A difficult journey indeed----- a note to research students

Doing research in whatever area warrants a few things from us. Some are given below:
1. Understand the terms, terminology and vocabulary that is related to the research area: It would help if we could insert the use of certain words in our everyday banter with family and friends. Actually I find explaining it to someone (usually my 25 year old son is my victim) who does not know anything about the area proved to be very helpful. Formal presentations and discussion among fellow researchers also contribute to the understanding of terminologies and concepts. Always having a dictionary close by is also necessary so that we can look up the meanings of certain unfamiliar words that we encounter.

2. Understand the history of the area: This might not contribute directly to the current research area but it is nice to know how and where everything came from. It will help us appreciate the area more and who knows it might uncover certain things that could prove valuable to our current research area. I find that wikis provide a fast way of doing this. Of course we cannot cite wikis in our academic work, but wikis help in providing us with a starting point to finding out more about a research area. Some good entries do provide good references that we can look up on our own.

3. Look for parallels of the area that you are researching in with other 'similar' areas: Usually an area of research is related to other different areas of research. "No area is an island" so to speak. So, during literature review, always keep an open mind and try to see the parallels and intersections of the your area of research with other areas. This is especially warranted for those doing masters by research or PhD. It will prove valuable in the early stage of research when you are still groping around to find your research problem.Finding good review papers in the area would be a place to start.

4. Seminal papers in the area must be read and cited: Sometimes examiners specifically looked for this and with Google it will just take them a second to find out what these papers are and whether you did read and cite those papers. If you did not and it was found out that a particular paper was cited 2,000 over times by everyone else doing research in the same area, then it will throw some doubt about the depth and breadth covered by your research. We definitely do not want an examiner who doubts our work during viva.

5. Keep notes: I have mentioned this before in my post on writing and research. The value of keeping notes on ideas and summaries of the literature that we read cannot be underestimated.

6. Taking ownership and responsibility: The supervisor does not know all. Research students must take ownership and responsibility for their own learning and research. Research students must be aware that the supervisor's role is to facilitate and to point them in the right direction if and when they seemed lost. The supervisor is also someone that will make sure that you are on the right track. However it will be a grave mistake if the research students think that the supervisors know the answers to everything. In fact it is the student researcher himself/herself that will ultimately be the expert in the area.

So, you see, doing research is hard work. It requires a lot ( I mean, a lot) of reading and some serious thinking and reflecting. Not to mention a lot of hours doing development or analyzing loads and loads of data. It also requires major personal sacrifices and understanding from family and friends. After all it is a journey of jihad fisabilillah.

Value in use.....again!

An important observation from the 10 foundational premises (FP) of SD logic is the fact that there is no value until the customer or user incorporates the firm's offerings into their lifes. This means that there is no value until the offerings are used. If and when they use the offerings then only then they will get the value in use. Now, relating this to today's question of  "can you give me an example of value in use in SPIN?", it is no wonder that Nazul took some time in answering it. If we look at SPIN as a product (or goods) then according to FP3 it is just a distribution mechanism for service provision. This means that it derives its value through use. The value in use on the other hand is determined by the user (FP6, FP10). My value in use is definitely different from another person value in use. Since SPIN is not really popular in terms of usage (it is only enforcement that made it 'usable') it implies that the value in use of SPIN is quite low amongst users. This may be due to several factors. It can be usability factors as mentioned by Dr Dalbir or it can also be that the users are not able to unlock the value due to some lack in (or unable to integrate) resources (operant and/or operand)  or it might be that the value propositions offered (FP7) are not well defined. So, getting back to the question....to give a particular example that exhibit value in use in SPIN is I think no as easy as it first seems. Looking at it from an instructor point of view (that is me), the only value in use that I get from SPIN ( this means that I co-created this particular value with SPIN) is communication with my students via e-mail (since SPIN provides me with a one stop e-mail facility). The value this gives me is some peace of mind, since I know that if I go into SPIN then I can look up the students' e-mail with ease and thus I can communicate with them at any time regarding urgent matters.

Today's presentation uncovers an important fact. To explain the meaning of value, value in use, value co-creation to an uninitiated audience is both challenging and enlightening. It forces us to think about the issue at hand and it will make us question our own understanding. That is part and parcel of academic discourse. At the end of it everyone learns and everyone benefits. It will definitely makes us intellectually matured.

