The Academy of Management (AOM) conference was held in Boston (USA) in August 2019 and I was honoured to be asked to be ‘filmed’ for AOM connect– the Academy’s new digital approach towards helping us members learn more about each other’s research. It was an especially nerve racking experience because of the high tech nature of the recording room (with boom mics, bright lights and professional cameras on tripods), but less so in other ways as there was no immediate wider audience present. The topic of the talk was on organizational readiness (a concept Prof Mark Learmonth and I developed and which I have already blogged about here). It provided an opportunity to explain what the concept is all about and how it might be relevant to managers. Content aside (I shall let you make your own minds up on that!) the makers of the video did a fantastic job at producing a really professional end-product. Here it is in full:
And, while I am covering organizational readiness, I also have an earlier video covering the topic which was filmed at Durham University Business School by our own media team. On this occasion Mark and I had a pre-prepared interaction planned (semi-memorised!) between us rather than an interview format that we could react to – the latter approach with AOM connect felt a lot more natural. Nevertheless, the video does give another nice overview of the work done so far on organizational readiness.
On the wider issue of being filmed in academia: whilst it is a rewarding to see your ideas captured on film it is also a really uncomfortable process. For starters, unless you are a total narcissist, it is extremely odd to watch yourself back on video. You invariably find yourself wondering “Dear god, is that really me!?”, “Do I really sound like that?”, “What’s going on with my hair!”. Whether it is in lecture capture (recordings of teaching sessions) or a recording of a key note address it feels almost like you are watching an alien perform your words. Every hesitation, mannerism and mis-step is exaggerated in your own mind a thousand times over. I do try to remind myself, however, that most people watching the recording have no idea about the ‘perfect’ performance you had planned in your head and tend to be slightly more forgiving!
Regardless of my own inability to watch them back, I do think videos like this are a great way to share our research and engage with a wider number of people. These two videos will help the concept of organizational readiness reach new people and hopefully help us to develop it further.
