As a (former) manager of a department in a design school, I defined three managerial imperatives:
1. Get rid of old, dead wood. Given that our program is scaffolded, with each course building upon the preceding, A single low performing lecturer can bring down the quality of an entire program. Don’t trust student feedback when identifying such people. They favour nice lecturers over effective ones. Getting rid of low performing team members in a university can be a low process. It can sometimes be quicker to find programs they would be happier/more productive in, and engineer a transfer.
2. Hire effective new blood. Well duh, I hear you say. Finding good new hires can be a difficult task. For those who I really wanted to hire, I did my research on who they were and what they might want, and tried to show them that I was willing to build a nest for them.
3. Have a vision of what the department should be. This vision requires constant maintenance and should always consider input from the team.
#2 is considered taboo, but IMO if a team is full of people who are checked out, it may be time to make huge changes.
People become jaded and start to tell you all the ways we can't do something, or it will take too long. They often don't realize what tools are at their disposal to help make change easier, and instead insist there is only one good path to a solution...
Fresh talent really helps get people excited again, after the initial shock of layoffs. Not to mention new talent always comes in excited for an opportunity.
Completely true. I have seen this happen first hand many times. Last year I interviewed (online) a Chinese student who had recently graduated from a prestigious Australian university. It became quickly clear that he was using AI to answer our questions. One we steered our questions towards something more AI resistant, his English devolved into something barely comprehensible.
What the betting that they will turn in to a hive of chi-chi coffe shops, gift shops and bespoke offices, like they did to Coventry Garden and borough market. Since the early 80s London has been on a death dive, with real life London being replaced by a plastic equivalent.
Probably but Covent Garden and Borough Market are pretty popular.
My friend had a pub next to Smithfield so I used to be down there a lot but the meat market is mostly slabs of meat and associated body parts, diesel trucks and closed to the public. It seemed a little out of place in gentrified modern London.
> Blackberry at the time was kindof of an “everything goes, whatever it takes” free for all. And this damn the torpedoes full steam ahead attitude was pervasive everywhere. Red tape and beuaracracy was loathed by everyone.
Ironic as RIM became known for its cripplingly dense beuaracracy and red tape.
I can't open the link, but from the title here are my reelections on Singapore.
I lived there for 10 years, and in that time I saw SG degrade from being a great place to live to being a place where living was practically impossible. This wasn't just my experience: I saw the same in highly paid academics, middle income taxi drivers, Indian laborers etc etc.
- Though it was introduced in good faith, the 'change shift' system of taxi management meant that it was almost impossible to get a cab at certain hours unless your destination was close to where the driver was going. For this reason I was routinely refused service, despite it being illegal to do so. This is one of the factors influencing the rise of Grab and suchlike. This was a real pity as taxi driving is a protected profession that only native SGs are allowed to do. Many late middle aged SGs become taxi drivers after having lost their jobs as engineers, craftsman and suchlike in SG's relentless drive towards an exclusive white color economy.
- For years, car ownership was kept expensive, to ensure that the roads did not become crowded. After the last recession, the barriers were lifted, leading to a notable decline of use of public transport and increase of mad traffic jams. This was done to 'boost the economy', but was clearly a massive failure.
- It is impossible to buy alcohol after 9pm. This was a knee jerk reaction to the so-called riots in Little India a few years ago. SG is terrified of racial tensions, having had a dodgy racial history in its early days. However, this was a complete over-reaction. For similarly fatuous reasons, they also banned Hookah (hubbly-bubblies).
- Rent is now at insane levels. It is also impossible to get a lease longer than one year. The largest part of one's income is now swallowed up by rent, and even the so-called highly paid academics are now struggling to get by.
- SG has a reputation of having very low corruption, however the corruption is still there. The former Dean of Research of a local university had one of the largest citation counts in S E Asia. This is mostly down to the fact they insisted that they be counted as an author on all papers coming out of his program. I could fill a book with such examples of quality suffering at the hands of avarice.
- With little in the way of wage control, the controlling class are encouraged to bring in low-paid workers from China and fire their experienced staff. I saw many of my favorite food stalls go under as a result of this insane drive for profit.
The outcome is a place where people are struggling to get by, where the quality of life seems always under attack from well-meaning but short-sighted bureaucrats.
On the plus side, their trains (MRT) are well-designed, well-maintained, popular and effective. The people are cool and honest.
> It is also impossible to get a lease longer than one year.
Not sure where you got this. Actually it is quite difficult to get a lease less than 2 years, and 2 years is standard term.
> SG has a reputation of having very low corruption
SG justifiably has reputation of having low corruption at low level. Middle/high level corruption is rampant, and getting worse and worse over course of last years.
> It is impossible to buy alcohol after 9pm.
