How do you solve a problem like NUFC???

How do you catch a (black) cloud and pin it down? Well, quite!
Don't ask me what is going on at my beloved Newcastle United as I, together with my fellow fans; the players, the media, and indeed the management, have little clue. Personally, in summary, I DON'T think that:
1) Kevin Keegan ever was, or is, the 'Messiah'. He's not a very naughty boy either but he is a good motivator.
2) Dennis Wise is the devil incarnate although the description of him as a poisoned dwarf does appeal. I would love to know though (just love it!) what exactly he does do to warrant a place on our payroll and what exactly his role entails.
3) Mike Ashley is an evil 'cockney'. I think he's a football fan who has arguably bitten off more than he can chew and who has made some rather glaring mistakes in a) not communicating with the fans or his team fully b) not conducting due diligence c) being rather rash and prone to knee - jerk reactions and short term business solutions.
4) The Toon Army en masse hate Mike Ashley and would inflict harm on him or his kids if we were to see him. Yes a lot of people are understandably very annoyed with him and feel that we were misled about the direction and ambitions of the club. See point above about communication. A lot of people also want to see Mike Ashley sell Newcastle Utd because of those very reasons. We also do not understand the management structure but how can we, when no one within management appears to understand it either?
However, we don't all hate 'cockneys', we don't all scrawl on bedsheets, or go to marches or think that we are the 'The special ones' or that Kevin Keegan is the only manager who can manage Newcastle Utd. We do however passionately love our club as it is a very part of our soul and our identity, especially given that we are a one club city.
5) The vast majority of the Toon Army enjoy any of this media attention or repeated guesses and supposition as to what we will do next. Trust me, we don't want your pie in the sky media theories and we (excepting a few with spare bedsheets and aerosols who love to get on TV) are also rather tired of the whole circus, so please, journalists, give it a rest. We won't miss the coverage, honest!

What I DO think is that:
1) Ashley's 'Arsenal Model' in the face of it, made a lot of sense. Long term planning, going for younger, less well known players with talent. Unfortunately the detail of the Ashley model did not reflect the actual Arsenal Model and hence, the mess we're in now.
2) That if you invest large sums of money in anything you really, really must conduct due diligence!
3) That Newcastle can be a great club and that it does have great support.
4) That we need an organised, experienced owner with a long term vision and the courage and the tenacity to see it through.
5) We need a long term manager, someone who will drive and direct the club. I know we all get sick of hearing it but Wenger and Ferguson are the prime examples of success.
6) That a mega bucks buy-out is not necessarily the way to go. I still want to be able to afford to support my team and I'd like to think that the owner kind of understood the Toon Army. They don;t need to be a Geordie, just to understand our passion.
7) I don't want big name signings at the expense of: a) team stability b) ramped up ticket prices c) a 'my bank account is bigger than your bank account' competition d) the development and maintenance of a youth team and structure.
8) That for once, we get an owner who doesn't treat Newcastle Utd as a personal status symbol, plaything, or means to a supposed quick buck. Someone with a bit of professional kudos please, an understanding of the beautiful game and a skill at effectively running an organisation will suffice!

Is all this too much to ask?

Dissertation all done and handed in

Well that's it, the end of an era! My dissertation has now been completed and I handed it in just over 3 weeks ago.

So, what have I learnt? Well I think my lessons learned are best produced in the form of a few bullet points:

1. Just like the boy scouts 'be prepared' is a great motto to have, especially when dealing with NHS and University ethics procedures
2. Allow yourself as much time as you can, as things will always take a lot longer than you think
3. Have a plan B. Or in the case of Gordon Strachan, Plan Z. This is particularly useful for 'interactive' activities such as interviews or questionnaires. You would be amazed how much time and effort it took me to arrange and attend 8 interviews, simply because people are so busy. Having a Plan B (or Z) will afford you some flexibility in case things don't work as you had planned. Sometimes the best laid plans....
   
4. ALWAYS back-up your data
5. Don't get hung up on getting to grips with fancy qualitative data analysis software. I ended up mainly using Excel in the end.
   
6. COMMUNICATE with your tutor regularly. My tutor was fantastic and we got into a really good regular habit of communicating and reviewing my work as I went along.
   
7. Try to do little and often. This method suits me anyway and it kept me focused too.
   
8. ALLOW PLENTY OF TIME for your write up, presentation of data, and review. You just know that a particular Excel Chart just won't print out as it appears on the screen..... I allowed about 3 weeks and even then I had to take study leave to finish it.
   
9. If you have spare time at the beginning of your dissertation, familiarise yourself with some of the lesser known features of Word and Excel which could help save you time during write up, such as how to add an Excel chart to Word, how to create a TOC etc as it will save you time at the end.
   

