Google Eyed in Google

Or did I really eat Soylent Green???

In January 2013 as part of the wider UK wide Crucible initiative I was invited to the inaugural meeting of the Crucible alumni that was held at and part facilitated by Google UK at their head office in London. Just by means of a brief introduction to the Crucible programme it was originally set up by NESTA which is the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.

Googles involvement in this initiative apparently came about as they were already in contact with NESTA and when they heard about the idea of developing a Crucible alumni group they were keen to be involved.  I would have thought form their perspective the idea of having the opportunity to work and raise their profile with some of the UK’s leading researchers must have seemed very appealing.  From my point of view one of the attractions of attending the meeting was having the opportunity to visit and see with my own eyes an example of one of the leading new technology businesses which is seen as representing the cutting edge of new ways of working and corporate responsibility. 

                                                     A "Chill Out" Area in Google HQ

I don’t want to knock Google too much as fair play to them they did support and sponsor the initiative, which they didn’t have to, and for a leading company to end its support to a group of academic researchers is encouraging.  However, I must say that there were elements of the event that struck me as very staged managed and very corporate in its style. Our Google person who met us on arrival at the venue had previously worked for Number 10 and he immediately struck me as a character that could easily have come out of “In the thick of it.”  

Again I don’t want to knock the guy in any way, he was obviously professional in everything he did but you could see that his role was to manage us and to present the best corporate image of Google to us. During the initial introduction the point was raised about Google’s tax avoidance in the UK and the question was expertly handled by their representative who gave us some explanation about Google being keen to honour their corporate responsibilities but at the same time as they are a global business they need to be compeditive. I interpreted the answer to be “well we will pay our tax when Amazon and Starbucks pay theirs.

                                                          A Google vending machine

The Google building and offices as I am sure you may imagine were very quirky and not how you would imagine an office working environment.  In the room where we were holding our meeting there was a Chinese gong for example and an exercise bike with which you could make smoothies. (Don’t ask ) this and the fact that around the building the quirky little structures and artefacts, some of which you can see in the photos that I took were there to make the building more “Googly” we were informed.

After lunch we were then taken on a guided tour of the Google offices by what appeared to be an approved (American) guide.  I don’t want to over egg the pudding but it did have a touch of North Korea about it as we were told of where we could photograph and what we couldn’t (people and screens) and as we were toured around it was evident there were certain areas that were off limits.  

                                                          A Googly Office Space

There were a couple of things that stuck in my mind that we were told by our incredibly upbeat guide, for instance that food was provided free by the company for all employees and we were taken to the restaurant area where indeed that food look good, fresh and nutritious.  Additionally we were also informed that employees could bring pets into work if they so wished.  A someone who suffers from quite a nasty allergy to cats and rabbits and other small furry animals I found that quite alarming and furtively looked around to see if there were any of the irritating critters about, but thankfully no and I must admit throughout the whole tour and day I did not come across one dog, cat, hamster or python.

                                                          Retro Chic

At the end of the tour the one overall impression that I had got is that there did not seem to be anybody over say about forty in the whole building.  Now I don’t know if they had some sort of Soylent Green thing going on and that the healthy and nutritious food being provided in the restaurant was people based but there was a complete and utter absence of older people. Not in the canteen, not the cleaners not anywhere.  

When I returned to the meeting room I did bring it up with our Google front man and others had noticed the absence as the more geriatric as well.  Again our Google front man expertly sidestepped the question reply as due to the “profile” and business of the company most of those who apply to work there are young and that in fact there were older people who work there they were just not evident today.

                                                          WTF

I really don’t want to do a hatchet job on Google and I was only in their office for a few hours.  I am sure that they are a very good company to work for on a number of levels and probably better than many.  However, I could not help using my ethnographer’s head and eyes during my visit to the office. 

One thing that made me question the whole “front” I was being offered was the amount of times our Google front men told us what a good place Google was to work and how keen people were to work there. From my feelings it struck me as a bit of a corporate competitive wolf, all be it one dressed up in Googly sheep’s clothing.   

