About 10 years ago when I started back to school in pursuit of my PhD (prior to that I’d been a suburban housewife), I realized I would have to simplify my life in order to focus my energy on my academic pursuits.
So I started decluttering in preparation for moving to an on-campus apartment that would be half the size of our condo. In that process I toted big bags of clothing, toys, and household goods to the Goodwill truck that was 4 miles away every week. Somewhere around then I learned about Freecycle, a global network of local listservs where members can give and receive free items. I joined the group and was soon ‘hooked’–loving that I could give items directly to someone that needed them rather than trekking to the Goodwill drop off station. There was huge satisfaction in sharing my extra stuff others–so much so that I became a moderator for the group and helped it to expand into the university area.
Giving and sharing became a bigger part of my lifestyle as I developed extended networks of freecyclers. It seemed ridiculous for all of us to own separate instances of various obscure items when it was so easy to share.
This attitude carried into my work as a scholar, too, as I was zealous to share what I knew via workshops, blogs, and informal networks. It seemed that the karma of sharing never failed to pay off–I watched my colleague’s cat and he helped me proofread an article. Or she shared her guest parking pass and I loaned her that book she needed for their undergraduate lecture. And so forth.
As my work became increasingly digital, I embraced free tools and opensource software to get the job done. Zotero, WordPress, and GoogleSuite were my mainstays, with a variety of others like Prezi and Hiveminder and Doodle adding to my productivity. Likewise, I taught others what I knew about these tools freely, via workshops and working groups and coffee meetups. It seemed only right to ‘pay it forward’ by sharing what I knew with others–and often in doing so I learned just as much as I taught others, because their questions prompted me to dive deeper into a tool than I had on my own.
While I realize that much of the academy is bounded by a tuition paywall and a variety of disciplinary fortifications, I believe in sharing freely–both within and without my department and my institution. For example, there are students who attend my classes who aren’t officially registered and no one pays me for the podcasts I produce or the efforts I invest in projects like Anthologize or The Past’s Digital Presence conference. Some people might think me foolish to work so hard on projects simply for the love of doing so and not because of a paycheck, I didn’t enter into academia because I was someone who expected to make money off of my efforts. I did so because I wanted to share my ideas with the world. Perhaps I’ve been lucky that the skills I learned while doing “free” work have evolved into a paying job. But I don’t think it was luck, it was years of intellectual curiosity and a willingness to speak out, stand up, reach out, volunteer, practice, and then pass it along to others.
What about you, do you have a philosophy of “free”? If so, how did it develop and what is its impact on your career trajectory?
