Truth (5)

There's also a trend against individuality in university teaching - jeez, don't I know it! This is due to cultural mindthink, the pervasive dominance of quality systems and departments which are increasingly required to safeguard institutions against being sued. The whole drive towards standardisation of courses in mass higher education is necessitated because lots of presenters are needed to present to large numbers of enrolled students.  This "lectures" need to be planned and scripted. This is another discussion but stems from viewing higher education as a mass consumer service so more money can be made. It also attempts to devolve power & control away from the individual academic who can be easily replaced by another speaker. It also effectively requires an academic to effectively hand over at least part of their intellectual capital to the institution.

We need to consider what the implications of these developments are. If the wrong kind of knowledge were being purchased by very few people, with only limited relevance to their actual, future careers, there's only surely a certain amount of time before the results speak for themselves? I'm getting not to get sued, or fired, so I'm treading carefully for wisdom's sake. But I'm getting to engage you in a discussion ;one I think we really need to have, even if it's only a case that we are the ones with a more sensible way forward. That's even assuming that we're even considering any merit at all in helping ordinary people to take control over their own lives, assuming that they really want it.

I know this 5 parter is a jumbled, stream of consciousness, but I hope you enjoyed reading it half as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Horseshit

It's refreshing to hear what you really think.

I was having an email exchange the other day with Helmut Smiley, Professor of Organisational Improvement at Belsen College of Technology. This guy is really well published in the area of on the job psychology. His new book "Workplace bullying: How to do it without getting caught" might soon sell a few copies.

Anyway, Helmut's following treatise on the value of applied business research really impressed me, so I thought I'd share it with you all:

"It is all horseshit. certainly in the business realm. I mean show me one piece of research in management or marketing in the last 50 years that has made a meaningful impact on the way business or society functions. It happens in the hard sciences all the time; a new drug, fabric or engine, but there is not the same kind of accountability in the social sciences."

Well thanks for all that Helmut.

When I shared this comment today with my office chum Malmot Chigley, he remarked that when you go to a medical research conference you see Doctors, when you go to an engineering research conference it's attended by engineers. But when you go to a business research conference it's held by third-rate academics who do fuc* all.