Last I wrote, Creative Design for Affordability had hit a few snags. Well, I'm happy to report that, though our issues didn't magically disappear, we were able to creatively concoct a workable solution that satisfied the powers that be. I'd be the first to admit that the class had its ups and downs, but I'd also have to say that we ended on a high note, with our second non-working prototypes displayed in the Atrium for all to see. Charles Lo, my partner on the project, remarked how happy he was to have brought a whole new energy into the place. Never had the Johnson School hosted a class like this. And never before had its students built large physical items out of bicycles and rowing machines and displayed them in the center of the Atrium. (Photos to follow soon)
In other news, I just finished my last take-home final ever.
We also had the Johnson School Follies last week. Though the hype can get overwhelming, the Follies really is one of those not-to-be-missed events. For those that don't know, it's a collection of student- and faculty-produced videos and live acts that celebrates and satirizes just about every aspect of Ithaca, Cornell, and the business school. It was a raucously good time, and the quality of this year's production left last year's in the dust. Sorry Class of '08!
Now, with just a few more weeks left in Ithaca, I've got about two and a half months until I start my job at D&B. With that great opportunity in hand, grad week (the week of fun activities for graduating second-years) on the horizon, a shoulder that's rapidly strengthening, and a month to swim, hike, and sculpt in Maine, I've got a lot to look forward to, and even more to be thankful for.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Creative Design -- and the semester -- in full swing
Last I wrote, Creative Design for Affordability was off to a roaring start. We'd introduced our projects and been treated to a workshop on design thinking by Design Continuum.
After that week, I was treated to four beautiful days of rest and relaxation in Puerto Rico with my wife, Shannon. What a nice way to spend spring break!
After break, the class continued to exceed expectations on just about every level. To be honest, I didn't know what to expect from some of our first guest lecturers -- Jack Goncalo from Cornell's School from Industrial and Labor Relations, who discussed team dynamics and brainstorming; Bob LaPerle, a former Kodak executive who talked us through the rebirth of the one-time use camera; and Jack Yu, the head of human factors engineering at Kodak.
All three of these gentlemen succeeded in knocking the class' socks off.
And all the while, we've been working on team dynamics with the help of Clint Sidle, director of the Park Leadership Fellows program. Also, at the beginning of each class session, we take 20-30 minutes for brainstorming and prototyping, and the class has been exciting and especially engaging because of it.
Last week, we reached our first major milestone, when each team presented their first prototypes to the class. The Comet Skateboards teams each presented some mock-ups of stylish hoodies and pants with removable protective gear, and the human-powered corn grinder teams each presented a small-scale prototype made out of cardboard, sticks, pipe cleaners, and the like.
Here are some photos from that session:
Picasa Web Albums - Purenza Wing Yee - 20090406 CDfA
Of course, we've since come down from the clouds. Apparently, the Cornell risk management department has some concerns about the safety of the building that we plan to undertake, particularly as it relates to developing human-powered corn grinding apparatus. At times, I worry that we'll be derailed, and the goal of the course -- actually getting our hands dirty to build real, working prototypes -- might not be realized. But overall, I know that if we've made it this far, we can push through to the end and achieve success. It might take some creativity, but as luck would have it, we've spent the last five weeks learning to harness our creative juices and apply them to challenging situations just like this.
After that week, I was treated to four beautiful days of rest and relaxation in Puerto Rico with my wife, Shannon. What a nice way to spend spring break!
After break, the class continued to exceed expectations on just about every level. To be honest, I didn't know what to expect from some of our first guest lecturers -- Jack Goncalo from Cornell's School from Industrial and Labor Relations, who discussed team dynamics and brainstorming; Bob LaPerle, a former Kodak executive who talked us through the rebirth of the one-time use camera; and Jack Yu, the head of human factors engineering at Kodak.
All three of these gentlemen succeeded in knocking the class' socks off.
And all the while, we've been working on team dynamics with the help of Clint Sidle, director of the Park Leadership Fellows program. Also, at the beginning of each class session, we take 20-30 minutes for brainstorming and prototyping, and the class has been exciting and especially engaging because of it.
Last week, we reached our first major milestone, when each team presented their first prototypes to the class. The Comet Skateboards teams each presented some mock-ups of stylish hoodies and pants with removable protective gear, and the human-powered corn grinder teams each presented a small-scale prototype made out of cardboard, sticks, pipe cleaners, and the like.
