I Got an Intern

Yesterday I had my first meeting with my summer intern. Hopefully her summer does not end like this member of the Team Zissou intern program.

The idea of doing internships in our office has been often vacillated on. At times, it has seemed unnecessary because of graduate assistants, and positions have been created to allow long term projects to be overseen by one person for their duration. At the same time, pressure to expand our offerings, combined with less consistent GA availability over the summer, has allowed for us to take on interns. And so here I am, working with one for summer programming efforts including the division-wide efforts, and planning for our fall welcome week.

I expressed some of my apprehensions about supervising a graduate assistant earlier this year (WOW, that was almost a year ago, I'm realizing! Whaaaat?), but with an intern it's different. Graduate assistants, at least in our office, are developed more intentionally, and the tasks they are given are substantive. I worry about my ability to do so for someone who's only in the office for three months, and for a few days each week. I find myself hoping that the projects she works on are substantive, that we develop a good mentoring relationship, and that she truly has an opportunity to learn the office in the time that she's here.

What do you do to make sure that your interns have a good experience? Is their training or level of work different from the graduate students in your office?

Apples to Activity Apples: The Exciting Conclusion!

For those keeping score at home, I mentioned a few weeks back the prospect of using Apples to Apples for year-end evaluations. I like the idea of making these final meetings more engaging and less dry, and also giving myself the opportunity to hear students describe things as anything other than "good", "fine", "cool", or wordlessly with a shrug.

I really learned a lot from trying to mix up the evaluation experience, and would highly recommend the method to others!

I don't have all of the results compiled yet, but I'll give some of the highlights and the surprises that resulted when I asked students some of the questions. For those who wanted to see the questions I asked, I'll list a few here too.

Pick a card to describe your experience in Union Productions.

Common Answers: beneficial, stimulating

Favorite Answer: wacky

I made sure to ask in follow up questions if the "stimulating" response was in reference to the number of events we do (anticipating concerns of overprogramming), or simply the amount of brainpower that was going into their work. I was surprised to hear that all who responded, did so in the latter. They felt like they were getting a lot out of their work, but weren't overwhelmed by the amount of programming that the organization was doing (keep in mind, we as an organization do about 120 events a year!)
Lesson: We see overprogramming as a concern because we have an awareness of all the events going on. However, for students who can filter out what they are and aren't interested in, chances are they aren't feeling overprogrammed.

Pick a card to describe how supported you felt by fellow staff members. 

Common Answers:   efficient, beneficial

Notable Answers: isolated, lopsided

For this one, I made sure to ask separately about how staff members interacted (interpersonal), as well as how supported they felt by fellow staff (professional). In many cases, students expressed pleasure with the people that they worked with interpersonally, but some stress in the organization was revealed. The two main problems that were revealed in this process was a feeling of isolation by our production team (who is scheduled separately and doesn't meet with our PR, programming or hospitality students), and a feeling of lopsidedness concerning motivation for work by staff members (who works because they like it, who works because they need a job, what does each version look like?)
Lesson: One of my students put it best when he said he wanted to see the "union" put back into Union Productions. My goal for the coming year is to find ways to help them blend as an organization, and to help all areas of the organization understand each other so they can work together better.

Pick a card to describe how UP is perceived by others on campus.

Common Answers: offbeat, efficient

Notable Answers: elusive, pointless

As I alluded to in my post on South by Southwest, we are a little quirky in what we do at Union Productions. We've heard criticism ranging from "they only do indie rock shows" to "the same 30 people go to their events!"As such, I wasn't surprised (and was frankly quite pleased!) that many of our students recognize the stigma that they work under each day. That said, they are heralded throughout the department, and at times, heavily relied on to assist other organizations in programming efforts, because they are so good at what they do. As such, the aspiring wellness professional worries about the effect that has on their ability to be successful. It's a lot of stress to have on them, and we have students who handle such stress with varying levels of effectiveness.

Lesson: Given that they are aware of their reputation, the next step will be to determine if the stigma they carry is one that they wish to change, or wish to work within. Because these students are advised AND supervised by us, my challenge will be to allow them to steer the direction of the organization, while at the same time making sure they don't alienate the large percentage of the student population who "doesn't understand them".

