Roughly five years ago, Christian Davenport and Will H. Moore hit something of an impasse and began discussions about what might be done.  We were dissatisfied with how political scientists continue to use 20th Century practices and organizations to provide feedback to one another on work in progress.  Conferences have primarily become rent-seeking forums: people attend for subsidized travel and reunion with friends (actual and potential), some professional networking, and a pinch of research interaction.  As expectations of useful feedback have dropped, the effort people invest in presenting well conceived, well executed work declines with it.  “It's just a conference paper.  But did I tell you about the restaurant/art exhibit/ball game/etc. I visited?” Eye.  Roll.
 
Our professional associations diluted the research value further by putting more and more people in each session with 5-6 presentations and 1-2 discussants, the better to drive up association membership.  While great for association coffers, this leaves less and less time for presentation and discussion. Indeed, panels increasingly feel like “academic speed dating” as each presenter zooms through the presentation hitting the highest points of the chorus, but leaving the gems of the lyrics in the paper, which probably wasn't uploaded to the conference webpage, and is likely to go unnoticed if it is.  

With this as backdrop we began to search for things we might do to step into the breach.  The current process was created back in the days when academics traveled by train, produced copies of their working papers by having a human being type two copies (an original and a carbon copy) at a time, and then paid the postal service to carry it in a stamped envelope to potential readers.  Telephone calls were prohibitively expensive, so it made economic sense for researchers to coordinate annually over a several day period when they could travel to a common location and respond to one another's ongoing work.  That we would continue this as our best practice today is an exemplar of path dependent collective stupidity. It doesn’t need to be our grandparents’ 1950’s politico-social.  Surely we can do better.  


The Past as Prologue

Given our intellectual background, it made sense that our discussions invariably led to a conversation of Charles (Chuck) Tilly (who had recently passed at the time of the conversation referenced above).   Chuck had run a workshop at Michigan, the New School and then Colombia that followed some basic rules.   Upon being asked about exactly what was involved, these were outlined below by Roy Licklider – a constant participant when the workshop was in New York:

I think we all agree that the seminar/workshop that Chuck created and ran was a remarkable phenomenon. It might be useful to compile its rules in the hope that they might be helpful to others trying to do similar things. Of course, the rules were never written down, and one of the issues with unwritten constitutions is that people often disagree about their content (unlike, say, written constitutions, but that's another story). 
Anyway, I thought I would put down my version, and everybody else can explain where I got it wrong. I've put brackets around my comments and specific illustrations from my own experience. 

The overriding purpose is to improve a piece of research. Critics are not supposed to show how smart they are by humiliating the author [there was no point to it anyway since Tilly was smarter than anyone else in the room]. A good comment doesn't just point out a weakness in the project; it also suggests what should be done to make it better (constructive criticism). 

There is no overriding topic or theme. Basically it is all about how to do good social science research. [The final title was Workshop in Contentious Politics, and there isn't much that couldn't be included under that heading. The lack of a topic made it different from most other seminars and, especially at Columbia, made it difficult to attract members who would keep coming back; Tilly's reputation helped a lot, and some of us became infatuated with the whole approach, but as noted below this became a problem.] 

Within the seminar everyone is treated as an equal. First names are used by everyone for everyone. Everyone is an author and a critic; every regular member of the seminar is expected to present (ideally once a year, although that may not be possible) and to comment on everyone else's work every week. Specialized knowledge on the topic is useful but not necessary, and often the best comments and questions come from people who know nothing at all about the topic. 

Papers are never presented; they are written and distributed a week ahead of the session. There is a reciprocal arrangement; authors limit themselves to fifty pages or less, and all members read the papers in advance. [Chuck once said it was okay if you didn't read the paper, but you couldn't say so and then make a comment.] The paper should include an introductory page putting the research in context and explaining its audience (is this a dissertation, a potential article or book, a conference paper, etc.). 

At the beginning of the session the author is allowed but not encouraged to say a few sentences, usually about the context of the research (which should be covered in the introductory page but sometimes isn't). But the session really starts with extensive comments by two preselected critics, at least one of whom does not have a Ph.D. [In recent years these comments were often written in advance and read aloud, with a copy going to the author either before (my preference) or after the oral presentation. This allows the author to not have to worry about taking notes and facilitates discussion. Chuck and I disagreed about reading the comments; I felt that, at least for native speakers of English, people should talk about the comments rather than reading them, which would be good practice for conferences and teaching classes.] 

After the two critics have made their remarks, the author is given a substantial amount of time to respond.

