attack of the 40 foot Siamese twins - responses to the panel

Here's where the empire strikes back: John, from Warwick, is speaking now. Go for it John - give 'em hell! John is asking about differences in the types of discourses between science and more ordinary discourses. Robin is responding with an erudite and referenced (he's talking in paragraphs, just like the science language that John has raised the question about). And its a long paragraph... it's still going. I have, of course, missed the bulk, nay trimmed the bulk of the answer to this question by my nibbling at this keyboard. Now Michael Cox from Canada has stood up, next to me, asking knowing why and knowing what - how do you bridge those solitudes? Praxis is nice, but it seems to me that they really are two different worlds driven by two different logics. Jean is saying that perhaps each position learns from the other position. You mean one defines the other? Whey hey! Enter Ferdinand Saussure stage left. Jean is saying we need a good dialogue between these competing/mutual positions. Need a good rodding, a good seeing to, via the dialectical method (talking, it's good to talk). Now Kim is talking, addressing the duality of this conference - practice/theory. What is the subsequent output of this dialectcism? I'm a much more difficult manager, more prickly, spikey, more tougher person. practitioners may not want to know what theorist want to know, and vice versa. Umm, interesting. Now Roger Gill, who is bringing academics and practitioners together. Neither group wanted to meet with the other group - yuk, I'm not meeting them. Isn't theory about good practice (I think you'll find it was Einstein who said that)? A gent from Cardiff now (sorry, I didn't catch your name, just your city and institution - how strange), will we get any closer to practice given the funding politics we're currently repressed by? Right on brother! Here's Robin with a 'yes and no' - yes, repeat, NO. Robin has lifted the veil of his disguise; maybe he never had one. In the sum total of things, its not important. Come on conference! Get this into your heads - you've blown this out of all proportion! Look at the figures, the vaguely facty and absoluty (plenary) figures. Now Keith is backing the yes/no answer. Academics are supposed to be indecisive, rather than dam well doing it. Here's a tension to chew on! Lara Croft, from Tomb Raider University, eat your heart out!

Simon Weston, now, from Lancaster - pressure towards practice, that pure theory is a good thing, there's a place for both not either or. Today's critical theory is tomorrows normative fodder. What production line is this, what Fordist factory are we visiting here on this factory visit? Now Denis from Abderdeen; as academics, even when we try to become normative, we always surround it with qualifications, 'ifs' and 'buts', and that we're "willing to abandon our theories". But practitioners want certainty. Enough of this wishy wishy, Dr. professor washy! Do we (both sides of the sectarian divide) have to abandon some of our values? Robin is applauding consultants who appear to embody certainty but who back-door radical uncertainty. Peters & Waterman of In Search of Excellence. Pull on this bit of wool and it will unravel. Another question running towards the riot police of the panel:, shields raised; here, capitalist/academic agents, chew on this molotov cocktail. Now Martin Clarke: do managers really want quick responses? No: not in his experience. They value the reflective space that this academic staging enables [nods from the panel]. And Ivan, from Cranners: we seem to be struggling around some practical issues. Organisations are always pilgrimiging to academics and finding an irrelevant lack of action. Consultancies provides answers, solution and direction. We must provide direction too - we are directionless. Quick, where's the sat nav? We're lost! What substitute gadget can you go out and buy? Now Anne from Lancaster, who can't believe what she's saing, who's defending her role as practitioner and who's defending the consultancy model. Don't think, cos you'll cock-up on the money front. Steady! Now a gent from Canada - sorry, I didn't catch your name. Executives are obsessed with minimising risk. Consultants rock! "Listen, Mr Consultant, I want you to minimise our risk with some fancy thinking". Academics are obsessed that we'll be attacked on page 84, paragraph 3 of our papers around our statistics. Get a life, Dr Academic! Vive la intuition, spring of '68 revolution, don't crave another academic paper. What we have right now is lousy, NYPD blue. Now a measured response from Jean from the Panel (who've now, effectively, capitalised their name by commenting on the comments from the audience, rather than sitting back in the audience, exit the cockpit). Frank Hamilton: let's reframe this a minute...don't have a minute to spare, to reflect, too busy earning, publishing. How do the reward structures we're under mould what we're doing? How many of us are changing what we're doing, based on the inflexibility of the structures in academe? What mechanisms will allow us to talk to practitioners? Now Mike Osbaldeston, who's quizzing the tightrope: see the storm?; run for your life, inelegantly, down that tightrope! Grab, grapple, swing but scurry on to the next rope. Sod the pole, sod the finesse of getting along the rope. The pressure of context forces us back on our intuition: hey, at last, a triumph (a trump) for irrationality. MO has a lot of time for intuitive practitioners. I haven't got time to read another paper! Spare me. Now David Collinson; it might help us to drop the dichotomy. Drop the dead dichotomy! Cumon David, we need a new comment here... And on that note, the panel is closing. Robin is having the final word... Course textbooks reach practitioners, at least, but they're not real. No no, Kim is last wording about design science and predictive (I always forget the opposite in this distinction that David Tranfield uses) science. This has been the attack of the 40 foot Siamese twin's (thanks Michael for suggesting the image to this post) response to the panel. Phew!