Dear All. I’d also like to deeply
thank Ian, Ceri, Jane, Jonathan, and all the others who worked so hard on the
conference and the journal. As Steve Linstead so eloquently pointed out, it’s
been an enormous effort; like him I’ve been amazed and thankful that it’s
always come out so well.
As I see it now, we have quite a bit of
temporary support. Steve Linstead has offered to organize AoM for next year,
David Boje’s willing to take Aesthesis content until a new home can be
found, and Laura, it sounds like you might be able to get RMIT to help as well,
or that we could approach another publisher.
Along with this, I’d like to get
more thoughts about Steve Taylor’s proposal to formalize Aacorn—have
an elected governance group, perhaps a dues structure, conference hosting, and
so on. Steve and others of us have talked about this on and off since Aacorn
was first founded. During the early years the consensus was to just leave Aacorn
as a free ranging, emergent entity. But given that our membership and reach have
substantially increased, I agree with Steve that the time has come to have a
formal, ongoing governance system…perhaps some elected group that changes
every three years or so. I believe such a group could help us get institutional
support and ensure that Aacorn keeps developing. I also don’t want to get
subsumed under one of the other mgmt groups—Academy of Mgmt, EGOS, EURAM,
etc., though at some point I’d like to have a way to create affiliate
tracks at the conferences. The SCOS model has been quite robust and could be a
good one for us as well—perhaps Steve Linstead could help us get over the
initial hiccups.
So, your Aacorn thoughts on this would be
very appreciated. And Steve (Linstead), perhaps you could give us some ideas
for how to proceed, drawing from your SCOS work? Many thanks everyone. Daved
From: Aesthetics,
Creativity, and Organisations Research Network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Laura Brearley
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 1:22
AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: AMO/Aesthesis demise
Hi Everyone
Thanks
for getting the ball rolling on the conversation Steve (Taylor) and thanks
Steve (Linstead) for filling us in on some of the issues that Ian, Ceri, Jane
and the Essex team have been dealing with behind the curtain. It's a
distressing narrative to hear that people as generous and capable as that team
have not been accorded the respect that is their due.
So
for the record, Ian, Ceri, Jane and the Crew - a huge thank you for all that
you have contributed on so many levels to developing us as a community over all
these years. I hope you can take some gentle time soon to recover from
the impact of the slings and arrows. The AOM conferences and the Aesthesis
journal were both significant ways in which the extended community of ACCORN
and Friends could breathe new life into what a conference and a journal can
look like.
The
conference gave us an opportunity to meet face to face, break the bread
together and continue our conversations and friendships. The journal was
ravishing to look at and made room for different kinds of knowledge and a
congruence of form and content.
It's
great to see the suggestions coming in from the community about potential
alternatives. If a new conference takes shape in 2011 which draws on the work
already done for Istanbul, I'll be there with bells on and happy to help in
whatever way I can.
In
terms of the journal, it's a lovely offer David Boje has made to have Tamara
host Aesthesis while it finds its new feet in a changed world. A practical
suggestion I'd like to make from my own experience of setting up 'Creative
Approaches to Research' through RMIT Publishing (http://www.rmitpublishing.com.au/car.html)
is that on-line publishing is significantly cheaper and also enables
multi-media to be incorporated.
When
I was getting the journal established, I convinced the executive of the
Publishing Company that there was an emerging market there and they saw
it as an economic proposition. They don't make their money from individual
subscriptions. They sell groups of titles collectively to libraries and
government departments world-wide. In our case, they provide the infrastructure
for marketing, dissemination and the final editing at their expense. The
Editorial Committee looks after the intellectual content. It's another possible
model to think about.
I
will miss seeing you all in Istanbul, but I am sure we will collectively
generate some meaningful alternatives
Best
wishes to you all
Laura
Brearley
Associate Professor
Faculty of Education
Monash University
Gippsland Campus
Victoria Australia
613 5122 6297