There is, I believe, a tension between management and innovation. Innovation is fundamentally disruptive. There is plenty of evidence that too much order is a bad idea:

• If your heart becomes too regular, you may be about to die.
• American backyards made of only good-looking grass are high-energy, unstable systems.

However, complete chaos is not productive. What is needed is some form of partially controlled chaos. The solution? Embrace some chaos, seek diversity! But keep your basic sane routine intact.

If you are a researcher, I have a challenge for you: once a year, work on a project and publish a paper that is crazy. It can be a project outside of your normal field of expertise. In any case, it should raise some eye brows. If you have tenure or a similarly stable job, why would you not? You will not get fired for writing one crazy paper a year. But it may greatly enhance the biodiversity of your ideas.

If you are a software designer, design one totally crazy software application every year. Write a piece of software that has nothing to do with your own work, or that goes against all principles you normally apply. Finding time for a wild project is not so difficult. The project itself may not be productive, but it may keep you on your toes.

The idea is not to throw away the much-needed regularity that keeps us productive. But please, inject chaos in your life.

Note: Having kids counts as controlled chaos.

I just reviewed a paper where the authors come up with a nice highly scalable algorithm. And it is really scalable too! But to prove just how fast it is, they process 2,000 data points.

This is correct, strictly speaking. Their algorithm runs in O(n) time, so to know how long it would take to process 1000 times more data, just multiply by 1000.

But where is the fun in that?

Stephen Few few wrote a post on how insane academic publishing is. If you publish academic papers, his post is worth your time. Don’t miss the comments!

Stephen is not in academia. From his point of view, what is required of him makes no sense:

• While he does not expect to get paid for publishing a paper, he expects some kind of symbolic reward like a few subscription to the journal: Is there really any question that someone who takes the time to write an article and go through the lengthy process of working with a publisher, deserves a gesture of thanks equaling the cost of postage?
• Stephen is surprised that reviewers remain anonymous through the entire process: Cloaking the process in anonymity seemed to indicate a level of discomfort with critique that I didn’t expect to find to this degree in academia.
• He is upset with how IEEE handles copyright:”I have worked with several publishers and I have never had to give up my rights as author. Most modern publishers know that they don’t need to strip authors of their rights in order to do their job.“

My own answers:

• Anonymous review is just a system we refuse to question. Speaking your mind is certainly a dangerous thing—more so in some countries than others. However, I believe a scholar should have the backbone to speak out in the open. Do something else with your life if you are afraid to sign your opinion pieces.
• The copyright issue is a shame. However, Stephen should also ask why so many employers ask for non-compete clauses. He should also ask why musicians sign away their soul routinely. I have always been puzzled at how easily TV series are killed: clearly the authors lose their copyright along the way. Fortunately, scholars are pretty bad at reading the contracts they sign…

It would take too long to expose all of the flaws of peer review, here are some:

• some work is just flat wrong because the reviewers cannot analyze all of the mathematical results, and because they cannot redo the experiments;
• numerous researchers cheat, sometimes in small ways (”2 out of 3 experiments agree with by theory, let us drop the third one”), sometimes in big ways (”I don’t have time to run these experiments, so let me make up some data”);
• peer review may perpetuate some biases and prevent researchers from putting into question some fundamental questions (”we decided that this is the right way, if you question it, you are a loony”).

However, for all its faults, peer review remains essential in science. I want other researchers to read and criticize my work. I enjoy it very much when people try to find flaws in my work. I think that my work is serious enough that when people point out flaws, I am usually aware of them at some level and I can respond easily (and enjoy the process).

The type of peer review I do not enjoy is the country-club approach: 1) does the paper agrees with the goals and views of the reviewers 2) is the paper written by someone we can respect? Fortunately, you can navigate the system and stay away (mostly) from country-club peer review.

But why do I still like peer review despite its obvious flaws? Because I see it as an honor-based system. In such a system, you have to accept that there will be cheaters. A lot of them. And there will lots of mistakes. All we have to do is be open about it. That is, you cannot say “but my work was peer reviewed so you cannot question it!” or “I am very good, look at these prestigious publications!”. The peer review is there to help the authors. It is not, however, an insurance against fraud or mistakes. I like peer review because it helps me become better, but I do not use the system to determine how good someone else is.

So, what do we do if we want to know how good someone is? You read his work. You reproduce his experiments. You redo his math. Of course, this scales poorly. If you have to hire someone, you cannot read the work of 50 or 500 candidates. So? I think we have to be realistic. It is hard to know how good someone is. You can get to know 10 or 20 researchers in your life. That is about all.

Hiring processes are flawed. You will hire cheaters. Get over it.

I have written a lot about productivity in research and academia on this blog. As recent examples, see my posts Scientific productivity tips from Hartley and Branthwaite Rigor or relevance: choose one, Improving your intellectual productivity by accepting chaos, and Research productivity: what matters?.

However, there is a simple secret that anyone can apply right now. It can help you get better grades if you are students, it can help you finish that book or report you must write if you are a professional.

I should really charge you for this secret, but I am not good at capitalism. The secret is this: break down your task into small and easy chunks of work. And just do them!

Of course, there is more to it:

• Sometimes you do not know how to break down the task. Do not worry so much about it. Break it down in some way and get working. Let me take an example… suppose that you want to prove some very difficult mathematical conjecture. Suppose that thousands of scientists have failed in making any progress at proving this conjecture. If you must work on it, then stop worrying and just pick a strategy, any strategy, and work.
• Tasks you assign yourself can range from drawing pictures to going to sending an email to someone who has worked on the problem. As long as you work seriously and systematically, you cannot go wrong.
• Periodically reevaluate your strategy. Always assume that your plans are quite possibly wrong. Just constantly refresh them.

Why does it work?

• Feeling overwhelmed makes you stupid. You are better off working using a silly approach than to stand there and wait for divine inspiration. The gods help those who help themselves! The gods even help the idiots.
• Enumerating all possible solutions to a problem, might actually be the best possible strategy! Sometimes, the best approach sounds silly a priori. All intellectuals work by trials and errors.
• Getting your hands dirty on a problem trains your brain. After a week working hard (but stupidly) on a problem, you will have a different view of the problem because your brain will be different.
• If you picked a very difficult problem, you may never succeed in solving it, but by working hard and regularly, you are very likely to find some results you can be proud of.

It came to me tonight. A simple idea, really.

All scientists should submit their papers where they are likely to be accepted. Oh! We all need a critical review. Sometimes we even need to be told to rewrite our paper and come back. However, scientists should not play Russian roulette

Sending a paper to a venue where you…

• need to include or exclude certain words or concepts;
• have a good chance (say 50%) to see your work turned down (irrespective of this quality);
• must cite certain people;
• have to exaggerate your results;
• must force yourself to be more fashionable

is just wrong. We should never do it.

We should work hard. Do our very best to write excellent and honest papers, then ship them and have them published (after some revision). This should be the normal process. Period. Nothing more, nothing less.

We need less boxing, more science.

Disclaimer: I have had good luck getting my papers published this year, so I do not write this post out of spite.

Hartley and Branthwaite (1989) have done a questionnaire study of productive psychologists. They make the following recommendation for best productivity:

• Make a rough plan;
• Complete sections at a time;
• Use a word processor if possible;
• Revise and redraft at least twice;
• Spend about 2–5 hours writing each week;
• Find quiet conditions in which to write;
• Set goals and targets;
• Get colleagues and friends to comment on early drafts;
• Collaborate with trusted friends.

Source: Sylvie Noël.