How I Spent My Time

Bibliographic research. Specifically looked into the topics of surveillance, privacy, and power from a philosophical standpoint. Lots of references to Foucault and Bentham’s Panopticon.

What’s Working

I am beginning to write ad hoc paragraphs to capture those spur-of-the-moment syntheses that occur while doing bibliographic research. These paragraphs will likely find a place in my final written component—if not form the basis for some the sections.

Narrowing my topic is good. Right now, I am focused entirely on the user experience for the employee. There is more than enough in this realm when it comes to consolidating all the concerns regarding privacy, personal data management, and organizational trust. The manager/employer user experience is being downplayed currently and will likely be removed almost entirely from the visual component with only some mentions in the written component.

What’s Not Working

Getting slammed at work is not working. I have begun conversations with my manager about taking a few days off here and there over the coming months.

10+ hour days of research. It’s barely working. Or, perhaps, I should say that it is not a sustainable option.

Doing bibliographic research that will likely have little benefit to my final product. I have a problem of being too thorough(?) in this regard. It probably means it’s time to begin other thesis work—i.e. user research, sketching/brainstorming.

Substantial Changes

As mentioned above, the topic has definitely narrowed to focus only on the user experience of the employee. I have updated the schedule accordingly, removing all the visual component items regarding the manager UI.