Please post your comments. If ten helpful comments are reached, an anonymous vote will take place among our team for the best comment or suggestion, and the winner will receive a $10 itunes gift certificate.Our Problem: Our client is a multi-tasking business school professor who has a room worth of research materials but no good way to keep them organized. The problem that our client T.L. now faces is that some of the research materials he's working on are used in multiple research projects, making it impossible to file them in one place.
Our suggestions for the client include:
- Save the materials in digital form and create an electronic database so that the papers can be stored, tagged, and annoted in multiple ways (including electronic note-taking).
- Cut each paper up so that you can separate the relevant content from the rest of the paper. Hopefully, no two projects will reference the same part of a paper.
- Organize the papers in their as-is form (paper and not cut up). This might involve hanging them on a clothes line or putting them in a series of mailboxes or even assigning them a serial number.
I like the #1 idea of filing all the research material to digital form. It might be a lot of hassle up front but he will be grateful in the end. I think he should scan all relevant information that is of great value to his multiple projects and save them on an Apple. Apple computers have a great search tool where you can search within documents to find what you need even if you forgot the name of the document. All other information should be organized neatly in file organizers or tossed out.
ReplyDeleteI personally like the idea of cutting out parts of the papers that aren't critical. I do this with my own To-Do lists, and it really helps just to cut down on the excess physical paper.
ReplyDeletemiss cleo predicts many paper cuts if t-love has to cut up his documents. i like number 1 especially if it's easy to search when he's writing very important papers and needs to access the info quickly.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the 1st solution is very desirable and practical. I think that your subject itself is very useful and interesting to us. In every module, we pay much money to purchase binders, and we are also confusing our documents in the files. So if you improve the subject, you can make very useful innovation to Owen students.
ReplyDeleteAlthough everything is digital these days, in the event of a computer crash, I would hate to see T Love lose all of his valuable work. I like idea #3. I am an organizational freak and still think that traditional files and color-coded labeling is the way to go.
ReplyDeleteI always considered organization of a work place to be a personal and conscious decision (some people are organized others are not). However it seems that in this case the prof really does have an org issue due to the cross functional use of many of the documents. I like all of the innovative ideas you propose, though it would seem to only increase the organizational hassle if you are having to digitize documents and/or hang things on a clotheline around the office.
ReplyDeleteT-love needs to join the present time and start using some new software. I always thought he needed a TA or an office assistant but he said it was not in the budget. Fortunately, Vanderbilt has plenty of undergraduates in the HOD program who would love to spend a few hours with an LTO genius like Vogus. You could outsource the data entry and scanning of the paper files to these diligent workers for a few bucks an hour. They might even get course credit.
ReplyDeleteFootball does not always apply to B-school, but in this case it may. We have a software solution system comparable to idea #1. All of our practices and games are filmed, tagged and cataloged in a digital video system for later use as a “cut-up.” As suggested in idea #1, what T-Love could do is import or electronically collect each research paper, mark/tag each paper, and create a “cut-up.”
ReplyDeleteA “cut-up” for us is a video collection of similar plays from various sources such as our own games, opponent’s games and practices. Coaches are able to build these “cut-ups” from scratch or by running basic queries. T-Love could use a comparable system for cataloging and interconnecting his research documents. His system, like ours, ought to allow his research partners access or the ability to share all of the same information. Our solution also allows our coaches to record information in multiple ways, perform diverse data analysis from each “cut-up” and create corresponding reports.
Most of the professors I know have some sort of established method for conducting literature searches and a fairly routine way of writing research articles. I would choose the innovation concept that best supports what he is already doing. That way, the innovation will not create new challenges for him to overcome.
ReplyDeleteGood ideas, all. I would start with trying to understand what the real problem is. Is it acquisition, storage, or retrieval? Each of those "modalities" will have a different idealized solution. Digital is easy to store and retrieve, but a pain to acquire (requires lots of fussy scanning). Paper is easy to get, but hard to store and retrieve.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a quick user study could help you figure out how many documents come in, how many are stored, and how often he needs to get back to them--that will give you a sense of where the critical problem is.
There are scanners lying around all over the school - plus most journals nowadays offer digital copies. Maybe a batch process (either fully automatic or run by a TA) would download and catalog all new journal entries (and other odds and ends he has collected) each month.
check out "asksam" as a unstructured database management tool. Also, does he already use "endnote"?
If the problem is accessibility, then I think that is what we should address. Why not have a simple filing system (alphabetical, journal wise, whatever) and then just have a kick-butt index based on the research project that he is working on? That way, if he wants to reference a existing piece of research for a new project, he just adds it to the master index. And the Index is the master blaster.
ReplyDeleteGood problem to solve! I spoke to T-Love and he is stoked.
I like Nat's idea of creating a data entry sweatshop of undergrad workers in T-Love's office.
ReplyDeleteI like idea #1, but you must be able to get T.L. to switch from his old habits, otherwise it will be a lot of work all for not. Try focusing the innovation on T.L. to change his ways rather than just helping him organize.
ReplyDelete1 sounds like the best option. However, I think the hardest part of a project like this is changing the behaviour of the person in question. Perhaps going forward, T-Luv could be hooked to electrodes to punish him every he doesn't file something correctly.
ReplyDelete