Reference:

To look up the meanings of the FPs mentioned in the post you can look up:

Vargo and Akaka, (2009) Service Dominant Logic as a Foundation for Service Science: Clarifications. Service Science 1(1), pp: 32-41

Experience of one

very funny or maybe offensive for some

In days of yore, businesses considered people as operand resources. Just like gold or crude oil. The more you have them the better off you are. Hence people are considered just like a commodity to be owned and segmented according to all the different criteria be it demographics or psychographic. People from marketing will conduct customer surveys to tap into our likes and dislikes so that they can deliver the correct product according to our age group and income distribution. Or as in the case of hair shampoo, you can go into a supermarket and discover for yourself all the different types that is most 'suitable' for your hair type and maybe lifestyle! For me, that is an example of market segmentation at its best. But in the end, for some people, the value in having a multitude of choices for hair shampoo will lead to much confusion and lost value. ( I had spent countless hours thinking in-front of shelves of shampoo bottles, figuring out whether my hair is greasy, normal or dry or combination/ with or without dandruff/ should I buy the one that is suitable for people with tudung or without/should I stick with the menthol one or not/ with or without conditioner/ two in one/three in one/ etc.etc----after all that I usually migrate to the section that sells panadol!)

The shampoo example illustrates how the goods dominant logic works. In years to come companies who still operate from this kind of logic will certainly be left behind. These companies must move on to the new service dominant logic*. Under this logic customers are responsible to extract the kind of value from the goods or service that they consume. It puts the companies in the rightful place as facilitators of value creation. It will create a unique experience for every one of the customer. The experience of one.

* don't ask me how the shampoo case can be redesign under the new SD logic...go figure :-)

Meaningful research....meaningful life



Meaningful conversation

 This is going to be one of those posts that might be viewed as morbid or backwards for some. I am going to write about something that is very close to my heart. For quite sometime now, I have been wrestling with directions of research, purpose of research, purpose of life etc. As a muslim I cannot get away from the fact that what I do now will be questioned in the hereafter. I knew about this ever since I was old enough to understand about religion and life. However the gravity of the issue just hit me only recently. As muslims we believe that when we die (all of us will, eventually), there will only be three things that will be of benefit to us: 1. Pious (soleh) children that will pray for the parents, 2. Meaningful knowledge 3. Our charity ( I hope I translated those correctly) . Since we are on the subject of research I am only going to elaborate on number 2. Knowledge can be so many things. It can be as simple as a cooking recipe shared with others so that they can also savour yummy dishes or it can be as complex as the theory of relativity (which looked simple on paper) and the discovery of DNA. Meaningful knowledge (which are results of meaningful research), however must be viewed and evaluated with respect to a certain framework. Examining it from the islamic point of view (as I must, because after all I am muslim) knowlege or research must be meaningful in the islamic way. This means that I must ask questions like: Is the knowledge or research beneficial to the ummah? How can we make it beneficial to the ummah? How can we share (among us and the rest of the population) the knowledge? Will it bring us back ultimately to Allah? The last question is important because I really believe that knowledge seeked and gained through meaningful research will and should lead us back to Allah. It should increase our iman and takwa. It will make us realize how great the Almighty is and it will make us realize that we are just humble servants always seeking Allah's grace and mercy.

I will end this with a beautiful doa taken from Nazul's blog http://www.ipteknikkeukm.blogspot.com/. I hope Nazul won't mind :-)

Ya Allah sesungguhnya apa jua yang dilangit dan dibumi serta di antara keduanya milikmu yang abadi. Aku bersyukur di atas segala nikmat yang kau pinjamkan pada ku, keluargaku dan seluruh kaum kerabatku. Di atas keberkatan mu, rahmatmu, pemurahmu, kasihmu dan sayangmu, aku memohon agar kau sempurnakan penyelidikanku ini dengan ilmu yang manfaat untuk aku sebarkan bagi memperkasakan Islam dan menyelamatkan umat Muhammad yang lain. Berikan kejayaan dalam pengajian untuk ku, rakan-rakan yang seperjuangan denganku. Peliharakanlah kesejahteraan keluargaku, rakan taulanku, pensyarah-pensyarah yang membimbingku, limpah kurniakan segala kemurahan rezekimu kepada kami semua, dan jadikan kami terus bertaqwa padamu mengikut sunnah Rasulmu.Amin Ya Rabbal Aalamin"

Amin.

