Transdisciplinary personality?

In academia we discuss vividly about transdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity or whatever you want to call the practices that aim at finding new research questions or solutions by crossing the borders of different disciplines. Some say that a transdisciplinary personality is possible others say that it cannot happen. Trying to find new ways of looking at the world or solving some problems with people from different paradigms could be prosperous as soon as you find the common language. This is certainly one of the biggest obstacles to collaborating smoothly with different discplinary perspectives. But what if there would be a pool of persons who are stirring the discourses of different disciplines and tearing down disciplinary boundaries?

I argue that transdisciplinarity is much about language skills, and a sensitivity to listen to other languages in use. Now I am talking about language more as a discourse than as a language as such. I would like to draw on an example from bilingualism. For many years bilingualism was seen as impossible, or well you could speak many languages fluently but you couldn’t attain the right sensitivity or thorough knowledge that is needed when you are a writer for example. This is no longer the truth, as we have many authors that write with a beautiful, interesting language which is not their mother tongue. Of course you have to be talented but we know that the brain is different for those who have learned at least two languages early in life. A brain that is more dynamic and maybe more apt to find more nuances in life in general. Maybe that is also what transdisciplinarity is all about. There are people who have a talent to learn different theoretical discourses more easily and also to combine them in an appropriate way. A certain sensitivity, openness and even some risk-taking attitude is needed. And as bilingual people, an urge to find new expressions by combining something old. So transdiscplinarity should be offered as early as possible in the academic life. By showing, for example, how different disciplines are born by striving for less ambiguity in the development of concepts could be a solution.

Blocking innovations

Yes, we need innovations that make our society more efficient, more reliable and also competitive on the global arena. In Hufvudstadsbladet on the 16th of November professor Tom Berglund discusses the need of setting aside different bureaucratic obstacles as well as diminishing jealousy when someone has his moment of ’heureka’. I couldn’t agree more. We often think that innovativeness is born in an arranged (=bureaucratic) setting where we decide or someone decides for us that this is the time and place for innovating. Instead of devoting your time too much to finding out how and where innovativeness takes place you should have a supporting process that gives the creative ideas positive energy and passes them on towards a stage where they can materialize. The biggest obstacle to innovativeness is definitely not money but those whining voices that block developing new ideas further at a too early stage. What we need are people ready to throw themselves into a state of imaginative, ingenious inventing. The best way of killing this state is to inject structure too early in the process of invention. So why do you want to structure ideas too early? Could it be that you are concerned of losing power and control over the process?

Managing chaos

When you are in the middle of change that happens to be on a vertical and horizontal level in the organization and your project is to be a change agent, how do you manage without getting insane? One way is to start to structure things up. A psychiatrist once said that we have schedules in order to get rid of our inner chaos. So that's why we aim to structure things up by writing and documenting what we do. Words on a paper give us structure by leaving things out and by trying to diminish the number of different interpretations. Another way is to try to figure out which milestones and modes of operation we should emphasize. Dates could even be pretty useful in that sense. They help you to structure your time and prioritize. As long as you know what to prioritize. In a changing environment it is definitely the prioritization that is so hard. You want to show you have been working, something visible and even tangible. The operative work is good in that sense and helps you with your chaotic feelings. But to really try to be part of the change and acting as a change agent you have to discuss with different actors, reflect, write it down and reflect again. The results don't come straight away but notes are real. But remember, never to work without a deadline as that easily makes you polish your ideas eternally.

But what happens when you add an inner emotional chaos that people as a matter of fact can experience in their personal life at the same time? Inner chaos in combination with an ever-changing context? How do you find your way without loosing your mind? My recommendation is, schedule routines in your calender: Breakfast at 7.00 a.m., lunch at 11.30 a.m. gym or jogging at 6 p.m. These help you structure your life and helps you in coping with turbulence and chaos. There is nothing as comforting as a bus coming to the bus stop every morning at the same time. They come in spite of what you are experiencing.

Being a stupid consumer

In January I bought flight tickets from the Lufthansa website for a trip to Italy. At that point I did not know that I would change jobs and be responsible for a workshop on the day of my flight to Rome on the 4th of June. I called Lufthansa in order to try to get my ticket changed but as it was so cheap I could do nothing but cancel them and buy a new one and of course to a much higher price. I didn't know that when you buy a return ticket you have to be on the plane both ways otherwise the ticket is invalid. And the most important thing was of course that I would have to start the trip at the correct date. What I did was that I booked another trip for Rome with Air Baltic (which was a nice flight by the way) and thought that my Lufthansa ticket would have been valid from Rome to Helsinki on the 16th of June. I even checked it on checkmytrip.com the day before leaving Italy and it seemed that everything was okay. But nope. At the check-in counter I was told that my ticket was not valid anymore. I had paid 270 euros for a return ticket that did not exist just because I did not catch the flight on the 4th of June. So although I tried to negotiate it I had to buy a new one for 500 euros. Well, I got a 100 euro reduction because I bought a return ticket to Milan (as a matter of fact I could take the plane to Milan next Monday, lol). So in fact my trip that should have cost 270 euros cost 1030 euros (260 with Air Baltic + 270 + 500). The only answer for this was that it is a pricing policy. I am not a frequent flyer so I fall in the category of naive, stupid consumers that the big companies as Lufthansa can gain on. Onboard the plane I read Lufthansa's magazine and the words of the CEO. He was really satisfied with how well Lufthansa did on the market. One of the reasons was their way of handling cost-effectiveness. Yeah, right. And I think that happily enough they have stupid consumers, customers as me. Will I use Lufthansa in the future? I will try to avoid that if possible.

