· 6 years ago · Oct 11, 2019, 09:08 PM
1# Need Finding Interviews
2
3
4## Interview 1:
5* name: Annika Kouhia / Morgan Sorbaro
6* date: 09/23/2019
7* occupation: Dartmouth Professor
8* location: Fairchild
9* interview partner: Professor Sneddon
10
11### Some potential questions to get you started
12
13* What does your day to day life look like?
14 - Weekday: wife works really early, so wake up and grab coffee and hang for an hour. Drive/bus/bike in to campus.
15 6-7 hours here, 8:30-3:30 or 4:00. Chair of Geography goes to a lot of meetings. Better day gets to speak with
16 students. Sneak in writing and coordinating research projects and travel and such. Go home and have dinner and
17 read/TV and don't align TV watching.
18* What are the hardest parts of your day? In general/long term?
19 - Allergies
20 - Coordinating multiple tasks and talking to everyone as the chair
21 - Being in the right place at the right time for the right meeting
22 - Everyone here is pressed for time
23 - No easy solution?
24 - Tried to use planners and such but by the time you set everything up you're late for a meeting
25 - Infinite resources: more people who could share chair duties and help organize things
26 - Time management resources
27* If you had a lot of skills and money, what would you make or do?
28 - Like to fund unusual research projects in the social sciences
29 - Especially projects that are traditionally risk or not amenable to traditional funding resources
30 - Geo colleagues in Southern Africa or projects that are conceptually challenging or would require
31 major political and social changes
32 - Actually implementing changes that they suggest!
33* What is a time that you were pissed off at something?
34 - A week away Sunday work hit and colleagues hit too
35 - Behaving badly
36 - Holding back the immediate response because you're angry
37* What is a time you noticed a clever solution to something?
38* What are some things you like?
39* What do you dislike?
40 - People who are super narcissistic
41 - Behavior that is racist, sexist, homophobic
42 - ALERTING KIDS WHEN THEY ARE TYPING SOMETHING BAD? APP FOR PARENTS TO TEACH KIDS WHEN THEY CAN'T BE WATCHING
43 THEM 24/7
44* Products that you wished existed?
45* Could you tell me story about a time you ______?
46* What was your best/worst/craziest/most memorable experience with (area of focus)?
47* What would I find surprising about . . .?
48* OTHER NOTES
49 - Dont let cynicism stop you from trying
50 - Start locally with self and don't stop there when it comes to environmental change
51 - Structures in society that we bang our heads against
52 - Then the changes you implement are far more tangible
53 - Helping people not be paralized by inability to fix massive issues???
54 - Minimizing plastic and waste that we produce
55 - At home we compost, we recycle, we reuse but we are still an average American household
56 - Economy is dependent on these issues as well
57 - Why are people not putting in the effort
58 - Anything I do at an individual level isn't going to make a difference
59 - The cognitive frames that you build over the years keeps you on your tracks
60 - Cynicism
61 - Acknowledgment
62 - Not denialists, but we don't ACKNOWLEDGE IT
63 - Science education to instill, doing a better job
64 - Sheer laziness?
65 - Ideas:
66 - Does this have a rating? When buying things? Hard to focus on the Amazon specifically?
67 - If it's from somewhere else is it any better?
68 - Geospatial data that exists in really interesting forms
69 - Transformative technologies that help people visualize and see what they're doing
70 - Forest watch: map timber concessions throughout the regions so if local communities want to know why
71 parts of the forest are disappearing
72 - Forestwatch.com has cool APIs
73 - Conflict between environment and economy
74 - Amazon is such a special case since it's globally significant
75 - A lot of interest now in using maps and social media in a way that tracks environmental changes
76 - "Citizen Science"
77 - So many more data points to work with when people are out there making data points
78 - Sharing data about the impact of different things on the environment around you
79 - Anecdotal evidence (may be more important than the actual data)
80 - Someone's burning the forest, someone's building a dam
81 - But a lot depends on the type of government you have (no space for non profits or advocacy groups)
82 - Students, international organizations, sharing that type of organization
83 - Can't protest in Laos, but can protest in Thailand if the company is Thai
84
85### Record Any Observations
86
87* What were they doing while you asked them stuff?
88 * Sitting in Professor Sneddon's office, just talking
89* Any particular reactions / emotions during the interview or specific questions?