( I am sorry I cannot translate the doa ...I might not do justice to it)

Writing and research

Writing is obviously harder than reading. That is the reason why some students do get caught in the reading process and read loads of literature with nothing to show for. However, I have read somewhere that, in life  we sometimes have to choose to do the harder thing as opposed to the easier alternative ( you know, like sleeping is easier than waking up and coming to 8 o'clock lectures : -) ). So, as a research student we have to start to write. Writing is important because the act of writing itself requires us to think. It also requires a lot of practice just like any other skill. We have to decide on the message, structure our points and then string one sentence after another so that it makes some sense.

Actually, writing and research are like two sides of the same coin. Personally for me, I will write a little piece everytime I finished reading a few articles. The piece of writing is usually for my own consumption, not to be confused with writing for jounals or conferences (that requires a different level of detail and the objectives are different). For me writing gave me

i. Clarity on the issues presented by the authors

ii. An indicator of whether I understood the papers that I read

iii. A collection of anecdotes/ideas/summary to fall on when I want to write the literature review (which will also come in handy once we decided to write papers)

iv. A record of the trail of ideas that I had during the whole research process (which can become starting points for discussions with supervisors)

I have my PhD supervisor to thank for this habit, because he was the person who urged me to keep a notebook ( the paper one---not the electronic one) of the ideas, summary of papers etc during my PhD journey. It was very useful and the method worked for me ( caution here: it might not work for someone else---value in context (?) )

However, context aside, I personally believe that if we cannot sit down and articulate what we have in our head onto paper either in the form of diagrams or (own) words then our understanding of the whole thing is suspect. If we do not understand what we read then how can we build upon it and produce new findings? [Of course we can all sit under an apple tree and discover gravity....hmm that is another story ;-) ]

Unlocking value

I had an almost embarassing experience while using microsoft word. I was supposed to prepare a report that involved representation of data collected from a survey. My experience in using microsoft word thus far is just using the editing functions, copying and pasting, changing fonts and paragraphs and maybe inserting mathematical equations. All of which I had learnt on my own, through trial and error. I knew that I had not really deployed the software maximum's ability but I was happy. Up until two days ago, that is. I had to figure out a fast way of inserting graphs and charts directly into the word document  (without going to excel and copying and pasting ----that I knew how to do). Time was running short and I had no choice but use my charm (my operant resource) on my operand resource*, which came in the form of my daughter Sakinah. I knew she had the knowledge ( which is her operant resource*) because I had the opportunity of printing her folio report for school ( one of the things parents do for their children). It was beautifully done complete with bar charts and histograms ( I remembered thinking...how did she do this all on her own? I knew later that it was knowledge that she got from her ICTL class). So, anyway to cut a long story short, I swallowed my pride and asked her to show me how to do "the insert a chart thing, complete with data, percentages, legend, labeling etc".

The whole episode with me and microsoft word and the very easy (as I found out later) task of inserting charts demonstrates an important idea in service science which is known as 'unlocking value'. I was not able to unlock the full value without resorting to available operand and operant resources. It is also interesting to note that in Microsoft Corp. they do have people in charge of finding ways and means of unlocking value of their products as can be seen from this 2007 report in Bloomberg Business Week http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jun2007/bs20070607_329811.htm

The article reports on the experience of an employee at Microsoft whose job is about unlocking the value of Microsoft office products.

The value of a cake lies in the eating and sharing. Thanks

to my students, it was an experience I will not forget :)

* knowledge is an operant resource as are many other intangilbles like skills etc; operand resource are tangible resource like raw materials, people etc; operand resource  are usually acted upon maybe by operant resource to produce something useful (of value)

Ref: Lusch and Vargo : The service dominant mindset

Woodruff's value hierarchy model

While trying to come up with a methodology for conducting research in service science, I realised that I have to scour the literature on value. With the magic of Google Scholar I stumbled upon a paper by Woodruff (1997) entitled Customer Value: The next source for competitive advantage. It is a heavily cited paper. At the time of me writing this piece, it stands at 1309 citations. I also noticed that Prof Irene Ng's paper (the one she talked about during her visit here to UKM) also cite and heavily leverage on Woodruff's work.