Here are some photos from that session:
Picasa Web Albums - Purenza Wing Yee - 20090406 CDfA
Of course, we've since come down from the clouds. Apparently, the Cornell risk management department has some concerns about the safety of the building that we plan to undertake, particularly as it relates to developing human-powered corn grinding apparatus. At times, I worry that we'll be derailed, and the goal of the course -- actually getting our hands dirty to build real, working prototypes -- might not be realized. But overall, I know that if we've made it this far, we can push through to the end and achieve success. It might take some creativity, but as luck would have it, we've spent the last five weeks learning to harness our creative juices and apply them to challenging situations just like this.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Creative Design for Affordability Finally Launches!
Last time I wrote about the Creative Design for Affordability class, I left off at the point where we'd obtained approval from the curriculum committee. My colleague and co-conspirator, Charles Lo, and I had a lot of work to do in order to bring the course from vision to actuality.
Well, I'm happy to report that we've just completed Week 1 of the course, and it's so far exceeded my expectations on just about every level. Take turnout, for example. We took a big risk not advertising the course broadly to the entire Johnson School student body, instead relying on word of mouth and a few student clubs to deliver our message to only the most excited, dedicated students.
Some members of our administration thought it best to keep the number of students in the class small -- around 32 -- due to its experimental nature. So imagine our delight when over 50 students from across campus showed up this Monday. We had students from engineering, urban planning, public affairs, architecture, sociology, business, and more. When we asked everyone to introduce themselves to the class, I reckoned that we might have brought together one of the most diverse sets of students ever assembled on this campus.
Okay, so we have students. What are we going to do with them? Since I last reported, the class has gained a more coherent direction, and we have succeeded in partnering with local organizations, with whom we developed design challenges that cross-disciplinary teams of students will work to address with working models and prototypes.
Half of the student teams will work on a project that includes developing a bicycle-powered corn grinder for Compos Mentis, an area non-profit farm that teaches life skills to adults with mental illnesses. The other half of the student teams will work with Comet Skateboards, a local start-up that builds skateboards and apparel with eco-friendly materials. In both instances, the challenges entail developing products that are gentle on the environment, and affordable to the consumer or end user.
Representatives from both organizations attended the first class session, where they presented some background on their organizations and delivered their respective challenges to the teams.
In Session 2 on Wednesday, we held a three-hour design workshop with Boston-based design firm Design Continuum. They're most famous for developing the Swiffer floor cleaning system, the Reebok pump shoe, and other social innovations like the One Laptop Per Child project, in conjunction with Nicholas Negroponte at MIT.
Arranging the Design Continuum workshop, then meeting and talking with our two guests from that group, was amazing for me. I continue to learn how important and practical design thinking can be, not just for design firms but for all organizations seeking the best and most creative solutions to problems.
After Spring Break, we get into the meat of the class, where the teams actually start brainstorming and building. I will continue to update everyone on the progress of the class, as well as our continuing success in making connections with different departments across campus. My colleague, Charles, has a vision of using our course as a launchpad to founding a Cornell Design Institute, and every day, with every contact and connection made, it comes one step closer to becoming a reality.
Some more background on our partners:
About Comet Skateboards: Comet Skateboards is the leading manufacturer of high performance green composite skateboards. Comet uses a unique blend of regionally sourced materials that result in strong, light skateboards. By purchasing raw materials regionally, Comet contributes to a vibrant local living economy and does not create excess pollution by shipping materials all over the world. Comet Skateboards has exclusive use of e2e biocomposites for skateboards and are made with paints and adhesives that do not off-gas harmful chemicals. Comet skateboards last longer than any skateboard on the market and when they have been shredded to the end they will safely turn back into fertile dirt if composted. With its ecologically safe materials, Comet scraps can be used to fertilize gardens, heat homes, make bonfires, serve as media for works of art, etc. More info at www.cometskateboards.com.
About Compos Mentis: Compos Mentis: Working Toward Wellness, Inc. is a day program for adults learning to live with a mental illness. Through the quiet, orderly discipline of communal farm work, we help adults burdened by illness develop the patience, self-confidence, and hope they need to reclaim the power to lead productive lives. We also aim to alleviate the stress experienced by family members and close friends, and to create an environment where people with significant mental health challenges can demonstrate their capabilities to others. Participants in our program spend their days at the farm where their recovery and wellness and supported through meaningful work and supportive group activity. More information about the program can be obtained by visiting the Compos Mentis website at composmentisithaca.org.
Well, I'm happy to report that we've just completed Week 1 of the course, and it's so far exceeded my expectations on just about every level. Take turnout, for example. We took a big risk not advertising the course broadly to the entire Johnson School student body, instead relying on word of mouth and a few student clubs to deliver our message to only the most excited, dedicated students.
