The blog software platform was changed around on 1 May.  No wonder I did not hear back from the team on the day before.  Live now.

I attended the EAG meeting and got a very grounding introduction to the work of Engagement.  I am to be involved in writing up case studies – Impact Case Studies – as a writer helper for Lorraine Smith.  That will be nice and pressured I am sure, since the deadline is the end of May.  Can’t spend all my time on that but, it will be good to get to know what people are involved with.

Alliances or heterarchies? I had a discussion with Tyrone that went through philosophical territory.  Changing how companies are run – it is about being in touch with.

Pipelines or corridors.  To be heard in a particular culture or organisation or space one must know the power structure, the circuit diagram and use the technologies, the language and the tools of the organisation.  To change that organisation one must probably first be heard.  I am probably at the first stage of acquiring the knowledge about this organisation.  Not that I want to change it (though an organisation that does not change or innovate is probably dead and I am here therefore I will change it by being here, I may possibly not direct that change though).

Games developers working with medicine.  Tyrone mentioned collaboration between games developers using the wii to both run a remediation program as well as, by sensing the patient’s positions, allowing the physiotherapist at a remote location to check that the patient was doing the movements correctly.

Is anything like this being done at Newcastle?  Should I look into it i.e. it in medicine is not only apps.  Moments later.  And the answer is yes.  There is collaboration between the http://research.ncl.ac.uk/game/ the Computing Sciences and Limbs Alive as well as CCP games.  What about other games development companies – especially those in the North East?

Do the words strategy and strategic plan encourage fight or flight?  It has come to mean thorough and long ranging but does it still hold onto any of its martial origins?  I can’t currently imagine a better word.

                                                                                           Strategy vs. tactics

Or in the disease sphere the equivalent would be            Chronic vs. acute

                                                                                           Think global and act local

What does square the circle really mean?  I always have this picture of an elastic band being pulled outward to form the corner of the square or, as we determined this morning over breakfast, a four sided polygon.  But after squaring, and when I let go of the eastic band, does the square circle itself again.

James says that students are not coming forward for some sorts of placements and this seems like a blank space almost like where I have been employed.  Even though there are massive benefits for doing placements – double your chances of getting a first, the placements at BAE were to be practically guaranteed graduate level jobs when they graduated… students would rather have a summer holiday than spend 12 weeks working.  What can be done that is not already being done? After much discussion Tyrone said that, at a previous university they had solved the problem by selecting students, who they thought were suitable candidates, and sending them letters from the dean saying that they had been selected to apply for the placement.  Better than my compulsory placement at the railway workshops in the summer holidays after my first year of engineering.

Seeding information – I must read up on Nudge.  More and more it seems like common sense, not manipulation.  Maybe just reminders of good practice.

I would love to be able to remember better, type faster, and maybe facilitate meetings in a standard fashion if such a thing exists.