Doing What I Do Best: Thinking Different – Part One

It has been exactly six months since my dissertation defense. Where has it gone?

The first three months it seemed I had Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. My immediate goal was to restore a sense of holistic balance to a life that had been very OUT of balance during the proposal-data-dissertation phase. It was during the second three months that I have been able to find my particular voice and determine what I can offer the world with my research and experience. The question then becomes, “Where does it fit?”

As an educator, I am passionate about learning – not what is learned per se, but the identity and heart of the learner. While I don’t have the research background – at this moment – to offer anything more than an opinion, I believe that we all have innate interests and talents that give a hint to our “calling.” This isn’t a calling in any religious sense, as much as it is a basic genetic wiring for a particular vocation. For example, when I was very young (<10 years old), I would sit at the kitchen table and take apart watches using my mother’s eyebrow tweezers. I was fascinated with how the watch worked (this was back in the days of wind-up watches), and how it could be taken apart and put back together. I was a geek before geeks has a name!

My problem wasn’t a lack of ability or interest – it was cultural. When I was growing up career women became nurses and teachers – not mechanics or geeks. There was an identity conflict between what I showed an innate ability to become, and what accepted cultural norms were in place. When it became time to enter college, I was one of only two women in the architecture program at my university. The gender pressure, plus my own insecurities about my ability to compete, caused me to leave the program – and the university. I was years before I returned to school.

While my identity conflict seemed to be monumental for a teenager growing up when I did, what about the conflict that arises when the individual has a more “noticeable” separation from the cultural norms of the society where they are raised? What happens when our innate wiring goes against sexual preference or other norms?

This discussion will continue in Part Two of this series. I welcome others to join in this conversation – not as comments – but contributors to a collaborative discussion on the subject.

A Life Vision for Holistic Learning – Part 1

It is with great pleasure that I rejoin the living after a summer of post-graduation contemplation. My last post chronicled the final, stressful months of my dissertation and defense, leaving me with an energy and emotional void once it was over. Rather than feeling excited about the future, I was struggling with who I was and what to do next.

Some in my position might take a week off and then dive into CV writing, publishing, and making contacts, in order to find an assistant professorship for fall. I did apply for positions that looked like a good fit, but found I was foggy about exactly where to apply what I had learned, and so exhausted by the academic process that I didn’t think I would present myself at my best if given an interview. Clearly, it was time to search my soul.

For the next three months I read about the soul: nourishing it, leaving behind what no longer mattered, and articulating my own life purpose. A purpose statement shouldn’t have been difficult to develop; I had been a student for the last five years, studying a subject that seemed to be cutting edge and innovative, with the promise of future research. What should be difficult about that? My problem was that I had developed interests in three different areas and couldn’t decide which area to ultimately pursue. It was only after taking the time to reflect, that I was able to more clearly see that rather than choose among my areas of interest, I was in a unique position to combine them.

My first area of interest, before I even thought about an academic career, is that of life balance. I have always been a proponent of establishing harmony among mind, body, and spirit. I am among those that believe that an imbalance among the three areas can lead to stress, which has a hand in diseases of all kinds. It is my observation that modern life has caused most Americans to live in a perpetual state of imbalance, with obesity, heart problems, and cancer as some of the products of that lifestyle. My own life has lost any sense of balance during the last two years of my PhD program, and was the first area to readdress once I finished.

My second area of interest regarded what I had done professionally before returning to school for the PhD. I was a geek, and loved the use of media and interaction in shaping behavior. My graduate work was in Global eManagement – something of a digital MBA – causing me to move toward ecommerce and web marketing after graduation. The advent of Facebook and YouTube (among other outlets), have given a voice to just about anyone with an Internet connection and has changed the way we behave – as friends as well as consumers.

Finally, my research area during my PhD program observed what we become when we go online – who we are when we enter, how we interact with others while we are there, and how our lives outside of cyberspace change as a result. It was incredibly rewarding to work with subjects who were open, and sometimes tearful, about how becoming an avatar had helped them find an identity that eluded them in “real” life. My dissertation made liberal use of digital storytelling and media – even live streaming – in an effort to capture the essence of the hearts of my subjects. The subject videos that were created as part of my blended reality research efforts may be viewed on YouTube.

My post-graduation struggle was in determining what to pursue; it seemed these areas did not share a lot of overlap. But after months of reflection, I realized they all pointed to something that was very deep in my own convictions. My life was about balance, about education, and about helping people find their voice (transformation). I then realized that learning should holistic: it should engage the mind to think creatively, it should incite the body to activity, and it should transform the soul and establish a voice. The areas I had been interested in all my life weren’t divergent – they were complimentary!

