03-19-2010 Finally Finished (Now With Audio)

Oh Wow...


   I don't even know where to start with this one right now...I am trying to write this out the night of the event which I know is probably the best time to do this...for now I am going to limit myself to doing just doing what I can remember off of the top of my head without skipping to my notes...mainly because I am too tired to do anything like that at this moment...I was at the conference from 8:00am till 7:00pm. So yes it was 11 hours but it felt like about 4.


   It was amazing and I haven't been this on fire about anything in a long time. It is nice to find passion like this. Granted my desires are running some what parallel to EWB but are not the same in one crucial fact. I want to also teach people about the Lord that I am impacting. The speakers are so knowledgeable in their areas it is beyond me. I love how this is providing real world advice to real world problems


We went to breakfast at 8am.

Opening ceremony started at 8:30

First speaker started at around 9


....This is what I had wrote down before basically passing out in my bed...I find it slightly amusing that I tried to go through the day with the times...then just stopped. Here is the review I wrote up later while in the plane...

                                                                                                                                                               


The rumors were flying around the previous day that we were going to have snow. Some were saying 8 inches while others were saying as much as 14 inches. Of course it was 60 some odd degrees the day before I and I no more believe them then the man on the moon. Well sure enough it did get cold and it did snow.
When I woke up around 7:30 I looked out the window and found that it was snowing. When we walked out I could tell the snow had been coming down for a while but apparently the ground was still way too warm from the previous day’s heat for much accumulation to occur.

We walked to the Sheridan and came in to see the whole gathering area was filled with people and food. The breakfast had muffins , bagels, and a few other things.

(8:30-8:45)

We were greeted in the opening presentation by Catherine Leslie with the welcome ceremony. The Denver Mayor (John Hickenlooper) was then scheduled to speak but did not make it.

(8:45-9:45)
Next in line was the keynote speaker, Joseph Grenny.  He was a motivational speaker of sorts…and his subject was Critical Conversations. Critical Conversations are the point in a relationship usually surrounded by conflict where the politically unsure thing needs to be said to a person in order to help the team as a whole because if not approached it becomes the forbidden topic and at that point it is too late.

(A copy of what I wrote in my notes:)

Moments of Disproportionate Influence

       -They are emotional or politically sensitive points in a relationship.

93% of people work with an "untouchable" person. These people are those that are incompitent, dishonest, rude, etc. Their actions have been going on for so long that no one will approach them about the issue.

People kill the dialogue during these "Moments of Disproportionate Influence" unknowingly by these actions instead of taking care of the issue:

-Keep the peace

-Avoid Conflict

-Win

-Be Right

-Save Face

When in one of these "Moments" you should stop and examine your motives because of these things:

    - Your motives always control you actions

    - You are never a good enough of an actor to fool people

The solution to all of this is to ask these questions:

-What do I really want for Me

-What do I really want for Others

-What do I really want for My Relationship with them

People never get defensive about what your are saying. They get defensive because of why you are saying it. Therefore, show that you care about their problems and care about them to break past the communication barrier.


And last but not least (THE BROWNIES ARE BAD)

Audio
Part 1



Part 2

(10:15-11:00)
Karen Luken: The Director of the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), spoke on Using Waste as a Resource Can Help Build Sustainable Societies. I personally did not too much care for this talk. Politics started creeping into the discussion and to be honest I don’t think the title of the talk matched what the talk was actually about. I don’t know off hand if I got this speaker recorded or not. Her basic talk was about how the CCI convinced a government in Africa to lease garbage trucks for people to use and eventually have the people buy the trucks from them. I suppose the waste was the trash and the sustainability comes from the amount of trash everyone naturally produces. The talk did not just stop with that as she  was an adamant supporter of global warming. I personally find it a bit hard to focus so much over a still controversial idea of global warming.

(11:15-12:00)
After this, the breakout sessions started. I chose to go to the session based on making a successful assessment trip on your first trip to evaluate the project site. This session was VERY good. I learned a lot from the people speaking. They talked about the social dynamics of dealing with other cultures, designing the project for the supplies avaible, making a connection with the people and allowing them to take ownership of the project, taking time to understand their culture so that they accept you…this is what I can remember off of the top of my head. I will post up the notes in an edit later.


