Last week’s review of my project gave me a lot to think about. After noticing that I was up to be reviewed, the night before the review (my bad), I had a couple of watershed realizations.
1. Things do not have to take so long!
The research itself can be an action- Journalism and Media Production.
Media is pretty much Amazing. I’ve been saying HIA’s purpose is to support, connect, and bring visibility to MIT Undergrads engaged in service and advocacy. As Sasha told me at least 3 weeks ago- the easiest and really most impactful way to build visibility is to make media| take pictures, record video, post it where people can see. BUT I felt uncomfortable just asking people to make media. I had been advised to make some prototypes and then get the ball rolling BUT I still felt weird just asking. After some mulling around and dabbling in other pursuits (the Infographic) it made sense to me.
Action. I and some awesome volunteers Becky Hurwitz and Pablo Rey will be taking pictures at the WakeUp MIT event #wakeupMIT and posting them to the HIA site and hopefully the OccupyMIT site. I am also going to make an effort to take video of the individuals that I invite to the Infographic Workshop- my next ToDo item.
2. We are initializing a structure
As usual some ‘amazingness’ came out of the idea of discussion that strengthened my understanding of how HIA’s campaign fits into the larger theory of campaigning and advocacy. I have now adopted efficiency as a facet of organizing that I am considering- NOT just in quickly creating media but in thinking about what MIT really needs. Something that is beautiful about MIT is that ppl are trail-blazers. But that doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t gain something from coming together instead of purely existing in the pockets that we choose to inhabit.
Action. Include the discussion of efficiency in the Infographic Workshop.
UPDATE: I dropped by to the Tech office Sunday night. The editors and production team were really interested by the Infographic + Article! I got the chance to do some brainstorming with the Tech Team- going through my idea for the Workshop and getting some feedback about whether or not it was affective. The Workshop Google Doc is now shared with one of the Tech’s Prod Team members and I am set to send in a rough draft of the article tomorrow – some of the information in that article spawned from the advice that I received during class thanks rojelio .