Title: The Wall

Dear Francis,

I don't know how much of the membership is formed of students, who are or soon will be trying to start a career, but I wonder if it would be beneficial to enough readers if some of the more experienced members wrote articles about their line of work? (Without necessarily naming names, of course.) It has happened occasionally, but I have never seen it suggested.

In my case, I'd like to develop methods of automating the construction of algorithms for data conversion, particularly for universal access to notations. I thought that the most logical way of doing this would be PhD research, but after a year's enquiring, the only person who really showed keenness was the author of the book I reviewed in C Vu. That set me thinking about the idea and drafting up algorithms (Eleanor Selfridge-Field, "Beyond MIDI: A Handbook of Musical Codes" C Vu 10.3); she is at Stanford University in the US, and it's too late for me to arrange study there. I am beginning to think that finding a suitable person who is interested in my PhD idea is not feasible, but it occurred to me that being a freelance data conversion consultant would enable me to do the research as part of the job.

I realise that writing an article about that particular line of work would be akin to "helping the competition", since there is nothing to stop the reader from using the article to become a consultant in exactly the same field as the author (and the readership is of course not limited to students). However, members from other careers (who have time on their hands) may be more amenable to writing about them, which may be helpful to other readers.

Silas

It would be a rare job idea that would not be worth sharing with others. I think the benefits that might be gained form positive criticism through sources of information or refinements to the original would far outweigh the risk of someone stealing all the work. I would be happy to do two things:

Publish articles describing an individual's work. It is so easy to assume that newcomers know what the different jobs entail (it is very easy to forget that what we are familiar with can be daunting and strange to someone else.)

I would also be interested in publishing ideas that the writer believes are innovative.

What I find depressing is the lack of response Silas has had with his PhD idea. I guess that at least part of the problem is that many academics have little imagination outside the strict confines of their own specialism.