innovation

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Innovate or Die (?)

February 23, 2012 in Reid's Blog by Reid | Permalink

 

Hello Everyone! I’ve been really, really busy (in a good way) these past few weeks, mostly with Crimson and school stuff, which is obviously a blast. Although I’m getting worn down, I think I’ve been structuring my day properly to allow myself enough time to do exactly what I need to do and still get some rest. Do you know that I sleep 8 or 9 hours a night? Yep. I do. I pride myself on that, and basically my theory is that anyone who gets less sleep hasn’t organized their time well enough, or totally overbooked themselves. I have managed to (kind of) find a balance, with the help of some schedules and structure.

My schedule from yesterday afternoon…pretty full, but totally do-able!

 

So what, exactly, have I been doing? Same old, same old, except for this INCREDIBLE and very bizarre event I recently went to. It was called “Experiencing Economies; Innovate or Die,” and basically it was a tour of innovative and design businesses/spaces in Boston which ended up selling out in one minute (there were 50 slots, too). My favorite place that we went to was Continuum, an innovative consulting corporation that was definitely one of the coolest places I’d ever been. I was covering this event for The Crimson, and ended up going all alone on a tour with a ton of grad students and people who were older than me. It was all very secretive, and I really had no idea what to expect, so the bus that I boarded could have been going to Akron, for all I knew! However, we ended up at Harvard’s iLab first, which is essentially a large technologically-innovative and up-to-date building where students from MIT and Harvard can come in and collaborate on big ideas, eventually getting funding for them. It’s about half way between Harvard and MIT, and was really cool. There, we did a psychology experiment on advertising and branding, lead by a History of Psychological Science Graduate student. Here are some photos from the event!

Some Art at the iLab

 

This was pretty cute…and cool, because people were drawing on the walls!

 

This was definitely my favorite quotation.

 

Some photos of the psychology experiment….bringing me back to my SLS-20 (intro to psych) days!

Obviously, my artistic and academic abilities were put to the test! The next stop that I enjoyed was Continuum, because there was an incredibly interesting exhibit set up there; these two women had gone into Boston’s inner-city high schools and worked with students who were affected by violence, and they broke that violence down altogether. They filmed fights and replayed them to analyze how they worked, charted the cycle of a fight, talked about the differences between domestic abuse and gang violence, and went into extreme detail to help these students work out the true definition and consequences of violence.

This was really inspiring.

 

This exhibit was moving, and made me really consider pursuing a career within Continuum; it puts creative and innovative ideas to good use, for the benefit of others. What could be better? By the time the exhibit was closing, I started to get really, really hungry. Luckily, there was tons of food, and my friend Ned was bartending, so I could swing by and visit him!

Yummmm

 

Ned with the red suspenders!

 

The evening was a total success, and after I went to my friend/bandmate Noah’s 21st birthday party, I fell asleep both content and inspired. Check out the OFA article I wrote here!

 

The next day (Saturday), it was my mom’s birthday! I called her up a million times until she answered, chatted with her for a while, and was on my way. I love my momma! I had to finish a photography shoot for the cover of this week’s Crimson Arts, so I ended up staying at the Crimson all day Thursday, for part of Friday, and for a while on Saturday and Sunday in order to finish up the cover with my fellow exec, Dean. Here are some behind the scenes shots!

Dean photographing one of our models in The Crimson

 

Our completed cover!

 

It was a really fun assignment for The Crimson that Dean and I got to run entirely, from conception to final product, which was printed yesterday! Many thanks to all of my models/friends for their pretty faces (:

Now that I’ve covered some exciting things in my past, we can look to the exciting thing in the future: this summer, I will be going to Paris in the Harvard Summer Study Abroad!! I was accepted about a week ago, from a pool of many applicants, and will be able to get a jumpstart on my potential path as a Romance Languages and Literatures concentrator! Nothing could be more exciting than spending my summer in the City of Love (and blogging about it while I’m at it). Now all I need is for my grants to be approved, something I’ll know in about a month. By that time, I’ll be in a House, have my summer planned out, and be preparing for my trip to LA with my fellow CUPSI Slam Poetry members. Wow! The future is pretty exciting in general, but even more exciting when you’re at Harvard.

Thanks for reading, and happy Thursday.

-Reid

 

 

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I(nnovation)-Lab

February 10, 2012 in Alumni Blogs by npadilla | 3 comments

Inside the I-Lab

If you’re in college, Boston, New York, California, or perhaps many other places around the U.S., you may have noticed the explosion of “start-ups”. A recent article I read suggested this movement is indicative of a large economic movement. Just as over a hundred years ago marked a move towards massive industrialization and so a new boss-employee relationship from the days of the small-scale apprentice, so too may this era be marked by a move towards independent or self-starter employment from freelancing to entrepreneurship.

 

Harvard, along with other universities, has caught up to this idea and the result is spectacular: The Harvard Innovation Lab. Open from 9am to midnight every day, the I-Lab—as its known—hosts events to prospective entrepreneurs, provides space for start-ups, and offers a wealth of advice from entrepreneurs-in-residence, mentors, and other experts in the legal and investment fields.

 

Harvard Business School (across the river from Harvard Yard)

Yesterday I jumped on the Harvard shuttle across the river to the business school to check out the newly opened I-Lab. The event? Evaluating your Start-up Career. Entrepreneurship has always been a passion for me—perhaps it’s the idea of a 9 to 5 desk job, but more likely it’s the opportunity to really create something new and of value. Indeed, as a recent speaker noted, entrepreneurs are business artists.

 

The event was an hour and a half and led by two successful entrepreneurs, one who create the product of e-ink (Have a kindle or nook? It’s the screen). I was happy to find I wasn’t the only one (undergrad, Harvard Business School student, or MIT grad) wondering about how to evaluate risk or the most important key to a start-up, recruiting a great team. The wealth of resources for student entrepreneurs is fantastic and I can’t wait to see the development of the in-residence start-ups a few years down the road.

 

Speaking of start-ups, you may have remembered my mentioning the Harvard Careers in Food & Wine from over wintersession: through that I meet a great start-up company, two years started, 90+ Cellars, a wine distribution company. Today was my first day beginning an internship with them on their marketing and operations team—a fantastic opportunity for learning an industry from the very start of a company. I’m looking forward to the experience and will update soon about it. I’m looking forward to a thesis-ful weekend, but a chance to take advantage of Harvard’s new ice-skating rink on Tuesday, Valentine’s Day. Hope you all have a great weekend!

 

~Natalie

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