Not too much to report on the home front, except that I’ve decided somewhat brashly to attend ASA this year. Now I just need to figure out where I’m staying, what events to attend, what would make the best Drek costume, etc. I’m looking forward to meeting (or at least, standing in the majestic presence of) the Soc blogging community.
Any advice for a 1st time ASA attendee with no paper to present and no particular agenda?
In other, unrelated news, James D. Thompson’s Organizations in Action is pretty stellar. Contingency theory is attributed to Thompson, which is seen as a precursor to resource dependence, but I see a lot more going on. For example, his analysis of the ambiguity of most “standards of desirability” (assessment metrics) strikes me as very neo-institutionalist. Here’s a nice quote:
“The controversy over maximizing and satisficing has pulled attention away from what is a more crucial problem, at least from the point of view of the organization, of how organizations keep score.”
A (Budding) Sociologist's Commonplace Book 
anomie
/ May 24, 2008advice: hook up with conference attendees with wide social circles, and hit all the events.
My first time trip was with my coblogger Monsoon. We sat down after checking in and spent an hour or so flagging all the presentations we wanted to go to. It was exhausting, but going to presentations was a good introduction to ASA. However, it’s not a complete introduction to the conference. For that, you need to get out and do things with people.
Monsoon and I were thinking about having a student-specific soc blogger gathering, near the beginning of the conference, so that we can meet one another and exchange info, have other people to do things with, etc. Interested?
Dan Hirschman
/ May 24, 2008Very much so!
I think our party does not arrive until Thursday evening, so Friday morning or after would be best for me.
Also, how goes the Blind Reviewer Fundraiser?
anomie
/ May 25, 2008Awesome! We’ll wait till after the Scatterplot party is scheduled to make sure it doesn’t interfere. I’ll post something on my blog later this week to get a general idea of who’d be interested in getting together.
The Blind Reviewer Fundraiser has done okay. I barely broke even after subtracting the costs, but there’s still a chance people will buy more. I think it was worthwhile even if they don’t, just because it’s neat to think that there are people out there with the dolls.
Overcompensation
/ June 19, 2008Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation 🙂 Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Overcompensation.