The juggling act

[morsla]

Feels like I'm trying to keep lots of things in the air at the moment. I suspect that the next month will only get more hectic from here.

I'm now in the interview phase for my PhD. This means that I need to find people running small businesses and using social media - of any type (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, forums, Last.FM, posterous, YouTube, Tumblr, etc). I've split the sample into three groups: 10 each of Hospitality, Retail and Services.

I have about ten so far, and need more. I'm sending out more emails this week, but will probably still need another 15 after that. Ideally, I need to interview them before the end of September. If you know anyone who might fit into the project, please let me know. I'm hoping to get all 30 from the greater Melbourne area, but may need to look further afield if I have trouble filling the quota.

Next week, I fly up to Brisbane for the CRC participants' meeting. I think I'll head up on Tuesday night, as I need to be there before 9am on Wednesday - and the thought of a 6am flight doesn't thrill me. Should be an interesting day, with lots of different presentations happening. I'm presenting my research at 2pm, along with a few of the other students.

I took today (mostly) off work, and (mostly) managed to not work on the weekend. That's the first time in ages that I've had three days away from the various different projects. It's been awesome.

I also just bought two plane tickets to Christchurch in September. I think that a week spent climbing mountains and walking along glaciers sounds like a great way of guaranteeing that I can get some time away from work :)

Comments

[sols-light.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to mention Fitzroyalty to you for some time as a hyperlocal news blog for Fitzroy which even talks about how it uses itself as social media and some of the challenges it's faced in staying advertising-free as blog posts.

It's here: http://indolentdandy.net/fitzroyalty/

[damien6.livejournal.com]

Maybe try getting in touch with NEIS RMIT. They turn out a new batch of small businesses every other month, and a lot of the people sounded keen on using social media for business purposes.

I'd volunteer, but I'm trying very hard to stop running a business, hence no advertising of any kind.

[bishi-wannabe.livejournal.com]

There was a Sydney service design consultancy at Freeplay 10 named Neoteny (www.neoteny.com.au) that seem social-mediaish. If they were willing to talk to impoverished indie developers they should be willing to talk to an academic ;)

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