Snails and Horse Meat:

Why is the UK so out of kilter with the rest of Europe?

Last week as I sat down in Brussels for a meal with colleagues and some civil servants from the European Parliament on the very day our own prime Minister had made a speech inferring that the British were disillusioned with the European Project I could not but help reflect on how out of kilter many in the UK are with the continent on which they live. I sat next to a young early career European civil servant who informed me, in impeccable English, that he was of mixed French and Polish heritage and that he spoke all three languages fluently. He then informed me that although he had spent a lot of time in France, Poland and Belgium he had not, as yet, visited the UK. Automatically I found myself telling him what fantastic country the UK was and that he should come and experience the excitement of London and the glorious cultural splendour and vista that is Wales.  As we were talking my dining companion ordered a first course of snails followed by a main course of horse steak. Again it stuck me that although this young man had ordered this meal without a second thought, many in the UK would react in horror at such culinary fare and I began to recount to my new friend the recent kerfuffle there had been in the UK about horse meat in “beef” burgers. My companion immediately began to look befuddled and confused and asked me “ but why should people not want horse meat in their burgers, it is such good lean meat and who knows what else they put in those burgers.”  As an anthropologist I know it is when you can step outside your own culture and view it through the “eyes” of another’s culture its absurdities become patently obvious and this was one such moment.     

I am not a young man and since my teenage years I have travelled extensively around Europe. From Scilly in the south to Denmark in the north, from Poland in the east to Ireland in the west and while agreeing with Webber’s (http://bit.ly/WESZkO ) observation that there is a marked cultural difference between North and South Europe probably the most “different” country of all is the UK. Driving on the left, drinking tea and full English Breakfasts are all obvious examples of the “otherness” of the UK. One of the original architects of the European project Charles De Gaulle (http://bit.ly/X1rj8j )  did not see the UK as European and famously blocked the UK’s initial attempts to join the EU. Historically the UK has suffered from its lack of willingness to engage with the EU. As if living in some sort of sick historical parable in the same way Queen Victoria isolated herself while she mourned over her lost Albert the UK isolates itself as it mourns over its lost empire.

  

The French Social Anthropologist Claude  Levi Strauss once said:

“ The one real calamity, the one fatal flaw which can afflict a human group and prevent it from achieving fulfilment is to be alone.”  Race, History and Culture. 1996.

And as Levi-Strauss’ theories posit human being appear to try to identify the differences of other groups rather than the similarities. The rantings of isolationist groups such as The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) seem primarily based on xenophobic concerns about being overrun by Johnny Foreigner without appreciating that we are all European. As a proud Welshman people often wrongly assume that I have nationalist sympathies.  I do not, indeed nationalism is an anathema to me.  The Nazis were nationalist and Saunders Lewis the father of modern day Welsh nationalism has been accused of having Nazi sympathies.  I am an Internationalist and support initiatives that are in the interests of working people wherever they are. As many commentators acknowledge the failure of the UK to fully engage with Europe has been detrimental both economically and politically and it is about time the political classes woke up and stopped playing populist politics but rather pursed the policies that are in the best interests of working people.    

What has Europe ever done for us??

What has Europe ever done for us??

This week as some of you will know I visited the European Parliament  to make a short presentation  on innovative Welsh research collaborations and how such collaborations might be used to tackle some of the most important issues that Wales is facing in the 21^st Century. My visit and presentation unfortunately coincided with the delayed speech by David Cameron on the UK’s future in Europe where he postured to UK Euro sceptics in what I am sure will be a vain attempt to boost his election chances.  However, this empty little Englander posturing is detrimental not just to the interests of the UK but also to ordinary people throughout Europe.  Being in Brussels and in the European parliament on the very day our Prime Minister made that speech I was in a good position to gauge European reaction and I can promise you that far from quaking in their boots the rest of Europe are looking toward the UK  and laughing at a delusional post-colonial country which thinks just because they are called “Great Britain” that somehow they are better than the other countries in the EU and can make a go of it in an increasingly cut throat global economy while cutting its ties to the rest of Europe.  I promise you the attitude of the rest of Europe is “if UK think they can do let them get on with it, no skin off our nose if they crash and burn”.