The floor is then open to comments and questions. Members attract the attention of the leader by raising their hand (one-finger question); the leader keeps a queue of names and calls on them in the order in which they have been seen, except that the first three comments after the critics must be made by people without Ph.D.s. It's okay for an individual to raise several separate questions at once. A second kind of intervention is the two-finger question--it must be directly on the point under discussion and thirty seconds or less. Asking a two-finger question does not change your position in the regular queue.

In addition to oral comments, members are encouraged to submit written comments. These fulfill at least two different functions: (1) they communicate specialized knowledge, bibliography, etc. which would not be of general interest to the group and (2) by repeating the oral questions or points, they again free the author from trying to take notes while answering a barrage of very different questions and issues and give them a record of the discussion which will be useful later when trying to recall what went on. [I have actually tape recorded several sessions where I was the author for the same reason. I learned from Chuck to try to keep my own comments until late in the session; with any luck others would make the points on their own and learn more from the experience than if we led the discussion.] Repeating a point made earlier, it is a firm rule that, no matter how wrong-headed the paper is [and there were some dillies], discussion is courteous, friendly, respectful, and directed at improving the project at hand rather than showing that the commentator is brilliant or that the author is insane or dangerous (although all of these may be true). Ideally the author is presented with several different ways in which the paper can be further developed, often contradictory ones which gave some choice.
​
After the seminar (which is scheduled for two hours), everyone is invited to go out to dinner somewhere nearby (it obviously helps if the seminar is scheduled late in the afternoon). The check is shared, but the author doesn't pay. [I used to explain that they had provided the entertainment. This may not be haute cuisine; Chuck would alternate between two inexpensive restaurants (usually ethnic). He justified this by saying he wanted to encourage graduate students to come by keeping it cheap. When he didn't attend during the last semester, the seminar went somewhere else to eat, although not to a much more expensive place, so maybe he was on to something. Once, when only faculty showed up, we went to a better restaurant. Occasionally, if he had gotten a nice check (as he would put it), he would pay the whole bill himself. 

I think he regarded the dinner as the high point of the experience, and certainly many of us did. I made a point not to sit next to him to give graduate students a shot at him; at Columbia they were sometimes a little shy, but they soon got over it.] 
​
With Chuck's Workshop in mind, three years ago we decided to create something in line with the spirit outlined above but do it virtually, online – taking the older model into the 21st Century.  The Conflict Consortium Virtual Workshop was born.


Challenges & Successes: Our Experience to Date

Given where we were coming from, we anticipated that there might be some issues to overcome.   

For example, who the heck would want to put themselves through what some view as a grueling performance of academic “Survivor,” which is one thing in a room of 5-50 people who after leaving the room basically forget the whole experience. This is quite a different matter when half a dozen people have 90 minutes to discuss your working paper, live on the Internet, and the whole thing is recorded to CC's YouTube Channel for posterity. Have you been to a panel where a discussant rips into the presenter and the audience (seeing the “blood in the water”) moves in for a kill like some version of “Academics Gone Wilding”? 

In contrast, we wanted to “nurture the youth,” and limited CCVW applications to working papers by non-tenured faculty and PhD students.  We were interested in getting people comments on their work and doing this in the supportive way that Chuck had managed to pull off.  We began by adopting Chuck's “Rules of Engagement” (as articulated by Licklider), bounced back and forth drafts of carefully worded emails and a blog post, shared our vision face to face with senior folks we know play well with non-senior folks, and selected kind, engaging and communicative participants to serve as Discussants.  We also continued to remind one another to keep a watchful eye on interactions while sessions are underway, task the Chair (one of us) with mediating (should the need arise), and hold a dyadic debrief after each session to discuss how we might improve.  Without exception all of these interactions have, indeed, been marvelous.

That said, we have not been deluged with applications in response to our Calls for Papers, and as such, are still working on getting the word out.  The CCVW provides a unique opportunity: where else can one get half a dozen conflict researchers to spend 90 minutes giving you feedback on your working paper?  We have discussed collecting testimonials, and we ask our past participants to spread the word virtually and face-to-face.  As with any new endeavor, however, progress can be a bit plodding and we can always get more assistance in moving things forward (did we mention that we were being backed by the NSF?).

Another potential challenge concerned soliciting free labor: who would be willing to sit and participate 1½ hours to discuss someone else’s work (we very consciously try to build networks by selecting participants who do not know one another well, but given the small size of the community our success varies).  

