- I will open up my FB at certain scheduled free times (I used to have them open as a tab on the browser). Scrolled down most posts, only to read useful and interesting things and respond to friends if necessary.
- Read e-mails at scheduled times. Turn off notifications.
- Turn off WhatsApp Web tab and ignore notifications, when meeting with students and others.
- Minimise use of mobile phones during meals or meeting to encourage face-to-face interactions
I hope people don't get offended if I don't respond to their messages immediately. For the last one, I will probably give certain exceptions particularly in meetings when one's role is reduced to simply ensuring the quorum is met or something equivalent.
Just before the new year, I have saved the following link on things written by scientists for later reading: https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2019/12/our-top-essays-scientists-2019. I will comment on the first piece on coffee break (https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2019/10/why-scientists-should-take-more-coffee-breaks). The article writes about cultural differences of coffee breaks in Canada and France and their roles in setting up organic environments for informal scientific interactions. What about here? We do have plenty of breaks - noticeable by our international speakers or participants in many of our events but these are not the one I'm aiming for. Conferences and workshops are already geared for (formal) scientific interactions. It is day-to-day informal interactions that are of interest. When I was a PhD student, I notice staff and students of Department of Mathematical Sciences in Durham University will have their coffee breaks at 10 am religiously. They had some staff preparing coffee for everyone. In my short stay in Imperial College, breaks are spent in the departmental cafes. Here, we have cafes scattered everywhere in campus but they tend not to be tied up to any departments or faculties. Researchers do take their breaks mostly individually or at best, with close peers. For informal interactions, the researchers at best only do this with their close peers or even only brood alone. Thus, it was perhaps a disappointment when I first came back home, not having seen a similar culture of getting together for informal scientific interactions. I see people more in meetings than in any other way. Even for me who is now near retirement, I take most of my breaks alone, enjoying my meals and finishing them as soon as possible to get back to work (do not like lepaking - a Malay word that seems to get into the modern English despite they have the word loitering). I have essentially come to accept that there is no such priority here.
There are attempts of course to change this. I remember once our director of institute suggested that we should have regular coffee at our 'Bilik Sarjana' (coffee prepared by Pn Manomani), which went on for awhile among management members. However, we simply do not have the critical mass because our number is small (seven at best). If a few of us decided not to come or busy with something else, then it may reduce to just me and the director. Another attempt is with my own group through our weekly group meetings on Thursday afternoon. This meeting has one of us presenting on something of our own interest to the group members followed by very light 'lunch' and informal discussion. In a way we have maintained this so far. We have tried to increase the frequency to twice a week but it was taxing to many of us. The time being during lunch time was also purposely done to accommodate our busy times during normal office hours. I hope this will continue even later in my absence. To me, this meeting help us not to feel lonely while we pursue our research and occasionally might even spur up some collaborations. Here are some pics:
The last pic is with Mr. Hoe Chee Liang from Cita Education, who from time to time has helped support us.
Currently, I hope to start another group meeting with fellow experimentalists much due to our forthcoming projects with CyberSecurity Malaysia. We have not really started but I hope we will grow to accept this tradition. The idea is again to help spur informal discussions among us.
Talking about traditions, I'm happy to see that INSPEM has maintained a weekly seminar tradition, which is essentially more difficult to maintain with diverse interest among the researchers of the institute. Perhaps out of envy, I find colleagues from other places making jeering remarks like INSPEM Seminar for the umpteenth time. Let us be, we are not doing this for money (which tends to be a trend to organize workshops for, rather than the knowledge) or even fame (being regular, it has already become something that people get used to). The only snag to this activity is that sometimes it degenerates to a gathering of INSPEM students. I hope this can change in the future, During Prof. Akma's time, we have made sure that presenters are going to be mostly academics from within or from outside. For instance, we had Jesni from IIUM to give the last seminar in 2018 (see pics below).
This week will be my turn it seems - the talk I chose is essentially is the talk meant for the Sarawak APPC conference - but I need to beef this up.
There are attempts of course to change this. I remember once our director of institute suggested that we should have regular coffee at our 'Bilik Sarjana' (coffee prepared by Pn Manomani), which went on for awhile among management members. However, we simply do not have the critical mass because our number is small (seven at best). If a few of us decided not to come or busy with something else, then it may reduce to just me and the director. Another attempt is with my own group through our weekly group meetings on Thursday afternoon. This meeting has one of us presenting on something of our own interest to the group members followed by very light 'lunch' and informal discussion. In a way we have maintained this so far. We have tried to increase the frequency to twice a week but it was taxing to many of us. The time being during lunch time was also purposely done to accommodate our busy times during normal office hours. I hope this will continue even later in my absence. To me, this meeting help us not to feel lonely while we pursue our research and occasionally might even spur up some collaborations. Here are some pics:
The last pic is with Mr. Hoe Chee Liang from Cita Education, who from time to time has helped support us.
Currently, I hope to start another group meeting with fellow experimentalists much due to our forthcoming projects with CyberSecurity Malaysia. We have not really started but I hope we will grow to accept this tradition. The idea is again to help spur informal discussions among us.
Talking about traditions, I'm happy to see that INSPEM has maintained a weekly seminar tradition, which is essentially more difficult to maintain with diverse interest among the researchers of the institute. Perhaps out of envy, I find colleagues from other places making jeering remarks like INSPEM Seminar for the umpteenth time. Let us be, we are not doing this for money (which tends to be a trend to organize workshops for, rather than the knowledge) or even fame (being regular, it has already become something that people get used to). The only snag to this activity is that sometimes it degenerates to a gathering of INSPEM students. I hope this can change in the future, During Prof. Akma's time, we have made sure that presenters are going to be mostly academics from within or from outside. For instance, we had Jesni from IIUM to give the last seminar in 2018 (see pics below).
This week will be my turn it seems - the talk I chose is essentially is the talk meant for the Sarawak APPC conference - but I need to beef this up.
