As we may watch

Ex-co-PhD student Martin Sønderlev Christensen (of nowuseit fame) defends his thesis masterpiece at ITU tomorrow (14:00, Auditorium 4 or 2).

The thesis is here (draft version).

Update:



By stilleben [‘stelle:bƏn] http://www.flickr.com/people/stilleben/

The abstract reads:

Abstract
This dissertation offers a cultural theoretical interpretation of the emergence of personal affective mobile media [PAMM]. By interpreting the apparent cultural changes and representation of mobile devices, the dissertation provides a description that emphasizes a conceptual shift from understanding technology as efficiency to using it affectively.

Continue reading As we may watch

The psychology of dough-nut salesmen

Sometimes – rarely – a book manages to forcefully alter the way you view your surroundings. For me, such books are almost always of the popular science variety. I recently, based on Thomas‘ sage advice, enjoyed Cialdini’s Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion in which the author entertainingly describes salesman’s (in the broadest sense) techniques to bend you to their will. I promise that this book will make you enjoy meeting salespeople more – even if understanding the principles (one of the interesting points of the book) does not make one immune to their dark powers.

I experienced the latter quite clearly in a recent trip to Tunesia. On our first day, a dough-nut salesman walked up to me and my 3-year old daughter offering his sugary wonders. I told him no thanks, but he was persistent and finally put a dough-nut in the hand of my daughter who promptly took a bite. He then asked for payment. To put it in terms suitable for this blog I instantly developed somewhat negative feelings towards our dough-nut friend. I told him that he had given away his dough-nut – and I didn’t pay him. He walked off and my daughter threw away the thing quite quickly. And at this point, the situation was: My daughter had had a bite of dough-nut and nobody had suffered any damage. So why did I still feel extremely annoyed: Because he had disregarded my clearly stated interest and used my daughter as part of the bargain, but also because he had made me violate the extremely strong reciprocity principle in human interaction. See Cialdini’s Chapter 2.

In a larger perspective the best of such books does the reader a great service by tying together phenomena that the brain formerly had to process individually. It collapses seemingly separate categories and thus makes room for more. They make you smart.

Sing, O goddess

All good things – and apparently also the barely bearable ones – must come to an end.

As implied, my dissertation was sent on its merry way through the labyrinthine ways of the Danish PhD system, beyond human interference. That is well and good.

In recent weeks I’ve been in recovery spending much-appreciated (by me, at least) quality time with the family. Venturing a premature diagnosis, I’d say I’ve come through with only curable wounds (but the dreams! the dreams!!!).

The old “What now?” question rears its head. From now on I’ll focus on embedded gender values in late modernity leisure practices in a strictly hermeneutic pperspective. No seriously, here’s what: From 1 Sep I’ll return to the ITU to co-teach the “Digital Media” course and to head (in practice from October-November or so) the Digital Design and Communication study line. Formally, I’ll be a member of the Innovative Communication research group but I will of course stay closely in touch with the illustrious Game Center.

I guess all these changes makes this a good time to take stock. This blog, I believe, has suffered from a lack of focus. Rest assured this will only get worse. I will be finger-thinking about new topics and generally allow myself the luxury of constraintlessness. On the other hand, I will be more systematic with entry categorization so it will be possible to RSS-read more specifically.

And so, I need only say welcome back to TDSoT – it’s not new, but it’s not very old either.

(I’ll be uploading the dissertation here as soon as I can create a web-friendly PDF).

The beast is born


No Russian men’s choirs appeared and the sound of trumpets seemed distant indeed, but my dissertation epos made its bumpy way from the smoking remnants of my brain, into a 10mb PDF, out of a (now altogether disoriented) Canon printer and to the kind people of “Facilities Management” who promised to bind it. In other words, I plan to arrive casually tomorrow morning, collect the bound monstrosities, cart them to the right fourth floor office and deliver the thing to meet its destiny.

In case the comitee find the thing defensible, the defense is scheduled for 7 December.

(Photo by Soundsgood)