Tim: The more things change…

At least three people said to me today “Tim, when you’re gone, we’re going to be totally screwed,” which was frankly sort of alarming (guys they’re going to lock me in the basement and make me do their mail merges) but I guess at least I’m appreciated! I’m a little afraid that the other interns are getting sick of hearing about how awesome I apparently am, particularly since I’m more or less the only one of them who a) isn’t 21 and b) doesn’t have a fake ID, and so c) doesn’t hang out at happy hours with them. Timing is important! Allllllso if you’re at Olin and you want an internship with the HRC, particularly in the policy & strategy group, they will way consider you.

Anyway holy crap it has been a crazy few weeks where do I even BEGIN. Let’s start at the present and work backwards.

Virginia has legislative elections this year, and there’s a chance that we could tip the Senate towards the Democrats. The HRC is understandably thrilled about having the chance to install a fair-minded majority in the Virginia Senate. So, the upshot is that most of the field team & I are going to be working for the Democratic Combined Campaign full-time between now and the elections, and I’m kind of super-excited! I’m at the HRC office on Thursdays and I get Friday and Monday off, and I’m in Tysons for the rest of the week. We started yesterday and did a loooot of phonebanking, which is never my favorite thing to do but it went pretty well. I’m really looking forward to seeing how a real GOTV campaign works.

Meanwhile, my primary project for the last week and a half or so has been writing our first-ever Facebook application. So far I’ve learned:

• PHP isn’t as horrible as its syntax documentation suggests.
• MySQL is a beautiful thing.
• The Facebook application platform is actually quite elegant!

Clearly, I must have come to Washington to learn about software development! Again! But that’s okay, because this is super-fun. Right now, the application is in “soft launch” – it’s on my profile and “in the wild” but it has pretty minimal capabilities and we haven’t started announcing it to anyone. I do have 44 users now without ever mentioning it to anybody outside the intern pod, though. I think we’re all going to start inviting our friends sometime in the next week or so. Go ahead and add it if you support us! Let me know how to make it not suck! I haven’t had a chance to do a proper user-centered design focus (shame on me, I know) — it’s in the works.

Fun Olin Fact: Sean Munson ’06 does research on electronic social networks, and gave me some awesome-looking documents that I have not even started to read yet but which ought to give me a fun framework to use while figuring out where to take this next. ❤ alumni!

And before that was the board meeting and the National Gala Dinner. I escorted board members from Kansas and Missouri around the Hill and learned actually quite a lot about Kansas City, which was more interesting than it sounds. And the next evening, I was in a tuxedo, waving a long blue phallic object around and collecting seriously lots of money from people. It was sweet! but boy was I tired when that week ended.

This is way too long! In conclusion: this semester is rocking hard, and there aren’t many places I’d rather be. 😀 Good-night!

George: Design

One of my biggest difficulties with design is its fuzziness. While going through the design process in UOCD it was hard to get a clear picture of what the hell was going on. Why do we care about what the user’s dreams and aspirations? What’s the deal with the deliverables – are they supposed to be pretty or not? Why is Ben making us do these silly things? Most of it just didn’t come together in a way that, at the time, felt right.

It turns out that the only way to learn design is to do it. It’s not something you can define as a whole and slowly work your way into; the question ‘what is design?’ doesn’t seem to have any instructive answers outside of the context of design. While do-learn is the way we like to do things at Olin, most subjects involve small spurts of doing and learning in quick succession. This is do-learn pushed to the limit, where you have to go through the entire process without any real understanding of what’s happening and then, once you’re done, look back and learn from it. From that perspective I realize that everything we did, no matter how fuzzy, had a useful purpose and that it all came together to form something that, in the context of our user group, simply worked. Both the elegance of the solution and the problem itself could not have come about without the fuzziness implicit in the design process and our resulting understanding of our users.

At the highest level design is, to me, a way of thinking. It is an approach to a problem that is open to anything and everything yet deeply analytical of any inputs, always looking for connections and explanations within context; a way of starting with nothing and getting to something valuable. It is always asking questions about what you are doing and why you are doing it. There is, however, no judgement, as often it is the seemingly stupid or impossible ideas that bring about the most creative and sensible ones.

It is because of its fuzziness that I love design.

Ben: Walking

I’ve recently discovered that I enjoy walking. No… I really like walking.

I especially enjoy walking alone because it gives me a chance to reflect on everything that is going on. Despite not taking classes, I am still staying very busy, and so any time that is spent not worrying about day to day life is much appreciated.