A Little Boy From Merthyr Always Always

Ethnography: Writing about people.

On arrival at the scene of the incident the EMT and I jumped from the vehicle and ran into the house, while the  paramedic turned the ambulance around in case there was a need to depart quickly. Inside the house the EMT ran into the kitchen where the baby was, while I stayed near the door of the house, ready to run to the ambulance to get any equipment that he might need. As I stood there the grandparents of the baby came out of the kitchen, obviously very distressed, and I tried to calm them down. At this time the midwife also arrived and went into the kitchen. It was a very tense time for everyone concerned. The paramedic stayed near the vehicle with the doors open. All three of us knew from past experience that if it had not been possible to get the baby breathing again, quickly at scene, the other option was to run with the baby as fast as possible to the hospital, which was why we had adopted the positions we had. I stayed with the grandparents trying to reassure them. We all looked to the door of the kitchen expectantly. When the EMT  did emerge he told us that the baby was breathing again. This was a great source of relief to us all. The paramedic and the EMT then went into the kitchen to attend to the baby with the midwife. I stayed outside comforting the grandparents. Obviously they were now a lot more relaxed and they asked me who I was and what was I doing there. We had just been through a very stressful time together, probably for them one of the most stressful few minutes of their lives. When I explained that I was a University researcher they seemed confused at first, perhaps because I was one of the first people that they had seen arrive at the house. I then explained that I had in the past worked in the ambulance service and this seemed to explain matters. 

Although the baby was now breathing, it was not breathing normally so it was conveyed to the hospital for a check up. The journey back although a lot less fraught was still full of tension. The EMT and I sat in the back. The baby was continually monitored in case there was a need to start resuscitation.

When we arrived at the hospital  the baby and mother were taken  into casualty.  I sat in the back of the ambulance with the EMT and talked about the incident. By this time I had my researcher’s hat back on and it was full of ethical and legal concerns. What if I had dropped the patient when transferring  from the stretcher to the trolley? In gaining access I had told nobody that I would be touching patients, as at that time it had not been my intention to do so. What if I had prepared a piece of equipment incorrectly on route to the call? When I worked in the ambulance service that was always a concern then, but now I didn’t work for the ambulance service  and felt that I should not have been doing such things. What right did I have to be in these peoples homes observing them at times of intense emotion and grief? As far as the ambulance staff were concerned I had their informed consent but the patients had not invited me into their houses. What if the baby had stopped breathing in the back of the ambulance? I knew I would have got involved in the resuscitation, if I felt I could have helped. I knew the ambulance crew would have expected me to, and that if I had not, they would have been disgusted with me. But I was now supposed to be the researcher; I felt that I had no right to be attempting to resuscitate people’s babies; probably the most precious thing in their life. As I sat there in the back of the ambulance sharing these rantings with the EMT he said something that made me put the whole thing of research ethics back into perspective. He said “we worked as a team and who gives a fuck as long as the baby  is all right”. I realised then that that said it all. Whatever my role or responsibility as a researcher these were secondary to my roles and responsibilities as a human being. If I could help, I had a duty to help, regardless of any arguments concerning research ethics; the ethical issues in this situation were a lot deeper.

This realisation, however, had various implications to my research strategy. I had been given permission to observe ambulance crews, not to lay my hands on and treat patients. This raised new ethical problems regarding the informed consent of patients to be treated by a researcher. Until I resolved these issues I decided to retire from the field. I felt it was time to consider my ethical position reflexively and then to approach the medical research ethics committee of the  health authority. Although the focus of my research was not the patients, as events had shown, I couldn’t help interacting with them on many levels. In the end it turned out to be Metz who gave me the most guidance in this area. He found that there were many times when being a participant on an ambulance got in the way of observing. The demands of the moment can  prevent the researcher from casually surveying the surroundings, or reflecting on the behaviour seen. What this action showed that when one is conducting social research one’s actions are being judged by others who are involved in the situation and the researcher’s emotions come into play and influence judgement. What is central to any such incident is that the patient’s well being is at stake; therefore the focus necessarily, as a human, is on that goal. Additionally if the researcher does not accept the members’ perspective  then he or she will appear indifferent, hostile or ignorant and will be tolerated only briefly.  These observations and my own previous experience helped me to consolidate in my own mind what role I had as a participant and what role I had as an observer.

