TITLE: Post-Semester This and That
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: December 18, 2007  2:12 PM
DESC: 
-----
BODY:
Now that things have wound down for the semester, I hope
to do some mental clean-up and some CS.  As much as I
enjoyed the SECANT workshop last month (blogged in detail
ending
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-11.html#e2007-11-20T16_30_11.htm">
   here</A>),
travel that late in a semester compresses the rest of the
term into an uncomfortably small box.  That said, going
to conferences and workshops is essential:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Wherever you work, most of the smart people are somewhere else.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

I saw that quote attributed to Bill Joy in an
<A HREF="http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2007/12/12/XBRL-Web">
   article by Tim Bray</A>.
Joy was speaking of decentralization and the web, but it
applies to the pre-web network that makes up any scholarly
discipline.  Even with the web, it's good to get out of
the tower every so often and participate in an old-fashioned
conversation.

One part of the semester clean-up will be assessing the state
of my department head backlog.  Most days, I add more things
to my to-do list than I am unable to cross off.  Some of them
are must-dos, details, and others are ideas, dreams.  By the
end of the semester, I have to be honest that many of the
latter won't be done, soon if ever.  I don't do a hard delete
of most of these items; I just push them onto a "possibilities"
list that can grow as large as it likes without affecting my
mental hygiene.

I recently told my dean that, after two and a half years as
head, I had almost come to peace with what I have taken to
calling "time management by burying".  He just smiled and
said that the favorite part of his semester is doing just
that, looking at his backlog and saying to himself, "Well,
guess I'm not going to do <EM>that</EM>" as he deleted it
from the list for good.  Maybe I should be more ruthless
myself.  Or maybe that works better if you are a dean...

I've been following the story of the University of Michigan
hiring West Virginia University's head football coach.
Whatever one thinks of the situation -- and I think it
brings shame to both Michigan and its new coach -- there
was a very pragmatic piece of advice to be learned about
managing people from
<A HREF="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07352/842541-144.stm">
   one Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports article</A>
about it.  Says Bob Reynolds, former chief operating officer
of Fidelity Investments:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
I've been the COO of a 45,000-person company.  When somebody's
producing, you ask, 'What can I do for you to make your life
better?'  Not 'What can I do to make your life more miserable?'
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's a good thought for an academic department head to start
each day with.  And maybe a CS instructor, too.
-----