Around this time last month, I officially and FINALLY completed my PhD. My dissertation was accepted without any revisions needed (something I'm told is rather rare). So I'm now officially Doctor Glen Farrelly - Doctor of Information.
I'm in the process now of searching for a job. I'm interested in positions in both academia and
industry. I'd love to work in areas related to digital media design,
user experience, and understanding user behaviour. Check out my
LinkedIn profile and please let me know of any good jobs!
Completing my doctorate was a long, laborious, and labyrinthine process. To borrow further from Greek mythology - it was a herculean task and at times even sisyphean that would make for a fine Greek comedy and tragedy simultaneously.
In the weeks leading up to my dissertation oral defense and before that with the months of work in researching, writing, and revising of the dissertation, I was engulfed and exhausted. So I have long neglected this blog. Yet, this blog was an important part of my PhD.
As I have blogged about before, this blog and the arrival of Web 2.0 sites such as Delicious, Facebook, and Twitter got me thinking more deeply about the power and possibilities of this new medium. Through blogging I began to research digital media topics and write about them. This and some other events lead me to want to pursue studying these topics at a higher level, so I decided to do a master's degree at Royal Roads.
The blog posts here and as later syndicated by Backbone Magazine helped provide a portfolio of my work as well as opportunity to refine and extend my writing. This helped me get into grad school. Then while at grad school, this blog provided an outlet for my ongoing research as well as a means to help recruit participants for my various studies (interviews on website accessibility adoption, a survey on mobile application usage, user ethnography on Foursquare, and finally my dissertation on locative media).
I've referred to my blog as a "research blog" and several people thought my academic blogging was quite innovative while others thought it was pointless (as only publications in A journals matter to them). I've been surprised by how few scholars have a research blog still today (well, maybe not that surprised considering how busy most academics are).
During my herculean/sisyphean labours my blog was here for me and it played a vital role in that process.
Going forward, however, I'm not sure the role that blogging will play for me. Over the years, I've lost a lot of motivation for creating user generated content - or as one scholar refers to it loser generated content. It's a huge time commitment without any compensation.
Regardless, I'm grateful for the outlet and opportunity that this blog has offerred me. Stay tuned.