Woodruff's paper is a very good read and it presents a hierarchical model that connects three levels (dimensions) of customer value. The lowest is attribute base value, followed by consequence based (in use) value and finally at the top most is goal based value. Woodruff explains the interconnections between the values and how each level leads to the other and vice versa. He pointed out that most customer research (at the time of him writing the paper) are geared towards the narrow point of view where value are usually associated with product attibutes*. In doing so other customer value dimensions such as use value and goal based value are left out. It is my contention that these are the dimensions that service science is concentrating on. Talking about goal based value, Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2002) highlights some of these (I have put some in the figure) in his paper (The Co-creation Connection).

* A lot of co-creation techniques are still concentrating in this area. Here customers are encouraged to give their input on how they would want their products to look like and how the products should perform. They are given the opportunities to co-create/produce/design/construct the products with the manufacturers via virtual tools like the 'co-creation lab' or the 'concept lab'. These type of co-creation will produce desired product attributes and product performance according to user needs.

Student engagement

Student engagement represents both the time and energy students invest in educationally purposeful activities (either academic and/or co-curricular) and the effort institutions devote to using effective educational practices. Looking at the definition, I have a strange feeling that the student engagement level at my faculty is quite low. This is because:

i) Every now and then I will hear grouses from fellow lecturers about their students’ performance and/or attitude in their courses. This state of affairs has escalated over the years almost in tandem with the efforts in designing new ways of instruction (problem based learning, outcome based learning etc.etc). The adage “ you can bring a horse to water, but you cannot force it to drink” always comes to my mind whenever I got to think about students and their lacklustre performance in my courses (and I am not referring to grades only!).

ii) The lack of interest amongst faculty members to get involved in student development activities, especially those that do not have the relevant “KPI points”. And even if they do get involved they are constantly thinking about ways and means of converting it into KPIs!

Research has indicated that low student engagement leads to low performance. This brings to mind the issue of significant learning and its role in student engagement. In his book Fink (2003) iterates that if we want better (significant) student learning, we will require better teaching, faculty’s ability to learn about teaching and also better institutional support (which include a suitable appraisal system). Fink and Ok (2010) also produced a new interactive taxonomy called the significant learning taxonomy which is different from Bloom taxonomy which is hierarchical in nature. In the significant learning taxonomy it is interesting to note that Fink and Ok (2010) incorporates and provides a means for the students and instructors to articulate the value aspects of learning which is obviously absent in the Bloom’s taxonomy. Perhaps if we can adopt this new taxonomy it will create new opportunities for higher student engagement.



L. Dee Fink &Norman, OK (2010): Designing Our Courses for Greater Student Engagement and Better Student Learning

Fink (2003): Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses

In search of a methodology

Conducting research in service science posed several challenges. The first is coming to grasp with the new terms and concepts. This is unavoidable since this is a new area rooted in several disciplines ranging from social science, engineering, management and design. The understanding of the concept of value in use, value co-creation, service dominant logic vs goods dominant logic etc do require some thinking for the novice researcher especially those coming from a technical background such as Computer Science. However, having got pass all that the next challenge is to develop the right methodology that encapsulates the concept of value in use. For example if we are to develop a system or services that somehow embodies the "value in use' element, how do we go about doing it? Do we follow the quantitative approach and develop surveys? Do we spend all our waking ours 'together' with our 'customers" to get a feel for the 'values in use'? Do we conduct focus groups interviews with lead users? Do we use an ethographic approach? Do we develop personas and investigate the use of avatars? Or do we go around with a video trying to capture all the movements from our 'customers'? From my reading of the literature, there is no one special (fixed) way of doing these. Bragge et al (2009) presented an approach utilizing lead users recruited from virtual communities to co-create innovative information systems. Another approach developed at the CTF-Service Research Center, Karlstad University, Sweden, is the so called in-situ method of data capture. In their research into transport services, repondents are asked to keep diaries of their experiences while travelling using public transport (in their case, trains) and these respondents are also followed by a videographer to record expressions and situations. This means that data is captured by customers in situ—i.e., data from customers in their own words, in their own situation, when the service is exchanged and the co-creation of value takes place. In yet another research paper prototypes are also used as a communication tool whereby the respondents can articulate specific 'in use' situations that might lead to innovations (either in terms of new systems or other types of services).

So, in conclusion, the adopted methodology (as are all other methodologies) must suit the research questions and objectives. Just make sure that the method used will lead you to the objective of the research.

