Rear gunners and troubled privates: Wordplay in a dick joke competition1

A humorous competition called ‘The Adventures of Naked Man’ ran in a Wellington (New Zealand) newspaper from 1999 to 2000. The competition's protagonist is the sole naked person in a drawn setting where, because of some convenient object or body position, his penis is obscured from sight. Entrants to the competition submitted a caption to go with the drawn setting, the point being to make humour. Without explicit instruction, most entrants constructed some form of dick joke, the interesting questions being, just how, and with what variations? These questions are pursued by drawing on the full corpus of Naked Man settings and captions. Basic principles of conversation analysis, including some early work of Sacks on punning, are used to analyse the nature and popularity of the Naked Man competition. The article also offers some more speculative comments to do with gender and the organisation of language about sexuality.     

Using the 2001 census to study human capital movements affecting Britain's larger cities: insights and issues

Summary.  Human capital is increasingly being recognized as crucial to the sustained growth of British cities, and the population census is unrivalled as a source of data on the characteristics of people moving to and from cities. Taking advantage of new features in the 2001 census, the paper examines how successful 27 of Britain's largest cities and their regions are in maintaining their labour force complement, giving particular attention to young adults and people working in high level occupations. Considerable variation is apparent between city regions, but the interpretation of results is somewhat hampered by limitations in the census data, prompting recommendations for future data collection.     

Performance measurement frameworks in public and non-profit sectors

In the last decade much attention has been devoted to developing performance measurement systems (PMS), which could encompass both financial and non-financial measures. Many frameworks have been conceived in order to allow companies to better evaluate their own performance by means of collected data, but few attempts have been made to provide public and non-profit organizations with PMS devoted explicitly for their needs. The aims of this paper are to review the frameworks currently developed and implemented in public and non-profit organizations and to identify the requirements of a framework, which can be applied in this context.     

The Online Poker Sub-Culture: Dialogues, Interactions and Networks

This paper examines the distinct world of online poker. It outlines the online poker eco-system, and the players which inhabit it, their distinctive attitudes and behaviors towards the game and gambling. These unique patterns of behavior have been created and sustained by the interaction of players within online poker forums. Therefore online poker forums were identified as primary mechanism within which a poker sub-culture may exist. The study conducted an extensive netnography of online poker forums. The study found that within the online poker eco-system there are forums which are elevated to sacred status amongst this online poker sub-culture. The members of these forums enact sub-cultural characteristics such as ethos of collaboration/cooperation, and a competitive hierarchy of status. In particular this paper identifies the importance of identity generation, and communities within the online poker eco-system.     

Peak performing organisations

The literature on organisational performance is riddled with measurement problems that cannot easily be solved. In contrast we argue that elite theory in terms of performance can be more easily measured by the win record of sports organisations. Accordingly, this article argues that certain organisational peak practices are key to understanding how peak performance is sustained. Through data collected from the top ten sports organisations in the world we introduce the embryonic theory of Peak Performing Organisations (PPO). Sustained PPO practices offer more robust outcomes than the genre of High Performing Organisations.     

The making of 'Home Improvements - tools for working with families in Aotearoa/ New Zealand'. Reflections on creating a video resource for teaching purposes

In this article, two social work practitioners explore, with all the wisdom of hindsight, the joys and pitfalls of venturing into video production as a medium for creating a teaching and learning resource. Their discoveries are organised under a number of key themes beginning with an idea and leading into commitment to a project involving a crew, a cast and a steep but captivating learning curve on the use of audio visual technology. Other practitioners similarly interested in the potential of this medium but without much experience, will find this article of great benefit in providing practical tips and insights, and demystifying the tasks and terminology associated with video production.     

Braving Human Suffering: Death Education and its Relationship to Empathy and Mindfulness

Social workers are likely to encounter clients dealing with traumatic grief and death in their practice. Though death education has gained in popularity and acceptance, few social work students receive coursework in this area and many are unprepared to deal with their clients' and their own emotions regarding death and grief. Though death-related content may evoke provider avoidance, mindfulness and empathy may help regulate provider emotions and responses. This United States-based study evaluates the effectiveness of experiential death education on mindfulness and empathy. Measures in three separate cohorts were given at the beginning and end of the course. Results show statistically significant increases on the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy, indicating that such a course may be effective in increasing both mindfulness and empathy in social work students and those in related fields.     

The Institutionalization of Third Stream Activities in UK Higher Education: The Role of Discourse and Metrics

In this paper we examine the institutionalization of a new organizational practice around third stream activities in UK higher education from 1994 to 2008. Employing a longitudinal research design, involving archival, survey and contemporary interview data, we show how a new organizational practice diffused through the use of discourse and metrics around commercialization but over time was threatened on pure economic criteria. In response to the threat we explore how actors worked to institutionalize the new practice, reshaping both discourse and metrics to ensure that they were robust so that they could align with the interests and values of major stakeholders. In addition, actors worked to align discourse and metrics, as any misalignment between the two would have undermined the institutionalization of the new organizational practice.