Here, too, Chuck inspired us.  He enjoyed speaking and was an incredibly good as well as entertaining speaker.  But, one thing that stood out to us about Chuck (and many other, given the tributes written after he had passed) was his desire to help people do better social science.  Davenport, who was able to participate in several Workshop sessions over the years, gained tremendously from his interactions with Chuck.  Davenport came to realize that Chuck would never really tell you what he thought was the most promising approach.  Rather, he would provide 2-3 alternative ways that seemed equally promising.  Now, his opinion might have existed somewhere in the three (like some intellectual shell game) but Davenport never found the shell that contained the item he preferred.  Always teaching, Chuck knew better than to just hand one a solution.  With that approach he engaged researcher's work and joined them in their search to find the right argument, the right data, the right test or the right conclusion.  He truly enjoyed the journey and as we would find, many of us similarly enjoyed it as well.

To our delight we have found the people in the conflict and peace community remarkably gracious with their time and supportive of the endeavor.  Plenty of people are unable to accept a specific invitation due to a travel or other commitment, but with the exception of a few “non-responses” we have people not only willing, but enthusiastic to contribute time reading the paper and then an hour and a half online in discussion.  

Equally important, if you watch some of the sessions we are sure you will agree that the quality of comments, suggestions, and discussion are very high quality: much stronger than the type of exchange we tend to generate at out megameetings.  This has been, perhaps, the most gratifying part of the experience for us.

Third, might 90 minutes be too long?  Given the short amount of time that most academics get to discuss their work, we wondered if we could provide an environment where actual conversations could emerge – online, among strangers.  

Scheduling the sessions for 1½ hours proved a good decision.  The conversations are engaging, content-rich, insightful, occasionally funny and quite useful – not just for the presenter but for all that observe the interaction.  Individuals come away with a sense of how the presenter as well as other participants think but also how one responds, how research designs are structured, how data is collected and how results are written - all of the components of a decent research paper.  

The conversations also seem to have an interesting rhythm to them.  The beginning typically leads to partial immersion, followed by a bit of a lull, then a deeper dive to full immersion, some reflection, some probing, and then at about the hour mark there is often something of a 7th inning stretch, after which the full energy returns for the final twenty five minutes, and we almost always ending up cutting off the conversation due to time rather than having it “run out of steam.”  

We have also encountered the standard sorts of diversity that confront science.  In an October 2013 blog post, Moore lamented a particularly lopsided gender session, and reviewed the numbers to date.  Our process has become one where Moore takes the lead generating a list of six people to invite as Discussants and a list of four to six “alternates” to pursue as we get declines.  Davenport then reviews, and revises the list.  Given that the two of us, who are male, participate, we have found that four women and two men in our initial six works best for striking a gender balance.  We also try to get at least one full Professor and two other tenured faculty, filling out the roster with Assistant profs and PhD students.  We also like to find at least one person who is from a different field (generally Economics, Sociology or Psychology).  And we want our panel of discussants to represent different subfields, research networks, and so on.  Did we mention race?  Language? The global south?  The fact that the time of day systematically excludes Asia is an issue as well (which is asleep at the time of our e-event)?

That sounds like a fun set of dimensions to maximize, right?  Needless to say, we do not maximize that multi-dimensional space.  Instead, we start with a list of names, eyeball our criteria, and start cutting and adding, cutting, and adding people (sometimes searching our CC Member List, Google Scholar, References of papers, and so on).  It is a very seat-of-the-pants (or skirt) process, and hopefully we haven't sucked at it.


To CCVW and Beyond!

With two year's experience under our belt we are pleased with where the CCVW is.  And we have begun to seek out other uses for the virtual format.  One extension concerns what we call “Data Features.”  Deviating from the standard workshop, these will involve a short data presentation, but immediately afterwards we will open the “floor” for an invited panel to ask questions about how the data were collected, what could be done with it, what has been done with it and what would they have done differently or next.  

Another extension acknowledges that megaconference panels that actually “work” are frequently just too brief, and that there is really no reason why we could not continue these conversations off-site and online.  We are calling these “Conflict Consortium Continua” as the presentations and conversations should be thought of as moving along a continuum of interaction.  We will be adding these to the mix over the next year.  We also discuss additional extensions, and welcome your ideas and feedback.  


