03-20-2010

After running around the previous night I got back into the room around 1:30am and crashed. I woke up this morning around 7:40. I was running late and was dog-tired from the lack of sleep. I had been playing with the idea of using the coffee maker in the room. The only problem is I don’t drink black coffee. So although this morning sounded like a good time to try it out I had a secret weapon. I had stolen a starbucks double shot coffee can from the group of drinks they gave us during the afternoon break the day before. I pocketed it and stuck it in the little fridge at the hotel room so it was nice and cold when I got to it in the morning.


A little after 8am, Jenny and I had made it to the conference. We were not late…but we were not early either. We had about enough time to grab our bagels and muffins before making our way into the ball room for the conference. We were not the only ones late though. Apparently, they had the night on the town event of the previous years conference on Saturday night. I can see the reason why that was better then Friday’s night. I heard several people talking about how they had not made it back in until 5 in the morning.





(8:30-9:00)

Morning announcements were again given by Catherine Leslie. The greeting was uneventful.



(9:00-10:30)

Next on the docket was the corporate panel. This was apparently fantastic at last year’s convention. This year…not so much. There were four panelists. One was from Boeing and prided herself about not being an engineer. This is fine. But she took 20 minutes to explain who she was and had a bad tendency to dominate the conversation of the panelist. It was agreed by everyone I talked to that she drug the panel down into boredom. Her intro alone caused the panel to start off on the wrong foot and it never seemed to recover until the end of the discussion.




(10:30-1:30)
Exposition – Career Fair – Roaming Lunch
This point was a good time for everyone to go around meet more people as well as meet all the corporate people with booths. Of course this is also the time that we gathered up all the SWAG. There was a lot of good SWAG too! I was again able to meet with a lot of group and talk to them. This is where I was able to get to really know the folks from North Carolina State University. They turned out to be the best people, imo, that we met the entire trip…not that I am biased…








(3:30-5:00)
Breakout Sessions
Cross Cultural Engineering

Notes:
Cross cultural relations are like talking shop. Being able to relate to them with day to day issues.
People have a tendency to try things and ideas coming people that they trust, therefore you must build relationships.
On your first visit to an area, you should relax and get to know the people. Don’t do big projects, instead focus on small projects that can be completed while you are there. This will allow you to accomplish tasks and build trust with the people there.
Approach Cross Cultural Engineering in a manner that you are there to learn and serve.

Remember the saying that “One finger cant lift a stone” meaning you have to have people from different areas of knowledge to complete a task.

Key Things:
1.    Adaptability, patience…be open to alternative you don’t understand.
2.    Learn their culture such as saying hello in their language.
3.    Establish a Co-Learning Style. Show that the locals have something to teach you.
4.    Couldn’t Write quick enough
Ways to figure out people’s way of thinking…
Free Listing   
Tell people to list 7 animals.
For Americans…Cat and Dog will usually show up first.
A population of 2% - 4% will show what 100%  of the population will say 90% of the time…

UC Net – creates a scatter plot giving a visual of the most common alternatives as well as showing the outliers.

Not really sure what I was going with here but I wrote down that shadowing is another form of surveying…which technically is true I suppose. Just doesn’t seem as sophisticated at the other methods.

Final Thoughts for the breakout session:
 All of you who want to go to the developing world to do good….Dont.  But if you do go, go as a servant and not a master.




The message board where people posted meeting spots and random other semi-important pieces of news...except for one guy...named Steven Burns...I am convinced he was responsible for a majority of the...what should I call it...spam...yeah that is good. He wrote on the board at least 2 or 3 times where his name was attached. His messages went such as, "Steven Burns - Call me!" (btw no phone number attached) or with this gem "EWB Now with MORE Steven Burns", and also "Where can I find more Steven Burns?". Needless to say the guy probably has a little bit of a self induced narcissism. It did amuse me enough that I needed to spend this much time on him. So...Thank you Steven Burns.














(5:45-10:00)
Awards Banquet and Cultural Dancing
When we first arrived, we were greeted by Thomas Frey; Executive Director, Senior Futurist, DaVinci Institute. Perhaps a bit on the side of being a self-proclaimed futurist rather than a realistic one as some of the things he was saying seemed extreme. I did enjoy his talk as he covered a wide number of topics during his talks. I enjoy listening to people who actually dare to dream what will be tomorrow and in turn tell others. Now how in the world you get paid to do this is beyond me. I don’t see how you get paid to basically watch the science channel all day and then give talks on that information. Seems like a cool job.




He believed the Romans did not advance further because of their numbering system...made a pretty good case for it.























Afterwards, the waiters seemingly appeared out of nowhere with salads. While we ate, the waiters continually brought us more food. Again, they fed us chicken and some sort of mashed up rice pilaf dish. It was of course very good and I have not ate this much since my trip on a cruise ship back in 07’ I believe.






Afterwards, a group of African dancers and Mexican tap dancers performed for us. It was very good. I will attempt to get the videos up for those that are interested.

Yes there is a video of me doing this...and no...I do not have possession of it right now...honestly...so I wont put it up. lol






They were balancing a lit candle on their head the entire time during their first dance...that alone was amazing enough for me.




Close up of said candle....I am sure she loved the flash from my camera...



They tap danced with no music to keep a beat. Very impressive.




The North Carolina people that I went out on the town with later that night and Jenny.



Our failed attempt at jumping and being on camera...Sarah has a better picture of us. (She is the other girl in the picture)

16th street mall at night...an out door mall in Denver...the weather is never that bad there...or so I am told. I will confirm this for the 4 or 5 times I have been there. I have never seen great accumulations occur.

Brian from NCSU jumping into my picture...of the street below...

There we go...no flash helps as well.

The said mall.

Down the street again.

There were cows all over the stinking place in Denver just like this one. There was even one in my hotel as well...

The Moon Lady again...

Buffalo!!!! This is actually a really cool picture when made bigger...I really even impressed myself.

We were trying to act like Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves and do the Te-Tanka (sp?).

A really awesome bridge that I drug the group to. Everything on this bridge from what I could tell was in tension except for the gianormous spire that rose towards the heavens....to bad no one else was a civil engineering major...I was totally having a nerd out moment on that bridge and maybe had freaked them out.

But they still seemed cool with it.

Then we went to the pendulum again.

Yeah I had to pick another bugger from the giant face...it had allergies and was having a hard time breathing at night...

On the ground around the area was a map of the Denver area engraved into the sidewalk.

We had a fun time getting them up there...turned out some really good pictures though.

What?!@?

More of the sidewalk map.

Finally we headed back to their hotel. Where we hung out some more. I played a game of chess and build the tallest structure out chess pieces...I totally won both...mainly because I was the only one playing chess and I stole all of the good pieces for the tower...

I finally made it back home at about 1:30 the next morning. Turned out to be a very good day considering the rough start.

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.