Some members of our administration thought it best to keep the number of students in the class small -- around 32 -- due to its experimental nature. So imagine our delight when over 50 students from across campus showed up this Monday. We had students from engineering, urban planning, public affairs, architecture, sociology, business, and more. When we asked everyone to introduce themselves to the class, I reckoned that we might have brought together one of the most diverse sets of students ever assembled on this campus.
Okay, so we have students. What are we going to do with them? Since I last reported, the class has gained a more coherent direction, and we have succeeded in partnering with local organizations, with whom we developed design challenges that cross-disciplinary teams of students will work to address with working models and prototypes.
Half of the student teams will work on a project that includes developing a bicycle-powered corn grinder for Compos Mentis, an area non-profit farm that teaches life skills to adults with mental illnesses. The other half of the student teams will work with Comet Skateboards, a local start-up that builds skateboards and apparel with eco-friendly materials. In both instances, the challenges entail developing products that are gentle on the environment, and affordable to the consumer or end user.
Representatives from both organizations attended the first class session, where they presented some background on their organizations and delivered their respective challenges to the teams.
In Session 2 on Wednesday, we held a three-hour design workshop with Boston-based design firm Design Continuum. They're most famous for developing the Swiffer floor cleaning system, the Reebok pump shoe, and other social innovations like the One Laptop Per Child project, in conjunction with Nicholas Negroponte at MIT.
Arranging the Design Continuum workshop, then meeting and talking with our two guests from that group, was amazing for me. I continue to learn how important and practical design thinking can be, not just for design firms but for all organizations seeking the best and most creative solutions to problems.
After Spring Break, we get into the meat of the class, where the teams actually start brainstorming and building. I will continue to update everyone on the progress of the class, as well as our continuing success in making connections with different departments across campus. My colleague, Charles, has a vision of using our course as a launchpad to founding a Cornell Design Institute, and every day, with every contact and connection made, it comes one step closer to becoming a reality.
Some more background on our partners:
About Comet Skateboards: Comet Skateboards is the leading manufacturer of high performance green composite skateboards. Comet uses a unique blend of regionally sourced materials that result in strong, light skateboards. By purchasing raw materials regionally, Comet contributes to a vibrant local living economy and does not create excess pollution by shipping materials all over the world. Comet Skateboards has exclusive use of e2e biocomposites for skateboards and are made with paints and adhesives that do not off-gas harmful chemicals. Comet skateboards last longer than any skateboard on the market and when they have been shredded to the end they will safely turn back into fertile dirt if composted. With its ecologically safe materials, Comet scraps can be used to fertilize gardens, heat homes, make bonfires, serve as media for works of art, etc. More info at www.cometskateboards.com.
About Compos Mentis: Compos Mentis: Working Toward Wellness, Inc. is a day program for adults learning to live with a mental illness. Through the quiet, orderly discipline of communal farm work, we help adults burdened by illness develop the patience, self-confidence, and hope they need to reclaim the power to lead productive lives. We also aim to alleviate the stress experienced by family members and close friends, and to create an environment where people with significant mental health challenges can demonstrate their capabilities to others. Participants in our program spend their days at the farm where their recovery and wellness and supported through meaningful work and supportive group activity. More information about the program can be obtained by visiting the Compos Mentis website at composmentisithaca.org.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Spring Classes
I just realized I've been so concerned with launching the Creative Design for Affordability class (which starts next week and is going really well) that I never gave a rundown of the classes I'm already taking this semester.
By far, the star of my spring semester classes so far has been Becoming a Leader with Professor Jim Detert. This is the first time Prof. Detert has taught this class to the full-time MBA students, previously delivering it to the Cornell-Queens Executive programs. Though it was a double session on Monday nights, Prof. Detert organized the class such that it didn't miss a beat. Further, when the Cornell-Queens students were on campus, he twice arranged for panels of the students to come to our class to discuss cases in a live format. After class on both occasions, Prof. Detert arranged social hours afterwards so that we could network with the EMBA students. This is the kind of effort and the kind of connections that we need more of, and I applaud the professor for a great class. The readings were current, and the assignments urged us all to think more deeply about our own leadership experiences and goals in a surprisingly concrete and applicable way.
Other than Becoming a Leader, I'm also taking a class in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations called Organizational Consulting. It's geared toward helping HR professionals both within organizations and working as outside consultants to help companies solve their human-related issues. I'm enjoying it and will be doing a live consulting project with American Express to help the company become more innovative.
Managing Technology and Innovation is also an interesting class, taught by Wes Sine, who's an expert on technology commercialization, renewable energy, and entrepreneurship. The final class I'm taking is called The Political, Legal, and Social Environment of Business, taught by Professor Ben Ho. Prior to becoming a Johnson School professor, Ben Ho worked in the Bush White House as an energy economist. Hearing about his experiences there, and about the underappreciated elements of business strategy that deal with the public sector, the media, and other interests is fascinating.
