Thursday, December 30, 2010

Time to reflect and time to plan

We are approaching the end of 2010. Another year will soon be upon us. For me, early January is holiday time since I live and work in Australia and it is our summer. It gives me a time to reflect on the past year and a chance to think about the year ahead. In terms of research, I wonder what your plans are for 2011?

I want to work on revising some of my papers in progress and under review, to write at least several new papers, apply for some funding, go to a conference or two, take on some new PhD students, and try to help those I am working with where I can. Is this enough? Hmmm, not really. I have done this type of thing now for many years. What I really would like to do is scale up my research.

What about using this blog as a way of developing a research network for instance? Maybe we could decide on a problem, or class of problems and write papers together, explore funding, share knowledge, have exchange visits and try to make a difference on an international level?

Some suggestions for research topics might be:

Improving health and wellbeing in developing countries - the role of the Internet.
Supporting small business owners in developing countries via the Internet - a knowledge network.
New business models via the Internet.
Innovation networks - using blogs and online forums.

Just a few ideas.... what do you think?