy students includes structures that meet them at their convenience on their schedule as they require, not the other way around. It is my belief, that the 40 to 60% drop outs reported by the University of Phoenix, and the 90% reported by Daniels in MOOCs both add up to a similar problem situation – that of education not being able to keep up with today’s world of meeting people where they are rather than the other way around. We are no longer passive absorbers of ideas.

This blog is the first in a pair, come back next Monday for my ideas on how this question of personal needs, and its interface with education, plays out, in the discussion of lifelong learning in these changing times.

One of our graduate ambassadors, Dr. Ken Long, wrote an email the other day thanking several people who had shaped his thinking in powerful ways, in his own words, “and provide some evidence that whatever I was able to retain from the abundant goodness you sent to me is rippling outward.” It was always fun to work with Ken because he was always so optimistic and grateful, my experience is that he left a person feeling as though they had done something good, often in much greater proportion than what was probably real.

He makes two points which I find of interest, and which segued with a larger theme I am developing-that of what doctoral students need to do to build a platform from which they can launch their careers. For the rest of this article I will discuss his two points in that light. First, he pointed out that qualitative research dialogues/storytelling are useful to the extent that they trigger more engagement from the audience, and second, and a very similar comment, he said “we have to get out of the choir room and into the congregation, we have to offer reasons for folks to join the congregation for the goodness to begin.”

Both statements are about the importance in academic life and academic writing to use the humanity held within our data and our research to develop meaningful relationships with non-academics. A few years ago I might have said “develop an audience,” but with the advent of social media, I believe we all are coming to realize that engagement requires active participation, not mere passive awareness on the part of those who read and appreciate our work.  Michael Hyatt, an author whose blog I follow, would say we are building our tribe. He puts the engagement or active participation in a readership context of having influence upon others, an influence given to us by their choice. This, I believe, gets to the heart of the desire of most academics, for our work to have influence on our worlds and Dr. Long would say this is inherent in them joining the congregation; and our being part of the congregation as well.

DoctoralNet works with candidates prior to graduation, but we have been asked recently to enlarge our offerings to include journal publication. This might be useful for students who are taking a five article route instead of writing the full dissertation or thesis, but it also would be useful to the postgraduate. While it is not in our immediate future, as we are, as a business, still pinning down our market and our population, I also believe that there are other writing steps to be taken prior to journal articles in a path towards developing a platform of influence.

A couple of years ago I was working with the Cork Nonfiction Writers Group in a workshop on getting published. At its core, publication requires influence. You need to demonstrate to a publishing house: your expertise, your knowledge of the market and your influence upon it. Therefore, very few people write a book first. Other work needs to scaffold the author to a position of influence, where it is possible, that the marketing of the book will be successful. The writers group chose to start the journey by publishing a blog.

Newly minted PhD’s face a similar challenge. They have really great research, and they know a lot, in fact maybe an expert, on their topic. Yet, at the same time they have been hidden away in the ivory tower, and may have little or no real influence. To use Ken’s words, they haven’t joined the congregation.

I’ll leave this blog here, with a promise to come back to this topic over the next few months. I’m sorting out for myself, as much as for the population of our readers who are doctoral students, what I believe to be the relationship between writing for blogs, in social media, for publication, what their relationship is to media of other types, and finally their place in the independent academics’ platform. Statistics for the last 10 years have shown that in many parts of the world graduate doctors are not often employed by universities, but rather in industry, as consultants, etc. Each of these paths would require a slightly different mix in the platform. I hope to find examples, and do some simple interviews, there for being able to “use my qualitative research dialogues/storytelling to trigger more engagement from the audience.”

Do you know of an independent academic who has developed a diverse platform and who has a large “tribe” or following?  If so, please let me know and I will add them to my potential interview list.