All Dressed Up (with a PhD) And Nowhere To Go

Congratulations, Dr. Wise…

I bit my lip, teared up just a little, and thanked my committee for helping me through five long years of study that culminated in my PhD in Educational Leadership and Innovation. Like other new graduates in 2011, I was entering an employment market that held no real promise for the future. Our hands are shaken, we are given pats on the back for being academically superior, and we step out into a sea of unemployment that crosses both academic and corporate boundaries.

I hoped my journey might be different. My background was in technology and media. I had a graduate degree in the area; I could work in systems, analysis, and eCommerce, yet I always gravitated back to how people learned and how technology could be used in that process. I was always as concerned with developing people as I was improving processes, always cognizant of the balance between what was possible and what was practical. Entering a PhD program with a corporate background kept me focused on results: I needed to be innovative and merge my expertise in technology with my academic work.

And so I did.

My work focused on streaming media, digital storytelling (video), narrative, and music. I researched the interplay of real and crafted identities of musicians who perform live in Second Life (the 3D virtual environment). I listened for their stories, wrote about them not only as artists and small business people, but performers on a stage that removes boundaries not only in how we communicate, but in how we share…everything. While all of my subjects were in the US, they were geographically disparate. Their musical styles reflected the regions where they lived, yet on a global stage these boundaries dissolved.

My research was innovative, crossed disciplines, was entrepreneurial, and added to the expanding body of research about human behavior in virtual spaces. It has an application not only in media, learning and development about how we conduct business, it can be applied to education and learning in teaching everyone about becoming global and thriving in a very diverse world.

I am ready for the next step: To bring value to any organization (academic or corporate) that has a place for someone with my unique blend of skills. Please visit my website, http://www.debwise.com, for more information.

I am ready…are you?

Deborah Wise, PhD

dr.deb@me.com

What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

How appropriate I should be updating my blog on Mother’s Day. As someone who had made the study of identity and psychosocial development part of her life’s work, I realize that after all the dust has settled and I look back on my career and accomplishments, my role and identity as a mother is the role of which I am most proud. I have been honored to have a front-row seat to the life performances of three of the most amazing women on the planet, and consider myself truly blessed to be counted among their friends, now that they are adults.

My journey as a PhD student has had many detours and near misses. There were personal hurdles, financial hurdles, and stress the likes of which I have never experienced before. By far the most difficult obstacle was the passing of Monte Wise, my children’s father, and the person to whom my dissertation is dedicated. His passing left a both a void and a challenge, to live “Life as Art” in everything I do.

My dissertation defense is May 20th, 2011. It will be the culmination of five years of study, and many months of data collection and writing. My manuscript is entitled, Life as Art: The Interplay of Real and Crafted Identities Among Virtually Performing Musicians in Second Life. It looks at amazing people who share who they are and their musical gifts across the Metaverse, and how that experience has changed their lives outside of the virtual space. To collect data for this study, I drove 2500 miles, much of it in bitter temperatures, snow, and wind. I then flew another 2000 miles, to interview and film subjects and collect data, that resulting in the manuscript that the rest of my career will be founded on.

Now that there is a light at the end of this academic tunnel and there may actually be a day on the horizon when I am not consumed with study, I am at a loss: What follows a study like this? I had assumed I would teach, but I have found that using the words “virtual world” in a cover letter or CV seems to send potential employers running. When I presented the results of my virtual world course in entrepreneurship at an international conference last fall, the general consensus was, “That is very innovative; just not at my university.” Apparently, being on the leading edge of what will become commonplace in just a few years is a little too unsettling for “conventional” academics.

My research crossed several academic disciplines. First, it addressed issues of identity formation and how interactions in a virtual space can have affect change in how the persona behind the avatar sees him or her self. Second, the study addressed the idea that interaction and feedback, which is inherent in game design, can actually help people learn, using an experiential simulation. The subjects in this study learned to perform virtually, as there was no such thing as virtual performance (in 3D) prior to Second Life. Lastly, this was a study in entrepreneurship, as these musicians realize actual income as a result of their performance. They build a fan base, release music for sale, market themselves, and have a global audience. Where else can that be accomplished without leaving one’s own home?

For all you search committee chairs in Communications, Entrepreneurship, or Innovative Technologies: Newly-minted PhD, looking for a place to be innovative, dedicated, and passionate about social media, virtual worlds, and what will come after them, as a way to change human behavior. All serious inquiries welcome.

Data Collection on Identity Interplay

January has been a frenzy of data collection in the hopes of finishing my PhD by April 15. This would be enough of a challenge if my subjects were all in the same geographic area as I am but they are all over the US – six different states. In order to observe the physical/virtual interplay for my dissertation, Life as Art: The Interplay of Identities Among Virtually Performing Musicians in Second Life, I needed to observe my subjects performing as avatars, from the vantage point of a human. Two weeks and 2800 miles later (part of it stranded in a small hotel to wait out a massive snowstorm), data has been collected on three of the subjects, with data on the other three to be collected within ten days.