Ref:

1. Bragge et al. (2009) Inviting lead users from virtual communities to co-create innovative IS services in a structured groupware environment

2.Pareigis et al. The role and design of the service environment in creating favourable customer experiences

Go google them  :-)

Customer engagement level

Another interesting day of presentation. Lessons from todays' presentation can be summarised as follows:
1. There is a measure of customer engagement level as presented by Masoud and Azam. According to a research done, Starbucks is number one in terms of presence and engagement. It would be interesting to investigate the measures used in the rankings.
2. In customer engagement, customer plays or assumes the role as resource (for ideas), co-developer and users of products/services. It is interesting to note that companies such as Nike and Starbucks has evolved into those that are interested in their customers expereince while using their products (customers as users). These companies are said to be interested in the "value in use" of their products. This is different form companies that might use customers as sources of ideas and co-developers but will 'leave' their customers once their products are sold at the point of exchange.
3. It is also interesting to note that research is part and parcel of Nike+ website. The DART model was used in designing the features and content of the website so as to maximize value in use.
4. We can also see that companies are at varying degrees of cuctomer engagement. It would be interesting to conduct a local study to see the level of engagement these local companies are at. Maybe we can develop the similar rankings as those developed by Engagementdb.com (refer to Masoud and Azam's and Denny's presentation)

Use value

Value co-creation in the context of service science refers to the value in use or use value of a product and/or service. The use value is dependent on several factors. One of them is product attributes or features of a service. Besides this, of special interest are the impact of the user resources and the user state on the use value. User resources here refers to user knowledge or the ability to source for knowledge as well as other means available that can be used in the extraction of use value from the products and/ or service. User state on the other hand refers to the situation or context of use of the product and/or service. To put it simply, an umbrella will have a high use value for a rainy day (or a very hot and sunny day, if you are anywhere in Malaysia!) but will be of no use value for someone who do not know how to operate it even though it is raining (or totally hot and sunny)! The second situation points out the importance of the users resources in extracting use value.

Avatars and personas

Personas  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona) is an interaction design technique with considerable potential for software product development. The idea of using personas as representing the voice of the customer was illustrated by Microsoft. They had developed complex personas of customers and based on these personas they had visualised their customers' needs and requirements which formed part of their software requirements for future softwares. Used alone personas can aid design, however the real power of personas lies in the fact that it provides a shared basis for communication. Avatars on the other hand are virtual characters that are created by users to represent them in a virtual setting. They are made popular with the advent of Yahoo messaging and chatting facilities where users usually choose avatars to represent them online. Online games also made avatar a household terminology. In fact any child who has been exposed to online educational material easily understands what an avatar is. A lot of information can be gleaned from the characteristics of avatars that are chosen by users. For instance firms can glean information pertaining to hair colours and styles as indicative of customer preferences and use them in hair care product development.

Innovation

Innovation is the buzz nowadays. It can only happen if a company engages both their employess and their customers. I had just finished an interesting session with my students concerning customer engagement. With the advancement of technology and the pervasiveness of the Internet customers are now one of the major forces that will influence business decisions. It is now not sufficient for companies to push their products and hope that the customers will adopt and enjoy them. Customers' roles have changed from  passive users to that of co-creators and co-developers. Forward looking companies have long realised this fact and have started to actively engage their customers. BMW for instance has developed an online co-creation lab where customers can vote on certain design of cars. They also hold competitions whereby customers at large are encourage to submit ideas concerning issues related to cars like parking etc. Lego has also developed online co-developers websites for children. Here the children are encouraged to design their own toys from lego blocks (virtually). Designs are then voted on and the one with most votes will be presented with the 'real' lego blocks to be enjoyed by the customers.
I would love to see similar things happening in our home grown companies.

Web 2.0

All this is new to me. This social networking stuff. You see I was born at a time when there were no computers and the only source of entertainment were just radios and television (black and white!). That was almost fifty years ago. The world has transformed in just a short span of 50 years. We began with the (fixed line) telephone, progressed into cellular phones and now we can skype with anyone anywhere in the world (for free) courtesy of the Internet. Computers that used to fill up a huge room are now reduced to the size of our palms. Technology push and consumer pull have led us to where we are now. It has changed the way we communicate, learn and socialize. It has eroded and changed traditions. It has changed the values of some people. We are not how we used to be. I do feel a bit left out and old just by looking and reading the things that are being posted on FB, YouTube, Blogs etc. Nothing seems to be sacred anymore. Web 2.0 has arrived.