Progress in visual theory work: slow and sure

I've been away from blogging, but doing lots of emailing about some pet projects. I received IRB approval to distribute a survey on April 24 in Springfield to a group of tech com students and teachers that will help me start to gather data on people's academic experiences with visual communication assessment. I want to build on Eva Brumberger's recent findings that most tech commies in the workplace do some visual communication and/or design work, yet only 2% learned how in their academic programs. We should be teaching it. The question is, how? To start to answer that question, I"m going to see if I can peg how it's done, and meanwhile, am theorizing about how it should be done. I've been in contact with three of the big names in visual communication. With one, I am trying to put together an instructor's manual for an important theory book. With another, I am refining the survey, and we'll discuss ways we can work together at the upcoming ATTW and C's conference. The last has simply been pointing me to good sources and confirming when I am onto something. If I haven't said it lately, Tech Com is a wonderful academic discipline because people are so collaborative, and I've never run afoul of a turf war. I really love the inclusiveness - will make getting tenure easier than it would be if junior people were excluded from the important circles. Not that tenure is going to be a piece of cake - but that's a story for another blog!