Please Steal this Idea

In closing, we hope that others will follow our lead, launch virtual workshops for their communities, and produce even better innovative public goods for nurturing research.  Indeed, the Legislative Studies Virtual Workshop and Virtual IPES are already up and running.  The International Methods Colloquium offers another model.  Some will want to invest their energy in changing the existing megaconferences, and there is nothing wrong with that (basically).  This said, we hope to see more entrepreneurs thinking of novel ways to leverage communications technologies in the service of the production of scientific knowledge.  As the voice-over for old tv show The Six Million Dollar Man so presciently reminded us, “We have the technology.”  Now it is time to use it.


This post is cross-posted at Analog (the anti-blog) and Will Opines.

As my mom will attest, I have not been a fan of President Obama.  On his watch, people have been killed and tortured, a beheaded behavioral challenger's body was virtually paraded around the minds of millions, civil liberties restrictions have continued, the poor have been kind of skirted and the difficulties with the criminal justice system have been short-changed.  I have also noticed that he has kept his distance from black folk.  Now, I did not expect him to embrace Jesse Jackson, Kanye West or Chokwe Lumumba (the last is a recently deceased black nationalist by the way), bring Kwanza to the Senate (blackening it up for a day) or put up a 24-hour basketball court on the front lawn (not desired) but I did not expect him to roll the way he did.  

Different discussion though (I can feel my mom scowling).  Today is a good day because of a photo - perhaps THE photo of his presidency as far as I am concerned.  Actually, the article is ok as well. By the way, the picture is on page one, right in the middle of the page. This is one reason for getting actual hard copies and not the online version.

Look at the picture.  He is surrounded by young black men (almost completely).  He is partially embracing one as if to say, I got you brother.  He is leaning in and having heard the man speak hundreds of times, you know he is saying something inspirational. The others look on and in this photo I am calmed and made a little hopeful (a bit, for a second). There just have not been (m)any photos like this over the course of the presidency.

Now, I'm not calmed or made hopeful by what the Prez actually said per se, which is something that should be discussed widely.  Indeed, the caption for the article is kind of intriguing, noting that Obama speaks uncharacteristically about his missteps as a youth as if to suggest that all black men have missteps being the problems that they are.  Reading between the lines you could think that if you follow what the Prez has to say (ummmmm growing up in Hawaii and going to Harvard), then things will all work out fine and you could become president.  Ok.  

Regardless, I am alright with this because there is now a photo that can be decontextualized and used to uplift individuals so that they can feel incorporated in some way. Yes, the context does not matter.  The photo is now part of the public record.  It will be used, downloaded, tweeted, reimaged, cropped and photo chopped thousands of times  And, that is perfectly fine.  People can do whatever they want to their images.  I'm going to leave mine just like this.  

So, Dan Drezner put forward a cogent overview of the recent networking debate about whether or not as well as how political scientists should net work (in his Foreign Policy blog) and he made a few references to some things that merited some comment.  Here are the others in this series:
Posts: Dan Drezner, Dan Nexon, Erik Voeten
Counter-Posts: Laura Sjoberg, Me, Will Moore
Counter-Counter-Posts: Bear Braumoeller

I would argue that there is clearly a "good" approach to networking. I grew up around artists and entertainers. While this has not assisted me in many aspects of my academic career, I believe that it has assisted me with being comfortable talking with people and additionally being able to figure out what I should wear for the day. Dan (Drezner), who I was colleagues with and consider a friend, clearly has this ability as well (both meeting people and sartorialism).  Not everyone feels comfortable talking to strangers or even talking for that matter. Many in our profession also have some problems dressing themselves but that is the subject of another blog - the Academic Sartorialist?  

Despair not however. Individuals like Rom Harre have maintained that we each learn and communicate in slightly different ways. Some are best able to communicate/learn through words, some images, some equations, some sound. We now are beginning to live in an age where you can find your thing and use that as you exchange with others. In short, "everybody's got a little light under the sun".  You just need to find your spot. I do not envision an APSA or a political science where we just have small conversations going on in a large, poorly lit and frequently poorly designed room. This pushes and privileges a certain type of communication/interaction. Rather, I envision an APSA and political science where we have some conversation going on over there, some DJ over here, some 3D projection over here, some film over there, some performance art over here and some large lecture over there. 

Riffing off of Mos Def, people often speak of political science as if it some giant in the hillside or something, where we are just subject to what it does when it decides to come down from it's cave. But, we are political science! We can create what we want for/with this thing. Actually, Dan is a perfect example of this with blogging and Zombified-IR. I'm now working on/pushing for interactive data, film, archiving and animation work. What you wanna do? I think that many of us face a crisis of imagination regarding things like APSA and then get blocked on things like networking.  We don't send ourselves to professional meetings.  We send our representatives (props to [Erving] Goffman and [Chris] Rock). I think we need to start attending - if you get my meaning. Things need to be done to "feed the beast" as it were but we need to start making it our own and taking it where we want to go.

