Author Archives: Luc Beaulieu

Coming back to life… and on starting a sabbatical year dedicated to scientific research

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Well, it has been a long pause but blog posts should be coming at a more regular pace from now on.

For those who might wonder, in between summer vacation and preparing myself, my research group and my family for a sabbatical year in California, I simply did not had the time to update this blog in August and September.

This is my first ever sabbatical (allowed once every 7 years at my university) and since taking my position in 2000 is has been the longest stretch I have ever been at one place. So all in all, this change of environment will, I expect, be energizing!

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Business management meet student mentoring

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There is Nothing so Unequal as the Equal Treatment of Unequals

– Leadership and the One Minute Manager

If someone would have told me 15 years ago that I would write about a blog post on the link between some business management principals and student supervision, I would probably have reply “are you crazy, science is pure, untainted (yeah!). Business is all about money and nothing about peoples”.

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Apple Notebook Strategy?

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Recently changed my early 2012 15″ MacBook Pro Retina (quad core i7, 16Gb) for the new 13″ Pro Retina (dual core i7, 16Gb). I passed the 15″ to a student who had more need than me for those two extra cores 😉

A few things struck me in this process:

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Air travel and frequent flying in 2015

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Made my first flight I was 9 years old. I remember vividly that you could ask and go talk with the pilot in the cabin. I did it a few times over the years. This strongly quite similar what travellers are getting in first/business class today.

Nowadays, while there is still a romantic notion in flying in most people mind, there is little left in the everyday execution. Sometimes, you may even feel in bootcamps when a TSA officer is talking to you at security, some yelling as loud as they can. I remember that at certain times you almost had to strip down in underwear going to security and then there is the continued fascination with shoes in certain countries, which has been gone for years now almost everywhere in the OECD countries.

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About recommendations, guidelines and those who ultimately generate them

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Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first base.

– Frederick B. Wilcox

Coming back from attending a major meeting in our field. I find it interesting to notice that the words “recommendation” and “guidelines” were some of the most used. Most of the time this is good and provides a common languages. However, once in a while someone use these words to shutdown an otherwise very interesting work.

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