Twice a year the Interactive Telecommunications Program (itp) @ NYU opens its doors to the public.  Students share their recent works and the result is part trade show, part science fair, and mostly creative chaos.  I enjoy this event, the conversations it sparks, the hubbub,  and the opportunity to see what’s next.  The projects vary widely – from new uses for video/telepresence  – to ways to leverage twitter for managing microfinanced inventory systems.

And there are generally robots and video games.  What’s not to love?

In the aftermath of the Nor’Easter I made it to NYU.  From 3 – 5pm I traipsed through gradually filling  hallways and rooms, playing, being intrigued, amazed and disgusted.

Playful:

sonicPoetry : An electrically amplified typewriter, for composing and performing sonic poetry/prose/etc

http://tamarziv.com/itp/

GraffBot:  This guy wants to draw on the side of a building without putting his life in danger.  The mockup included a joystick, servos, stepdowns.

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/graffbot/

His project from this time last year was a rotary phone booth that took a picture every time you picked up and dialed a number. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/fauxtauxs/collections/72157611354575201/)

Intriguing:

Current : A visual representation of what’s trending right now.    I’m a big Edward Tufte fan, and welcome new visual presentations of data.  This version uses the WebSurf from the 90s and takes it to next level.

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/current-a-news-project/

TrendLines: leveraging Boxee and available trending twitter/news topics to create video clip play lists.

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/trendlines/

Un-Plug:  using a light sensor (light sensors seemed to be big this year) this is a device designed to unplug your powerstrip once you leave a room and turn out the lights.

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/unplug/ and http://un-plug.com/

Un-Plug reminded me of SmartOutlets, a piece from 2008 : http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/spring2008/smart-outlets/

This guy re-visioned a powerstrip targeting phantom loads and identifying unneeded usage, killing the power at the outlet source when you removed your keys off the weight sensor-ed hook

Amazing/Beautiful:

Dynamic – Ground: 7 interconnected hexagons that move in a continuous circular movement, driven by one central servo motor, which is activated by a light sensor.  This was a beautiful piece.

http://www.vimeo.com/8304303

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/dynamic-ground/

Disgusting:

Organic Veals:  Meat Puppets. Literally. This woman decided to make marionettes out of veal, and have them slowly animate (with slurping sound effects) on a puppet stage.  What this has to do with actual applied technology I have no idea.  There’s talk in her artist statement about connecting the movement of real people to the movement of the veals. But I never got that from the presentation, and the rest of the website is so heavy in the art speak, I’m sure she’ll do great in Berlin.

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/organic-veals/

http://momentsound.com/veals/

Other things to note:

Aesthetics: A majority of the show  borrowed heavily from steampunk.   Lots of gears, old frames, grossly over designed enclosures.  Form is winning over function.

Crowdsourcing: Many of the projects were about people interacting with the student’s newly designed platform, and giving information to the platform, as opposed to users getting information.   This shift in thinking – that the network is where you give things, not where you get things is arguably not a new concept, however this show seems to have turned a corner in almost every project category, you were giving, not getting information or experience. There was even a physical computing project, where you interact with it, and it saves the interaction outputs to display at a later time to someone else.  (Gratitude: http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/gratitude/)

Websites: I think I saw one traditional website, maybe there were 5 or six. (the show is massive, no way to take it all in) The one I saw was a crowdsource effort to encourage people to take pictures of their local flora/fauna/etc and catalogue it. (noah- http://www.networkedorganisms.com) It mostly seemed to have pictures of people’s pets.  They do have missions – http://www.networkedorganisms.com/missions – including documenting pigeons and ladybugs.  Again, heavily dependent upon the crowd to take the picture, follow up, filling out information, with very little known sources backup. Just because it’s crowd sourced, doesn’t make it true.   One cool web driven project was http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/the-bike-pedaler/ . Bike Peddler, via an alternate interface helps you find a bike on Craigslist that’s close to you.

“Telecommunications”: though ITP stands for the interactive TELECOMMUNICATIONS program, there was very little that actually had to do with using a phone.  There were two projects that focused on mobile solutions for solar/energy – one for aiding entrepreneurs with their energy startup, and the other for rural area maintenance of solar power.  The technology being used wasn’t a particularly innovative approach.

Cost: There’s a lot of money at ITP, and wandering around all the lasercut / cnc milled piece parts, tri-color leds, slick business cards and marketing plans I had to wonder where was the re-use, re-design, recession?

Last week, like many others, I was on the road, travelling to see family for Thanksgiving. Like many others, I found myself in traffic, running late, at a rest stop, and participating in the great American ritual of fast food.

