ProjectScrib

Jan 24

Immerse yourself in the data: An interview with Denny Gioia

Robert and Judith Klein Professor of Management and Chair of the Department of Management and Organization in the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State

Denny came to visit HEC as a guest of GEPS (our local strategy-as-practice research group) and of course, I jumped at the opportunity to interview him for our blog. Denny told me that when he started his career in academia, he too had undertook a similar process of interviewing established academics so as to learn from their experience, so he was quite willing to oblige me in this case. He was in such demand during his visit at HEC – everybody wanted to talk to him! – the only time slot I was able to get that was longer than half an hour was over breakfast one morning. So I took him to this hip place I knew downtown. Mistake! Not only did they only serve fancy breakfast paninis when Denny much preferred pancakes, the place was so loud we could hardly hear ourselves talk. (Lesson to you researchers out there: if you have to do a planned interview in a public space, you may want to check out the noise level first!) Anyways, thank God for Denny’s pleasant disposition and my Olympus LS-10 digital recorder (that captures great sound even in the noisiest of places), else the whole thing might have turned into a fiasco. We talked all through breakfast, and even continued chatting in the taxi on the way back to HEC. Trailing beside Denny recorder in hand, I felt like some CNN reporter trying to catch a few words from a presidential candidate rushing to his next appointment. Very cool. Read more

Jan 22

Be creative and playful with ideas: An interview with Danny Miller

Research Professor, HEC Montreal and Chair in Family Business and Strategy, University of Alberta

It so happens that Danny’s office at HEC is two doors down from mine. Imagine that! “the” Danny Miller is now my colleague and hallway buddy. I mean, Danny is up there in the academic management pantheon alongside Henry Mintzberg, Bill Starbuck, Karl Weick, Dick Scott, Kathy Eisenhardt, and so on. These are the guys (and gals!) whose stuff you read as “classics” in graduate seminars, whose talks you go out of your way to attend at conferences. And what a super nice guy he is! He more than graciously acquiesced to being interviewed for this blog, although he initially seemed unconvinced that he would have anything interesting or terribly insightful to say. It turns out that he was quite wrong on that – we talked for two hours, and easily could have gone on. And what a fascinating conversation it was! My only reserve is that he makes writing and publishing sound so easy… if only it were so for the rest of us! I hope you enjoy it.

10 Laws of Productivity

Interesting productivity tips from 99U, a web magazine destined to creative professionals. They’ve identified a series of laws based on routines and practices of people they call “serial idea executors”. Many of these tips can apply to writers – and some even come from writers such as Haruki Murakami. Here are the rules – read the full post on 99U.