Thursday, November 20, 2008

What has Kelly been up to lately?

Two people I respect a lot told me they were disappointed to see nothing from me blog-wise lately. Well, not as disappointed as I am in myself! So, here goes ...

I have been having a great term so far! I’m having fun in my class (Project Management). Hopefully the students are, too. I’m working on some papers (aka writing), taking the odd “how to” course at UofT, applying for things, submitting stuff, conducting research interviews, co-chairing workshops at CASCON, updating my webpage ... the usual professor stuff (I think). I need more students ... hint, hint.

One of my more exciting accomplishments of the term is coming up with a distinct statement about my research. Seems this should have been obvious to me but it wasn’t and it took some time for me to feel good about it. Here it is:

My current research interests include services science, social computing, data management, and business intelligence. In general, I am interested the application of technology in order to positively impact specific domains while taking into consideration the cultural and social implications of applying technology in those domains. Service science is an emerging discipline that looks broadly at the application of technology to positively impact services and the social and cultural impacts of doing so. Specifically, I am focusing on the technology and work practices that facilitate human-to-human exchanges and value creation in services which has led me to work in social computing technologies and virtual worlds.

More details are on my webpage in the “Research” section.

Something else exciting I accomplished since my last post was articulating my teaching philosophy.

To me, these are just a few of the wonderful aspects of being a professor (you can tell I'm still in the naive, honeymoon stage of this job)!