So, MiGoVaSWOT?

This morning started off with a presentation by PMF, one of the NUF's long-time supporters, on financial management, and the highly utilitarian value of Excel and building Macros. While I enjoyed a bit of a review of what we've heard up to now in our budgeting class (structural balance, material errors, amortization rates, time value of money, etc.) and our Public Affairs class (bond structures, bond variations, bond markets, bond manipulation, bond refinancing) I believe the presentation might have been better focused on simply the ways in which the financial model they had set up and were demonstrating during the presentation might have better been manipulated to our greatest advantage in strategic budget planning. Unfortunately, this section of the presentation seemed incredibly rushed, though, I do happen to have the contact information and can likely ask for a more detailed explanation.

In the meantime, I've taken a few more initiatives to heart about the use of social media, and have recently developed and populated a LinkedIn profile. Then, while I was at it, I took something of an initiative to go on the hunt for other, related social media resources that might be of some pertinence to the effort I'm making in the MPA degree. Here's a smattering of the links I farmed from the internet:

• Latino Rebranded: Latinos and Social Media - Louis Pagan takes a look at this crucial viewpoint. How are we showing up? 
• The Center for Hispanic Leadership - Interestingly, we've just finished an online lecture for one of our classes entitled "Public Management" where the professor spent a good amount of time discussing how to effectively write a mission statement. CHL's is as follows:  "To empower the professional growth and talent development of Hispanic Employees through the use of culturally-tailored curriculum that helps accelerate the awareness and potential of their unique skill-sets and capabilities in the workplace."
• The Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute -  "The only proven Hispanic national grassroots network for economic freedom"

Some interesting reading, to be sure. This week also brought us an introduction to PAF 9180 "Policy Analysis" - essentially a research class, which should help streamline us into the Capstone writing experience. Those of us in the cohort who have either completed major research proposals before, or their PhD *grumbles* will recognize the format, and quite likely the resources. The Craft of Research Booth, Colomb, & Williams is the very same text that we utilized in the Intro to Research seminar I took during the latter part of my graduate studies at NYU, which is to say, that right now I'm sharpening up my three minute elevator story (you really have to read the book to get this.).

Oh! and we got our Stats final grades back today. If the graph of the class' grades is a skewed curve with a long left tail, I was closer to the peak towards the right. 'nuf sed.

Mediating your social interactions

Today's Public Affairs final really taxed our mental fortitude. Between evaluation of public policy, characteristics of Business Improvement Districts, Iron Triangles of political influence, and so forth our answers quite likely seemed a bit rushed. However, as ever, our class was not without its moment of redemption. All during the course, our Professor had been joking that we'd be doing the final with little party hats on because we'd be having such and amazingly good time with the final. True to form, a couple of our integrants made a side trip to a party store, passed out party hats to the entire class before the exam got passed out, which everyone kept hidden until, at one critical moment while he had his back turned, we all got our party hats on at the same time. I'm certain someone has photos, it was a good memory.

After spending the entire day funneling the greatest amount of information into our already crowded minds for what frequently seemed the least amount of effect possible (a sort of bastardization of the rule of parsimony. A cost-benefit analysis would show this to be an inverse correlation,) we set to the task of writing out the Public Affairs exam. Many of us took the entire two hours and whatever else we could get our hands on, to finish, and, as with many things, quantity does not necessarily denote quality. However, I personally walked out with a good feeling about the thing, and I suspect so did quite a few others, in direct contrast to how many of us felt in regards to the midterm.

Following the exam, we were accosted by a group of 2010 folk who were make a solid attempt to complete a Stats II survey analysis with the objective of completing sufficient data to do some manipulations which were are all assured we will have to experience in approximately 10 months... No doubt of that, though, I'm convinced I will be sending out a version based on a digital platform to as many people as possible engaged with my online presence as possible. Quick like bunny rabbit we hopped on over to a presentation on Social Media by a panel of experts in the industry, where I managed to glean several ideas for how to deal effectively with the several interfaces I currently manage to leverage them for profit and position. Not a bad use of time, though, from what I could gather, the totality of the presentation boiled down to the following:

1. Utilize the media networking platforms available to you
2. Don't be scared to deal with people in real time (offline, outside of cyberspace)
3. Complete your LinkedIn profile 100%
4. Send vibrations down your web of influence.
5. Keep all your contacts "warm"
6. Mind what you're putting out there. This is akin to 'dress the part': whichever way you dress - you're going to find what you're looking for...
7. Brand yourself, and if you're changing gears, repositioning, or retooling your approach, don't be afraid to re-brand.
8. Applications like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, and so forth for your Smartphone are your friend
9. Sometimes, you just have to go off the grid.

 Malla Haridat, Kenneth Briscoe of A6 Media, and Allison Jones all contributed valuable insights into the presentation. Now to turn in the first case study for Budgeting. Uuuufff...

