Yesterday, while changing planes in Stockholm I picked up a book written by an anthropologist Kate Fox – Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour. The fun has started from the introduction on ‘anthropology at home’ and then continued with study results written up in scientific and humorous way at the same time.

A quote on participant observation (I guess it will end up somewhere in my dissertation :):

Anthropologists are trained to use a research method known as ‘participant observation’, which is essentially means participating in the life and culture of the people one is studying, to gain a true insider’s perspective on their customs and behaviors, while simultaneously observing them as a detached, objective scientist. Well, that’s the theory. In practice it often feels rather like that children’s game where you try to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2006/08/25.html#a1820; comments are here.

• Paper: Blending blogging into an academic text
• Weblog research ethics (3)
• Methodology chapter: Quality verification strategies

While reading a research report for the study where I was one of the respondents I realised that even while my quotes were identified with a nickname there would be quite some number of people who could figure out it was me if they get to read the whole thing…

This is something I has been struggling in my own research as well. Simple: when I report on interviews with bloggers shall I add a (nick)name to every quote/fact?

On one hand, it dramatically improves readability of the research results – readers could reconstruct what different characters were saying and how different aspects of their story connect to each other. On another hand, this is exactly something that compromises their privacy: sometimes you don’t need a name to recognise that the story told in the research report is associated with a specific person.

Sometimes you don’t need the whole story. In one of my interviews with Microsoft bloggers I brought in an opposing opinion of another respondent (“some people say so and so”) to get into a discussion on why differences were there. The respondent immediately identified the name of the person I tried to hide…

This could be just an exception, but I’m pretty sure that if I let quotes to be accompanied by nicknames (=allowing to trace that they belong to the same person) then many of the personalities behind them could be easily identified by their peers (and I’m not talking about the fact that I can’t quote anything from the respondents’ blogs – that gives them away immediately).

It doesn’t make a big issue when “the field” you study and “the academic audience” you write for are far apart, so the chances of someone from the field reading the results of the study is low. However, it’s not the case with my research – a weblog reveals personality and the blogosphere is interconnected enough, I choose to study lead users who often have an interest in the results and I actually find important reaching them – the chances that my respondents or people who can identify them read the results are pretty high.

And, while I’m strfuggling with my writing choices I have a book suggestion for those who feel like diving into these issues further: When They Read What We Write: The Politics of Ethnography. So far this was the best to put my own experiences and thinking into perspective. I will blog it one day (if I’m bad this will not happen before writing the related section of my dissertation :)

Related from another angle: Weblog research ethics – 1, 2 3

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2006/07/11.html#a1799; comments are here.

• How blogging makes my life difficult
• Archaeology and ethnography in weblog research
• Methodology chapter: blogging practices

Something to read for those seriousely looking at autoethnography for their research – Representation, Legitimation, and Autoethnography: An Autoethnographic Writing Story by Nicholas L. Holt

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to critique representation and legitimation as they relate to the peer review process for an autoethnographic manuscript. Using a conversation derived from seven reviewers’ comments pertaining to one autoethnographic manuscript, issues relating to (a) the use of verification strategies in autoethnographic studies; and, (b) the use of self as the only data source are discussed. As such, this paper can be considered as an autoethnographic writing story. The problematic nature of autoethnography, which is located at the boundaries of scientific research, is examined by linking the author’s experiences of the review process with dominant research perspectives. Suggestions for investigators wishing to produce autoethnographic accounts are outlined along with a call for the development of appropriate evaluative criteria for such work.

Make sure you check references as well.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2006/06/30.html#a1790; comments are here.

• Defining personal KM
• Invisible work
• Uses/benefits of blogging for knowledge workers

Three fragments from a post by Bev Trayner on Reflexive project of the self :

In our work we are purposefully stretching and crossing academic genre conventions by, among other things, presenting a paper [more here] in conjunction with a Wiki. The Wiki will be an ongoing text about remembering and forgetting in communities and supported by collaborative web2.0 technologies. It’s a text that walks the talk as we remember and forget in our own community, supported by collaborative web2.0 technologies. The Wiki is an invitation for readers and reviewers to become collaborators of the text.