Presenting data - incorporating MS Excel charts

Apologies to anyone who may read this blog, I haven't updated it for absolutely ages!

During my hiatus, I have not only been to Glastonbury and had a marvellous time, but I have also been busy writing up my MSc dissertation (honest).

Now as most people probably do, I am using MS Word (for OS X) to write up my findings and a lot of the data that I have collected has been input into MS Excel. From that data I managed to create some very pretty charts, of the bar and pie variety. Whey hey!

I have 2 problems using MS Excel. One is that I find the Help rather unhelpful. The other issue is that I find interaction between 2 Office products to be less than intuitive at times. I spent ages saving my charts and cutting and pasting them into my Word doc but this did not work as the images were all wrong and you couldn't read the data.
I then thought 'ah ha, you have to insert an Object! ' Lo and behold there was indeed an option to insert an Excel Chart. Did this work then? Well no. I concede that I may have done this all wrong but the only thing I managed to do was create an Excel icon that linked to the entire Excel file. It did not insert the individual chart that I needed.

It turns out that what you need to do (having created and saved your chart in Excel) is to Copy it and then use Paste Special in Word. This then gives you a load of useful options such as linking to the originating chart so that when data is updated in Excel, it automatically updates in Word too. The chart will then be pasted where you need it and it renders much more clearly doing it this way.
So please, if you are trying to insert a chart or a table of data into Word from Excel, use Paste Special!
I found this rather marvellous advice by searching on Google and following some search results to a couple of training tips from academic institutions on how to do this.

Benefits of tai chi

I have recently started to go to tai chi classes and I have to say that I really enjoy it and and I feel that it has great benefits.
My class is made up of a small mixed bunch of people of all different ages and backgrounds and it has a very amicable, relaxed atmosphere.
Tai Chi is a very gentle form of exercise which is beneficial even for people suffering from chronic conditions such as heart disease and arthritis, however you do feel after a class that you have strengthened and stretched the old muscles and the breathing technique is great not only for relaxing, but I have found it useful for other sports too such as swimming.
Aside from the physical benefits, I find the Qi Gong very relaxing indeed and I always come out of a class feeling both very relaxed and like I have really toned up!

Eeey Aye, Eey Aye, Eey Aye Oh.....

... up the Premier League we go (and not before time!)
I don't know how or why things have just clicked in place with Newcastle United since my last blog entry about them (despite my friend, a Fulham fan, claiming lucky charm status after seeing Birmingham City v NUFC) , but we are now playing some good, solid, attractive football which has been a pleasure to watch. Obafemi Martins has been so fast, composed, and threatening; Michael Owen has been back to his old form and Viduka has made some great contributions. One of my most impressive players this season though has been Habib Beye, a very solid, pacy defender who can pass a ball very well and isn't scared to have a pop. I never thought I'd say this, but thank you, Sam Allardyce.
Long may our current good form continue, especially against the great Unwashed in Sunday's derby game.
Howay the Lads!

To Glastonbury or not to Glastonbury? That is the question

And the answer from my point of view is 'of course I'm still going!'
Don't get me wrong, I can see people's reason's for not going, such as they can't face that much mud again, the headliners are at best uninspired, the ticket system is a mess and it is expensive, BUT I love Glastonbury for all the other mad smaller stages and the overall creativity of the place.
My 2 favourite gigs last year were Neville Staple in the Dance tent and Dreadzone in the Glade. Oh and Iggy and the Stooges were just brilliant on the Other Stage. Combine this with the Greenfields, a laid back and happy atmosphere, bumping into someone you haven't seen for 15 years in a tea tent, and having a tequila slammer served by a full-on Moulin Rouge tart, and I'll be back again. Well that and the fact that we get to spend a whole 5 days with a large Geordie encampment. We're up to 44 in numbers this year. Yep, 44 AND pear cider!

benefits of seeing your dissertation tutor

As I'm sure I have already mentioned, it can be a rather lonely process doing your Masters degree dissertation by distance learning. It is also hard to keep up momentum sometimes, so I found it really beneficial going to see my tutor last week.
We discussed my dissertation in general and talked through a particular issue that I have at the moment. I came out of our meeting feeling confident and in full control of my dissertation again, with a good plan of action.
Thank you!

Long time, no blog!

Sorry everyone / World,
It's been ages since I last blogged and time just speeds past at the moment. So much has happened too; I've got some more work done on my dissertation, Newcastle United are on a winning streak, Glastonbury didn't sell out and I've discovered Tai Chi. Phew!

Designing interview schedules and questionnaires - great resources

Many of my fellow students and I are starting to prepare for the 'hands on' elements of our research where we will be conducting interviews and / or questionnaires with a wide range of people.