As I stood there, surveying the multitudes, I was asked “ Would you like fries with that ?” – the classic upsell.  ( I flipped burgers in high school and know all the tricks ) Well, I didn’t want any fries, but I did get an insight into a recent conversation with my friend Becky about her involvement with her community out in Des Moines.  She became more active after someone asked her to bring snacks to the next meeting.  Five years later and she’s the head of hospitality for their annual convention.  She was basically upsold into volunteerism.

A report called “Reimagining Service” says that “People volunteer for many reasons, but mostly because they want to make a difference,” and that as leaders, “We must value their time by ensuring it is used to make the greatest difference possible.”

The excerpt by Philanthropy.com goes on to state that organizations too often focus on what the volunteers want to do instead of developing good management systems to mobilize them to solve pressing social problems.

I read all of this with great interest because I often coordinate large volunteer populations.  I find that for events there are two kinds of volunteers, the ones who have helped before the event, say on the planning committees, and then there are those who show up during the event who want to help.

A good example of this may be volunteering at a soup kitchen, or for a beach cleanup, or to build a house.  Here, there’s a plan already in place, and the day-of or ad hoc volunteers are given exact instructions on what to do. The “what to do” is also generally easy to do, and easy to explain, so one volunteer can train another. 

While I disagree that all volunteers should be provided solely with a narrow menu of choice on how to serve an organization, I do believe that knowing your volunteer organization, their goals, and the project’s intent can help to provide a much needed framework for on-boarding volunteers and providing opportunities for growth.

So, what can those managing volunteer populations can learn from the fast food industry? 

The fast food industry in this country can trace its roots back to White Castle in the 20s, and McDonalds in the 40s.  Some basic innovations we now take for granted provide insight into reimaging the volunteer population in your organization.

First, White Castle, demystifying the hamburger. When White Castle was founded the hamburger was not seen as a gourmet item.  It was country fair or carnival food, and often given a bad reputation for being unclean, or the dregs of meat.  White Castle made the kitchen visible to the customer creating a transparency inside the process.

Transparency inside of volunteer organizations is incredibly important, as it provides individuals giving their time to see how they fit into the larger picture.  Sometimes you can see immediate results – from swinging a hammer and building a house, but other times, like stuffing envelopes or creating care packages, it can be a bit harder to understand how this all fits in.   Reporting to the volunteers on the final outcome or next phase of the project is essential in letting them know they’ve made a difference, and that the work provided matters.  Providing transparency into other phases and parts of the project can also provide an opportunity for additional involvement and enrollment.

McDonald’s has many innovations – from envisioning a faster way to serve customers, to the classic “Would you like fries with that?” up-sell.  The history of the upsell is disputed, but what’s important is that there is so much opportunity to easily upsell in the McDonald’s experience.

What this means in practical terms for managing a volunteer population is that, as a leader, you provide the opportunity to immediately participate like serving food as well as a well defined way to take it up a notch – planning menus, developing the kitchen budget, etc.   

In Project Management parlance, there are five process groups/phases of a project – Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling and Monitoring, and Closing.   In each of these lies an opportunity for immediate involvement as well as a longer term relationship.

Another study by the National Conference on Citizenship indicates that due to the recession, a large majority of Americans have reduced the amount of time they spend volunteering.

By the contrary McDonalds has demonstrated year-over-year growth, opening 600 stores in 2008.  Admittedly McDonalds achieved its growth through several measures, but it does give a whole new meaning to “would you like fries”.  Slate sums it up nicely in saying that “McDonald’s success can be chalked up to a combination of luck—which is the residue of smart planning—and savvy moves.”

As leaders in our community, we can create our own luck through smart planning and savvy moves.  When embarking on a new project for your organization, check the project goals against the goals of the organization – are they a fit?  If you’re unclear about the connection, think twice before pursuing planning.  In the plan phase, remember we always remember the big tasks. In this phase it’s useful to brainstorm the additional “nice to have” parts of the project, and during project execution you can look toward volunteers who want to take on more.  In monitoring the project or event, be clear on the project and organizational priorities, and don’t let a nice-to-have hijack your resources or take precedence over the project and organizational key goals.   In closing out a project, be sure to recognize the contributions of your volunteers, as well as illustrate how it all fits into the larger picture – the goal of the charity and the next steps possible in the interaction.   

All this can help good organizations be even better, with or without volunteers!  As a volunteer, there are plenty of ways online and off to look for opportunities… a good place to start is http://serve.gov/.

Or, how I can combine my love of Jelly Belly candy and writing about project management.

Candy season is starting – from Halloween through Easter it’s pretty much all candy all the time.  To kick off the festivities, and perhaps placate my own personal sweet tooth, this month’s missive comes from the land of Jelly Belly brand jelly beans.

