about
Thanks for visiting my site – you are encountering a member of the Generation X who saw the popularisation of heroin chic, Darth Vader and way too many years of the paralysing Helmut Kohl era. Yet, I left ‘no future’ early behind me and did not believe for too long in ‘die before you grow old’….rather love growing old -every day before you die – and get your dreams in line – is where I have arrived and the journey continues: knowledge production, understanding what is happening and why, and who consumes and who challenges these ideas, is what makes me tick.
So, I am a graduate student at The Open University. The OU is the largest distance university in Europe, it’s headquarter in Milton Keynes, about 55miles/80 km up north of London, although students can be anywhere in the world. I used to sit my exams in the British Institute in Berlin, Germany, telephone tutorials and marking of essays were provided by associate lecturers in the Netherlands and in England.
In 2005 I moved from Berlin to London where I am working full-time. In 2007 then I finished my undergraduate degree and was awarded a BSc (First Class Honours) in the Social Sciences. I went on then with a Postgraduate Diploma in Social Research Methods and am currently working towards an MA. I hold German qualifications as auditor and quality manager and have been working with academic, intergovernmental and governmental organisations as well as in specialist medicine, media and the financial sector in Germany and the UK.
My research interests revolve around social media with a focus on informal learning and theories of power, social and cultural capital. Identity formation and negotiation, the politics of peer pressure and on/offline spaces as the parameters which dis/connect fascinate me. I am intrigued by adult individuals’ meaning making processes, those who were not born ‘digital natives’ but make sense of these developments from within – what frequently appears to be – a sceptic view, heavily shaped by years of being a member of corporate organisations that lack the curiosity of academia. Informal learning processes are what I want to understand better, they seem to hold the potential for genuine livelong learning and may potentially hold greater value than many formal qualifications, which, admittedly, pay off in capitalist societies. Yet, they are under-valued, perhaps due to their complexity.
I am a member of the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA), the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)and the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) which has contributed to a considerable extent to my academic development and helped me to get in touch with a number of equally curious individuals whose sharing and feedback helped me grow a lot.
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I consider myself pretty digital having grown up from 14yrs with Bulletin Boards, computer magasines and before that hobbyist electronics. I’d say most such enthusiasts while being early adopters are sceptical and cautious because they are alert to the pitfalls. If people coming late in life to the online world are more sceptical and have established social capital to lose, so be it. I’d imagine the biggest difference between corporate and academic worlds are: available time to explore things and the degree of openess permitted.
‘Digital native’ is a controversial concept that denotes a person grown up with digital technology. People coming late/r in life to the online worlds may, in contrast to the younger ones, bring a lot more critical thinking to the field. Potentially an asset that should not present a barrier to exploring, I would argue.
To me, the difference between corporate/academic worlds is less binary than often assumed. I have seen universities from within that were highly hierarchy-driven and marked by a substantial level of uncertainty – resulting in lack of curiosity and a level of openess at the bottom of the scale compared to peer organisations. As in the corporate world, those in charge of leadership and presenting rolemodels send strong signals and make the pace in many regards. Corporate organisations such as SONY demonstrated in the late 1980s and early 1990s how much creative potential can be developed if only the right conditions and environments are being provided . The amount of play harnessed for profit-making purposes was remarkable, the original Walkman will remain an impressive narrative of success.
I tend to believe that the power of corporate unconsciousness and what develops over the years as ‘corporate mentality’ are key to understanding why organisations and their members thrive or not. Why they attract certain personas and not others. After all, trust, anger – and underlying fear – peer pressure and reward mechanisms inform the internal politics and members’ practices much more than official documents may indicate. Yet, as these aspects are so very hard to quantify they are among the most neglected parameters in contemporary business models – and hence, they remain among the most underestimated ones.