With this in mind, as I walked home from Wellesley last night (a short 3.6 miles), I decided that it could be fun to walk into Boston. And so, at 11:00 PM, I quickly looked up the route for the Boston Marathon (which conveniently runs just a mile away from our house) and decided to leave the next morning on this walk.

I then continued to think about this and realized that if I was going to all the trouble to walk the 16 miles into the Boston Commons, I might as well continue the walk to make a full 26.2 miles.

And so, this morning, at 9:00 AM I left home. After a leisurely walk to the Commons, up to Porter Square and back down to MIT, I found myself getting on a bus back to Wellesley at 5:55 PM. Upon arriving home, I discovered that my route was not a full 26.2 miles, but only 25.66. Regardless, it was a day well spent.

Perhaps the highlight of my day occurred on Route 16, just past the Woodland T stop. Here I found a synagogue. It wasn’t the synagogue that made my day, but rather what was on the sidewalk following the synagogue: trash.

For the next mile, there was slightly more litter than usual, and on each piece of trash there was a name tag that said “Jesus.” The first piece of trash I saw was a Dunkin Donuts cup, and so I assumed that some man named Jesus had a nametag, was drinking coffee, placed his nametag on his coffee cup, and then threw his coffee cup on the ground. But then there were chip bags, and Charlie Tickets, and cigarette boxes, and everything imaginable.

For the next hour, I kept thinking of the story behind this trash. Perhaps it was some evangelicals trying to convert the Jews by leaving signs that would let them “find Jesus in their lives.” Perhaps it was actually a Christian gang, who realized that the Bible denounces all crimes except littering (rather than tagging walls, they tag trash). Perhaps it was some Christian group that wanted everyone to notice how much trash there was and feel bad about littering. (This of course raises the question of why they went to all the trouble to put a name tag on every piece of trash, when they could have just picked it up)

But the only thing I know for certain is that it made me respect Christians less (and yes, I am Christian). Hmm… for that matter, maybe it is a band of Islamic or Jewish terrorists trying to soil the good name of Christians (or perhaps even those damn dirty liberals trying to defile the Christian Right)

Tim: Pervasive engineering!

It turns out that engineering skills are pretty much useful no matter what you’re doing. At one point last week, I almost got shipped to Iowa before I could convince everyone that I really didn’t know anything about database design. All I did was use Access to find the intersection of a couple of membership lists, and next thing I know one of the regional field directors was on the phone asking me how I like the weather in Des Moines. But everything got straightened out and I was here in DC for what turned out to be a roller-coaster week.

Personal highlight? I met Senator Chris Dodd on Thursday! We asked the campaigns to sign an HRC Iowa shirt that we’ll be auctioning off at the upcoming National Dinner (featuring Nancy Pelosi, Tim Gunn, Sarah Jessica Parker, and people from Ugly Betty — it’ll be hella awesome, guys) and the Dodd campaign headquarters is only a couple blocks away from the HRC building. I caught a glimpse of Sen. Dodd on the way out the door, and got to thank him for his vote on the Hate Crimes Act! Speaking of which…

The good news out of this week is that the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, which makes certain hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity federal offenses, was approved by the Senate as an amendment to the FY ’08 Defense Authorization Act! We were all watching on C-SPAN2 on Thursday morning as it unfolded on the floor. We needed 60 votes to achieve cloture in the Senate and vote on the amendment — and we got 60 votes, with 39 opposed and Sen. McCain not voting. The amendment was approved immediately afterwards by a voice vote.

The celebration didn’t last long, though. The real political drama this week was around the news that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is being split into two bills by the House leadership, one of which includes transgender individuals and one of which does not. Transgender inclusion in ENDA is a hugely divisive issue within the GLBT community and this is pretty much the outcome the policy team has been trying its damnedest to avoid. There’s a bit more to read about this at HRC Back Story. The deputy field director cracked a sardonic line about how at least we were around to see politics at its best. It’s certainly true. Sometimes, things don’t go the way you were hoping, and you get to pick up the pieces.

So the next week will be busy and interesting! Last week started a bit slowly, and I retaliated by writing up a proposal for an internal HRC Field Wiki and automating the political interns’ work for them. And reading Wonkette. Christ, I love Wonkette.

Back to the fray! Hopefully I’ll be published this week…

Ben:What am I doing?

I’ve often promised to tell people what I’m doing. Here it is.

Texas Mathworks Alumni Network: In the summers I work with an organization called Texas Mathworks which runs math camps for middle school and high school students and develops innovative math curriculum at the junior high level. They’ve been running a summer program for high school students for 18 years, but have kept in touch with very few alumni. I’m taking a user-oriented approach to developing this alumni association so that it will be something that is useful to all parties involved. So far it has been a lot of research and interviewing.