Gender in IM

Naomi S. Baron (in the book Always On 2008) has researched gender differences in the language use in instant messaging and presented the following findings: Females were more talkative, had the longest transmissions, had longer conversations and it took them longer to say goodbye. The use of emoticons were more obvious if you were a female person (Baron 2008:67). The more extensive use of emoticons in IM would mean that IM is interpreted more like spoken language which includes the rhythm and proximity. So females would in that sense see IM more as spoken language than males do.

The overall conclusion made by Naomi S. Baro,n with some exceptions (as the use of emoticons) was that: "...male IM conversations have a great deal in common with descriptions of face-to-fae speech, female IM conversations more closely approximate conventional writing patterns" (2008:69). These differences could enlighten how men or women interpret utterances in IM. I would like to find out how emotions are transmitted through written vs. spoken language online in comparison with the body language of avatars for example. Maybe you could compare this by seeing how different areas of the brain are activated?

Finally, is IM spoken or written language? Naomi S. Baron puts it like this:

"Some of both, but not as much speech as we've tended to assume. What's more, gender matters" (2008:70)

Baron, Naomi S. (2008): Always on: Language in an Online and Mobile World. Oxford University Press:New York

Seminar:The power of visual journalism

I am just listening to the presentation of Peppar (Sofia Holmlund as a presenter) that is a website which combines news with social media or in other words creates synergies between community building and news "distribution". People register at peppar and by that those "behind" the site will get more information about the different emerging "tribes" and their information retrieval behaviour and interests. This information is important for the advertisers and enables customized solutions. The idea is to catch a young target group (Swedish-speakers in Finland) in order to attract advertisers' interest (money makes the media go round)

Senior researcher Anssi Männistö from the University of Tampere presented "New forms of photojournalism : utilizing the web creatively". Today the internet connections, the multimedia phones and the YouTube revolution enhance the easy production of visual material and sharing it with others. Anssi showed two examples of how videos could be presented on a newspaper website. Please go and have a look and decide which one you prefer: satakunnankansa.fi and nytimes.com. In print these two newspapers look really much the same but on the web there is a huge difference. Photojournalism on the web needs new decisions: choice of tools, what kind of editing, who does the editing, which genres (stills+audio, stills+video+text...), design and brand managing of the website, metadata and contextual information, who trains the staff" (Comment:Don't you have to make decisions about this also in the traditional media?). Contemporary photojournalism could be a video-slideshow, wide audio-slideshow (includes effects), multimedia slideshow,multimedia feature (see: L.A.Times:Marlboro Marine By Luis Sinco) and interactive videos.

Anders Enström from Nordström & Frank editorial development elaborated around the theme Alternative Story Forms. He emphasized that you should optimize the readers' time (note: average reading time is 30 minutes in spite of the size of the paper, 45 percent of the time is dedicated to scanning and 55 percent of the time to reading and the average reading speed is 5-6 stories with 2500 characters). With alternative story forms you can meet the need for optimizing the reader's reading time.

Anders Enström also presented some results from a knowledge test (see Poynter) which showed that readers remembered best the contents of a print-page which was divided in multiple parts and not perhaps the most visually attractive one, but the content was well-labeled. There are two theories about this: Alternative Story Forms (different parts) are read with less cognitive effort and variation stimulates the brain and makes you curious. To strive for reading with less cognitive effort and delivering variation you should create a palette of different stories. The palette could consist of timelines, facts, pro & cons, guiding panels and different polls (the voice of the ordinary people).


The seminar was closed by a panel discussion where Petri Krook, videographer; Jenni Lieto, executive editor; Sofia Holmlund, executive editor; Jesper Vuori, AD and Saku Heinänen, MC discussed around the following themes:

Jenni: Not putting the printed media on the web but instead creating something new for this media and understanding that the web is working 24/7 is important
Jenni: Content vs coding. Why are media putting so much effort in coding instead of in creation of the content.
Jesper: Does anyone really understand new media (my comment: is new media really new anymore?)
Sofia: Readers like stories that are at most 2000 characters long
Jesper: The newspapers offer analysis and that is the only way they will survive
Saku: What about the education of graphic designers when people are pretty talented and self-learned already?
Jesper: Important within graphic design education is to know how web-design works
Jenni:Learning can happen by doing and on-the-job
Jenni: Educate the advertisers to be more knowledgeable about whom they are targeting


Thank you for an interesting seminar!