I really appreciated the great ideas that my students came to the table with in this process. And I'm really excited to have found an engaging way to pull their thoughts from their minds. One of my students remarked as she pulled cards from the pile and arranged them, "This is a really cool way to do this!". I'm hoping that inspiration strikes again next spring, and that a similarly playful way to look at the year will emerge!

How do you conduct year-end evaluations? What have you learned about the state of your organization from these meetings?

Cleaning Out My Closet

All week I've been talking about it, and today I finally had to go for it. I pulled my hair back, grabbed my phone and keys, and sent the following Tweet:

The 127 Hours reference refers to a previous trip to the closet to grab T-shirts to take to NACA. I got my arm caught between two heavy boxes, and took several minutes to dislodge myself from the mountain of mementos. Given that the cell phone signal in the closet is spotty, I mandated from that point forward that anyone going to the closet go with a buddy. But it is within my power to change the circumstances of that dingy and overcrowded space, and today I set out to do so.

I learned a lot of lessons in that just over two hours, I'll share a few of those lessons so as not to be long-winded:

• Students will leave just one of anything in a box. The size of the item or the box is of no consequence. If it comes to taking it out and leaving it to the side, or leaving the box in place, they'll leave in the box, evidently, every SINGLE time.
• We both have, and don't have, a great reverence for tradition in our office. Club Downunder, our main programming space, has existed in some form on this campus for over twenty years, and we've had the opportunity to welcome some great acts to our space. As such, there has been a desire to save mementos from shows that we do. That said, what we do have, isn't kept or displayed in the most efficient of fashions. I want to find a way to appropriately display the history that we have amassed, including things like signed posters and advertisements, but also some of the smaller things like informational brochures and staff T-shirts. Any ideas??
• There really are trends in student activities. Some things like wax hands or popcorn and snow cones are timeless, but there are others that fit a pretty specific time frame. Namely, inflatables. Not talking about bouncehouses, but rather inflatable guitars/figures/couches. Especially couches. We have at least ten, and I have no idea what we're going to do with them.
• Leftovers are chances for new events! At one point I texted my supervisor with a picture of black T-shirts I found in the closet, and said "If anyone tries to tell you they need to order black T-shirts, tell them 'absolutely not'" There were, without any form of exaggeration, over 300. But there are chances to use them, and I plan to make that a personal crusade. #oneword T-shirts for my retreat activity this fall, "T-Shirts and Tacos" as an event during our summer programming, T-shirt scarves for every female in the office, department, and feasibly even the Division...the ideas abound! Similarly, we are aiming to bring a country act to campus, and we can legitimately give a cowboy hat to the first 100 students who buy tickets. I'm fighting for that.
• We are not doing a great job of teaching our students the value of a dollar. This was perhaps the biggest takeaway that I got from the experience. There are several aspects of our programming board that can make our jobs a little more difficult. One, we have a tremendous amount of pride in the independence our students have. Two, we are blessed to have a budget that well exceeds any I've ever worked with. And a combination of those two things has led to things like: ordering a new one of something if we can't find it, ordering more of something because it's easier than looking, and ordering things without encouraging students to make realistic estimates of how much we need.
  Things like 100 extra cowboy hats, 300 extra T-shirts and 4700 sno-kone cups don't just happen...we let them happen. I want to be more proactive about stating "Just because we have the ability to, doesn't mean it's a good decision." With a new organizational system for our storage, I'm hoping that location and usage process will be easier. With ease of a process comes less impetus to just thrown our hands up and replace things.

I've returned to the real world now, and have some ideas- what have you found in your closet? What have you learned about your organization in cleaning your storage spaces? What other foods start with T that we could pair with T-shirt decorating?

Back at the Barre

I will be the first to admit that I've had some struggles lately trying to find what makes me happy outside of work. I have gotten tremendously lucky in creating wonderful friendships with the people in my office, and I don't wish to discount the relationships that I've built with them at all. However, not having a social network that I don't work with is new for me, and it has made the visits to home and to see friends all the more difficult as I adjust to the alternative here in Tallahassee.

The solution? I need things to do that aren't work, and I need them to be social. Enjoying running, going to the movies or studying are other pursuits, but they're solitary. I'm missing a social outlet, and I want to rediscover it.