In order to resolve this situation I posed the hypothetical question. What would I do if I arrived at the scene of an accident and there were three casualties? What extent of care would I give? What equipment from the ambulance would I use? My answer to such questions was that  I would provide first aid as any citizen who had a knowledge of first aid would.  I would not use any equipment from the ambulance unless directed to by a member of the ambulance crew. That is how I resolved the situation for both myself and to the ethics committee. I felt that I was no longer qualified to offer anything more, but due to the fact that I knew some first aid I was under an obligation to use those skills. Relating it to the position I recounted earlier, as a parent myself  I felt if there was anyone who could help in keeping my child breathing, be they researcher or anything else, I would want them to. 

Normally in the presentation of aspects about my research I do try to resist the gory or dramatic story,  as I feel that these often contribute to the misrepresentation of what the ambulance service is about. However, on this occasion the purpose of using a dramatic story  is that in this incident, what was of concern  was very precious, a child’s life.  As I stated earlier however,  I had begun to have these concerns for some time in my fieldwork, often while involved in more routine  ambulance duties. I  found I was in the position, as every ethnographer is,  of being involved in social relations with others who occupied the field, not only ambulance staff  but patients,  hospital workers and members of the public.

This incident compounds a  concern that I had during the whole research process and one that I feel that other researchers should consider. We, as researchers, are parasites on our subjects. As this incident illustrates I was using a period of intense emotional trauma, for all those concerned, as data for my Ph.D. thesis. This, in turn, I believe, poses both practical and ethical concerns that should be addressed. The question that researchers need to ask themselves, reflexively, is ‘what’s in it for them?’. If we just stand back and observe for our own purposes then we are failing to address these concerns.  If one is to get accepted to observe and record what people are doing, that is the practical concern. However, maybe there is a need for such reciprocities to address the ethical dimension.

Years of experience in the field have taught me that ethical decisions made during ethnography are often problematic, as they often are in everyday life. Akeroyd (1984: 154) has stated that in an “increasingly pluralist discipline consensus about ethical behaviour and research practice is unattainable and compromise seems inevitable. The social researcher must make compromises...between roles as scientist and citizen , commitment and impartiality... The onus for making such decisions rests on the individual researcher.” I do believe that my experiences in the field have shown this dichotomy between the role of the individual as a researcher and as a citizen. The experience has made me believe that it is essential that the researcher consider the humanitarian implications of their actions in the fieldwork situation, although addressing this problem is rarely straightforward. All I feel that we can do as researchers is try to resolve these ethical dilemmas as best we can. To do this we need to consider these decisions reflexively and discuss them openly, not only with our colleagues, but also in a wider arena. What I hope to illustrate by using this concrete example from my own research is that there are times where the researcher should stop being a researcher and engage in action that is not directed towards the goal of producing knowledge. By its very nature ethnography forces us into relationships with people, which, in turn, has an impact on how we behave, or more germane to this case, actions  arise through obligations in another role, in my case not only as a former ambulance worker, but I think more basically as a citizen and as a human being.        

  

Participation and Observation: The Detached Researcher VS The Citizen or Ethics in Social Science Research.

One of the key methods that us qualitative/ ethnographic researchers use is a technique known as participant  observation.  This involves us going to a particular study sight and immersing ourselves in the social situation that we want to study.  For example classic studies have involved researchers working in factories  or taking the role of a psychiatric hospital patient. Adopting such an approach  is very different from using a questionnaire or a survey or such like and poses very specific challenges for the researcher in the field. The classic model of research may conceptualise the researcher as some sort of detached objective automaton.  However, the reality is very different as we are not just "researchers" we have other roles and responsibilities that cannot just be forgotten or ignored during the research period.   These challenges that manifest themselves while conducting social research may be quite trivial but at other times they can open up a whole can of methodological and ethical questions  that the researcher has to resolve on the hoof as it were.

