KA Second Life 6/19/08 - 2

Williams, S. Synthesis on fire: A decolonizing anthropology of Western/Non-Western epistemology and methodology.




Drezner, D. W., & Farrell, H. (2004). Web of Influence. [Feature Article]. Foreign Policy, Nov/Dec 2004(145), 9.

KA Second Life 6/19/08

Balancing Act: Standing for what you believe, or Playing your role

The role of the public intellectual

Alan Lightman writes on his website article on the MIT Communications Forum, http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/lightman.html:

" Such a person is often a trained in a particular discipline, such as linguistics, biology, history, economics, literary criticism, and who is on the faculty of a college or university. When such a person decides to write and speak to a larger audience than their professional colleagues, he or she becomes a "public intellectual."

After spending 26 years in the workforce learning to be “a professional”, I am finding myself wanting to be an undergraduate again. I was not one of the protesters at UC Berkeley. I was not one of the protestors at UC Santa Barbara. Instead, I was a quiet student who spent a lot of time in the library trying to learn the rules of engagement to be a “certified public accountant”. I had friends who were arrested because they were protesting at Stanford while getting their degrees. They were proud of their police record. I was afraid of having a police record in case a potential employer (CPA firm) would object. I took the CPA Ethics Exam seriously, unlike a few bad apples at Arthur Anderson, and worried about how to behave so I was not a blight on my profession. These worries, however, were probably NOT why I didn’t protest. I didn’t protest because I didn’t have a passion worthy of a police record.

My passion is my work; My work is my passion

Having heard this many times at graduation ceremonies, at conference keynote speeches about career development, and at Bar Mitzvah’s, the young person’s job is to “find their passion”. How do you do that? It has taken me 48 years. It wasn’t until a year ago, when I was trying to fill out the application to Fielding Graduate University, that I decided to “lay it all out there”. I have the luxury of perspective since I am going to be a ½ century old in 2 months. I started out my life as a CPA because my dad, who is also a CPA, said it’s a great first job because you learn a lot about business and get to see different industries. He was so correct. I was the lucky one in my office, the San Francisco Office of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co, one of the largest of the “big eight” accounting firms. I had 10 different jobs, in probably 5-6 different industries when I was 22 years old. Others in my office got put on one of the large insurance company audits, and was “stuck” there all year. Then, they were labeled an insurance “specialist” on the schedule, and got more insurance jobs. If I had to do it over again, I probably would be the same major in college, and take the same type of first job, and pray for variety, and lots of it.

What I missed, however, was practice at risk taking. Risk Management (read “avoiding risk”) is a function within companies. I manage this function now at the University I work at as it usually falls under the responsibility of the Chief Financial Officer. Administration and the structure of all companies, encourage risk avoidance. There is lots of research around this that I will not address that in this paper.

About 10 years ago, I started my own business. I wanted to work for myself so a) I could pick my own clients, b) work my own hours, c) be accountable to myself, and d) have more time for my family and my volunteer work. I put in my business plan that I wanted to work in not-for-profit, but I didn’t have any idea of what kind of organization. I ended up fulltime 10 years later at a university, my first non-profit client. I also decided about 4 years ago to join the Palo Alto Family YMCA board, and because we are required to join one committee, joined the international committee, now renamed Diversity/International Committee. Since then, I have become a Diversity and International junkie. I plan to attend the World Alliance Meeting (every six years) in 2010, and the YMCA International Conference, probably also in 2010. This is now my passion.

Being a Public Intellectual

It is much easier to be a public intellectual about something you are passionate about. It is amazing how much synergy in things that appear to you when you are looking for answers on a particular topic. Once I got involved in Diversity and International at the YMCA, my boss asked me to head the Diversity Task Force at work and of course, I dived into it, doing lots of research and reading. I probably would not have bothered if it didn’t resonate with me. It was very successful, and I’m not sure if it was the extra work I put into, or because I was so engaged, or because it was the right thing to do. Now, in this class and in my dissertation, it is much easier to be public about your opinions if you feel that even if the thoughts are private, that you feel so strongly about them, it doesn’t matter. Passion becomes identity, and being public reveals your identity to others.