Overall, I'm incredibly happy again with my classes. I'll write again soon with an update on Creative Design for Affordability.
By far, the star of my spring semester classes so far has been Becoming a Leader with Professor Jim Detert. This is the first time Prof. Detert has taught this class to the full-time MBA students, previously delivering it to the Cornell-Queens Executive programs. Though it was a double session on Monday nights, Prof. Detert organized the class such that it didn't miss a beat. Further, when the Cornell-Queens students were on campus, he twice arranged for panels of the students to come to our class to discuss cases in a live format. After class on both occasions, Prof. Detert arranged social hours afterwards so that we could network with the EMBA students. This is the kind of effort and the kind of connections that we need more of, and I applaud the professor for a great class. The readings were current, and the assignments urged us all to think more deeply about our own leadership experiences and goals in a surprisingly concrete and applicable way.
Other than Becoming a Leader, I'm also taking a class in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations called Organizational Consulting. It's geared toward helping HR professionals both within organizations and working as outside consultants to help companies solve their human-related issues. I'm enjoying it and will be doing a live consulting project with American Express to help the company become more innovative.
Managing Technology and Innovation is also an interesting class, taught by Wes Sine, who's an expert on technology commercialization, renewable energy, and entrepreneurship. The final class I'm taking is called The Political, Legal, and Social Environment of Business, taught by Professor Ben Ho. Prior to becoming a Johnson School professor, Ben Ho worked in the Bush White House as an energy economist. Hearing about his experiences there, and about the underappreciated elements of business strategy that deal with the public sector, the media, and other interests is fascinating.
Overall, I'm incredibly happy again with my classes. I'll write again soon with an update on Creative Design for Affordability.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
A Lot of Hard Work Comes to Fruition
I wrote two posts ago about the course I've been trying to start here at the Johnson School -- Creative Design for Affordability. Well, I'm happy to report that the dream of making this course a reality has finally come to fruition.
I wanted to tell the entire story here, since it's not often documented how something challenging comes to pass. Often, when I see someone take a leadership role and come out successfully, I assume it must just be easy for that person. Perhaps they're a born leader. Or, at the very least, they know what they want and somehow just make it happen. Not so for me.
The Genesis of the Idea
About three years ago, I was a writer for BusinessWeek.com in New York. I was covering business school education and had been reporting on a number of different topics and trends at b-schools around the country and around the world. One thing I found interesting was that more and more schools were teaching creativity in their curricula. Their argument: any school can produce an army of quant jocks; it's the people that show leadership and creativity that ultimately achieve a lasting level of success.
Through the course of writing a story on the topic called "Creativity Comes to B-School", I came upon the Stanford course I'd previously blogged about. The enthusiasm and excitement I heard from the course professor was contagious, and he spent an hour on the phone with me (a normal interview generally lasts between 15-25 minutes or so) discussing its genesis and eventual success.
I was sold on this course. And not only did I learn about it, but I also took the low-cost lighting product a team of Stanford engineers and MBAs had developed in the course with me to Argentina, where I launched a pilot project to market them to microfinance borrowers in the rural north of the country.
Last Winter
Knowing that such a course didn't (but should) exist at Cornell, I set out to figure out how to get it started. Luckily, I had some extra motivation. One of the requirements of accepting the Park Fellowship is completing a project that benefits either the Cornell or Ithaca community. Imitating the Stanford Extreme Affordability course seemed the obvious project for me. And how hard could it be to imitate a course that already existed, that had already created a successful blueprint?
About a year ago, I set out to find out. I developed an initial proposal for a new course based on the Stanford idea, with an international trip component and a close relationship with the Johnson School's Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise. I arranged meetings with the Center's director, Mark Milstein, and also with the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Doug Stayman. I received enthusiasm and an offer to help from Milstein, and a degree of skepticism from Stayman. Emulating the Stanford course would be a monumental challenge, he said, since they had founded a Design Institute with funding from several successful Silicon Valley-based alums. The only way to make it happen during my time at Johnson would be to find a faculty member willing to teach -- or at least oversee -- the course by June.
So the next task was laid out before me -- find a faculty sponsor before the end of the semester and I'd be good to go. The course would be as good as done. One more warning from Stayman -- it would be difficult, he said, to entice a Johnson School faculty member to take on a new course. They would have to drop one of their existing courses, since just about everyone was already oversubscribed. After conversations with a couple more Johnson School professors, I began to think that Stayman had been right.
To take the pressure off whichever Johnson School faculty member I eventually might persuade, I set my sights on finding two professors to jointly deliver the course. Asking around, I began to understand that many faculty members across campus are interested in issues of sustainability, international development, and new product development, which were the three overarching topics of the course.
