PeterSmith.Org

Does it make the boat go faster

    Today I was asked if I would be acting as a discussant at the next PhD conference. I'd see the emails about the conference and had already decided that I wasn't going to put a paper forward and that I wasn't going to act as discussant.

    Why?

    Although I glibly said "It's not my core business", what I really meant is that I had asked the question Does it make the boat go faster? 1, and the answer was no. Having spent sometime thinking about what I do here, there are only three things that make up my "boat" here :

    • Teaching well
    • Publishing two good articles per year
    • Finishing my PhD

    So, when I'm asked to do something, if I can't see an immediate and direct connection to making the boat go faster, then I'm probably not going to do it.

    "So", I can hear someone saying, "what about your blog?"

    Good question. I regard self-reflection as fundamental process in becoming a better manager, teacher, and researcher. This blog provides a semi-structured forum for me to engage in self-reflection, so I'll keep on doing it (as much as ever, and possibly a bit-more).


    1

    Attributed to Peter Blake


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    Word count: 200 (about 1 minutes)

    Published:

    Updated: 11 Sep '08 11:50

    Author: Peter Smith

    Permalink: https://petersmith.org/blog/2008/09/11/does-it-make-the-boat-go-faster/

    Section: blog

    Kind: page

    Bundle type: leaf

    Source: blog/2008/09/11/does-it-make-the-boat-go-faster/index.org