(Notes for this break-out session below in blue)
Top Ideas:
-Things to do:
- Elevation survey
- Water quality testing
- Health interviews
- Compile data while you are there (that way if you miss some information you can still get it.)
- Post trip paper work (Try to do as soon as possible, while in country if possible)
-  Build Contacts with the people, but set your own stuff up and do not rely on them.
- Stay where you are working...allows people to get to know you and trust you.
- Take as much data as you can regardless of what your current plan is.
- Take pictures
- Have some fun so you dont get burned out.
 

(12:00-1:30)
Now it was time for lunch. The conference provided everything. We were given some chicken, a rice pilaf thing, rolls, salad, other assortment of vegetables, and of course desert. I have to admit we ate like royalty when the conference fed us.

(1:30-3:00)
After lunch we attended a panel on the “Challenges of Sustainable Economic Development”. I recorded this as well. I have not figured out a way to put the recording up yet. This panel covered such a wide range of topics that it is hard to narrow things down with out going back to the notes.

(The notes from that session are below in blue)
The panel:
Jim Hallock
Scott Lacy
Zenia Tata
Kane Luken

Key Points: 
-Address failures, dont hide them.
-Must have an exit strategy, must be able to end the project and not have it continue indefinately
-Profit drives the world to proceed
-Dont run others out of business (the people sending mosquito nets to the 3rd world ruinung local business)
-Be able to see what people want. (Ford was asked what people wanted, He apparently replied along the lines of, "People want a faster horse."
 Make sure what you are doing is culturally acceptable
Train People - (Teach them to fish so that they can continue on after you leave.)
90% of NGO's (Non-Governmental Organizations) FAIL.
Create faith in the product. (If the people dont believe it they wont use it.)
Be diverse in your team make-up so you dont all fall into the same mold of thinking.
Focus on what you are good at only. Doing too much will cause loss of focus.
 


Below are some of the main questions they attempted to address during the discussion along with the audio file...

I met a lot of great people at the conference. It is amazing how well everyone got along. I guess that is what happens when you get people with similar minds together. Also surprising was the socialness of the people there...engineers are rather introverted by nature but for the most part these people were very extroverted...of course there were a few exceptions.

From left to right...Rahul, Natalie, and Corrie. I got to know Rahul and Natalie fairly well. This group was from University of Texas. 

This is Eric Nunn from the University of  Wyoming. His name tag had the wrong name on it so he had people the whole conference calling him the wrong name. I thought it was amusing.

(3:30-5:00)
Another breakout session took places after the panel. This time I choose to go to the session called “Leading Between The Lines”. Sadly the recording did not come out very clear for this one. I have tried to doctor it up some and it has become more usable due to this. I still need to figure out how to post audio... The session split everyone up into different types of leaders. The four groups were given a certain color to represent their specific leadership type. Again I will add specific notes to this when I can. This is a slide from the session talking about the levels of leadership.

(Notes about this breakout session are below in blue)
Top Ideas
Spiral Dynamics
Credibility
Outliers
Communication
Use annymous surveys

Main Point
If you only have a hammer then everything begins to look like a nail. Diversify your tool kit so that you are able to tackle different challenges in a better manner.   

(5:00-6:30)
Speaker & Sponsor Networking Reception
This is time probably from an EWB standpoint was the most valuable. I was able to talk to a lot of people and exchange contact information with at least 10 different groups. These groups ranged from new start-ups like ours, and older groups such as Texas. I met a great group of people from North Carolina State. Hey Sarah and Bryan! I also met a guy from Michigan whose church has  a very interesting program. Basically they have all of the contractors in their region drop off unused building supplies such as extra drywall, doors, and etc… They then sell these products really cheap to homeowners that are in financial need. The idea is that people who take care of their houses tend to take care of their neighborhoods better. And of course the obvious benefits of the church helping out the community.

This is Matthew Steams from Rice University in Texas. They have a very strong program going there. I hope that we continue contact with them and are able to learn a lot from them.

Again left to right. Britt and Sarah. They are from George Washington University. They were some of the many non-engineers at the conference. That is one thing I love about this group is that even though the title scares a lot of people away it is actually made up of people from many different disciplines. I talked to these two with the idea of bringing them in to support the medical side of a project. Take health surveys, test water quality, and other things.

This is Chad Norwell from Portland State University


I managed to stay and talk to people until 6:45 when I realized the time and dashed to my hotel (the Hilton).  Jenny and I then came back for the EWB night on the town. But we missed the group that left so we went off and explored on our own.

As you can tell the snow did finally accumulate after falling all day. I am really glad this conference took place after the time change. It allowed there to still be some day light to be left.