Last Spring
As luck would have it, Cornell President David Skorton had recently announced a campus-wide task force called the Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future (CCSF). That organization was headed by a professor of Physical Science named Frank DiSalvo, so I made an appointment with him. I pitched my course idea to him. He agreed to present my idea to the CCSF executive committee at their next meeting, but I got the feeling he was so busy that he probably just filed my proposal in the circular file.
Around that time, I decided to substantiate my claim that the Johnson School needed a product design course. So I surveyed the student body through a simple SurveyMonkey survey online. I got 158 responses to the survey, 75% of which said that "yes, they are interested in designing and building products that meet people's everyday needs in affordable ways." My resolve was strengthened; at least now I knew for sure that I was trying to do something for the Johnson School that people wanted.
By now, it was getting to be late in the Spring, and I hadn't yet identified a faculty sponsor. I let down my guard for a while and stopped pursuing any more professors. Frustration had begun to set in.
Summer
The end of the Spring semester came and went, and I presented Park Leadership Fellows program director Clint Sidle with my project proposal. I had some vague idea that I'd pursue faculty members over the summer, but as it transpired, I got busy with my internship and came back to campus in the Fall having done nothing to further my project. In fact, I began to consider pursuing some another project entirely, which I told Clint when I met with him in September.
This Fall
Shortly thereafter, I saw an email addressed to the SGE club from an AMBA student named Charles Lo. He was interested in forming a sub-group to the club around Creative Design for Affordability. He had been inspired by the core course, Managing and Leading in Organizations (known as MLO), where he had seen a ABC "Nightline" clip on the design firm IDEO. Charles had been so inspired by the clip that he traveled to the Bay Area of California and visited the company.
When I saw his email, I felt a tiny twinge of hope. I had so far been frustrated in trying to make my course become a reality. Could I somehow use the enthusiasm of a newcomer to get myself back on track?
Charles and I met and discussed the course idea. He agreed to help make it a reality. I told him about my discussions from the previous Fall. We eventually met with Stayman again, who recommended we talk with Bob LaPerle, a professor of marketing who had previously been an executive at Kodak. Like Milstein, LaPerle had been excited about the course when we related our idea, and he'd even given us some direction based on his experience designing and marketing the Kodak one-time use camera. However, he too was oversubscribed to oversee the course.
Around the same time, I got back in touch with DiSalvo from Cornell's Center for a Sustainable Future, who connected me with the leader of the Center's Education Committee, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professor Paulette Clancy. Meeting with Paulette got Charles and me excited that we might acquire some fresh connections across campus. After following up with Paulette, she connected us with Max Zhang, an engineering professor interested in designing a "smart grid" for renewable energy and electric cars.
A couple weeks later, after propositioning five or ten more professors, Charles and I met with Max, who offered to let us market our course to his engineering students. He also recommended we contact Professor Alan McAdams, a professor at the Johnson School who teaches a Seminar in Sustainable Development. Why hadn't we thought of him before, we wondered?
This Winter -- Full Circle
After about three hour-long meetings with McAdams, trying our darndest to make Creative Design fit into his course on developing an infrastructure for electric cars, we decided that the partnership just might not work out. The two courses were just too different.
I was scheduled for shoulder surgery on January 2 so had other things on my mind over the break. But about a week later, I got a surprise email from Charles stating that McAdams had agreed to be the keeper of our course and offer it entirely separately from his Seminar in Sustainable Development.
This was the brightest ray of light I'd yet experienced in the entire process of the project. McAdams ordered us to immediately draft the course syllabus, which we promptly adapted from some of the documents we'd drafted earlier in the process. We sent the syllabus draft (which, over the course of the last year had decreased from a full semester to a seven-week course, and into a course populated with guest lecturers, instead of one professor) to Stayman, who gave us our first positive feedback.
Still, he had major reservations. I arranged a meeting to help address his concerns, in which I met with him and the other Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Accounting, Mark Nelson.
Some Serious Selling
This was it. I had to do some serious selling to do.
I sat down at the table with a lot of optimism. That was soon dashed, as Nelson led off the conversations detailing the four or five red flags he'd read from the syllabus. Somehow, in the course of the meeting, I convinced the two deans of the feasibility of the course, the demand for it, and I clarified the structure of the course for them. Students, I explained, would be split into cross-disciplinary teams of four (2 MBAs, an engineer, and another masters student), then be presented with a design challenge (for instance, designing a safe way for a woman to carry money and a cell phone through a dangerous area). They'd use simple, low-cost items to create a product aimed at addressing the needs of the target customer. Then, through the course of the quarter, teams would iterate three times on the same product, integrating the feedback they get from their classmates as they built a more and more advance prototype.