The idea I was trying to communicate in my initial blog is that our discipline is too internalized. We live largely in our heads and publishing venues but if we are to survive, thrive and indeed have any impact at all on our world (which I think we should), then we will need to change this. We begin by meeting and interacting with one another at places like APSA. Awkward it might be but we are much better off from the sense of community and contact that arises from this. For example, has anyone been to a Peace Science meeting? Anyone who has gone will attest to the fact that this is a much smaller meeting than APSA as well as one where you feel immediately accepted, appreciated and very much part of a family. APSA might be too big for this but we never interact with the whole meeting anyway. We stick to our primary interests, panels and people. Well, imagine the meeting in this way: APSA is simply an opportunity for communication, community and fellowship. We can shape it as we see fit.  We need to stop looking for this to emerge from the panels, workshops, business meetings and receptions put forward. There are an awful lot of hours in the day and many places in the cities that we are going to year after year. 

So, you might not be able to chat up the leading political scientists on the fly in some elevator for 30 seconds, but perhaps you have a short film in you that you place as your poster, in the hallway to catch people walking by, on your webpage or in a local bar - ever heard of Pechakucha presentations?  Perhaps you have a cool graphic that you can sport on your t-shirt or a musical composition that you play during your presentation or somewhere in the city where the conference is taking place - folks would come if you told them. Who wants to hang out in the lobby not knowing anyone when they could have some place to do.  Perhaps we should create a multi-media room: something like the old "paper rooms" where everyone deposited their papers for conferences but more allowing for creative diversity as well as more permanence than posters. 

Now, I am not just some extrovert who strangely became a political science or even an optimist - anyone who knows, meets and/or talks with me will readily communicate this to you. Rather, I believe that we have something to gain from interacting with one another at moments when "our people" congregate. Some of these things we have to gain are professional. Many, however, are not and this tends to get lost sometimes in our conversations. 

AGAINST EMAIL

Ok.  I think that the constant stream of seemingly random interruptions into my computer needs to be addressed.  I feel like a battle is being waged - daily: for my attention and time.  As a consequence, I have decided to draft the things that have bothered me most about email (the e stands for evil by the way) and some clues as to how best to deal with me in the electronic realm.

First, the assumptions:

1) It is assumed that we are always online or at least frequently – I am not and it is inaccurate as well as somewhat unfair to assume that we are just waiting on the other end of a computer screen for something.  Admittedly one might feel that they are missing out on a world of virtual communication and that they must constantly be online, but who needs this?  Additionally, it is difficult to figure out when you can get mad at someone for not returning an email for there is really no clear expectations of turnaround for this medium of communication; there are also a million of excuses that are acceptable for why one did not respond (e.g., death, lines down, “just wanted to stay off the computer for a while”, another death – it goes on).  

2) It is assumed that we remember what has been emailed before – this is not the case and one must consistently re-read some virtual history, which could span over several weeks/emails (an electronic Memento kicks in – movie reference [sorry but cannot help it]).  As a result, most of our messages appear to us as contextless ramblings of some virtual representative of our real selves who is always trying to catch up to us like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.  

3) It is assumed that we communicate well over the email – I know that I do not and I believe that this message delivery system compels brevity, humorlessness, and factuality over creativity and depth (consequently, my motivation for using it has been decreased even further as reading the consistent barrage of brief, humorless and factual messages is analogous to factory work).  Let me be clear, I am not asking for long, funny, stories.  I just cannot take the endless stream of lifeless text any longer.  Facebook sometimes interrupts the flow with a photo or a funny cartoon but even here I notice that my ability to read anything longer than a paragraph is being triggered.

4) It is assumed that we will generally get to a message at some point in the near future – I am afraid that this is simply not the case.  I am always 20-50 emails behind and thus I am forced to prioritize: family and friends as well as “really important” messages, then emails from groups of which I am a member of the governing council and then everything else.  Those who know me have responded accordingly but this compels everyone to write subject lines that all convey a sense of urgency (like the news media) and this puts me in the same situation where nothing is considered anymore because it is concluded that everything cannot be an emergency.  The result: 5,654 (read and unread) emails currently exist on my system and more are coming.  

