Introducing the Web Team Our Contributing Expert: Dr. Janet Salmons

Hello to the NSMNSS blogosphere! You may recognize my name from posts and events over the past year, and I am delighted to be a part of the continued work of the New Social Media, New Social Science project as a contributing blogger. I recorded a short introduction for the visual and aural communicators out there!

I have served on the graduate faculty member of the Capella University School of Business and Technology since 1999. I thought I would teach a course or two but fell in love with online teaching and here I am! Capella learners are scholar-practitioners, working adults who integrate life and career experience with rigorous academic study. I currently focus my efforts on dissertation supervision, which provides a living laboratory for observing the development of new research—primarily with online qualitative methods. Their struggles and triumphs help me understand the eclectic mix of practical and scholarly skills needed to successfully conduct research.

I am also an independent researcher, writer and consultant through Vision2Lead. My areas of inquiry include online collaboration and online research methods that allow us to better understand how we interact in the virtual environment. I have an interest in both ethical leadership and ethical research in this connected world.

With Dr. Victoria Boynton I am engaged in an online duoethnography we are calling “Work/Place,” an exploration of the influences of the environment (natural, cultural, physical, virtual) on work creativity and productivity. My recent study on the ways women entrepreneurs use the Internet is the subject of a chapter now in press: “Putting the E in Entrepreneurship: Women Entrepreneurs in the Digital Age” (Salmons, 2014). Online Qualitative Interviews is also in press for a spring release. As well, I edited Cases in Online Interview Research (2012) and wrote Online Interviews in Real Time (2010) for Sage Publications.

Given the above background and interests, my blog posts will include observations and discussion about how and why we use social media for research—and for building community among researchers. I look forward to hearing from you about your questions and dilemmas, thoughts and insights. Comment to my posts, find me at #einterview or www.vision2lead.com.