Eventually, with a number of subsequent drafts, we finally got the syllabus and course proposal approved. We sent it to the curriculum committee over this past weekend.
Today, the course was passed.
The Road Ahead
In many ways, the project has only just begun. We still have to nail down speakers and make sure to fill the class with the appropriate mix of students. But despite that, I've learned more about myself and about leadership through this project than through almost anything else I've ever done. I'm extremely proud of the fact that the course has been approved, and now I can't wait to make it an overwhelming success. After so many frustrations and so many challenges, I'm so glad that all of that hard work has finally come to something -- that my three-year-old dream is finally going to come to fruition.
I wanted to tell the entire story here, since it's not often documented how something challenging comes to pass. Often, when I see someone take a leadership role and come out successfully, I assume it must just be easy for that person. Perhaps they're a born leader. Or, at the very least, they know what they want and somehow just make it happen. Not so for me.
The Genesis of the Idea
About three years ago, I was a writer for BusinessWeek.com in New York. I was covering business school education and had been reporting on a number of different topics and trends at b-schools around the country and around the world. One thing I found interesting was that more and more schools were teaching creativity in their curricula. Their argument: any school can produce an army of quant jocks; it's the people that show leadership and creativity that ultimately achieve a lasting level of success.
Through the course of writing a story on the topic called "Creativity Comes to B-School", I came upon the Stanford course I'd previously blogged about. The enthusiasm and excitement I heard from the course professor was contagious, and he spent an hour on the phone with me (a normal interview generally lasts between 15-25 minutes or so) discussing its genesis and eventual success.
I was sold on this course. And not only did I learn about it, but I also took the low-cost lighting product a team of Stanford engineers and MBAs had developed in the course with me to Argentina, where I launched a pilot project to market them to microfinance borrowers in the rural north of the country.
Last Winter
Knowing that such a course didn't (but should) exist at Cornell, I set out to figure out how to get it started. Luckily, I had some extra motivation. One of the requirements of accepting the Park Fellowship is completing a project that benefits either the Cornell or Ithaca community. Imitating the Stanford Extreme Affordability course seemed the obvious project for me. And how hard could it be to imitate a course that already existed, that had already created a successful blueprint?
About a year ago, I set out to find out. I developed an initial proposal for a new course based on the Stanford idea, with an international trip component and a close relationship with the Johnson School's Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise. I arranged meetings with the Center's director, Mark Milstein, and also with the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Doug Stayman. I received enthusiasm and an offer to help from Milstein, and a degree of skepticism from Stayman. Emulating the Stanford course would be a monumental challenge, he said, since they had founded a Design Institute with funding from several successful Silicon Valley-based alums. The only way to make it happen during my time at Johnson would be to find a faculty member willing to teach -- or at least oversee -- the course by June.
So the next task was laid out before me -- find a faculty sponsor before the end of the semester and I'd be good to go. The course would be as good as done. One more warning from Stayman -- it would be difficult, he said, to entice a Johnson School faculty member to take on a new course. They would have to drop one of their existing courses, since just about everyone was already oversubscribed. After conversations with a couple more Johnson School professors, I began to think that Stayman had been right.
To take the pressure off whichever Johnson School faculty member I eventually might persuade, I set my sights on finding two professors to jointly deliver the course. Asking around, I began to understand that many faculty members across campus are interested in issues of sustainability, international development, and new product development, which were the three overarching topics of the course.
Last Spring
As luck would have it, Cornell President David Skorton had recently announced a campus-wide task force called the Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future (CCSF). That organization was headed by a professor of Physical Science named Frank DiSalvo, so I made an appointment with him. I pitched my course idea to him. He agreed to present my idea to the CCSF executive committee at their next meeting, but I got the feeling he was so busy that he probably just filed my proposal in the circular file.
Around that time, I decided to substantiate my claim that the Johnson School needed a product design course. So I surveyed the student body through a simple SurveyMonkey survey online. I got 158 responses to the survey, 75% of which said that "yes, they are interested in designing and building products that meet people's everyday needs in affordable ways." My resolve was strengthened; at least now I knew for sure that I was trying to do something for the Johnson School that people wanted.
By now, it was getting to be late in the Spring, and I hadn't yet identified a faculty sponsor. I let down my guard for a while and stopped pursuing any more professors. Frustration had begun to set in.
Summer
The end of the Spring semester came and went, and I presented Park Leadership Fellows program director Clint Sidle with my project proposal. I had some vague idea that I'd pursue faculty members over the summer, but as it transpired, I got busy with my internship and came back to campus in the Fall having done nothing to further my project. In fact, I began to consider pursuing some another project entirely, which I told Clint when I met with him in September.
