The end of an Industry Partnership so to speak

Punctuation. It's important. Punctuation makes words, life, predictable and followable for an individual. It positions a reader into your thoughts and not just your bad description. Punctuation should not be like research where you purposely dig to find out exactly what is meant by words. Rather, punctuation helps us accept what is written because it is clear, predictable and followable.

Take the title of this post: The end of an Industry Partnership so to speak. It stands alone and suggests that I have used the end of an industry partnership as a metaphor - a comparison between two non-similar things - so to speak.

Yet, I was not making a comparison. I am telling you what I am about to do following my PhD Industry Partnership with Typeface Books. Had I entertained punctuation it would tell you, The end of an industry partnership. So, to speak.

Instead of comparison, I have created a simple platform for you to think differently about what I am trying to tell you. To change your view of what I am saying, I have engaged your analytical thinking to question that which is written and presented as truth by myself. I have encouraged you to resist either my poor punctuation or my metaphoric descriptions as a writer. 

But here's the real punctuation mark in my research life: My internship is coming toward an end. I still have some hours to fulfil. Post PhD I will write, publish, speak on repeat. My Confirmation of Candidature made it clear that I will interrupt an academic career by instead monetising my research into popular psychology books and pick up an international guest speaking circuit to encourage and motivate people to punctuate, underline, their own lives by articulating the change they are making, the ways they resist social and cultural control. The ways they move from common sense to good sense.

Every stratum of society, every class and socio-economic level, has its own common sense and good sense that is used by a ruling force (capitalism, patriarchy, cultural norms) to keep people hooked into staying within their realm. Common sense tells us we should be involved in change if we don't like something. Often, we try to change things in ways that don't make a difference to elevating us out of the stratum. We get stuck only because we don't really know how to change things.

Good sense tells us that part of the definition of being a professional is being able to clearly articulate that which you do. Good sense also tells us that part of the definition of poverty is the inability to make choices. When you can articulate the choices you are making around the changes you want in your personal, social or cultural worlds you are moving from common sense to good sense.

I have much to talk about on this phenomenon. My research has uncovered some interesting ways people resist and stay the same at the same time. I want to talk. I want to speak. I want to spread a message of hope that change is possible when you can name what you are doing, know what you are doing and can make choices around how to do it.

To this end, I need education in setting up a world class speaker business. My PhD study does nor equip me for that. It merely provides me the fodder around which to write, publish, and speak on repeat.

As I pull my thesis together, I am approaching each chapter as though it is a keynote: a central idea around change. Resistance is Useful, Reading Dangerously, Psychoeducation, Bibliotherapy, Your Dash. This is a different and risky way of punctuating a PhD thesis, but it is an authentic way to lead into my speaking career and gives a public voice to my research participants rather than keeping their voice in the catacombs of academia.

I have today sought permission from my Industry Partner, Typeface Books, to complete my internship with them by attending Build a World Class Speaker Business - 4 Day Intensive in Hobart.  I have known one of the facilitators of the intensive, Andrew Griffiths, for about 20 years. He was on my short list, my number two for doing an internship with. This is a fitting end, a welcome punctuation, to my required hours of learning from industry specialists. 

How am I punctuating my life after my PhD completion? So, I'm off to speak that resistance is useful because I have wanted to do that since I was a little girl, without a voice or the punctuation required to create change.

👵🏻 Megan Bayliss: Social Work Supervisor

👩🏻‍🎓 PhD candidate: social and cultural resistance to the status quo.

References

Coben, D. (1995). Revisiting Gramsci. Studies in the Education of Adults, 27(1), 36–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/02660830.1995.11730614

Coben, D. (1999) Common Sense or Good Sense? Ethnomathematics and the Prospects for a Gramscian Politics of Adults' Mathematics Education. [Paper] Goldsmith College London https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/csme/meas/papers/coben.html

Garrett, P. M. (2008). Thinking with the Sardinian: Antonio Gramsci and social work. European Journal of Social Work, 11(3), 237–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691450802075592  

Garrett, P. M. (2018). Social Work and Social Theory: Making Connections. Policy Press https://www.amazon.com.au/Social-Work-Theory-2e-connections-ebook/dp/B07F9Y7V22