Well we mentioned yesterday that we found an intriguing book. We did not realize it was by a founder of an entire school of thought in the social sciences. That would be Barney Glaser, one of the co-founders of Grounded Theory. (Update: book sold on December 28th, it is no longer available). We thought at first glance that it was a work of psychology or philosophy, but it is actually a book about methodology, and it can be used. It gives a set of fairly complex techniques for collecting and analyzing data, constructing theory, and sorting through the results. It does not appear to be statistical, more of a qualitative approach. Sorting through data, there is some kind of interview process that goes on, that in turn suggests ideas which can be used to further organize field data.

To write a full-fledged blog entry might make it a little long, most of the analysis of Grounded Theory runs on for pages, so it is not a simple topic, and is used for generating graduate level thesis work and theoretical foundations for new research. But in the entry on Wikipedia, they say that anything can be used as data, including the Internet, books and television shows, so if you are an armchair theoretician, this approach just might work.

We have a copy of "Theoretical Sensitivity" available for purchase should you need to create your own methodology for research. The skies are unlimited - how about a research project on video game interfaces. The methodology would include the sociology of how video gamers interact with each other in geographically separated areas. Or blog commentary - we could adopt a post-modern system of categorizing how information can be interpreted from different news sources and worked through a filter of conceptualized guiding principles. For example how would online news aggregators select the most important stories via some kind of computer algorithm?

We found a website that had a Star Trek character from the "Voyager" series, the human-born but Borg socialized "7 of 9" being analyzed as a kind of popular conception of the increasing interdependence of humans with their machines. Could that be a source of analysis for popular culture fears (or hopes) of being incorporated into a ever-larger circle of participation in social activities between individuals as part of a "collective"? Click on the photo below to be whisked to our company store category list for more information on our other selections. (Update: the book has already been sold in late December, we just had one copy)