The data collection included a one-hour videotaped interview, asking the subject about their level of transparency with their avatar persona. Some of my questions had to do with the avatar as the subject’s voice on particular issues, how the subject’s real life identity might be embodied in the identity of their avatar, and then the question that seemed to stump them all: How embedded are you in your avatar persona? This addresses the subject-object orientation framework by Kegan (1994) that determines to what extent the individual personalizes what happens to their avatar. If someone were to critique the subject’s performance in Second Life, how does that affect the physical identity of the individual, if at all? How separated are the identities of the real vs. the virtual individual?

Interestingly, it didn’t matter how long they had been performing in Second Life; all of the subjects I have spoken to up to this point are embedded in their avatar persona. Some are more clearly transparent than others but they all feel so connected to their virtual selves that whatever happens to their avatar happens to them personally. This is consistent with the hypothesis I present in my dissertation and is somewhat unique to artists and musicians, who become more subjective over time because of the extremely personal nature of the product they share with their fans.

The Sweet Smell of Success

Recap on Virtual Entrepreneurship

The course developed and taught for the University of Colorado Denver was a great success. If you haven’t seen the video, it can be viewed below. My previous post described the course and the video describes the objectives but the real surprise was in the survey results from the students. Mind you, this was a condensed course – it wasn’t abbreviated. There was a lot of work to complete in a very short time frame (8 weeks) and the students were sure to let me know they didn’t appreciate the amount of work. At the same time, the results of the course, and the value of virtual worlds in learning cannot be denied.

On a scale with a high value of 6, the Virtual Entrepreneurship course was compared to the average score for courses taught within the business school as a whole (where my course was housed) and also compared to the average score for courses taught throughout the campus. Scores in key areas support the further development of courses using virtual environments:

Heading                                 VE Course  Business School   Campus

Course as a learning experience     5.5           4.7                      5.0

Courses compared to all others      5.3           4.5                      4.8

This isn’t a statement of value…it is one of perception. Students in Virtual Entrepreneurship were engaged throughout the course, they saw the results of their cumulative knowledge, and they were able to build new knowledge – all the things experiential learning should do. If they felt they learned something, then perhaps we should redefine what “traditional” learning encompasses.

Setting Priorities in Order

Long time, no see…I have been working on a number of projects that have kept me from blogging and for that, I apologize. Let’s get up to date and if you have subscribed to my blog in the past, please contact me and let me know what you are up do; something akin to having “virtual coffee.”

I have been working on my dissertation proposal. Somewhere along the line, I got the silly notion that if I wrote something, my dissertation committee chair would look at it, think I was brilliant, and move me right into committee approval, I would get immediate approval from the human subjects research folks and I would be on my way. Wow…was I naive . My chair may indeed think I am brilliant but he is more brilliant than I am, and I am in multiple revisions of my proposal at this point. To be sure, each new revision is better and makes my proposal more sound, but it has taken much longer than I expected to have something worthy of committee approval. Those of you who have been through this can feel my pain .

The time hasn’t been wasted. Over the last several months I have designed a course in Virtual Entrepreneurship that occurs completely in the virtual world of Second Life, and the results of teaching that class have been phenomenal! First, I have to thank the Bard Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado Denver School of Business for even letting me teach a course like this, letting me have complete latitude in delivery, and supporting my desire to make a teaching niche in the area of virtual/online learning. They are an amazing group of people. I also have to thank the students, who were in various stages of their MBA program, for taking the chance to become avatars and start businesses. It was a lot of work, it was a short time frame, and their work was fantastic. In fact, I have been asked to present a paper about my findings at the Canadian Council for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (http://www.ccsbe2010.info/) conference in Calgary at the end of October. To accompany the paper, I have created a YouTube video of the class. It is made for educators, so it is a little longer than most of the video I produce:

This has “spawned” more courses in virtual worlds and even several three-course trilogies for certificates and professional development that are all delivered online (not necessarily in Second Life). There are courses in Entrepreneurship, Working in Diverse Teams, Project Management, Teacher Professional Development, Money Management (this last set is going to be directed at the needs of high school students who really have no idea how to manage money, even as they graduate high school). These classes can be offered by any institution, with my group providing all teaching, delivery, and reporting. If you represent a learning institution and are interesting in knowing more about these courses, contact me by replying to this post.

In other breaking news…I am no longer working with the Global Energy Management program at the University of Colorado Denver. My attention has switched to teaching and developing courses using online best practices and social media through the Bard Center. You can contact me there or though my website, http://debwise.com.

Life as Art: The Interplay of Identities Among Virtually Performing Musicians

“If I live my life with passion and meaning, then my life is art” – Monte Wise, April 2009.