  To explore these I was going to use an example from my own research career to explore how such things can manifest themselves.  The incident happened when I was conducting research in the Ambulance Service when I was with an emergency medical service (EMS) paramedic crew.  To put this incident in to context you need to be aware that previous to my research career I had had some seven years working in the Ambulance Service and that many of those that provided the focus of the research were former colleagues who I had previously worked with. We had arrived at the hospital with a routine admission and the crew were waiting in a side corridor for a piece of equipment to transfer the patient from the Ambulance stretcher onto a trolley  so that they may be transferred to a clinic. As we waited in the corridor an ambulance liaison assistant came running after us and said that they had just received a call that a five hour old baby had stopped breathing  some two miles down the road.

 The paramedic ran to take the details of the call from ambulance control, while the emergency medical technician (EMT) and myself transferred the patient on to the trolley by hand and grabbed  the stretcher.  On this occasion, in the heat of the moment, I completely forgot my role as a researcher and suspended my role as observer. The EMT and I ran through the corridors of the hospital toward the ambulance. I was in front, in civilian clothes, shouting at members of the public to get out of the way. When we got to the  ambulance we threw the stretcher in the back . Having worked in the ambulance service I was fully aware that incidents involving children and infants elicit  greater urgency, and on this call, all the stops were out. The journey to the incident was a very silent affair with none of the jokes or banter that often characterizes the journey to emergency calls. I felt sick;  my heart was pumping and my mouth dry. The EMT and myself prepared the equipment that we thought may be needed at scene; we worked as a team of three. I was no longer adopting the role of the professional stranger that is often associated with the role of researcher/ ethnographer but was now acting as a member of the ambulance crew. This may have been some sort of coping mechanism on my part to deal with the situation that I now found myself in........ (To be continued)

Shouting in to the Westerly Winds

First of all let me thank everybody for the feedback on my first blog and I will try to take on some of the observations in this post.  In my last blog I recounted how it was that I came to join Twitter and how my Twitter name originated.  However, that is only part of the story.  As anybody who follows me on Twitter will know I do not only Tweet on academic matters. Although  I was first introduced to Twitter via a course the University sent me on in relation to using social media for academics it quite quickly evolved into something else and this is going to be the story of how this came about.

When I first started using Twitter I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, particularly when it came to Tweeting myself.  I know I have a number of my colleagues who are what I would call Twitter “lurkers” inasmuch as they regularly look at Twitter but don’t have the confidence to Tweet themselves or even are a little scared of it. I was a little like this myself at first however I quickly found, due to the sort of person that I was, I just could not contain myself and I think that is what gave me the impetus to develop in to the sort of Tweeter I am now.

I have often equated Tweeting with, drawing on that analogy of Dylan Thomas’,  to standing  on the top of Worms Head,( which is a small island near here that sticks out into the ocean . See picture) and screaming “bugger off to the world” into those gale force winds that roll in from the Atlantic.

 I joined Twitter in about June 2011, that year was eventful politically and there were a number of news events that provided the impetus for me figuratively screaming my little lungs out into those Atlantic gales as they came in from the West, these was the Libyan war, the UK riots and the Royal Wedding . These events filled me with deep feelings of anger, injustice and rage.  The Libyan war stank of Western neo colonialist meddling and injustice.  My anger at the Royal wedding was not only how it appeared to be a celebration of the rotten class based structure of this country but also how it reinforced to me that increasingly dissent was not to be tolerated.  (This is something I hope to post about later as I really think it is a worrying trend in the UK). Then toward the end of summer of that year we had the UK riots and having seen first-hand the impact that ConDem Govermental  cuts had made to front line services and earlier in the year having to endure that orgy of material excess that was the Royal Wedding it smacked of injustice and double standards that people were being taken into custody for protesting at the excesses of the Royal Wedding and then later in the year poor people were being given custodial sentences for picking up a pair of shorts or a bottle of water during a riot.  I could not but help ask myself who were the real thieves here of material and civil liberties.  

