What is a blog?

I was quite surprised when I found out that a number of people including academics, are not aware what a blog is. Here is an article I wrote on my old website at the University of Warwick. It was first published on Sat 16 Feb 2008.

In 2007, Technorati was tracking approximately 70 million weblogs, with about 120,000 new ones being created worldwide everyday - around 1.4 new blogs created every second (Sifry, 2007). By 2011, the number has gone up to 182,397,015 (Matthew Hurst, 2012).

The word “Blog” is derived from “Weblog”. It was Jorn Barger, who first coined the term, on 17 December 1997. In April or May of 1999, Peter Merholz, came up with the word “blog” after breaking the word weblog into the phrase “we blog” in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com

Though some authors argue that the word is not a portmanteau of the words 'web' and 'log,' the terms ‘blog’, ‘weblog’ and ‘web log’ are often used interchangeably.

There are several definitions of the word blog and most refer to it as a “personal online journal”. However, this may not be correct considering the fact that blogs are “public” and interactive in nature. In fact most of the blogs on Technorati's Top 100 list are collaborative blogs with several contributors. Most companies have also realised the importance of connecting and interacting with their customers - both external and internal. This has given rise to the growth of the so called "corporate blogs". Some of these blogs are accessible only to the employees through the corporation's Intranet and are called an internal blog.

I personally liked the short definition provided by The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang, which defines it as ‘An Internet website containing an eclectic and frequently updated assortment of items of interest to its author’. However, this definition does not really give you an idea of a blog.

Our definition recognises the interactive nature of blogs and define blogs as an “interactive website with posts that are up-dated frequently and may contain links, images, video or music clips, of interest to its author or authors that are archived and arranged in reverse chronological order” (Mutum and Wang, 2010).

There are a number of free blog publishing systems on the net. The two most popular are Blogger (owned by Google) and Wordpress.

I started blogging in September 2003 and have been blogging ever since. My oldest blog is ah ok lah, which is hosted with Blogger.

Reference:

Mutum, Dilip and Wang, Qing (2010). “Consumer Generated Advertising in Blogs”. In Matthew S. Eastin, Terry Daugherty and Neal M. Burns (Eds) Handbook of Research on Digital Media and Advertising: User Generated Content Consumption (Vol 1), pp. 248-261, IGI Global: Pennsylvania (ISBN13: 9781605667928).

How 2 bills in the US affects the Whole World

When I first heard of the 2 bills before the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate respectively, I really did not care much. It was the 24 hours Wikipedia Wikipedia blackout which forced me to read about SOPA and PIPA and the possible impact they would have on all of us around the World if the legislations are passed.

Is this the beginning of the end of the free and open Internet? I sincerely hope not.

I also hope that other Government officials around the World do not get the same idea.

It would have made more of an impact had Facebook and Twitter joined in but for selfish reasons I was glad they had not - it was my graduation at Warwick University today.

Anyway, here are some interesting links on the issue:

Taking Action with Google

Live Blog on The Next Web

Clay Shirky on why SOPA is a bad idea

Courses taught this term (January - April 2012)

This term, I am module leader for 3 courses including 2 Masters courses, namely:

PG Courses

M11MKT - Research Methods (Marketing) - New cohort. teaching for the second time.

M05MKT - Marketing Planning -Teaching for the first time.

UG Courses

262MKT - Applied Marketing Management - Teaching for the first time.

I am also taking two seminar classes for the UG course 267MKT - Principles of Marketing.

In the meantime, I am also supervising 10 undergraduate students with their dissertations as well as 5 MBA students.

When am I going to get the time to carry out research and write papers?

Good Universities or Good Students?

Are the top ranked universities the best places to study or do research?

I ask this because after talking to a number of PhD students studying in the UK, it appears that doctoral researchers in lower ranked Universities get more help and are often better supervised than students in some of the so called "top ranked" universities.

For example, at one doctoral conference I met this brilliant chap who was presenting a poster. He was doing his PhD in one of the "top ranked" Universities in the UK and his supervisor is a leading academics in the field of Marketing. Of course I asked how it was like being supervised by the renowned Professor. Imagine my surprise when I learnt that he had met his supervisor only TWICE ever since he started his PhD and he was already in his second year. And he is not the only one. I know of several guys in top universities narrating their frustration with the lack of good supervision and how their supervisors had sat on their drafts/ reports for months without providing any feedback.