This Fall
Shortly thereafter, I saw an email addressed to the SGE club from an AMBA student named Charles Lo. He was interested in forming a sub-group to the club around Creative Design for Affordability. He had been inspired by the core course, Managing and Leading in Organizations (known as MLO), where he had seen a ABC "Nightline" clip on the design firm IDEO. Charles had been so inspired by the clip that he traveled to the Bay Area of California and visited the company.
When I saw his email, I felt a tiny twinge of hope. I had so far been frustrated in trying to make my course become a reality. Could I somehow use the enthusiasm of a newcomer to get myself back on track?
Charles and I met and discussed the course idea. He agreed to help make it a reality. I told him about my discussions from the previous Fall. We eventually met with Stayman again, who recommended we talk with Bob LaPerle, a professor of marketing who had previously been an executive at Kodak. Like Milstein, LaPerle had been excited about the course when we related our idea, and he'd even given us some direction based on his experience designing and marketing the Kodak one-time use camera. However, he too was oversubscribed to oversee the course.
Around the same time, I got back in touch with DiSalvo from Cornell's Center for a Sustainable Future, who connected me with the leader of the Center's Education Committee, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professor Paulette Clancy. Meeting with Paulette got Charles and me excited that we might acquire some fresh connections across campus. After following up with Paulette, she connected us with Max Zhang, an engineering professor interested in designing a "smart grid" for renewable energy and electric cars.
A couple weeks later, after propositioning five or ten more professors, Charles and I met with Max, who offered to let us market our course to his engineering students. He also recommended we contact Professor Alan McAdams, a professor at the Johnson School who teaches a Seminar in Sustainable Development. Why hadn't we thought of him before, we wondered?
This Winter -- Full Circle
After about three hour-long meetings with McAdams, trying our darndest to make Creative Design fit into his course on developing an infrastructure for electric cars, we decided that the partnership just might not work out. The two courses were just too different.
I was scheduled for shoulder surgery on January 2 so had other things on my mind over the break. But about a week later, I got a surprise email from Charles stating that McAdams had agreed to be the keeper of our course and offer it entirely separately from his Seminar in Sustainable Development.
This was the brightest ray of light I'd yet experienced in the entire process of the project. McAdams ordered us to immediately draft the course syllabus, which we promptly adapted from some of the documents we'd drafted earlier in the process. We sent the syllabus draft (which, over the course of the last year had decreased from a full semester to a seven-week course, and into a course populated with guest lecturers, instead of one professor) to Stayman, who gave us our first positive feedback.
Still, he had major reservations. I arranged a meeting to help address his concerns, in which I met with him and the other Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Accounting, Mark Nelson.
Some Serious Selling
This was it. I had to do some serious selling to do.
I sat down at the table with a lot of optimism. That was soon dashed, as Nelson led off the conversations detailing the four or five red flags he'd read from the syllabus. Somehow, in the course of the meeting, I convinced the two deans of the feasibility of the course, the demand for it, and I clarified the structure of the course for them. Students, I explained, would be split into cross-disciplinary teams of four (2 MBAs, an engineer, and another masters student), then be presented with a design challenge (for instance, designing a safe way for a woman to carry money and a cell phone through a dangerous area). They'd use simple, low-cost items to create a product aimed at addressing the needs of the target customer. Then, through the course of the quarter, teams would iterate three times on the same product, integrating the feedback they get from their classmates as they built a more and more advance prototype.
Eventually, with a number of subsequent drafts, we finally got the syllabus and course proposal approved. We sent it to the curriculum committee over this past weekend.
Today, the course was passed.
The Road Ahead
In many ways, the project has only just begun. We still have to nail down speakers and make sure to fill the class with the appropriate mix of students. But despite that, I've learned more about myself and about leadership through this project than through almost anything else I've ever done. I'm extremely proud of the fact that the course has been approved, and now I can't wait to make it an overwhelming success. After so many frustrations and so many challenges, I'm so glad that all of that hard work has finally come to something -- that my three-year-old dream is finally going to come to fruition.
Historic Day (for service)
I can't believe the end of the Bush presidency has finally come. Just eight short years ago, when he was first elected, I was a senior in college voting in my first presidential election. Today he's ex-president Bush, and with his departure our country ushers in a period of great hope and renewal.
Reports from inside the Obama camp promise a new task force dedicated to promoting national service for young people. It was just seven years ago that I began my first AmeriCorps assignment, and just six years ago that I began my second. Needless to say, national service (military service included) is something I believe to be beneficial to everyone involved, but particularly the young person who serves.