Muga Mushin

Yesterday was the final round of mentor interviews at the end of a highly pressurized week. The Statistical Analysis final had the majority of the class in fits, and I heard from several people their feelings on it were not positive. My heart goes out to them, because I understand their frustration. At times like these, I remember clearly several key words in the writings of Takuan Soho, from 'The Unfettered Mind', specifically the part entitled 'Annals of the Spirit Sword Taia', and 'fudoshin'. But more on that as (or if,) it becomes relevant.

I was selected for interviews with the EPA, in which I spent a good 10-15 minutes responding to questions from the interviewer regarding the children's book I wrote, illustrated, and self-published. The reason didn't become immediately apparent until he got around to making a point of saying that he was specifically looking for creativity and finding someone that thinks in, around, outside, under and over the box. Though, until I heard that I wasn't entirely certain that I might have found myself in the wrong place. The City of Philadelphia Parks Department (currently undergoing a merger with the City of Philadelphia Recreation Department) also asked me to come in, and I signed up for an interview with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This last one was particularly important because of how closely related our work is, given that one of their grantees, the Hablamos Juntos program, was a key factor in a policy paper that I turned in last week for my communications class. Everybody liked what it was that I had to say, and I'm entirely uncertain at this point, having had several 'successful feeling' interviews, where it is that I'll be ending up. I do know, however, that I'm beginning to feel incredibly comfortable with the idea of being in the leadership position.

It's an odd thing - as a teacher, you're automatically a leader in the class, you're a person with a great deal of responsibility, lives depend on you, yet, to consider yourself for a position of leadership as it's contextualized within this program is frequently outside of the realm of possibility for most people in the education field. "I'm just a teacher" is such a common phrase... kind of like "I'm just an interpreter." It sometimes surprises me that I've managed to overcome that feeling, and why it is that the sentiment is so heavily ingrained into the communities in the first place? But, I know I wasn't selected for this by mistake.

The anti-hero

Another Social Studies teacher friend of mine sent along this video of Jay Leno at Universal Studios in California. It brought tears to many of us...

Today we're turning in the memo format book report on Little Pink House - the novel style history of one of the most famous eminent domain cases in the history of the country Kelo v. New London, to which I've alluded in a previous post. Tomorrow is the Stats final, I'm a bit sorry to see it go, I keep repeating this at the end of each session to whomever will listen: had I but known all the statistical manipulations we just learned during my first graduate school experience, how much better would my analyses have been, how much more would I have possibly understood about the research I was reading, and so forth. Ah well. In the end, given that we've just completed quite a bit of deliberating with Prof. Mitchell who, like me, enjoyed making the crossover between stats equations and Public Affairs, in regards to economic development, its effects on children's education, tax abatements and their direct relation to businesses being able to afford to stay in town, and thereby also weakening the tax revenue pool with which to fund school systems, (which historically are the critical things that large corporations go looking for in terms of criteria to stay in a location, because they need excellent schools to train an excellent workforce, in order to maintain a leadership position in their respective fields. So, you see how cyclical this becomes) there's this rather amusing equation to be extracted from the vast waste fields of data (both good and bad):

AGERICH(hat)= 3.141527 - 2.5 SMOKING + 10CEDUC - 8HTMES + 0.6802SMOKING*HTMES

And that said, let us not forget to always pronounce "chi" as [kai], and not "chai" [tshai] which is a very heady, fragrant, flavorful tea from the far East, made incredibly popular by coffee house franchises the world over *shudders*.

Tomorrow brings more mentor presentations, and hopefully an interesting look at a few local organizations. More on that probably this weekend, after the actual interviews happen. Stay tuned.

How to gain friends and influence people

Just got finished with the 'Little Pink House' memo for Prof. Mitchell's class. Today's been a bit wild: it started with getting the clothes clean while watching the Argentina-Germany match for a stunning loss that eliminated El Albiceleste, and had the entire Twitterverse claiming that Mick Jagger was somehow responsible for four of the most devastating losses in the past week.

We've started our PAF 9140 Budgeting class with Prof. Sermier, whose extensive list of accomplishments and impressive titles is enough to give anyone pause. Having worked in 'all three sectors' private, non-profit, and public, he brings a wealth of information and training to the class that will likely end up benefiting us in whatever position we find ourselves. That said, learning to read a balance sheet while adopting his way of thinking is an interesting and unique exercise. I am quite shocked at the flexibility of my own mind - prior to this program, I had come to believe that there was only one set path for me, and that was one entirely strewn with words, their significance, their manipulation, and how that might be turned into a marketable product. Now, after having survived the majority of statistical manipulation, and for the most part comprehending the mathematical computations in the budgeting class, I'm beginning to wonder if I hadn't pigeon-holed myself into a language based thought pattern early and simply never ventured outside of it for some irrational fear of leaving the comfort zone. It should be interesting to see how this all unfolds.