This is also not true. Bars will happily pour you booze after 9PM
> After the last recession, the barriers were lifted, leading to a notable decline of use of public transport
Not sure which last recession you are referring to, but having basic car ownership at 6 digits which depreciates at least by 10k annually is not lifting barriers in my books. COE levels are all time highs. Public transport usage is crazy, MRT and buses are bloody crowded at rush hours as government trying to squeeze more slaves into tiny space.
> I was routinely refused service, despite it being illegal to do so
Which years it was? I have never experienced that over course of last 15 years
>> I was routinely refused service, despite it being illegal to do so
> Which years it was? I have never experienced that over course of last 15 years
Not the parent, but I've seen this a lot. Taxi drivers "changing shifts" at Clarke Quay, Orchard, and other popular nightlife places, picking and choosing where they want to drive to since they provided all the demand pre-Grab/Uber.
Gotta make something super clear. I love Singapore... I even considered getter permanent residence. I return there regularly and have many Singaporean friends. I was motivated to make my comment in response to a noticeable decline in the quality of life I saw at many levels of society. I have married friends without children who both hold down decent jobs, yet who are compelled to take in lodgers just to make ends meets. I saw grandfathers taking delivery jobs just to help out their adult children. I have seen it become almost impossible to get an affordable apartment, and rent security is non-existent.
Booze: Yes, after 9pm you can buy booze in a bar, with all the mark-up that implies. But most Indian workers do not drink in bars. Frankly, I feel infantilized if I am forbidden to buy a bottle of wine after 9pm.
Corruption: Yes SG is not per-say corrupt. A few weeks travelling through S E Asia will certainly demonstrate that. But, as I stated, in the publicly funded institutions I worked with, I saw multiple low-levels instances of self-interest placed before the common good. So many I could write a book on it.
Cars ownership: I stand by my comment. Car ownership skyrocketed around 2008-ish (Im bad with dates). I know for a fact that this has been discussed as a problem at the highest levels of government. Ease of travel is one of the key quality of life factors.
Refused service by taxis at change shift period: this happened to me routinely. I am amazed that it has not happened to you.
I wasn’t particularly addressing your feelings towards singapore, whether they are positive or negative. Was just merely stating facts.
Rent security is one of the highest ive seen in many other places. Landlord can’t just kick you out. There are some notoriously bad ones, who are disciplined by small claims court easily.
honestly i can’t care less where indian workers can get booze. they are not allowed because they do stupid things after. and in singapore it’s punishable to do stupid things, as you know. Those who want to get a drink, can have it almost anytime. And again, noone stops anyone from stacking on it and enjoying anytime.
Cars - government does regulate amount of cars via COE supply. they can shrink or expand it as they please.
Quality of life - hard to disagree here. It’s tanking. Disparity between rich and poor people went up substantially, especially within last 5 years.
For very long documents Word can be very difficult to maintain. Anything that requires you first write in simple text and then compiles is preferred. I tried Skrivenr, but found it old, clunky, buggy and poorly designed. I was far more productive in LaTex, but encountered problems when converting to Word (which most publishers prefer). Sure I tried Pandoc, but maintaining flow between versions of my book was a small hell.
In the end, I believe that there is no easy solution.
Typst has excellent collaboration tools. Both Typst and Overleaf do not support Doc export, but pdf to doc is relatively easy.
As a university lecturer, I have interviewed many people… academics and admins. I have taught in many S E Asian universities and multi-lingualism is the norm, with English assumed to be the ‘Lingua franca’. Almost everyone I interview claims to have ‘excellent’ skills in written and spoken English. Almost none of them could produce so much as a single paragraph of English that did not burn my eyes.
Prior to starting writing my first book, I had already accumulated some experience in academic writing. I thought it would be a doddle. I can honestly say that it was one of the most demanding experiences of my life.
The worst thing is the degree to which I was blind to my own shortcomings… just like all those people I interviewed.
Moral of the story… "writing is easy; you just stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead" (Gene Fowler).
> So the country bands were aware of the new style of jazz but most people had never actually heard any and had to play what they imagined jazz to be, mostly based off verbal descriptions.
This I find fascinating. Misunderstandings (i.e. partial or third hand accounts) of ‘exotic’ art forms have played a vital part in the development of western art: Picasso ‘misunderstood’ African art to produce Cubism. William Blake ‘misunderstood’ Michelangelo to produce his etchings. Van Gogh ‘misunderstood’ Japanese prints to produce his paintings.
1. Get rid of old, dead wood. Given that our program is scaffolded, with each course building upon the preceding, A single low performing lecturer can bring down the quality of an entire program. Don’t trust student feedback when identifying such people. They favour nice lecturers over effective ones. Getting rid of low performing team members in a university can be a low process. It can sometimes be quicker to find programs they would be happier/more productive in, and engineer a transfer.
2. Hire effective new blood. Well duh, I hear you say. Finding good new hires can be a difficult task. For those who I really wanted to hire, I did my research on who they were and what they might want, and tried to show them that I was willing to build a nest for them.
3. Have a vision of what the department should be. This vision requires constant maintenance and should always consider input from the team.
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