Umbrella Labs Coffee Roaster: Several of my classmates started a company this summer called Umbrella Labs. Essentially, Umbrella Labs is a product design firm. Our first product is a computer controlled coffee roaster which gives home coffee roasters additional power over their coffee roasting. I’ve been focusing on the user end of this design, identifying what features are necessary, and learning about home coffee roasters.

The Foundry@1795: As president of OEG (Olin Entrepreneurship Group), I’ve been working closely with a few classmates to help develop the Foundry, Olin’s student business incubator. We are especially looking to help it grow over the next few years. So far it’s been a good deal of strategic planning. We hope to have a business plan for the organization by the end of the semester.

IdeaTree Design:Last semester, I cofounded IdeaTree Design, a socially conscious engineering design firm. Over the summer, three students spent a huge amount of time working on the concept, and this semester I am leading a design project working with a group called Helping Hands. This project has really just started and will be engulfing more of my life in the weeks to come

Flash Conference: Last semester, Matt and I worked to put together the first ever “Flash Conference” at Olin. This was a weekend long design conference which brought students from across Boston together to spend time developing new appropriate technologies. This semester there is another one planned for this upcoming month and while I am not in charge of it, I’ve agreed to help out in considerable ways.

Barista-ing: Perhaps this should not go on here as an “official” project, but in working on this coffee roaster, I’ve become increasingly interested in coffee. As a result, I’ve purchased an espresso machine and a grinder and am really getting in to making and drinking coffee. Over the next few months, I hope to become a better barista, because that’d just be sweet.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten some, and I’m sure more will come up later.

Ben: Organizing My Time

The most surprising thing about this year is the fact that I have a lot of “flex-time.” When I wake up in the morning, I get to decide what I work on. Throughout the day, I decide what I want to do. In the evenings, I decide what I want to do.

This has been interesting because I’ve never really had this much time to do my bidding with before. During the year, there’s always been classes, and the summers had jobs and activities.

Needless to say, (except by Uncle Ben), “with great freedom, comes even greater responsibility.” With all this time, I have to figure out what I do with it and, well, use it.

I started out the year with the idea that I would work on a different project each day. This, I figured, would make it easy for me to focus on what I was doing, and would help me insure that I did everything I needed. After trying this for a week or two, I realized that this did not work at all.

No matter how I tried, I couldn’t stay focused on one activity all day, when there were so many other things that I could do. I fought myself to continue doing this for a while, but finally gave up when I realized that I was going against my style.

Now, on any given day, I will work on many different things for varying amounts of time. I might interview someone for one project for a while, and then send an e-mail regarding another. Later, I’ll start working on something new. I have found that this works incredibly well for me.

I must just like the scattered lifestyle.

Tim: Week 1

I started on Monday at the HRC headquarters at Rhode Island and 17th St in Northwest, a few blocks southeast of Dupont Circle. The “Policy and Strategy” team at HRC is split into two wings, political and field. I’m in field. The political staff deal directly with Capitol Hill, and we in field deal with pretty much everyone else. Daily field intern responsibilities include maintaining the field@hrc.org inbox, friending people on HRC’s MySpace page (not even kidding), and playing Field Staff Crisis Whack-A-Mole.

Highlight of my week: the HRC is running a summit for students from historically black colleges and universities. Thursday was lobby day. While I was forwarding emails and shipping packages earlier in the week, the legislative interns were frantically stuffing folders with talking points and fact sheets about some legislation that the HRC is pushing this session, most notably the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007. On lobby day, students from each school attended meetings with staff from each of their rep.’s and senator’s offices. The political staff asked for volunteers to lead students around, so I made the rounds with a totally awesome student from Hampton University, meeting with staff from Rep. Cantor’s, Sen. Webb’s, and Sen. John Warner’s offices. (The staffer from Jim Webb’s office is, as of Thursday, one of my favorite people ever.)

I think my least favorite thing about the internship so far is the drive between my house and Metrorail. NoVa traffic. So. Slow. AUGH.

I’m really looking forward to the rest of the fall. Even the mundane intern chores are teaching me about non-profit work and how organizations interact with decision-making processes. Being in Virginia also means I get to play with Virginia politics! I volunteered to help out with the Chap Petersen state Senate campaign today, and I’m playing around with Mark Warner’s 2008 US Senate bid on Facebook. This will be awesome.

Oh! And I failed the Olin Challenge today. I was in town with my parents and some relatives to see the Edward Hopper exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, and I ran into Class of 2007 alumna Sarah Boman on an escalator at L’Enfant Plaza. Small world!