Last night, accompanied by a coworker, I started a ballet class at a community center near our house. She's been going for a while now and had really been enjoying it, and I've missed dancing. It was challenging to get back into the groove of proper foot placement, spotting for turns, and keeping my hips square (a LIFELONG challenge). But much of it just came back to me, and I love the way it feels to dance. I've missed it, and didn't realize just how much until yesterday.

I'm always on the lookout to do more and be more, and this was a wonderful start.

And yes, while I hope I possess the grace of the dancers above, I have scoured the Internet to find the video that I feel best represents how I think I look when I dance.

Go to 2:21 for the full experience.

How do you participate in your community? What old pursuits are you making new again?

Who's Your Horshack?

For those who this reference precedes, this is Arnold Horshack. He was the most easily maligned of Gabe Kotter's sweathogs on TV's Welcome Back, Kotter. He was nasally and had a grating laugh, had a pronounced accent, and typically the most often made fun of in the group.

As a kid, the reruns showed him as an easy target and I'm sure we made fun of him now and again for his enthusiastic way of answering questions, or very unique way of speaking (click here for a sample, it'll haunt your dreams).

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Horshack.

This student has what I would easily refer to as unbridled enthusiasm. At the beginning of the semester, she was at every event we put on, enjoying the shows and exhibiting a lot of excitement about what we did. However, she is what my students would refer to not-so-affectionately as a "fangirl". That is to say, sometimes her excitement was more directed toward meeting and hanging out with the acts, than to the music or performance itself. In my estimation, this is a difference in approach, not necessarily something to be maligned. As my students became increasingly frustrated with her antics, I urged them to recognize it as a difference of opinion and nothing more. Is it how I would act? No. But does that make her wrong? Not necessarily.

But then it became wrong. Through involvement with other campus organizations, we came to realize that she was interviewing bands prior to our show through a false representation of her affiliation. We were allowing her to interview bands she said she had "approved" permission from, but we then realized that the entity she was "approved" by had no knowledge of what she was doing. We got in touch with her to shut the interview down, but then what?

How do we educate her? Yes, her approach is the source of high enthusiasm, and frankly her dedication is something that I wish I saw in more of our students. But who is responsible for educating her about the error in her approach? Who is responsible for showing her the importance of due diligence? How do we allow her to go about things the right way in an educated fashion? As the talks about this student have taken up more and more of our organization's time, and as I realize that these discussions are being had by more and more organizations on campus, I sincerely wonder if we're not letting this opportunity pass, just because she irritates us or reminds us of things that we don't like.

Do you have a Horshack on your campus? Does he or she work in your office? What approach do you take in educating him or her? Is the approach different from the students that you interact with more naturally?

Comparing Student Performance, "Apples to Apples"

When did it become the end of the year, incidentally? Where did I leave the rest of the year? Has anyone seen it?

We have come to the end of my first school year at Florida State University, and yet I'm still navigating some new processes. It has come time to do year-end evaluations, and I checked with my supervisor to see what our formalized process was for evaluating student performance. 

There wasn't one.

I saw this as a chance to get creative. I had grand expectations of making all of my one-on-ones particularly interactive, novel, and delightful for my students. But amidst the shuffle of a heavy programming schedule, getting acclimated, and at times eating and sleeping, those aspirations got lost. Here I had a chance to bring them back. What were the obstacles I wished to overcome?

• Keeping evalations interesting for myself; and
• Preventing myself to hear the answer of "good", "fine", or at times even shrugging for responses

Apples to Apples held the answer.

I created a series of questions to have students describe their experience in the organization (how well they understood their skill level, how supported they felt by fellow student staff, level of support from advisors, etc.) Then, each student got a stack of green Apples to Apples cards (the adjectives). Each response could use between 1-4 green cards.

The result? Vibrant responses, a more natural interaction, and a relaxed way to assess their time in the organization. It's not often that someone's feelings about an organization is described as "yummy", or that we can delve into the danger of our programs being described as "pointless" and "predictable", but I'm happy to have given my students a fun and unique means to express their feelings and thoughts. 

How have you mixed up your end of the year evaluations? And seriously, where did the year go?