I never appreciated this mantra…Life is Art. Monte had adopted this phrase many years ago when he was trying to find personal meaning after our divorce. He put it in cards to our children; his computer passwords were all related to the phrase. In short, it became something that was “stamped” on him (and almost an irritant for me). If he could have tattooed it to himself, he would have. Instead, our daughter tattooed it on her arm after his death.

As someone approaches the moment when they will present their dissertation proposal, they have to give a “name” to their work. I have read the dissertation titles of many and they always sound so official. Everyone wants to solve the world’s problems with their academic work and having a title as weighty as the work seems to be a given.

My gift to the world…my academic statement…is about people who create a digital persona – an avatar – in order to “bare” themselves artistically. They are players on a global stage…they have nothing to offer but their music…and yet they persist, night after night, year after year, in the hopes of receiving the feedback in a virtual world that they may not find in the physical world. They write, they sing, they play an instrument and their virtual fans may not ever know their “real” identity. The more immersed I became in the music community in Second Life the more I realized that “real” was relative – the identity an artist creates in Second Life may be more real artistically than their identity in real life. I finally understood what Monte was talking about – their life had become art, both in their pixilated identity and their performance.

The comps are over, the proposal is underway, and my title has been chosen. The method I will use is Portraiture, where I listen for the stories of the musicians who perform virtually, and intertwine them with my own experience in creating a virtual identity. My work will be about life, about art, and the blurred distinction between the two. This body of work, this effort to launch myself onto the academic stage, will represent my own life…as art.

The Long Road Home

Anyone who has followed my work might recognize I have been silent since the beginning of September. While I don’t usually mix my academic and professional blogs, the story of the last few months can be found at http://houseofflames.wordpress.com. In brief, my former husband and the father of my children passed away suddenly and while life is returning slowly to normal, it certainly caused a pause in my own life and work. The holidays brought some closure and a determination to find my way back to my own purpose, regardless of how many days I have left on this Earth.

At the same time, I have now finished all my PhD coursework and have submitted a working draft of my lit review and also my proposal. Once my advisor has a chance to look them over, I will move to my comprehensive exam and then my formal proposal submission. Once those are complete (hopefully by March), the Internal Review process begins. My expectation is that this will be a lengthy process for a couple of reasons:

1) Unlike many other studies, my focus group has already crossed the anonymity barrier in Second Life. Most of the musicians I will be interviewing regularly share their personal identities with their Second Life audiences because they see the environment as a marketing channel. It is almost commonplace to have an artist provide a link to a personal/professional website or to a page where a CD might be purchased. My goal is to provide many opt-out opportunities for my subjects, and assure them that anonymity isn’t the same as confidentiality, which will be protected in all cases.

2) Because my study revolves around the interplay between real and virtual identities of performing musicians, a visual comparison of appearance and performance styles would add to the body of work on the subject. This means traveling to the physical location of the subject, and filming/streaming their performance in real life, while filming/streaming the same performance in Second Life. These cross-streams will enable audiences in both the physical space and Second Life to see the other in real time. This higher level of disclosure may or may not face opposition from a board that is dedicated to protecting the identity of subjects.

Once the approval process is complete, the House of Flames may be visiting a musician near you!

Telling The Story

If you have been following my previous posts, you know I am working toward submitting my dissertation proposal, hopefully in December 2009. Together, we have looked at the literature (I am still writing the review), and now I am examining my methodology and study design in the hopes of submitting my proposal and human subjects application at the same time.

Lit Review Update: The lit review has been grueling! I have gathered all my books and articles, and after 32 pages I realize I am nowhere near finished. Each time I introduce the name of another theory or school of thought (i.e., postmodernism), I have to explain the thought and include at least a couple of citations. This is happening a lot, with ancillary research at each turn. I imagined trying to describe the avatar of one of my subjects as a mixture of Joan Baez and Janis Joplin but then realized I would probably have to explain who Baez and Joplin are (were) if I used their names. This is going to be a long journey.

As for the methodology, I had previously decided to do an ethnographic case study. There is some difference of opinion on how many subjects I need (I originally thought I would try and study nine subjects but now realize that seven is a more realistic number). In any event, my work will be qualitative and will document the lived experiences of my subjects.

Miles and Huberman (1994) say qualitative data “is sexy.” They say this because rather than analyzing mountains of numbers from masses of subjects (only to conclude statistical information), qualitative researchers convey the way the steps on the old cabin creak under the weight of the visitor or how upon crossing the same threshold that five generations of family members crossed, one I greeted with musty air that is heavy with years of fireplace ash, pumpkin pies and tobacco. Qualitative researchers are storytellers; they are charged with placing themselves (and their readers) in the heart of the everyday lives of their subjects.