During my second year of service, I worked for the International Rescue Committee, a refugee relief and resettlement organization. It was during that time -- while working to help resettle displaced people from war-torn regions the world over -- that the Iraq war began. It was also around that time that Bush created the Corporation for National and Community Service, the umbrella organization for AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps*VISTA, AmeriCorps NCCC, and Senior Corps.
After 9/11, when Bush formed this new organization, which bonded service-based programs founded by Presidents Kennedy and Clinton, among others, it was a time of great hope that a service movement might be born in the U.S. Shortly thereafter, Congress cut that organization's funding. Where volunteers used to enjoy the option to forbear their student loans during their year of service and receive an almost $5000 "education award" toward paying off those loans, the Corporation's coffers were now dry.
AmeriCorps alums would now receive only a $1200 stipend at the end of their service, to help them get back on their feet and perhaps reassign themselves to a job in the private sector. I was lucky enough to be the beneficiary of the former program, and since I was also fortunate not to carry any debt from undergrad, I was able to apply some of my two education awards toward both taking prerequisite courses before school, and to paying for some of my books and expenses at The Johnson School.
With the election of Barack Obama, the Corporation for National and Community Service enjoys new life. According to barackobama.com, the president will increase the number of AmeriCorps positions from 75,000 to 250,000, allowing more young people to serve their country, especially during tough times when employment is scarce and social services and the non-profit sector need a boost.
According to barackobama.com, the new administration "will focus this expansion on addressing the great challenges facing the nation. They will establish a Classroom Corps to help teachers and students, with a priority placed on underserved schools; a Health Corps to improve public health outreach; a Clean Energy Corps to conduct weatherization and renewable energy projects; a Veterans Corps to assist veterans at hospitals, nursing homes and homeless shelters; and a Homeland Security Corps to help communities plan, prepare for and respond to emergencies."
I feel lucky and privileged to have been given the chance to serve during such a time of economic distress (from 2001-2003, which was the heart of the dot-com bubble). I believe that it helped me build my compassion toward others, that it encouraged me to participate more fully in the life of my community, and it gave me the work experience I needed to jumpstart my career. On this historic day, I am filled with gladness that more people will be granted the same chance I had.
Reports from inside the Obama camp promise a new task force dedicated to promoting national service for young people. It was just seven years ago that I began my first AmeriCorps assignment, and just six years ago that I began my second. Needless to say, national service (military service included) is something I believe to be beneficial to everyone involved, but particularly the young person who serves.
During my second year of service, I worked for the International Rescue Committee, a refugee relief and resettlement organization. It was during that time -- while working to help resettle displaced people from war-torn regions the world over -- that the Iraq war began. It was also around that time that Bush created the Corporation for National and Community Service, the umbrella organization for AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps*VISTA, AmeriCorps NCCC, and Senior Corps.
After 9/11, when Bush formed this new organization, which bonded service-based programs founded by Presidents Kennedy and Clinton, among others, it was a time of great hope that a service movement might be born in the U.S. Shortly thereafter, Congress cut that organization's funding. Where volunteers used to enjoy the option to forbear their student loans during their year of service and receive an almost $5000 "education award" toward paying off those loans, the Corporation's coffers were now dry.
AmeriCorps alums would now receive only a $1200 stipend at the end of their service, to help them get back on their feet and perhaps reassign themselves to a job in the private sector. I was lucky enough to be the beneficiary of the former program, and since I was also fortunate not to carry any debt from undergrad, I was able to apply some of my two education awards toward both taking prerequisite courses before school, and to paying for some of my books and expenses at The Johnson School.
With the election of Barack Obama, the Corporation for National and Community Service enjoys new life. According to barackobama.com, the president will increase the number of AmeriCorps positions from 75,000 to 250,000, allowing more young people to serve their country, especially during tough times when employment is scarce and social services and the non-profit sector need a boost.
According to barackobama.com, the new administration "will focus this expansion on addressing the great challenges facing the nation. They will establish a Classroom Corps to help teachers and students, with a priority placed on underserved schools; a Health Corps to improve public health outreach; a Clean Energy Corps to conduct weatherization and renewable energy projects; a Veterans Corps to assist veterans at hospitals, nursing homes and homeless shelters; and a Homeland Security Corps to help communities plan, prepare for and respond to emergencies."
I feel lucky and privileged to have been given the chance to serve during such a time of economic distress (from 2001-2003, which was the heart of the dot-com bubble). I believe that it helped me build my compassion toward others, that it encouraged me to participate more fully in the life of my community, and it gave me the work experience I needed to jumpstart my career. On this historic day, I am filled with gladness that more people will be granted the same chance I had.
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