I skipped a barbecue today in order to complete this assignment, but the folks let everyone know that I was working steadily on homework and deadlines. Tomorrow is one I cannot miss, though I'm fairly certain that I should be alright between waking up early and working on the spreadsheet all day. Then all I have to finish is Stats and readings, and I should be back on track. Thankfully, we got paid this week, though Paychex managed to somehow delay our disbursements by a day, which had the entire cohort in a tizzy. But, now with money in hand, bills are getting paid and food is in the fridge. Phew!

Las piramides de parangaricutirimicuaro

This past week has been quite the adventure. We received our midterm exercises (2 midterms and a paper) graded, and it turns out I managed above 80% on everything. Going forward, I'm fairly conscious of where the differences were in what the professors were asking for, and what I did so that when finals time comes around, I'll be better prepared. This week's main focus is getting started with Sermier and budgeting, and turning in the communications paper on Wednesday, which will likely take up the entirety of my schedule on the morrow.

Last Wednesday, as a result of no shortness of puppeteering on the part of one of our classmates who has a personal connection with the man, Puerto Rico Secretary of State Kenneth McClintock (some NY Daily News articles that include his name here and his bio here) came and spoke to our group about the island nation becoming a state incorporated into the union of the United States of America, and the benefits that integration might confer. This particular policy proposal was one that I might not necessarily agree with, and whose argument had a few holes, though I will have to argue that at a later post as I'm sitting with notebook in hand where I scribbled various thoughts and counterarguments during his conversation.

Friday was the last day of interviews on Fridays, as the school - pursuant to a directive from CUNY central as a money saving initiative - all facilities, buildings, and so forth will be closed for Friday's during the summer months. However, not to be outdone, I signed up for interviews with CH2M Hill, which has quite a few project happening on privatization of municipal services and where I might be able to infuse quite a few of my linguistic resources and be able to leverage the experience towards language access policy research. The Port of Seattle is in dire need of a fellow to develop a curriculum related to their Workplace Responsibility program speaks directly to my experience writing curriculum, especially for distance learning. New York Power Authority - whose energy sustainability projects really fall in line with my passionate drive to create precisely those types of solutions for the future (they were, after all, a huge drive behind my political choices in the elections) would likely stretch my capabilities, as that environment is clearly something that is outside of my comfort zone. The one organization that had selected me was Indianapolis Private Industry Council, whose inherent need for language ability and someone who has a clear mind of how to engage the immigrant community and develop vocationally related hard skills, as well as codify explanatory curriculums for such was clearly apparent during our conversations. That's an interesting position, and to be clear, there is likely to be a good deal of language access policy to municipal services to be written there. An interesting analysis of the process is delineated at my good friend 4everjung's blog

All of this is happening, I should note, as we're learning about simple vs. multiple regressions in Statistical Analysis, barreling towards a policy position paper deadline (see above,) and having to complete a 3-6 pg memo on the novel "The Little Pink House" which is less of a novel and more of a historical case study of how Kelo vs. The City of New London and starting Prof. Sermier's Budget class this week is swirling about in our brains. In times like these, the concept of 'zanshin' in budo: staring at a distant mountain, not so much a spaced out, disconnected vapidity, but more of an eyes on the prize sort of stare comes to mind. I'll see if I can't track down the kanji and put it in here.

And now for some PAF 9100.... wish me luck.

Don't mess with my cheddar

This past week has been full of adventures, despite the very interesting interview on Friday. Scuttlebutt has it that a pair of mice ran through a couple of our classmates' rooms in the SVA dorms, and caused quite the sensation. The young ladies whose rooms were effected summarily brought the incident to the attention of the dorm's operators, the program director, and everyone in the class. This dovetailed into a blizzard of discussions over lifetimes of mouse sightings, mouse traps, Dr. Dré's having taken turns with removing mice from his apartment with his sister while they were growing up in Harlem waaaayyy back in the day, etc. I've had to remove my fair share of intruders in my day, but not since the girls have come to live with me, and the building has been renovated (knock on wood). However, No sooner had these conversations begun than I remembered this amusing little video:

The other thing I'm rather excited about, despite the fact that I hadn't the actual coin to get into the official viewing area, is that I was able to witness the first ever Red Bull Air Race in New York City standing in Battery Park for free. Since the official viewing area was in Liberty State Park, and the planes were taking off from Teterboro, NJ, the only real obstruction to our view were the water taxis that apparently were unenlightened to the fact that an entire crowd of observers was trying to watch a string of stunt planes rip through a course at around 180 mph, and the ever present haze that manages to consume the intercoastal region on hot, humid days like yesterday. Check out the video of New Yorker Michael Goulian doing a run through the course:

In the end, I guess I'm just a bit like that little kid, who still thinks planes and things with big engines are still pretty cool. Ah well. These guys were amazing though, absolutely unreal.  And now on to Stats...