5) It is assumed that individuals expect to have their emessages responded to – this is absurd: if someone says that “I will see you on Thursday”, I do not see why I need to confirm this.  There has never been an email etiquette book, but I feel I need one.  For example, if someone sends an email with a smiley face, is one supposed to respond with some other form of e-cuteness or is it acceptable to just go about one’s business?  Are we meant to respond to every single question asked of us in e-space?  Whatever happened to things that we just ignore when they are put to us in person?  If someone sends you 50 word emails, what is the minimal response (in words) that one can send back without seeming to be rude (is there a 5-1 ratio or 2-1 or is it 1-1)?  Where is the Seinfeld for e-communication?

6) It is assumed that we have all agreed to become e-slaves - tote that barge, respond to that message.  I have been spending more and more time offline (returning to non-virtual life) as my incoming email tends to reach approximately 50-75 per day.  I do not recall signing any piece of paper where I agreed to be placed at the beck and call of any individual with a computer, iphone, ipad, blackberry or anything other electronic device.  Nor do I recall agreeing to be contacted principally through my monitor and eliminating non-computer, mediated human contact with colleagues.  “Give us free,” as the beautiful African said in the horrible film Amistad.

7) It is assumed that we can do other things without constantly checking ones account.  I do not check my mail box (the real one) all of the time nor keep picking up my phone to see if there is a phone message.  Yet, there is something about the email that I must keep checking it (perhaps the fact that we send out hundreds of emails all the time but are not quite sure when someone will respond or that it is never clear when that friend from high school will track you down).  In this context, I find it hard to work sometimes. I am essentially waiting for some random contact with another human being – given the manner in which email is constructed, however, this could be from any human being and it could contain any message.  It is actually something like a video game – how quickly can I kill the messages that have been sent to me.  An add, bamn let me get rid of that. Some question, bamn let me answer that thing. What’s next?  I thought the video game space invaders had been taken off the market.  It is simply back with a vengeance.

8) It is assumed that we will not become distracted when we go online.  Very frequently one could get lost during one session.  Actually, it is frequently the case that one goes on email for one thing and then the initial reason for going online is forgotten and two hours later you still have stuff to do.  

9) It is assumed that little half ass attempts to make the emessaging more human will make us more comfortable using it.  For example, smiley faces serve as nothing but a reminder that much of what we do when we communicate is lost on the web.  There is no personality, there is no inflection point, no thoughtful pauses – just punctuated equilibria; disconnected virtual intrusions into what used to be my private domain.  

10) It is assumed that we will not tire of being manipulated and then just quit (because we are so addicted/familiar).  For example, I am now receiving emails that have figured out that if you lead with the word “Re:” that it will automatically occur to the individual that they must have earlier sent something, which is only now being responded to.  Well since we don’t remember, we open them and that is half of the trouble/battle for your consciousness: getting you there.  Why?  Well, because the key is to get there and then it is assumed that since we are there we will give them some of our time and attention.  Well, enough is enough.  Quit figuring out ways to get me because I am just not looking anymore.

11) It is assumed that we will scroll long distances to read the actual email.  This is extremely misunderstood.  I think that the likelihood that I will read an email is significantly decreased for every line beyond the subject line.  

12) It is assumed that we are willing to accept the internet as a place to conduct battle (e.g., ducking spam, rudeness and so forth).

13) It is assumed that we are willing to open emails that you are not familiar with, engaging in the electronic equivalent of unsafe sex.  There are so many viruses and Trojans right now (not the good kind) that I am at the point of not opening anything that is not sent from someone I have known in the flesh for at least 10 years.  

Now, the solutions:

- Clarify to all individuals that you will only be online once a week (this will prompt them to call you)

- Clarify to all individuals that they will need to use the subject line better: e.g., place the topic and all essential words in subject line (this will also prompt them to call you for this selection takes effort)

- Use an old-school timing device that one would use in the kitchen to limit the amount of time spent on each email (you know with an alarm and the arrow – you wind it; you get the point)

- Email me every day until you hear back from me.  lately I am simply more inclined to respond to persistence as opposed to single efforts.  My thinking: if you can’t email me 20 times or figure out that you should just pick up the phone, then you’re not really interested in contacting me.  The wave of new emails is coming and if I miss a few, I can’t go back.  I can’t.  You know why?  Because there is more coming and I will be even further behind.  At moments of exhaustion, I will look at the emails missed/past and wonder what my life would have been like had I responded to everything.

- Stop emailing me and call me up or better yet skype me.  Generally, just leave me alone for a while as I contemplate the whole communication thing.  I realize that this contradicts the last one.  What's your point?

Next: why I don’t answer my phone and probably won’t give you my skype address.