In the Name of the Rose; A personal challenge

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When looking back on my blog entries over the past two months, you might notice that some have a more theoretical nature, while others have a more practical and/or societal nature. This mix reflects my dual role in industry and academia. I've been discussing this with some people. An obvious strategy would be to move the more theoretical entries to a separate blog. After some reflection I decided that I really shouldn't do so, but rather ensure I present the more theoretical topics in a way that is appealing to a wider audience.

Actually, I consider this to be one of my personal challenges. As discussed in one of my previous postings, I think we should move to towards slow science. I think part of that should include more the communication of scientific ideas to a wider audience, e.g. in terms of blogs,. I feel dearly about the scientific topics I have blogged about earlier. I think these topics deserve a fundamental approach. At the same time, the relevance of these topics to the field of enterprise architecture and enterprise engineering is so profound that it is important to widen the discussions. Achieving this, as a scientist, practitioner and blogger, is my personal challenge.

What inspired me in this challenge is the character of William of Baskerville, in The Name of the Rose. About 9 years ago I was getting some career advice from a colleague. One of the exercises he took me through was to mention some key movie characters I particularly liked. If I remember correctly, then I listed:
  1. William of Baskerville, in The Name of the Rose, because of his combination of academic pursuit and practical application in solving problems.
  2. Dian Fossey, in Gorilla's in the Mist, because of her dedication to her ideals. Giving up her comfortable life in "the west" to follow her inner drive.
  3. James T. Kirk, in StarTrek Enterprise, because of his adventurous spirit and the fact that he prefers a position as ship's captain over the role of an admiral. Better to be "out there" than to linger behind a desk.
  4. Indiana Jones, because of his adventurous spirit and ingenuity in the field.

To me, the character of William of Baskerville is really exemplary to finding a balance between scholarly achievement and practical application. People who know me personally might recognise some of reasons for selecting the other characters. Maybe I'll be tempted into discussing the other ones as personal challenges in future blog entries as well.

In the near future I also intend to revisit some of my earlier, more scientifically oriented, blogs with the aim of bringing them closer to practice, opening them to a wider audience, while still not trivialising the underlying scientific challenges.

Comments

  1. Hans Konstapel8/4/09 03:36

    The Rose is a very important mystical object. It represents the number 5, The Centre of the Who. This is because the wild rose has 5 petals. And the petals on roses are in multiples of five. Geometrically, the Rose corresponds with the pentagram and pentagon.
    When I look at the movies you like you must be a Wanderer on a Quest for the Holy Grail, The Whole of Wholes. I would say join the Club.

    Best Regards,
    Hans Konstapel


    http://hans.wyrdweb.eu/let-us-chain-world-poetry-about-tom-rapp-and-sufism

    ReplyDelete

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