Speak Up, Please: Great Practices for Public Speaking

Between my recent high praise of Nick Offerman's informative and engaging speech this past week, Joe Ginese's spot-on assessment of the value of conference presentations, and a somewhat unfortunate case of a presentation I saw this morning from the Center for Academic and Professional Development, I have some guidelines on how to give a meaningful lecture or presentations.

I hesitate, however, to say "best" practices because that implies a definitive strategy. Public speaking, in my estimation, is not something that has a definitive strategy. These are practices that, if employed enthusiastically and with the support of the presenter, could turn something not so engaging into something that people can learn from.

So, without further ado..."Lessons in Engaging Me At Your Presentation"

Know Your Audience.
This morning's lecturer spoke about working at Super Bowl Halftime Shows as part of the production team that employed the technology of projectors, LED screens, and stage setup. Awesome topic, with so much potential to be engaging. And the last 35% of the presentation was. But what was the first 65%? A clearly repurposed presentation originally designed to pitch the company's services to potential buyers. And it showed.

Did I want to know what the company did overall? Yes. But was this the venue to try and sell us on the value of the company? No. We see the value of what he does, or we wouldn't have come to the presentation.

So what is the lesson here? Know who you're speaking to, and frame your information in such a way that they have the information they need. No more, no less, and appropriate for the setting that we're in. This is particularly important for conference presentation proposals. Every now and again, a presentation might be fun to present, and could be applicable to more than one population. But if it doesn't fit the demographic in question, or if you cannot alter it to fit that demographic, please don't force it.

Break Free
Those of you reading a blog already have some understanding of the power of technology. It's great. I love it. That said, we should develop an ability to operate without it. That is to say, have a plan B. In case your Power Point/Prezi doesn't work, or translate properly, be able to convey your message in the absence of the pizzazz that might come with a screen. I understand that for today's presenter, who is so professionally dependent on technology, that this could be a daunting concept. But I will say that some of the best presentations that I've been to have been the result of discussion and person to person interaction. So find a way for your topic, your presentation, your story, to speak beyond a screen.

A related point- if possible, find a way to break free from the confines of a podium or projector cart. Use a clicker. Auto-time your presentation. Even ask a friend or co-presenter to click for you! When you seem engaged in a topic, others can sense your excitement. And when you're too excited to sit still, that says something! That said, please don't Dane Cook it- no screaming or incessant pacing. That makes people nervous.

Let Your Content Speak
Sometimes this is difficult for drier material, or for less experienced public speakers. I see this a LOT in members of the college lecture circuit who are called upon because they have good life stories (Mark Zupan, the captain of the Paralympic Rugby Team and star of Murderball comes to mind), but struggle with conveying their story in the absence of an editing team or a ghostwriter to organize their thoughts. I know, in particular, that my presentation on contracts suffers from a severe lack of a unique or entertaining voice. But in most cases, instructions or explanations can be livened up with an anecdote or parable to drive the point home.

The presentation I saw this morning had a lot of technical discussion about how the individual pieces worked, the turmoil of putting it all together, and the process of designing and implementing the setup. But the best way to describe it came a few moments later, when the presenter showed a video that the member of the crew made. For all the explanation that was given about the frenzy of the process and the ultimate reward of seeing it come together, it could not have been better conveyed than through a two-minute movie of one participant's experience.
Find a way to let your content speak- bring in a student to talk about the initiative, produce a movie, even tell a story. When the content speaks, people will listen.

Have Fun!
Yes, I realize that this tip doesn't apply to all content. Some of the topics that we are called upon to speak about shouldn't be entertaining, or won't by nature be enjoyable. So what I mean here is, show engagement in the topic. Don't speak as though you're distant from it. Speak with authority and investment. When those listening recognize that you are invested in the content being presented, you will take on a sense of being authoritative and knowledgeable. Nobody wants to learn from someone who doesn't care what they're teaching.

To that end, I have a recommendation- again, far from a mandate. If there's something that you could present on, but don't feel qualified or personally moved to do so, don't present or speak on it. Your lack of investment and enthusiasm will, except for the most skilled actors in our profession, shine through. Be invested in your topic, and others will feel invested too.

Any other tips on how to pull people in to your public speaking?