Cyberspace

I feel that the videos in this section revealed the passion of the authors. What Peter Senge would call “creative tension” is everywhere on these websites. The internet allows us to leave digital bits and pieces of our identities around for others to discover in a very public way. The virtual “soap box” of yesteryears is evolving as we speak giving louder voices to marginalized groups, but also excluding others (the digital divide). In “Cultural Imperialism in the Virtual Classroom: Critical Pedagogy in transnational Distance Education” Gayol and Schied talk about how “critical pedagogy attempts to pen a democratic space in the sphere of contents, but it is more important to share expertise in order to allow marginalized groups to under the process of being a virtual learner”. Cyberspace, similar to the printing press, is giving a broader voice to new groups of people, and public intellectuals in both environments are the perfect people to take advantage of these paradigm shifts.

KA Second Life and Dissertation 6/8/08

Today I put an Applied proposal together using my dissertation articles and the second life KA material.

Ideally, I would like to have a "chat" like we do in Skype or Webex so I can monitor who wants to speak (raise hands) and somehow record what we say (like in notes in the chat box). I do not need to have this in second life. I only thought it might be preferred for this class. Actually, from a time standpoint, and interest level, I prefer to do my stimulation in WebEx since I'm more familiar with it and it seems easier to use, especially if you have a lot of people (10 to 20). I watched Anna Distefano, moderate the diversity call, and I learned a lot. Also, I don't know how long I have to conduct this conversation. It seems like I would need to ask for a 45-60 minute minimum commitment from each person in order to fully complete the dialogue.

A. controversial topic: should Israel help the refugees from Darfur who are crossing over the Israeli border? Is allowing them to stay but providing little or no assistance enough?

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/world/2008/02/28/
african-refugees-pose-a-dilemma-for-israel.html

B. How to structure a Difficult Dialogue online:

B.1 Rules of Engagement:

Dialogue groups:
* we will respect confidentiality
* we will speak in the first person
*we will insure the participation of all
*we will share from a level of personal responsibility
*we will not judge one another
*we will acknowledge anger, but we will not express thoughts that are aimed at specifically hurting or demeaning one another
* we will listen carefully and respectfully to one another
* we will follow the process
*we will start and end on time
* we will listen as allies, not as critics

Justice, N. C. f. C. a. (Ed.). (1999). Intergroup Relations in the United States: Seven Promising Practices. New York, NY: National Conference for Community and Justice.

requires parties to clarify needs and values and dissatisfaciton and satisfaction
i) dignity
ii) recognition
iii) safety
iv) control
v) purpose
vi) efficacy

Required Beliefs
A. all people are of equal importance
B. people differ because they possess diff. ways of seeing and doing things
C. no individual or group merits superiority

Friedman, V. J., & Antal, A. B. (2005). Negotiating Reality: A Theory of Action Approach to Intercultural Competence. Management Learning, 36(1), 69.

B.2 Questions to ask people to start them thinking

V. Values
A. Self-transcendence
1. Universalism
2. Benevolence
B. Openness to Change
1. Self Direction
2. Stimulation
C. Conservation
1. Security
2. Tradition
3. Conformity
D. Self-enhancement
1. Power
2. Achievement
3. Hedonism

van Es, R., French, W., & Stellmaszek, F. (2004). Resolving Conflicts Over Ethical Issues: Face-to-face Versus Internet Negotiations. Journal of Business Ethics, 53(1-2), 165.

I would like to incorporate the work of these two books into this exercise as well:

Weisbord, M. R., & Janoff, S. (2000). Future search : an action guide to finding common ground in organizations and communities (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Brown, J., & Isaacs, D. (2005). The world café : shaping our futures through conversations that matter (1st ed.). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.