Gui: The Life of an Intern

Monday, I was designing robot parts and sending them out for quotes to machine shops.

Tuesday, I ordered over $20,000 worth of parts.

Wednesday, I made a bunch of strain-/oil-/fire-/water-/dirt-proof electrical connectors.

Thursday, I joined in on a meta discussion about how to organize teams to do the upcoming work for Big Dog.

Friday, I swept the floor and cleaned the hangar.

I wouldn’t say that there’s never a dull moment, but I haven’t had an opportunity to get bored yet.

Ben: Standing on Top of Mountains

When people ask what I’m doing this year, I always reply, “Well, I’m working on a variety of projects to help me figure out what I want to do with my life.”

The next question is, “What sort of projects?”

The thing is, I don’t have a planned schedule that I can hand people to say what I’ll be doing at what hour, or day. But this seemingly lack of organization is intentional. Now it is time for a story.

At the end of summer, I went up to Maine to Bennett’s house with several other Oliners (See Bennett’s post). In addition to visiting the folk festival and going to the beach, a few of us took a late night drive up to the top of Cadillac Mountain. This mountain isn’t big by any stretch of the imagination, but it is on the water front. So come midnight, four of us were sitting on top of the peak talking (with Eric Munsing bouncing around taking tons of awesome photos). We starting talking some about the upcoming year, and then it happened: someone asked the question about what I was doing.

I struggled for a bit discussing what my original plan was, and then just decided to talk. I explained that I didn’t know exactly what I was doing because at that point I did not have enough resolution to adequately judge the paths ahead of me. I then pointed to the trails below us and said, “What if I looked down at the forest, and traced a path for you to follow. Since we are so high up, you’d be sure to end in the right place, but here is the catch: you couldn’t deviate from the path at all.”

With this statement, we all agreed that it would be silly to plan the path entirely from on top of the mountain and not alter the path at all. Sure there is some danger in deviating from the path (just ask Little Red Riding Hood), but it is also dangerous to never deviate from the path. Consider if I had told Bennett to follow a path that led him right into a tree, or perhaps down a steep slope that I couldn’t make out from 1000 ft above.

With this realization, it hit me. I realized that it was okay not to know exactly what I was doing, as long as I had a vague sense of what I’d be spending my time doing. I realized that during the year, I’d have many opportunities to make choices and it would be better to make the choices in the moment, when I had more information about my surroundings, than standing far away. Perhaps these choices meant that I’d end up in a different place at the end of the trail, but I’m alright with that. I live for the path I’m walking down, not the spot I end at.

All this being said: I do have a few projects that I’m working on, and so watch in the next few days for information on each of these.

Olin’s Bureaucracy

When telling people that I’m taking a year off, I’m always asked the question, “Was it hard to get the school to let you do that?”

The answer is definitely a huge “NO!”

And now, the story of convincing Olin to let me take a year off:

Chester and I figured the best way to go about taking a year off would be to start at the top. And so, we e-mailed Rick Miller and said, “We are thinking about taking a year off. We wanted to talk with you about this. Could we have lunch sometime in the next week?”

A few minutes later we received a reply from President Miller saying, “Sure. Go ahead and schedule it with Nancy Sullivan, my assistant.” We did, and the next day we had lunch with President Miller.

The meal started out with us explaining what we wanted to do. It then quickly, like many things at Olin, turned into a conversation about Olin and innovating engineering education. President Miller’s response to our proposition was, “This is great! How can we get more students to do this?”

We then continued to talk about how this could become a part of the Olin curriculum and how we wanted to make it a very common thing to do. President Miller also suggested that we talk with Rod Crafts.

A few days later, we went and met with Rod Crafts. As I walked in, he handed me a piece of paper and said, “You’ll need to fill this out. It needs an address, and your advisor’s signature. Keep in mind that we only let you declare a leave of absence a semester at a time. You’ll need to reapply next semester. Other than that, you’re good to go. Incidentally, what are you thinking about doing?”

I was absolutely amazed. I figured I’d have to explain in great detail my reasoning and defend my thoughts on this issue. When I expressed this to Rod he said, “At OSL, we don’t see our roll as pushing students to do this or as preventing students to do this. Rather, we want to help students do what they want to do.”

With that, it all made sense. And so I filled out my one page form (half of which is reserved for OSL), got my advisor’s signature, and was set to take a semester off. In a few months I’ll have to fill out the form again, and provide a brief progress report in order to get the next semester declared as a leave of absence as well.