Capturing beauty

Next Saturday I will take part in a seminar where different experts are discussing beauty and the way to find it. We are trying to capture beauty in other words. I was invited to be a "co-thinker" or commentator as I emphasize that "beauty has no age-limits". It was a thought I launched in my doctoral thesis. I elaborated around different sayings as "age before beauty" which in my opinion means that both characteristics cannot describe the same person. This could be discussed but as I searched for expressions that combined older age and beauty they were hard to find. You could say that combining older age and beauty is not typical and could even be considered radical. Especially as beauty often is equivalent to youth. So why aren't older people beautiful? We know that beauty is subtle and a result of interpretation so why is old age ruled out?

There are theories emphasizing that beauty is about proportionality, symmetry and the harmony of details (according to Platon) or beauty as radiance (Faidros in Eco 2005). But these theories are not age-related or are they? According to Gilleard, who has researched the understanding of age in the ancient Greece, youth was described with the words cute, beautiful and heroic but old age with the words ugly, evil or tragic. Our task is to change this view if it still is prevalent.

Skipping the definition of beauty as being only about proportions I want to discuss beauty as something that is socially constructed and interpreted (beauty is in the eyes of the beholder). We learn what the ideal beauty is throughout life and as we inherently have the urge to strive for beauty, we must be aware of what forces make us believe that we are not beautiful enough or too old to be beautiful or forces that give power only to those who match the ideal beauty. Looking critically on especially advertisements and their truthfulness, make us aware of how beauty is constructed today and what ideologies are prevalent.

I asked myself at which moment I am only seeing beauty in everything. My short answer is: You see beauty when you are embraced by love and you are yourself part of the mystery of love. I will take that as my starting point for next Saturday's seminar.

Ethnographic study on my way to work

I have a new job and at the same time a new trip to work every morning. Three different vehicles with different profiles. The bus from Espoo to Helsinki was the one I took earlier also and as I am usually vividly discussing with my friend the whole trip I haven't had the time to observe anything. On the other hand my friend and I observe the bus driver as he is a good one and really polite in every sense. Rarely seen before. Anyway, nowadays I have to change to the underground and after that to the tram and at last I can see some diversity in this society. To only sit on a bus from Espoo to Helsinki and after that work with people interested in higher education could slightly distort your way of constructing the world, you know what I mean. I see different lifestyles, different representatives of ethnic groups, different ages and different gazes. Without trying to go more into the concept of "gaze" (if you want to read more turn to Kress & van Leeuwen, Lacan, Foucault, Schroeder or Jacobsson) I thought today on my way to work about people's eyes and their gaze. The eyes are the mirror of the soul, they say. What did I see? A lot of inward gazes and gazes that weren't directed outwards and even scared to do so. Try to get eye contact with people and see what happens. I have a feeling that we're so much into getting impulses from different devices (mobile phones, mp3-players and even books) that we don't have the time to see what happens around us. How many details do you remember from your daily trip to work, as a matter of fact? Even more worrisome is when you talk to people and you see that they look at you but then on the other hand they don't. Either they have a veil before their eyes or they stare at your forehead. Are people scared of looking another person in the eye? What could happen? You come too close perhaps. I think it's more about not being able to play a role anymore. Your eyes could reveal something about your vulnerability.

Waiting time

There's an interesting new book by Billy Ehn and Orvar Löfgren. I could recommend it to anyone who is interested in what is going on when nothing happens (When nothing really happens or in Swedish "När inget särskilt händer" is the title of the two ethnologists newest book). In the book you can find a lot of really interesting examples about small scale "dramas" happening when it looks as though everything is moving forward in an automatic, dull way. In the shop queues, in the doctors' waiting rooms etc. And how about the intriguing so called disguised waiting (Ehn and Löfgrén 2007:70)? It's the situation when you wait for someone and you don't want to look like a waiting person...A perfect time for playing with your mobile phone or music player...And what about other situations of waiting? Waiting for the weekend , waiting for a project to start, waiting for funding and in case of illness waiting for the decisions and results that predict your future? How about analyzing waiting processes and forced waiting using the concept of power? Be nice and patient, and wait for your turn is used to educate us from the early childhood into becoming humble "waiters" (there's really not any word for this. What should you call a person who is waiting?). Anyway, our society is trying hard to avoid waiting and make everything more efficient. Using the slogan "you don't have to wait here" are for those who want everything straight away and at the moment they get in contact. But what about the opposite? What if you like or get so used to waiting that it's a part of every service delivery? Are we segmented into those who can't wait and those who can or are forced to wait (because of power issues?)...

Seniors 2.0

It's not that easy to start writing after a longer period of leisure time and especially extensive eating. But by relaxing I found a lot of interesting ideas that could be developed further. Here is one example. As my favorite research subject is senior consumers and my work is becoming more and more a part of the social web world (just starting a project in our Library) I decided to combine these two. Seniors 2.o is emerging and we should really be aware of this development. In Finland there has been some trials but I think that they have become unknown and not so socially interactive as the design of the websites is old-fashioned and there is no good network of active participants.

Facebook for seniors has been demanded in this blog post and there are plenty of examples of best practices all around the world agetimeseconomie and boomerwomenmarketing and 50plusmarkt

So there really are interesting issues both in research and innovations to launch in this area. It's important to fight against ageism, to empower every age group in the society and also facilitate communication and the feeling of being included.