The PhD- Is it a waste of time?

The Economist published an interesting article looking at the value of a PhD in The disposable academic
Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time. Although a few faculty tend to complain about their jobs quite a bit I think the value of a PhD may vary between academic fields. The value may be more intrinsic rather than financial. When I entered my PhD program in management at Southern Illinois University someone at the orientation session for all new doctoral students made a statement that you are entering a profession that will lead to one of the best jobs/careers available other than that of a federal court judge. There is a substantial sacrifice involved in successfully completing the program which can take its toll on one's health and relationships. The end result is well worth it.

My List of Top iPhone Apps of 2010

My Top iPhone Apps for 2010

I love 'best of the year' lists, so I decided to create my own top iPhone apps for 2010.

Blastr
A great Sci-Fi News app from the blog of the same name.

NPR News
Listen to streaming public radio stations or on demand versions of your favorite NPR shows like All Things Considered.

Yelp
I love Yelp and am an avide reviewer and user of both the website and iPhone app, mostly for restaurant reviews.

Fluent News
News aggregator. I have several other news apps (e.g., WSJ, NY Times, etc.), but Fluent aggregates the top articles for several news sources into a single app.

Sportacular
Great sports app for score updates. Much better than ESPN's app, although I have and use both.

AT&T U-Verse
Since switching to AT&T U-Verse cable television service I found they already had a very useful iPhone app allowing you to quickly add DVR recordings or review/delete recorded programs from anywhere. It's much quicker to delete programs from the iPhone app than through the actual DVR/cable box on-tv-screen commands. [Available for U-Verse customers only]

Twitter
The official Twitter app for iPhone is pretty great. I used to use tweetdeck and tried a few other apps before Twitter bought the tweetie app and came out with this 'official' app for iphone.

Favorite Game Apps on iPhone: Peggle, Angry Birds, Osmos, Bejeweled 2

The Facebook and Google Maps apps are also both excellent apps that I have used quite often since my first iPhone, and they continue to improve.

The Top 10 Everything of 2010 - TIME

The Top 10 Everything of 2010 - TIME
I love year end lists.

8 Apps for the New Smartphone Owner : from gigaom.com

8 Apps for the New Smartphone Owner : Tech News «

A Call for an Open Data Source to Promote IT Research- Bridging the Research Data Divide

Information Systems researchers, past, present, or future, may be interested in my ramblings on the possibility of developing a structure for regular collection of data to help contribute to the problem of data scarcity in the field of IS. Obviously, there are many questions to be ask and decisions to be made to move this idea forward.

{It's only my initial thoughts- a work in progress}

A Reflection on ICIS 2010

I've been able to attend ICIS most years since the end of my PhD program in 2004 or so. I always find the pre-ICIS workshops, such as SIGHCI's workshop or the Workshop on Information Technologies & Systems (WITS) as more valuable than ICIS and the some of the other conferences I attend. The pre-ICIS workshops provide a very focused time discussing research ideas with colleagues working in similar areas and methodologies. On the other hand ICIS does provide extremely valuable networking opportunities. Overall, I am always given a boost / inspired, motivated by attending ICIS and the pre-ICIS workshops. Now it's time to go back home and put my ideas into practice.

I want to sit in a rocking chair

Wrapping Up the Fall Semester

It's been a unique semester filled with quite a few challenges but many positive opportunities. It's funny how one negative experience or situation has such a strong effect on the soul. I had a great ICIS (and WITS) conference in St. Louis and looking forward to my very busy break, which will include final preparation for my tenure portfolio and a trip to India, along with preparing for my spring semester courses. I love my life as a university professor even with the negatives.

Test photo email

Test...

ICIS 2010 Day 2

I made some great connections today with fellow IT Auditing and Security Management faculty I met today. This has been a very interesting conference. I sat in on a panel session on IT Security and Privacy Governance from an industry & academic perspective. I ended the day with a panel on the future of business process management in IT Curriculum and Research.

Workshop on Information Technology and Systems

I'm attending the Workshop on Information Technology and Systems (WITS) in St. Louis. It's one of many workshops and mini-conferences leading up to ICIS which opens Sunday night.