I know that PhD students are supposed to be independent and that these Professors are really busy but I feel that this is very irresponsible - besides carrying out ground breaking research, they are supposed to supervise their students as well. That's why they are paid such huge salaries.Sometimes it appears that the only time the supervisors show some interest is when the students submit journal papers for publication as their names are also included (sometimes as the lead author).

However, despite the quality of supervision (or lack of) these students go on to complete their research and amazingly even do it within the stipulated 3 years + or - a few months. I attribute this to the fact that the students were themselves high achievers, independent and hard working in the first place.

Of course I cannot deny that these top ranked Universities have excellent facilities and offer all kinds of opportunities to the students - opportunities not available to students in lower ranked (and lower funded) universities. However, these top universities put up such high selection criteria and select only the cream of the applicants. In other words Top universities attract Top students and of course, their output is excellent as well.

My experiences were a bit different, I had two excellent supervisors and I could fix an appointment to meet them whenever I wanted to even though they were quite busy and I actually kind of liked being independent in the first place. One of my supervisors went through the final draft of my thesis in just one week and there were comments on almost every page. It is no wonder that he is one of the youngest Professors in Warwick.

If you are currently doing your PhD or have recently completed it, I would love to hear your experiences. Did you receive the level of supervision which you had expected when you started out your PhD.

Profile on Coventry University website

My profile is finally on the Coventry University website.

Check it out here: http://wwwm.coventry.ac.uk/researchnet/cucv/pages/Profile.aspx?profileID=585

PhD Acknowledgements

In the name of God, most Gracious, most Merciful.

I wish to express my sincere appreciation to those who have contributed to this thesis and supported me in one way or the other during this amazing journey.

First of all, I am extremely grateful to my main supervisor, Professor Qing Wang, for her guidance and all the useful discussions and brainstorming sessions, especially during the difficult conceptual development stage. Her deep insights helped me at various stages of my research. I also remain indebted for her understanding and support during the times when I was really down and depressed due to personal family problems.

My sincere gratitude is reserved for Professor Lloyd C. Harris for his invaluable insights and suggestions. I really appreciate his willingness to meet me at short notice every time and going through several drafts of my thesis. I remain amazed that despite his busy schedule, he was able to go through the final draft of my thesis and meet me in less than a week with comments and suggestions on almost every page. He is an inspiration.

Very special thanks to the Warwick Business School for giving me the opportunity to carry out my doctoral research and for their financial support. It would have been impossible for me to even start my study had they not given me a scholarship in my first year. I am also honoured that I was appointed to the first PhD part time teaching position in the school during the second year of my study which was subsequently extended to the third year.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Associate Professor Scott Dacko and Professor Amanda Broderick - my viva examiners, for their very helpful comments and suggestions.
Heartfelt thanks goes to my mentor, Mr. Grier Palmer for taking me under his wing. I will never forget his support and for providing me numerous opportunities to learn and develop as a teacher.

PhD students often talk about loneliness during the course of their study but this is something which I never experienced at Warwick. A heartfelt thanks to the really supportive and active Malaysian community here in Coventry and all my friends who made the Warwick experience something special, in particular, Nicos, Martin, John Dilip, Luiz, Roberta, Mo, Kabir, Charoula, Arben, Ihsan, Rupal, Zaman, Malik, Bang, Zikri, Khadijah, Wolfgang and Mel. Special thanks to Emma for proof reading my final draft.

I am also indebted to my friends Amrul, Mozard and Nana, not only for all their useful suggestions but also for being there to listen when I needed an ear.

A big “Thank you!” also goes out to everybody who participated in this study including all my blogger friends who helped promote my online questionnaire on their blogs.

Words cannot express the feelings I have for my parents and my in-laws for their constant unconditional support - both emotionally and financially. I would not be here if it not for you. Special thanks are also due to my sis-in-law Eju and her husband, Muz for their amazing support. It is amazing to have family close by so far away from home.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the most important person in my life – my wife Ezlika. She has been a constant source of strength and inspiration. There were times during the past four years when everything seemed hopeless and I didn’t have any hope. I can honestly say that it was only her determination and constant encouragement (and sometimes a kick on my backside when I needed one) that ultimately made it possible for me to see this project through to the end.

