well 10 days really, but I think the continuing trail of song titles is worthy of maintaining. The first two photos you see here were taken day before I left for Phoenix, Arizona, for the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) conference, and the morning after I returned (following a 43 hour door to door travelling time, from the time I left the hotel in Phoenix till the time I dropped my bags inside the front door of the apartment in Kochi).
It's good to know the work was continuing apace while I was away (not that my presence or absence does or should make any difference, but it's still good to know). The second photo shows the work that has taken place in the time I was away, while the first photo is part of the continuing chronicle on the Indian approach to OHS (occupational health & safety) on a building site. I can only look on and shake my head at sights such as the one above.
I had a much shorter travelling time to Phoenix (only 32 hours door to door) and arrived on the Thursday evening ready for a event filled four days. Friday was indeed a good day, out at the Arizona State University (ASU), presenting several workshops on "getting published" for Emerald Group Publishing to groups of doctoral students and early career researchers. The first of the sessions was recorded (audio and video) for a podcast and I'm looking forward to seeing the end result (Matt, the guy doing the recording, has a great reputation for the quality of his podcasts, but I constitute a test in terms of being made to look good (he said with an appropriate level of self-deprecation) so, if he can do so, he'll be the real star). The folks at ASU were a warm and hospitable lot and I had a thoroughly enjoyable time. I wish the same could be said of the DSI experience.
The first clue came when I arrived, and logged on to the conference website, having alerted the DSI folks a week earlier that, among other things, the University affiliation I had been given (Big Pond) was actually part of an old Australian email address, and found that nothing had been amended. When I registered in the afternoon after the great ASU experience, the day was spoiled by discovering that, not only was the "getting published" session I was supposed to be doing not listed in the hard copy of the conference program, I didn't even appear as a delegate (despite having registered back in September). I raised these issues with the conference chair, who was suitably apologetic, but, given that the conference pack was full of separate fliers advertising the "getting published" sessions run on behalf of the DSI's own publications, I couldn't help but think they didn't want the "competition". I wish they'd told me that earlier - we could have saved some money and me the sturm und angst of 75 hours worth of door-to-door travelling.
Anyway, despite the best efforts of the organisers, I still managed to attract 10 people to the session on Sunday afternoon (including three who I was pleased to present with Emerald awards for the quality of their publications in Emerald journals; their photos appear in this blog as well, with me in tow (see below) - now you can see why Matt will have his work cut out to produce a podcast that won't scare people (he said with another self-deprecating grin)). The folks who turned up were appreciative and interested and I remain appreciative of their enthusiasm and participation.
In the interim and on the Monday before I began the long journey back to Kochi, I was able to get on with a variety of tasks, including finishing off a book review for the Journal of Management History I had started in the plane on the way over, so the time wasn't a total waste conference wise. I also got to see some not unattractive sights out of my hotel room window (Arizona is basically a desert and Phoenix is a city built in the desert, lending itself to some unusual sights, but also some pretty ones). I've captured a couple of those sights in the following photos (this is a real memory hungry blog, eh Google?)
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