Somehow, thinking of similar “stretching and crossing” while writing my own papers I frequently end up doing things old-fashioned way (writing in private, only late drafts/final versions in public – usually after review). Instead of doing things in a way I believe they should be done, I start to thing about problems any public coverage creates for double-blind reviewing or possible copyright issues arising from having most of the work online before it gets published.

Which reminds me on reflecting on why I don’t bend the rules instead of bending the rules during my first days at Microsoft. It seems that you have to be confident in a particular culture to make choices that are likely to cross the boundaries of what is safely acceptable and what is stretching and crossing. In a sense it’s about certain degree of maturity. As my mom used to say during my teenage wars for independence – you will know when it’s ok to come home late when you don’t feel a need to ask permissions.

Inspired by the work of Carolyn Ellis we are using autoethnography as our research method. In the meantime I’m interested to trace my interest in autothnography which began last year when Lilia Efimova recommended a book by Ellis and where I went through the steps of being: curious, inspired, stimulated and resolved. Read Ellis and it’s difficult to go back to being the same author you once were.

Strange and funny how our own words start travelling and grow into something totally unexpected :) Aactually, while reading other books of Carolyn Ellis I missed this one. But I agree that “it’s difficult to go back to being the same author you once were” – writing-wise I feel so much in between “old” and “unknown” (or “not yet confident enough to jump into”?) me-as-an-author.

As I’m writing I am also cruising (again) through Anthony Giddens “Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age” His words resonate with our conversations about our process of writing the text:

‘In the post-traditional order of modernity, and against the backdrop of new forms of mediated experience, self-identity becomes a reflexively organised endeavour. The reflexive project of the self, which consists in the sustaining of coherent, yet continuously revised, biographical narratives, takes place in the context of multiple choices as filtered through abstract systems.’ (p.5)

And my body tingles as I get one of those rare rushes where everything in life all falls into place!

So familiar :) But this time it feels like a lot of work between now and next one of those rare rushes…

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2006/06/18.html#a1781; comments are here.

• Why storytelling works?
• Making choices
• The ‘and’ way and the ‘but’ way

My last post made me thinking on (actually drawing :) the distinctions between artefacts and practices in a context of weblog research (not theorethical at all):

• Blogging artefacts are “things” that could be seen: weblog posts, links, comments, blogrolls, RSS subscriptions, etc. Some of them are hidden (e.g. draft posts), but most could be easily observed online. That make studying weblogs fun (if you don’t bump into teasing data).
• Blogging practices is about what bloggers do with their blogs, as well as why and how of it. Blogging practices are often invisible and (sub)culture-specific. Artefacts represent practices and play all other roles (e.g. they could be products or tools).

So, what would be a way to study blogging practices? I have a few pictures. The first two represent what I call archeology and ethnography (the person with “flower” is actually a researcher with “looking glass” :).

‘Archeology’ is about studying artefacts in order to say something about artefacts or practices. In the first case, I don’t have any problem: study artefacts -> say something about them.

The second case could be more complicated. Artefacts only represent practices, so if you want to study artefacts and then say something about practices you need to understand how those two connected. One way to do so is by having a good theory (existing knowledge of connections between artefacts and practices): if you have it then claims about practices based on artefacts could be pretty much true.

The point is that in most cases we do not have good existing knowledge about blogging practices, so I tend to be quite critical on blog research that concludes something about blogging practices by studying only artefacts. For example.

Ethnography would be an alternative: studying practices by living the “life of the tribe”. In this case you are more likely to provide a better picture of specific practices, but those would be limited to subcultures you studied. However, it’s also pretty time-consuming.

I also learnt from Andrea that ethnographers do not necessarily have interest in artefacts or skills to study them the way “archeologists” would do. Which would be a pity in a case of weblogs, since blogging artefacts can say a lot, especially if “triangulated” based on knowledge about practices.

It also doesn’t mean that you really have to be “inside” to learn about practices. Another way would be to ask people to tell stories about practices (e.g. in interviews or, in a very shortened form, in surveys). However, blogs provide an additional way: one can study meta-blogging (blog posts reflecting on all kinds of issues around blogging).

Meta-blogging posts would provide at least some idea on blogging practices without directly asking bloggers. Of course, they are likely to bias the results in the direction of bloggers who tend to reflect more or do not censor these posts based on whatever reason.