Designing a good interview schedule and questionnaire is a fine art, and I found this fantastic website from Professor T.D . Wilson on this very subject. Here, Professor Wilson outlines the benefits and pitfalls of various types and approaches to interviews and techniques, and there are some really practical tips too. I have found this a most useful resource.

In the meantime, it's a while since I wrote about Newcastle United. What can you say? We continue to walk a relegation tight rope and we don't instil a great degree of belief in the fact that we can turn this around.
My top tip is that 4-5-1 just doesn't work; stop it right now! If Chelsea couldn't effectively play with Drogba in this formation we certainly can't, especially with one of the shortest teams in the premiership.
I'm off to see the Lads on Monday, v Birmingham City and as usual they will receive great support from our travelling fans. I just hope that the potential absence of James Milner won't impact too heavily on the team as I view him as a key player. Player 4.4.2 though, perhaps bringing in Shola to complement Owen and / or Martins, and we could do this you know. Now is the time to turn it around Lads.
Howay, you can do it!

Concepts, themes and mind mapping

So, I haven;t blogged in a while. This was primarily due to the fact that I had a few days out in Belfast and then went straight to Woking for a work trip. That and the continued demise of Newcastle United.....

Anyway before I end up like Marvin the Paranoid Android, I thought that I would share with you my mind mapping tool of choice which is FreeMind for OS X. Yes, I am one of those pesky Mac users.....

I took my time getting into Mind mapping. My mate and colleague, Andy, does it all the time and for identifying my initial research themes it's worked a treat. Yes, you still have to manually enter terms and then 'refind' the recurrent information, but I identified my common themes in a couple of minutes from my print out.

FreeMind is available via a link on Wikipedia where you can read all about it too. If you've never tried mind mapping, give it a whirl, especially if you have tasks that you need to think about.

London highlights

When I was away in London earlier this week, I took the train from Waterloo every morning to Woking. Going to Waterloo was interesting as it was used in a fantastic chase scene in my favourite film of last year, the Bourne Ultimatum. If you want impressive train stations though, the newly refurbished St Pancras looks fantastic and sipping champagne at the champagne bar is a truly continental experience.

Unfortunately, I always find travelling and staying in London for any length of time extremely tedious as it is just so ridiculously expensive, busy, and overcrowded. Fortunately once I had escaped the throngs in Waterloo, I walked out onto Southbank to see the London Eye which was lit up in magenta to celebrate Valentine's Day. The Eye is a truly impressive feat of engineering and it looked spectacular at dusk. The photos are slightly blurred I'm afraid as they were taken with a slow shutter speed but you'll get the idea!

Woking weirdness

I just spent the best part of a week in Woking, Surrey, where I attended a training course .

Due to the fact that I stayed in London for my visit (primarily due to a lack of semi-decent hotels in Woking which was confirmed by my course hosts) I didn't get to see much of Woking, but one of the weird features there is the Tripod sculpture. This sculpture was erected because Woking features in H.G.Wells' War of the Worlds. The mention of Woking in this classic novel however, is actually as the first town to be destroyed by the Tripods. Strange reason to add a monument!


Picture by Puggirl365 - Flickr.com

NHS Healthcare libraries, faster & cheaper than Amazon

I am very lucky. I work with a great team of people now, and I used to work with a great network of librarians in the North West. As part of my research the other day, I found a really interesting citation about some recent research which was conducted by the University of Leeds into Web 2.0 usage amongst medical students and practitioners.
Unfortunately neither my NHS or University Athens accounts gave me access to the resource that I needed, but a quick email to my colleagues in the North West saw that very item allocated and saved for my collection from my local health library the very same day. This is what health libraries do so brilliantly, helping and supporting users to find, consider, and use the resources that they need, and the North West has always had a very strong collaborative network which I hope will continue to operate in this way in the future.
For those who are interested, the article in question is:
TI: Title
Web 2.0 technologies for undergraduate and postgraduate medical
education: an online survey.
AU: Author
Sandars, J; Schroter, S
AF: Affiliation
Medical Education Unit, The University of Leeds, 20 Hyde Terrace,
Leeds LS2 9LN, UK.
SO: Source
Postgraduate medical journal, 2007 Dec, 83(986):759-62
IS: ISSN
1469-0756

Business benefits of Web 2.0 for healthcare giant company

This short video is worth checking out as the (rather unfortunately named) CIO of McKesson (the people behind the NHS electronic staff record) Randy Spratt, outlines the business benefits that Web 2.0 will bring to a company such as his.
Interesting mention of RFIDs too. For an explanation of RFIDs, including their use as human implants, see Wikipedia's definition at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID

Social networking for architects & disaster relief workers

A lot of people think that social networks are for people with far too much time on their hands; for teenagers, for people who wear heavy metal t-shirts and haven't seen the sun since 1972, or for agoraphobics.

