1. Julie Ozanne Virginia Tech AMA Boston 2010 “Ideas that Matter…” Or Should we be Matter-ing our Ideas?

2. What is this ‘theory’ conference? Great Gathering of this tribe of Believers in Theory Theory articles play a special role Distress

3. Conservative Knowledge Production Academics ManagersStudentsConsumers Discover/justify Decontextualized Theory Academics

4. Radical Knowledge Production ManagersStudents Context of Theory Performance Consumers Ideas become social and historical realities only when used and applied to solve social problems

5. “Matter-ing” ideas To become material realities To affect real social change To become a socio-historical reality (Gramsci and Forgacs 2000) Many published ideas don’t really matter. They are ephemeral.

6. New Rules for Radicals (doing action research) Go looking for trouble Get messy Bring friends Partner and learn Stay awhile

7. The Ethics of Thinking Ideas do matter… “Change the way you think and you change the world.” (Graham-Gibson 2008)