***

Hmm… not that scientific, but at least something. In case you wonder where are my own preferences: they are about triangulating :)

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2006/04/12.html#a1763; comments are here.

• Case Research Methodology course
• BlogTalk 2.0: Panel 4 – blog adoption and blog communities
• Audience, structure and authority in the weblog community

The idea of describing and analyzing our own weblog-mediated relationship came into life during one of our first Skype talks: despite of different backgrounds both of us were exploring weblog practices, interested on online ethnography, and fascinated by reflective and autoethnographic writing. We desided to try writing it as a co-constructed narrative.

***

Co-constructed narrative (Ellis & Bochner, 1992) is “a way to study relationships that would more closely reflect how we live them in everyday life” (Ellis, 2004: 71).

According to Arthur Bocher (Bocher, 2003: 91):

This type of research focuses on the international sequences by which interpretations of relationship life are constructed, coordinated, and solidified into stories. The local narratives that are jointly produced thus display couples in the process of ‘doing’ their relationships, trying to turn fragmented, vague, or disjointed events into intelligible, coherent accounts.

From our perspective this way of working is useful in providing a view on blogging from an insider’s perspective, since it allows to include in the analysis personal interpretations and the artefacts that difficult to get hold otherwise, and to explore any asymmetry in the relationship.

***

First, each of us independently constructed a (hi)story of our relationship. Those two stories contained both: “objective” timeline of interactions with references to digital traces each of us was able to recover and “subjective” personal interpretations of what has happened. We emailed the stories to each other and then tried to work on “co-constructing” the whole from those pieces.

It didn’t work: although we were able to organize bits and pieces in a chronological order, neither of us was feeling that we get closer to understanding the whole. It is difficult to say, what was the reason for it. Could be the fact of getting into a co-authoring endeavor after knowing each other online for only a few months, lack of rich context glues from missing face-to-face meetings or simply many personal changes both of us were going through at that time.

In any case, we were able to move further only when we had an opportunity to meet each other for the first time. After spending quite a few hours sharing details of our personal lives (those that didn’t find much place in both of our not-so-personal weblogs), we started to work on the story.

To recreate the process of interactions we printed weblog entries and comments that involved both of us. In addition we printed out bookmarks of each other blog entries, emails that we exchanged, and Skype chat histories. All of these “traces” contained date and time stamps. We made decisions to include in our analysis only those of first three months of our interactions, the time before we decided to work on the paper together.

To create an overview of our interactions we arranged printed “conversational” fragments and corresponding “interpretive” story pieces in a chronological order, keeping separate columns for each communication space and interpretations (see the notes).

Organizing those fragments and trying to retrace our actions helped us to discover those we missed at the first sight: weblog posts one of us wouldn’t consider relevant, but linked from another, comments that were there originally, but disappeared… We also realized what we miss by not having notes or recordings of our voice conversations on Skype (we had only transcripts of chat that accompanied it – it was used mainly for exchanging links and references to support “main” voice conversation). We were not immediately sure during which of our Skype talks we decided to work on this story, so we needed to rely on the secondary evidence (e.g. “action point” emails) to figure it out.

The process of organizing the story from fragments came to be the rich source of insights and reflections of what has happened: finally each of us were able to see the logic and feelings of another person, to connect actions, reactions and interpretations, to discover and question discrepancies. As we worked on constructing the story, we added a meta-layer of those observations to it (those are yellow post-its in the photo on the right). For the first time we were actually able to “see and feel” what has happened and to analyze the emergent themes in a systematic way.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2006/03/30.html#a1750; comments are here.

• Weblog conversation tracking tool
• Blog networking, blogwalking and being a boundary subject
• Between cultures

Somewhere in the morning he asks: “Have you actually met Andrea?”