These events and other provided the impetus to my Tweeting.  As one of my followers the lovely @Lives_2Read pointed out I seemed to her as the sort of man who shouted at the telly.  She was only too right and Twitter gave me the opportunity for my rantings against these injustices to be heard beyond my own living room.  To be honest not that I really cared if people were listening or not, in the same way that I ranted at the TV whether people were in the room or not and even I was not so dull that I thought that those on the TV could hear me. It was just a medium through which I could vent my immediate rage, nothing more, nothing less.  As any of you who familiar with Twitter will know there are plenty out there who will argue with you at best or simply ridicule you or insult you.  I am too long in the tooth and thick of skin to be really influenced by any of that but if anything in hindsight I probably did engage too much with many who just weren’t worth the effort.

So there you have it, that’s what Twitter very quickly became for me a way to interact back into the world rather than the experience and news just come into on my own little Worms Head island I now had a way of shouting back.  So there I was shouting, screaming, ranting and raving for all I was worth  into the wind about the injustices of this world and then I stop for breath and glance over my shoulder and there are over a thousand people listening, and I’m like “ WTF where did they come from??”  :-/

On Being Dr Nostromo

January 2013

Well here it goes my first blog!! I’ve decided to start doing this following my experiences on Twitter where I have been surprised in the interested people seem to have in my inane musings and rantings,  a few people have mentioned to me that I should consider blogging, so here we go, I can at least give it a try.

Something that a lot of people have asked (well one or two anyway) is where did the nom de guerre / nom de plume Dr Nostromo come from. It may come as a surprise to some that it has very little to do with the mining ship in Alien and although that is a pretty good film all in all I’m not a massive fan of SciFi as a genre.  It all goes back to when I first joined Twitter, some eighteen months ago now following a course I attended on research leadership. (Crucible Cymru it was called, but that can be a subject of another post)  One of the sessions was on academic use of social media.  I had used Bebo and Facebook previously and although I had never really engaged with the platforms I had found them useful for research purposes, particularly for staying in contact with research participants. During the presentation on Twitter one of the other course attendees, who I had already taken a little of a dislike to, turned to me and said “Twitter is for idiots who just like the sound of their own voice and have got nothing to say”.  I thought that was a tad rich coming from this particular individual as what he had just said pretty much summed up my analysis of his character, but I also thought, well if this guy doesn’t like it there must be something in it :-/.

Anyway, two of the other course participants @DrBillyo and @Handee who were already on Twitter provided additional guidance and advice but of course now the time came for choosing a Twitter name.  There were a number of others on the course who joined the same time and as all of us had Ph.Ds a number choose Dr this or Dr that.  I did consider@DrMONeill  but Martin O’Neill is such a common name I wanted something a little more distinctive.  As I was setting up my Twitter account in my study (that sounds a bit grand!!) / computer room and  with me being a big fan of Joseph Conrad there were a number of his work on the bookshelf. I was immediately drawn to the title Nostromo not only because I thought it had a nice ring to it. “Dr Nostromo” but also from the character from the book who seems to be a bit of an outsider who is fighting against something all the time but you are never 100% sure what.  Also, as hopefully should become evident through this blog , Italy has played a major role in shaping my life.  The term Nostromo comes from two Italian words “nostro”  “uomo” which respectively mean “our” and “man” but the term is also used  to denote a skipper/ foreman. So with all those connotations of meaning it very much seemed to fit the bill.

The name seems to have stuck now.  I have attended conferences and seminars and people who I have never met before come up to me and say “Dr Nostromo I presume” I have been walking through the streets of Swansea and the same has happened. In my department in the coffee bar colleagues ask “How are you Dr Nostromo”. All in all I am happy with the name and particularly to have one associated with such a great writer as Conrad, who’s writing I’m sure can form the basis of another blog entry.

So there you have it friends my first blog, sorry if you find it boring and inane, still new to it but I hope in the future to blog about life, politics, academia, community, Wales and everything in between.

Dr N