From academic knowledge to tradeable knowledge: Clues from experience and cues from Fluid Dynamics

Description

Moving to a consultancy job after an extended academic experience is a change of habitat that has many dimensions. At a personal level, it requires willingness to reformulate one's own experience according to different expectations, demands and needs. At a social level, it demands the ability to articulate and embody this willingness while maintaining and accruing your expertise, lest performance outshadows learning.

The study case used as underpinning for this conversation is the occurrence of short-lived eddies in the Western Scheldt estuary in the Netherlands. They are generated by spring tides and pose great danger to the navigation on the fairway towards the harbour of Antwerp, upriver in Belgium. Hence, their existence has been subject of continued monitoring and investigations. Besides, they are rather interesting flow processes in their own right.

I will set the ground by briefly introducing three key dimensions of knowledge: expert, lay, tacit. Being aware of those from the outset may be handy for an effective problem-solving strategy at point of project execution. I will also mention some acknowledged pitfalls that might blur the boundary between skilled and flawed intuition. To do this I tap from a few readings in diverse topical areas such as organizational and social psychology (later to be clearly recognized as an invocation of non-expert knowledge).

The aim is to highlight a saucerful of clues and resources that everyone can leverage upon one's own judgement when consultancy is the new setting where knowledge is being produced. My considerations will refer to a personal repertoire of experiences in research and consultancy.
Hence, the argumentation is unlikely to avoid a little stereotyping, un-scholarly intuitions and anecdotal support at all. Nonetheless, it is hoped that, on the whole, the talk will help avoid perceived, possible and and probable obstacles in the early stages of the change from academic to
consultancy environment.

Period	16 Feb 2016
Held at	University of Manchester, United Kingdom
Degree of Recognition	Local