“No.” And, feeling that I need an excuse, I add – “but I have stayed myself in the houses of bloggers I never met”. He smiles understandingly and I hope that he really understands, even if it looks a bit crazy…

Later during the day, in between work and cleaning the house, I think that indeed it’s a bit crazy – that sort of crazy that became a lifestyle for me. Somehow, relations with other bloggers need to cross the boundary between online and offline. Somehow, being in a weblog-mediated contact often turns into a need (often an urge ;) to meet – to move on slow mediated conversations into real life exchanges, to see how much real person is close to that imaginary friend you construct while reading a weblog, emailing and skyping in between, to confirm that you are indeed as close in the real life as it feels from online. And, blogging seems to create not only this need, but also the trust needed to cross the boundary with a bit intrusive “I’m in the city – shall we meet?” or “so, why don’t you come here?”, to go the extra mile of arranging the logistics and to sound convincing while explaining to others why you actually do those crazy things…

In the evening, when we meet for the first time, I feel strange. I know that feeling from before, meeting someone you feel you know quite good, while realizing that you probably don’t really know the person. The appearance, the physical presence is unfamiliar, so my brain resists accepting that I could actually know her, but then small details start kicking in – the voice that I know from Skype, personal things that I knew or that fit well with those I knew, references to old blogging themes… And while the conversation develops, my brain is getting more and more convinced – this is not a total stranger, we do click in so many ways, starting a conversation from the point where it was left last time, we probably do know quite a bit of each other and those – unblogged – details that come up now seem to fit that fuzzy picture constructed over time of reading what was in the blog and what was in between the lines…

And, symbolically, first of this spring narcissi’s stand in the sunlit living room – reminding of those last year, the process of discovering my connections with ethnography that, beyond all other things, turned into connection with Andrea and brought her into my house…

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2006/03/23.html#a1744; comments are here.

• Levels of communication, relation building and weblogs
• Trust in weblog conversations
• Blog networking study: participants and their networks

While doing other things I’m in the middle of post-AOIR thinking on research methodologies, ethics and researcher’s responsibilities. I have to do all those other things, but I’m pretty sure that this thinking will surface in writing, sooner or later.

But so far just a quote from Annette Markham (Ethics as method: A case for reflexivity (.pdf)):

Good qualitative research, online or off,
is not difficult to find or access,
it is difficult to formalize.

Good research, online or off,
is hard work.

Good research comes from the heart.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2005/10/12.html#a1693; comments are here.

• Understanding weblog communities through digital traces: a framework, a tool and an example
• Transdisciplinarity in KM
• Evolution of thinking

Can my study of weblogs at Microsoft be qualified as an ethnography? I had an interesting conversation with Jonathan about it while I still was there and I was thinking about it since then. Today, watching post-PDC reactions and ripples of comments on Troubling Exits At Microsoft going through Microsoft weblogs I thought I should write about it…

The starting points:

• The main data of the study comes from the interviews – 40+ hours of semi-structured conversations with bloggers and those who have to deal with bloggers in the company.
• We thought of observations and shadowing, but decided against them. Not because we had particularly good reasons for that, but mainly due to the time constraints.

However for me, those interviews represent only tip of the iceberg – there is much more to it…

Before

Weblogs as a window: introduction. The study didn’t start from scratch – Microsoft bloggers were part of my interest in corporate blogging for a couple of years. Apart from occasional links here and there and MSFT del.icio.us collection, a few (3 in July 2004 ;) weblogs by Microsoft people were in my regular reading list.

These “background” reading definitely helped – I knew a bit about the blogging culture, issues and people in Microsoft before getting there. This knowledge is different from what an ethnographer may get reading other ethnographic accounts about the culture to be studied – weblogs provide a window into first hands experiences that are up to you to interpret. In a sense I was there before I got there physically…

Meeting Microsoft bloggers. Participating in Social Computing Symposium 2005 unexpectedly came to be part of the study as well. During it I talked to many Microsoft people participating – I didn’t know then that those who actually were there were among key people to talk about blogging in the company. I realised it later, when we started to work on the list of people who could give an overview picture of blogging at Microsoft – I had met them before. Earlier contact, even superficial and in totally different role made my first interviews much easier.

There

Figuring out how to be a Microsoft employee who blogs. Walking on ice not knowing how to start, searching intranet and bloggers mailing lists for answers, inquiring bloggers I knew about their experiences (not that much as a researcher, but as a blogger figuring out what are the risks), discussing rules around blogging with people supervising me, finding my own comfort zone in blogging about work and preparing armors to defend it…

This could be easy to discount as personal experiences, but as with other studies I do, I found out my personal experiences to be a good source of insights about the culture and questions to be asked. Not observing, but active participation that mixes things up and comes with a mix of ethical and methodological choices.

