‘Research a subject until the research reveals the narrative’.

Sounds like an excuse for there being no assessment, but perhaps reflects how we pick things up through ‘doing’.

I caught this on Radio 4, Saturday 9.00am, 9 days ago? I’d reference it if I could.

The historian E.H.Carr said,’Read bout a period until you can hear its people speak.’

It’s what took me to Oxford to read Modern History and what for some periods in history inspired me to attempt screenplays on the events in the year 1066 … and 850 years later on the Western Front. It’s the quote that impressed Bill Clinton enough to quote it in his autobography. It suggests, short of being their, you must immerse yourself in a subject in order to understand it, in order to be able to speak its language.

I wonder if, after nine weeks at the Open University Business School, that I hear its people speak?

I’ve interviewed a number of them, and will interview many more. I wonder if my role in Social Media is to release these voices to allow the wider community to draw their only conclusions, to assist with their research. I will be speaking to key thinkers, the movers and shakers. I will bring their blogs to you, if you’re not aware of them already. You will meet them online and perhaps engage in conversations with them too.

The narrative is a complex one; all the more reason to enable one crowd/audience to engage with another; it isn’t my interpretation at all, that counts. I can offer voices, and interpret the narrative, but this is my take on it. Better that I make the introductions like a virtual host between people. Through discussions and conversations shared in micro-blogs, blogs, and emails do we hurry along that moment when we have some sense of where each of us has a contribution to make?