90 * Professor Sneddon felt strongly about how difficult it is to make real change without sweeping political and
91 social reform, but he also felt strongly that we can't let that sort of cynicism stop us from trying
92 * This is a wall Morgan and I had run into a few times before, but it was encouraging to have someone who knows
93 so much about systems and societies tell us that even though this wall exists doesn't mean we shouldn't try to
94 tackle it
95
96### Reflect / Conclusions
97
98* were there any problems or stories that made you think, "how might we help __ do __?"
99 * Professor Sneddon suggested we look into mapping, which originally confused me, but then he explained that there's
100 TONS of cool mapping data publicly available that we could leverage to make new insights about the world and
101 the environment. GIS systems, etc.
102 * We also spoke about how difficult it is to give a product or food an environmental "rating" because so many companies
103 use ingrediants that are from ALL over the world and go through a chain of actors before reaching a factory which means
104 it's super hard to track their exact environmental impact. For a long time I kept thinking, "Well, we can't go down
105 this road because step 1 would be getting huge corporations to do this work and give us the data to use", but all of a
106 sudden I thought maybe the reason they don't is because they don't have a platform that makes it easy! So maybe making
107 a platform for companies that can actually help them analyze the lifecycle of each of their ingrediants. I was
108 especially interested in this because I took a GEO class last spring called Food and Power that talked about this
109 issue within the food industry specifically a TON.
110* what are some HMW statements you can draw from this conversation?
111 HMW use publicly available mapping data to inform the general public about the state of the earth and environment?
112 HMW make it easier for big companies to track their environmental footprint and the lifecycle of their products?
113* for your favorite:
114 * who is the target audience?
115 Big companies--maybe just food industry based?
116 * what would the problem statement be?
117 The food industry lacks an effective measurement of the environmental footprint of the products each company circulates.
118 We believe this is because many large companies use products that have progressed through a series of actors before
119 reaching their final destination, making it difficult to track the lifecycle of each product's ingrediants. By
120 creating a product which streamlines this process, companies can more easily regulate and stay informed on their
121 environmental footprint, hopefully making the data public and using this as an incentive to decrease their impact
122 on the environment.
123 * what would a potential solution be?
124 We would have to do a lot of research to get the exact pain points of these large corporations (and the people in
125 charge of sustainability within them), but a lot of articles have been written about this and in my Food and Power
126 class we spoke to a few Dartmouth alums working at companies like Cargill and General Mills who were super friendly
127 and offered to speak to any of us again if we had more questions. Then I think it would just be about creating a web
128 platform which easily tracked data and the lifecycle factors (origin, transport, line of custody, chemical processes,
129 etc.) of each product and coming up with some sort of environmental rating based on these.
130
131
132
133## Interview 2:
134* name: Annika Kouhia/Morgan Sorbaro
135* date: 09/20/2019
136* occupation: Professor
137* location: Sudikoff
138* interview partner: Tim Pierson
139
140### Some potential questions to get you started
141
142* What does your day to day life look like?
143 * Like everyone else's. School year: prep for class, answer student questions, meet with people, class time, research/grant writing and getting to agreement.
144 * Creepy things that are going on that are concerning from a security and privacy POV
145* What are the hardest parts of your day? In general/long term?
146 * In research it's hard to stay ahead of what everyone else is doing--like the MIT team getting your HR wirelessly
147* If you had a lot of skills and money, what would you make or do?
148 * Make something that would help people who are struggling
149 * No specific issue at this point
150* What is a time that you were pissed off at something?
151 * Watching daughter's soccer game and other player shoved her after CONCUSSIONS
152* What is a time you noticed a clever solution to something?
153 * Strip out the green componenet and as your heart beats you can detect in the green component a change in skin color
154 * Made an app called Card.io which
155* What are some things you like?
156* What do you dislike?
157* Products that you wished existed?
158 * Wish there was something that would help me recognize people as they came up to me and remember what we had talked about last
159* Could you tell me story about a time you ______?
160* What was your best/worst/craziest/most memorable experience with (area of focus)?
161* What would I find surprising about . . .?
162
163* IMPOSTER SYNDROME: FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT
164 * Showing up to Tuck everyone else went to Harvard//I can't believe how lucky I am to be here
165 * This is fine I'm going to make it through this
166 * Is there anything that would have helped you get to that realization sooner?
