In a recent report, Garnter proposes that as corporations try to benefit from the growth of social media they will come to rely more and more on employees with formal, advanced training in the social sciences.Gartner Vice President Kathy Harris discusses in some detail four areas of jobs needed in the near future. Though she never really uses the words "social networks" the implication is that most companies aren't really geared toward taking advantage of the impact of these online communities, and that the numbers will be too large to ignore, regardless of the business you are in.“Many of...

OK, I'm officially back from hiatus after a long summer on the road plus the requisite settling-in period. Getting off the grid for a month and grounding one's experience in the practical aspects of life in a clunker with two kids gives one some perspective. I spent the summer aloof from some of the major news stories of the season: Michael Jackson's death and the charges against his doctor, the media spectacle's supposed knock-on effects on events in Iran, the mud-slinging over health care reform. And I came back to find a world I barely recognized: 1) Foreign Policy declaring the "death of...

I have been largely absent from the blogosphere over the last week or so, and will remain so for the next week or so, as my energy is split evenly between moving hassles and getting lost on campus at my new institutional home ... but I couldn't resist this one.I was just reading the Google News headlines to feel like I still had a pulse while I haul boxes and yell at builders, and I found this gem ... "Obama Optimistic About Mideast Peace". This is about the least intelligent article I've read in a long time (which might just mean that I don't read enough news). Among the highlights is that...

The Bush era is officially ancient history. I saw this commercial today:

The International Studies Compendium is a field-defining project of somewhat epic proportions. According to its architects, it "will be the most comprehensive reference work of its kind for the field of international studies" - a group of literally hundreds of 10,000 word, article-length, peer-reviewed literature reviews - published in hard copy in its entirety, online with updates, and in subject-specific edited volumes. In the two years this project has been going on, it has inspired massive amounts of frustration, even more hard work, and the occasional Compendium voodoo doll. I am...

This is just a quick observation for anyone who ever wondered about the value-added of IR theory -- "IR theory" being defined in the broad sense of "tools for systematically reflecting on world politics." The observation consists of four items, and deals with yesterday's non-debate between Cheney and Obama.1. theoretical claimAs a rule, not survival but other "national interests" are at stake such as the preservation of outlying bases and possessions, the protection of treaty rights, the restoration of national honor, or the maintenance of economic advantages. While it is a prerequisite of...

I finally managed to see the new Star Trek film yesterday. Unlike the terrible travesty that was the Watchmen film -- to which I had such an adverse reaction that I still can't manage to grind out a coherent blog post about it, despite having tried on multiple occasions to do so -- this re-imagination and re-invigoration of the franchise actually got it right, in my view: what we saw on the screen combined the best elements of classic Star Trek with a newly open-ended optimism about the human future that captures Gene Roddenberry's initial desire for a "wagon train to the stars."I am going...

Amongst the headlines on the economic crisis, torture memos and the Obamas’ new dog was an almost-missed article that may prove more interesting. As the Washington Post reported on Thursday, “Turkey and Armenia announced yesterday that they had agreed in principle to normalize relations.” This is significant in light of 20th century relations between Turkey and the Armenians, beginning with the expulsion of Armenians from Turkey during World War I and continued debates over whether or not this counted as genocide, and extending to after the Cold War, when Armenia emerged as an independent...