First week as a Lecturer at Coventry University

Today marks the end of my first week at The department of Marketing and Advertising at Coventry University Business School.

This is my first full time job in the UK and I finally got it after 5 unsuccessful interviews.I am really happy as Coventry University is ranked higher than some of the other Universities which rejected me and it also means that I do not have to re-locate to another city.

My office is located at the historic William Morris building which dates from 1916 and is named after the founder of the Morris car company. They used to build the engines here.

The staff are really friendly and helpful and I have settled in quite well. Today I also finally got my staff card and university email id. Going through the numerous security locked doors every time I wanted to go to toilet or grab a bite, has been really frustrating and I had a strange feeling of freedom being able to roam around the corridors of the William Morris building without having to ask someone for help to get through he doors.

Here is the presentation titled "Marketing plans are worthless but strategy is everything" which I made to staff of the department as part of the interview process.

Coventry Business School Presentation

View more presentations from Adam Mutum.

Academic promotions at Harvard

I recently participated in a seminar on HBS Case Teaching at the Warwick Business School, which was run by Grier Palmer who is Assistant Dean, Teaching and Learning at the school. He had recently gone to Harvard for a short course and was sharing his experiences.

One of the interesting things he shared among others, was an insight into promotions of academics at Harvard.

In most Universities, the most important criteria for academic promotions are publications. I have had several academics telling me that the secret to success in an academic career all boils down to how many papers you have published in high ranking journals.

One academic even told me that it does not even matter if your teaching "sucks" as long as you have regular publications in top ranking journals. Apparently, in Harvard it is slightly different. The most important criteria is getting publications out but over there they are more interested in case studies. Not surprising as case studies are a major source of income for the Harvard Business School and the University ultimately.

Another criteria were the student evaluations (so if you suck, you are out) which I guess should be the case as people pay huge sums of money to get into business schools and expect to receive a good teaching and learning experience.

 Finally, another important criteria for academic promotions was based on linkages with alumni and businesses. That does really make business sense. In other words, you really have to be an all rounder if you want to rise in Harvard. No wonder they are at top - at least among business schools.

Sample size in Quantitative studies

Is your sample size sufficient for your quantitative analysis? This is a question that a lot of doctoral researchers ask. I guess it depends on the type of analysis used. My PhD research looked at blog readers and I used Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to analyse my data. I used the following to justify my sample size.

• For factor analysis, according to Hair et al., (2010), a sample should preferably be more than 100 for factor analysis to proceed
• However,  according to Tabachnick and Fidell (2007 p. 613), it should be higher than 300 cases, the number that is considered “comfortable”.

If you are doing SEM:

• A ratio of ten responses per free parameters is required to obtain trustworthy estimates (Bentler and Chou, 1987).
• Others suggest a rule of thumb of ten subjects per item in scale development, is prudent (Flynn and Pearcy 2001).
• However, if data is found to violate multivariate normality assumptions, the number of respondents per estimated parameter increases to 15 (Bentler and Chou 1987; Hair, et al. 2006).

References:

BENTLER, P. M. & CHOU, C. P. (1987) Practical issues in structural modeling. Sociological Methods & Research, 16, 78.

FLYNN, L. & PEARCY, D. 2001. Four subtle sins in scale development: Some suggestions for strengthening the current paradigm. International Journal of Market Research  43: (4) 409-433.

HAIR, J. F., BLACK, W. C., BABIN, B. J. & ANDERSON, R. E. 2010. Multivariate Data Analysis: A Global Perspective, New Jersey, Pearson Prentice Hall.

TABACHNICK, B. G. & FIDELL, L. S. 2007. Using Multivariate Statistics (5th Ed.) New York, HarperCollins.

Passed my Viva

I finally passed my PhD viva with minor corrections last Thursday (4th of August, 2011). My external examiner was Prof Amanda Broderick, Professor of Marketing & Deputy Dean (Queens Campus) of Durham Business School while my internal examiner was Dr. Scott Dacko, Associate Professor of Marketing & Strategic. Warwick Business School - two of the nicest people.

The journey was hard was it was well worth it in the end.

Read my blog post about it on the PhD Life blog "My Viva – Light at the end of the tunnel".