Reading Microsoft blogs. My regular reading list went from 3 to 30+ Microsoft blogs. And almost daily checks of sites aggregating external and internal blogs – to have a “headline” view of what’s happening in the Microsoft blogosphere.

That was my observation – not the full-scale, standing behind bloggers’ backs, but via a very special window that let’s you see only what has been written and published for others to see. Hard to bring into the study in a systematic way, but a way to get to know the people I was going to interview, to learn about relations between them, to find out events and issues to ask about…

Part of it was also something that I enjoyed a lot – being a blog detective. At the certain moment I started to look for bloggers that were out of mainstream Microsoft blogging – those using blogs in interesting ways, blogging in other languages, not being high-profile, having multiple blogs – whatever “outlier” conditions looked reasonable given the data we had then. I did it via reading weblogs – looking for interesting and unexpected, browsing through blogrolls and links.

Meeting bloggers. I’m happy that I had an opportunity to be at several blog-related meetings and socialise with bloggers informally. Those are more than just the insights that I wouldn’t be able to get otherwise – they grew into relations that made my time in Seattle more fun and friendship that I hope would last long after this study is finished.

After

Weblogs as a window: follow up. I’m still a bit there – reading Microsoft weblogs as a researcher and as a friend brings past experiences back and adds extra details to the portraits of the people I interviewed. And the blogs still will be there if I decide to compliment ethnography with archaeology of content and link analysis…

***

And just because I feel like sharing it – one of the things I discovered today that made me writing this post.

Julia Lerman:

I’m sitting in Raymond Chen’s “5 Things Every Win32 Developer Should Know” talk. Ray is one of those “oh my god” Microsoft big brains, however, his blog has definitely made him feel like an old friend. I always appreciate his perspective and expression of what he sees in the world. Whenever I get any type of Windows Error message, I *always* click on yes, I want to send this to Microsoft button because I think that it’s going right into his inbox and I know it will get taken care of.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2005/09/19.html#a1672; comments are here.

• Thick participation
• On the role of theory, researcher accountability and translation
• Feed your blog to tOKo and see what comes out

This time in Moscow was different – next to all other things I was running a kick-off meeting for a project (will tell more later – when marketing stuff is out :) with several European and Russian partners. For many Europeans it was the first experience in Russia – signtseeing, but also learning about the culture and preparing for the joint work.

I wonder if I was annoying with all my questions about their experiences :) I was so curious to know what did they discover, find different, similar, worth attention… Even with open borders Russia is still pretty much unknown for many foreigners: image of Russia is a strange combination of cold war time impressions and stories in the media magnify specific issues, but do not tell much about everyday life. I’m happy that this trip made it a bit different at least for a few people.

What I found interesting (and – in retrospect – it shouldn’t be that surprising) that most learning about culture came through experiencing it – finding a way around the city and, especially, three days of joint work with Russian people (like a discussion on financial issues of the project that illuminated many issues that Russian businesses are facing). I was there with two colleagues, and, in spite of all my attempts to prepare them by telling stories it feels like my stories were nothing compared to the richness of their own experiences even in a limited number of situations.

We didn’t design on purpose for those experiences, but, given my believe that understanding cultures – similarities and differences – is crusial for this project, I really would like to think how to make “learning about culture through experience” element stronger next times.

I also think about this from an ethnographic perspective – I’ve read too much about learning culture through reflecting on moments where you as an outsider do not fit. What is strange and funny is my own role – I was constantly switching between being Russian, being someone living abroad and being someone in between – understanding both sides, trying to mediate for common language, thinking of mediation process… This in-between position shows me a way to redefine my own identity and go beyond my current dichotomy of being a guest in the Netherlands or being a stranger in Russia.

And – in case you are curious – main impressions of our European guests (my biased summary ;)

• passion of Russian people
• beauty and scale of Moscow
• green and beautiful parks
• life that never stops (like bookshopping after midnight – and seeing that there are others :)
• a strange combination of a modern high-standard city (could be any European capital) with third world elements – differences that somehow co-exist next to each other

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2005/05/28.html#a1579; comments are here.

• Stretching academic conventions, me-as-an-author and rare rushes
• Thick participation