Recently I caught their factory profile on the Travel Channel’s “extreme mega factory” show.  Sandwiched in between features on the Intel clean room and the the Lego – all robot run factory, was a short bit on how jelly beans are made vis a vis the Jelly Belly Plant.

On the Jelly Belly web site they have a nifty web site where you can follow along the life of a bean.

http://www.jellybelly.com/Virtual_Tour/virtual_tour.aspx

Here they have video and text explanations along every step of the way, and a trusty map so that you can follow the beans through the candy plant.

I was surprised that it takes about a week to bring a jelly bean into existence. It makes sense that something that small and tasty would take time. And it requires a repeatable process.

What was most interesting to me was the fact that they build in rest periods for the jelly beans.  That’s right, it takes about 7 days to make a jelly bean and 50% of that time (split in 2 parts) is waiting for the bean to do it’s thing.

Sometimes on projects we complain about the hurry up and wait part of the interaction between stakeholders.  The next time that happens to me, I’m going out for a package of Jelly Belly.

Recently ,  I took care of my father’s book business.  He sells old and rare books on American Art.  Last year he acquired a new collection of books, and due to space / time constraints, the books were re-shelved in an unusual manner.

Each book was given a sequential  unique identifier, and then placed on a shelf.  The challenge arose when the number of books out numbered the number of available shelves.  As a result, spare space was created, and a map to identify where / how the sequence flowed through the stacks.

While my family was on vacation, my mission was to track down books, using this treasure map:

Surprisingly, I was able to navigate the chaos and ship merchandise on time.

The experience reminded me that a process is a process, regardless of how crazy it might look on the outside.  Could there be efficiencies created? Of course, but my father’s business would have to want those efficiencies.

The lesson was similar to one learned during my time working with a Start-up in Ottawa.  They were a small shop working on peer-to-peer and mesh network  telecommunications solutions.  As the Program Management Liaison, I spent a lot of time observing how things were currently getting done, and then translating that to the big-company way.  Many times the process in place was perfect for the situation.

An exception was the R&D schedule, managed via an Excel spread-sheet.  This was an arduous task, and a labor of love undertaken by the project manager.  The requirement from the parent company was that the project schedules be in a uniform template, and available on line. This aided in transparency across projects and staff coordination.   It was great, but it wasn’t as pretty looking as  the Excel document. This turned out to be the major hurdle to adopting the new tool, the fact that the team had gotten used to seeing things a certain way.

After understanding the project’s process for communications, I worked with the onsite team to preserve the important pieces of data.  This included uncovering some of the online tool’s customizations, such as color choice, so that they could continue to print charts in the colors they were used to, while the home office could still use the ones that made the most sense to them.

On the outside, looking in, it appeared a bit chaotic, but on the inside looking out, it was a fantastic coup of cross team communications.

There’s been so much rain in my area, some of my handier friends are threatening to build arks. I live in an apartment building, so the water would have to raise quite a bit for me to consider using my balcony as a boat launch.

And besides, I am handier with needle and thread than my circular saw.

To that end, i decided to make a mod-raincoat for summer weather. You may be asking what this has to do with project management, and the answer is quite a bit!

Be it an ark, a car, a piece of software or a rain coat, there’s an object in need of designing, and then the design must be broken down into segments. This is the art of transforming an amorphous idea, concept into a beautiful reality.

With the raincoat, I knew that I had wanted to make a rain slicker for quite some time. I had the general idea that it was red vinyl with black and red cherry cotton lining.

To accomplish my goal, I combined two common software techniques : Waterfall and Agile. To oversimplify things greatly, in Waterfall, everything is designed from the get go… from the top down. It’s a method that takes an autocratic approach, and there’s no room for inspiration or innovation from those actually implementing the design. In Agile, the design of the project/product organically arrives through a more collaborative approach, and the object is designed and implemented in short bursts.

I started with a familiar pattern — Simplicity 4403 — and laid out the pattern pieces.

After much cutting, pining, basting, and some trying things on, I realized exactly how humid our weather had been. There was no way that I could stand to wear a vinyl raincoat when it was so hot and sticky out. My Waterfall product requirements and instructions were not matching my understanding of the current reality.

I took an ice tea break, and thought about how I could make this pattern work. The things it had going for it included:

- fashionable collar, double breasted design

The things it had against

- there was way too much coat for the summer.

Sitting on my balcony, I experienced a pleasant afternoon breeze, and realized that the best way to save this coat was to cut off the arms. I thought I was crazy. A raincoat without arms? but really, what has been happening here is hot/humid/rain/humid/rain/hot/hot/humid.