What I'm interested in however, is how we can use social networking and Web 2.0 tools to help us use knowledge and information in our everyday lives. Although I'm researching this from an NHS perspective, I've found some other interesting examples of social networking sites which are used by professionals to assist humanitarian relief.
I have a couple of friends who are architects and I think the Open Architecture Network is a fantastic example of a profession sharing knowledge across the world to help them aid people who are suffering due to disaster or poverty. Check it out, it's interesting even if architecture isn't your thing!

I also found an interesting article about how some relief organisations are using wikis to share knowledge quickly in emergency situations. This article's focus is however around how access to that knowledge is still far from ideal due to the construction of the Internet and the way that data is currently searched. It argues that Semantic web (a.k.a. Web 3.0) processes will help t0 label information in a way that makes it much more easily retrievable; something which is beneficial for all users of the Internet, but especially to those where quick access to information is vital. Very interesting.

ethics huummmm, NUFC sigh..... , Medical wikis 1.

Yep, back to the grind again and I had feedback from the University Ethics committee with a raft of recommendations. Grits teeth and smiles sweetly....

Anyway, they are a necessary evil and I can understand the need for a process. Being a student studying an NHS related course I cannot however see the need to go through not one, but 2 ethics processes. Let's learn to share perhaps, chaps? The supporting forms are almost identical for a start. Trust me, I'm now an unwitting expert. There must be some mileage in an online one-size-fits-all-for-NHS-and-University-applications; a collaborative effort for certain (I'm thinking information focused here) courses. I know a couple of fellas who could knock up a web form in no time!
Forgive the frustration but please let's not forget that on non taught Masters we all have day jobs too, so time is VERY precious and we'd *much* rather spend it on actual research rather than form filling.

So after spending the best part of 5 months following bureaucratic processes (I kid you not) I am now looking forward to the completion of chapter one, and on to chapter 2. Ah the literature review, I know I should be good at this given that I've spent the best part of my working life working alongside librarians, but I can;t say that the prospect fills me with the joys of spring.

Speaking of which, NUFC continue the habit of a lifetime and continue to spectacularly underwhelm. When will it end? The 12th of Never by the look of things. Actually what is the 12th of Never where did that come from, apart from that awful song?
Will we even score a goal? Something has to break surely, but at least Baye and Faye are on their way back from the African Cup of Nations which is an almighty relief.

Onwards and upwards as they say....

Oh this week's resource gem for all you NHS types out there and people who just like gory photos... is the wonderful David Rothman's list of medical wikis. There's some good collaborative developments and sharing going on out there and the list gets longer by the week.

Discovery of great library resources for referencing AND Kevin Keegan!

Well, I had my first draft of Chapter 1 of my dissertation returned from my supervisor, in super quick time (thank you so much for that!) with some really useful comments and suggestions on it, so I am now digressing from implementing the changes as I type!

One thing that I am pretty rubbish at doing is referencing (I know, shocking for someone who works with librarians, but hey) so I had a look on Sheffield University's Library web pages and came across some great resources for anyone who has started to type up parts of their dissertation.
Have a look at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/library/libdocs/lit.html. The 'Harvard referencing guide' is great to just print off and refer too as you type, and the 'Citing electronic sources of information' guide contains guidance on referencing mailing lists, emails, and bulletin boards which are not contained in the dissertation module guide. I hope you find that useful.

Aside from that, Kevin Keegan has returned to Newcastle United and today is his first game in charge. I think few saw this coming to be honest but I think it's a great appointment. I do have a couple of reservations as I would with any manager, but for his sheer understanding of NUFC well, what can I say other than 'welcome back to your spiritual home, Kevin'! I am sure that the style of football will change for the better from the insipid offerings that we endured (in person!) at Derby and Stoke away, so for that alone, the Toon Army will breathe a sign of relief!

HOWAY THE LADS!

Post Xmas, back to MSc and supporting NUFC

Happy New Year to one and all.

It's been back to the grind for me and I have started to write up chapter one of my dissertation which encompasses the overview, what I'm setting out to achieve, the organisational context etc. As always, I find that writing these summaries helps me to focus on the aims of my dissertation.
I also started Ch 1 of the dissertation as the University still haven't made a decision as to whether my dissertation needs their ethics approval. Of course everything shuts down for Xmas within academia so no-one is about to make any decisions. Note to self and and anyone else interested; this will also happen again at Easter!

Today I am off to Stoke City v NUFC in the hope of a decent win for us. This of course is by no means guaranteed but we retain our blind faith, at least for the moment!