We ended up eating at the Rock Bottom Brewery. It was good food but it really wasnt worth the price they were wanting for it. Afterwards we went out walking on 16th street.

I am totally going to catch the moon statue girl when she falls..she never did fall though.

This is a random waterfall thing that we found. Kind of an odd thing for a city that gets so cold to have running in the winter...

Me with the buffalo...I am not sure what is going on to be honest.

This is me on the RTD Free ride shuttle that runs down 16th street. By this time we decided it was best to head in because it was stinking cold and late. This is the one night that I was not out past 10pm.

03-18-2010

So I left off last time with a project due the next morning...

My plan up to this time was to have the project completed by the time I was ready to leave school to travel to Tulsa. Obviously this did not happen. Therefore I was stuck in this precarious position of having a project due while I am on vacation. This means vacation time has to be given up somewhere. As stated before my plan was to get up at 7:00am. I soon realized this would not be a good idea due to the time change so I moved my alarm to 6:00am instead. So after 4 hours of sleep I popped up and began working on this project once again. My class started at 9:30am(8:30 local) so the goal was to get the project sent via email before that point in time. I made it...5 minutes late. At this point I could care less about what else was going on so I fell asleep again till about 10:30 local time.

When I awoke Leia was sleeping right next to me.

At this point I popped up ready to face the day...kind of...

I took my shower and got dressed. Leia the dog followed me all through the house. Both Corey and Alexandria were already gone to there respective jobs. Once I got dressed I decided I was hungry. I pulled out my phone and Google mapped the nearest restaurants. I found Pete's Greek Cafe on the nearby road of Colfax. Alexandria offered to let me ride her bike around since I was sans a car. I took up the offer and figured I would never see anyone again that would know me. So I jumped on and went to the Greek place via a trip through the park. Their  food was expensive but was amazing and has immediately jumped on to my favorite restaurant list.

Afterward I road back over to the park to find the Denver Zoo. After circling most of the zoo I finally found the entrance. I paid my 12 dollars and went in. Some of the photos I took are below.

At this point in time I would like to break from my normal of showing pictures and pose a hypothesis. I am convinced about 1/3rd the critters at the denver zoo are either dead or almost dead...

Heres the proof...

This goose is so close to being dead that it has to eat while laying down...obviously doesnt have enough energy to make it another day...Not enough proof? heres more...

Still singing the same tune?

And now?

The other camel!

 Yeah he is a gonner too!

Even the vultures know what is about to happen...

Too Late for that Rhino...

This bird doesn't even have a head.

He may be asleep but I have to provide an unbiased view....That is all of the dead animals I guess I'll show some more live ones

 

 Lemurs Man...

Lemurs...

I really am creeped out by that trunk. It is totally like a snake or something and just WEIRD!



Oh and penguins might be of the devil....and here is why...

Yes he POOPED AT ME! He saw me turned around and aimed...I was trying to take a picture when he started dancing around which is why I got such a good shot...I squeezed the trigger as I dove away from the splatter.

An animal for Kyle Hansen


After finishing up at the zoo, I rode back to Corey and Alexandria's House.

Shortly after I passed out with Leia cuddled right next to me.

Corey showed up around 4:30  and around 5 he took me over to my hotel so that I could check in.

Jenny showed about 30 minutes later. At a little before 7 we made our way over to the Sheridan for the registration. We were honestly not expecting much before we got there. But! this was the start of a very awesome weekend. When we arrived we got our badges. We then placed all the appropriate labels on our name tags to show where we were from and our position. Oh and did I mention they had food? More on this later.

It was at this time I noticed something very odd... In a profession that is completely dominated males, this conference seemed to be a majority of females. We discussed this oddity with several others in great length and finally came to the conclusion that women tend to care more about others then what guys do. Therefore that is why they were dominating the conference.

We also met several other groups and discussed various topics ranging from EWB to School affiliations. I was VERY surprised how extroverted this group of engineers were when engineers are known to be very introverted.

Afterward, Jenny and I set out to go explore the town. We went to the big plumb bob.

And the big plumb bob had a big face on it...what should you do with a big face? Pick it's nose of course!

Eh dont ask...

Some sort of government tower...

This is Christopher Columbus...cant  you tell?

Here is the only thing close to a surveying marker that I have found so far :(

That is a giant blue bear looking into a convention center thing...I was trying to see what he was looking at...then he said something so I asked him if he wanted to take it outside...he didnt respond...later I found his tool to move glass around...maybe he is the repair bear?