In this case less was more.

Taking that as my mantra for the next phase of Agile-style, I removed the arms, and re-sewed the lining. That was better… more comfortable, but still not quite it. It needed more, “je ne sais quoi”. And then I realized that a curved hemline would provide a bit of French 60s modern that could just save this garment.

Well, I was right. The hem provided enough of an interesting line that combined with the sleeve-less-ness the overall look was more like a cape. It’s a bit like Little-Red-Riding Hood meets Paddington Bear, and I love it. It’s a one of a kind rain slicker that works exactly as I need it to given current weather conditions.

My friend Lee recounts an amazing an personal customer service experience.

In short:

• He purchased a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, but was unhappy with it.
• He wrote a letter letting them know.
• Time passes, and he receives a personal, pertinent note that was hand signed by a customer service rep.
• Plus 2 coupons for ice cream.

read more -http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/14/fantastic-customer-service-ben-and-jerrys/

I’ve always been more likely to splurge on a pint of Häagen-Dazs, however, next time, I’ll definitely give Ben and Jerry’s a try.

My family has known this for years, but now it is official, I’m a character presenting @ The 140 Characters Conference

http://www.140conf.com will be taking place in New York City June 16-17, 2009.

Produced by Jeff Pulver, it will feature some of the most interesting people involved in: Media, Business and Marketing to talk about how they are using twitter and what this means to business.

I’ll be presenting on Day 2 – providing a history of art on line and the continuous evolution of Shakespeare as the people’s poet.
Some of the other people who are part of  “Cast of 140 Characters” include:

- John Bell, 360° Digital Influence team, Ogilvy
- Diane Birch, Recording Artist
- Chris Brogan, President, New Marketing Labs
- John A. Byrne, Editor in Chief, BusinessWeek.com
- Ana Marie Cox, National Corresponded, Air America
- Steve Greenberg, Founder, S-Curve Records
- Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chief Marketing Officer, Kodak
- Jim Jones, Recording Artist
- Jason Linkins, Political Reporter Huffington Post
- Natalie Gulbis, Professional Golfer, LPGA Tour
- Peter McKay, Writer, Wall Street Journal
- Troy Murphy, Forward, Indiana Pacers
- Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media
- Shelly Palmer, President of the Emmy Awards in NY
- Gavin Purcell, co-producer, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”
- Lindsey Reed, “Rock and Roll Mama”, Mommy Blogger
- David Saranga, Consul for Media and Public Affairs, Israeli Consulate
- Fred Wilson, Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures

- and me!

I’m honored to share a stage with these individuals.
More information is coming in daily at  http://www.140conf.com/

also – I have a discount code of 75$ off the conference price – use VKBRCBNA at checkout.

As a project manager, I spend a fair amount of time answering questions from executives regarding what’s going wrong or could go wrong with a project.

In this world, there are very few good news stories. We hear about the failures more than the successes.

Personally, I think that focusing of the crisis is not a the way to the solution.

Yesterday I decided to declare “good news Wednesday”. I invited my friends to share with me one piece of personal good news.

The results ranged from promising medical results, to recovering hard drive data, taking a walk, passing a final exam.

Another friend got new glasses, yet another, made progress on restoring his post-Katrina home, and a third was treating themselves to a day at the spa.

Sometimes it’s the little things we forget, and they all add up to be the big important picture.

By asking people for a piece of good news I was also given an opportunity to find out more about what was really going on in their lives. I learned about a job opening, a new restaurant, and a CSA farm that is still accepting farm share participants (most in my area have closed).

I connected people who may have never met before based on the fact that one had an apartment sublet for NYC in August (she is going to Europe), and another is coming in from CA looking for a place in NY, in August.

Serendipity is there, it just needs some good news and the opportunity to share.

I’m in next month’s PM Network magazine (a magazine for project managers)  speaking about the challenges of international  project management, and launching products in new markets. The article, called Branching Out, focuses on a the challenges that project managers face with expanding product launches into new markets and regions.

During my tenure at Avaya, I worked on many new product/region launches.  The  experiences I share in the article cover techniques to get all the stakeholders on the same page and also how the voice of the customer is
key.  The article in general contains a lot of good information about what to think about  when launching in a new market – from legal concerns to technical/implementation, to growing a new office to support the new markets.  Go out and read it today!

PM Network is published by PMI, the premiere organization for
project management, and the conferrers of the PMP designation.  I’m
honored to be mentioned in this prestigious publication.  I’ve held my
PMP since 2005, and have found the organizational chapters to be a great
resource for keeping on top of the latest trends in Project Management.