167 * Dawn after the first few exams that he was doing fine
168 * Getting feedback sooner rather than later would have been potentially helpful
169 * Somewhat related to Kotz' work on stress management--how can we detect when stress is hitting
170 * How can we mitigate that stress? How can we keep people healthier by lowering stress
171 * MAYBE LOOK BACK AT EVOLUTIONARY MEDICINE CLASS
172* SUSTAINABILITY/ENVIRONMENTALISM
173 * I wish I did
174 * At one point was invovled with a group that was considering buying and installing wind turbines
175 * Super interesting to do some research on how turbines work
176 * The closest you've been to sustainable organization
177 * It's not that I don't care, it's that I don't feel like I do enough
178 * I try not to take the straw when I don't need one
179 * I haven't moved into a YURT
180 * But I live in a house
181 * Why not?
182 * Awareness? Time? Knowledge? Resources?
183 * I try to do the right thing but I FEEL like I'm not making that big of an impact
184 * Would, but my suscpicions are that I miss opportunities
185 * Really just not knowing what we can and should do
186 * Why haven't you looked online
187 * There needs to be a catalyst to say go do this NOW
188 * A trigger event
189 * Daughter walked up to a construction crew and turn off things you're not using
190 * Contact principal of middle school
191 * Education that makes children more aware
192 * I wish I were doing better I'm just not
193
194### Record Any Observations
195
196* What were they doing while you asked them stuff?
197 * Sitting in his office in Sudikoff chatting
198* Any particular reactions / emotions during the interview or specific questions?
199 * Professor Pierson is really passionate about research and security specifically (as of now) so whenever we talked
200 about cool new research and the potential security and privacy implications he had a lot he wanted to share. He also
201 has THE CUTEST daughter who has a funny and unique point of view. It was fun to hear about his daughter's take on
202 the world and the ways in which children perceive things differently than adults do. Sometimes this unique perspective
203 is exactly what we need to get a bump out of the rut we get stuck in of expectations of how things work and reliance
204 on norms.
205
206### Reflect / Conclusions
207
208* were there any problems or stories that made you think, "how might we help __ do __?"
209 * I liked hearing about Professor Pierson's daughter and her stories, but it wasn't until later when I was talking to
210 a friend about education and sustainability that I thought back to Professor Pierson's daughter and her unique
211 perspectives. The malleability of children's perspectives on the world and their changing ideas about how things work
212 and what they expect from the world around them means children's education is CRUCIAL to the future of the world. This
213 made me think about making a sustainability platform specifically for children.
214* what are some HMW statements you can draw from this conversation?
215 * HMW ingrain a sense of responsibility in children for the world around them?
216 * HMW make sustainability fun and exciting for children?
217 * HMW ensure all children are getting some education in sustainability?
218 * HMW bring sustainable curriculum to elementary schools? (Favorite!)
219* for your favorite:
220 * who is the target audience?
221 * Elementary school classrooms (operated by teachers, for students)
222 * what would the problem statement be?
223 * The future of the world and the environment is often said to lie in the control of the next generation. The years
224 of growth and development during elementary school are incredibly crucial in terms of developing a sense of
225 responsibility for the world around you and thinking about how your actions affect the world we live in. In order
226 to raise a generation who thinks actively about the environment, we must instill these ideas and values from a
227 young age. This is best taught through experiential curriculum during those formative elementary school days.
228 * what would a potential solution be?
229 * Software or web app for teachers that guides them through an engaging and interactive study on the environment
230 and the importance of sustainability in our world today. We want to make teaching these things SO easy that there's
231 no reason to skip it. We should reach out to people familiar with education--specifically elementary age education
232 --in order to understand the best way to convey this information and what tools would be useful in this setting.
233
234
235
236
237
238## Interview 3:
239* name: Annika Kouhia
240* date: 09/19/2019
241* occupation: Student
242* location: Dartmouth College
243* interview partner: Madison Hazard
244
245### Some potential questions to get you started
246
247* What does your day to day life look like?
248 * Very different at school vs at home. At school it's classes, then attempt to do work, then do other fun things but dont schedule them. "I should be doing work".
249 * "I should be doing work" with jobs and classes and stressors it's hard to block out time for something undetermined
250 * Makes it hard to prioritize
251 * Feeling guilty when you have two hours and you do less than you want to
252 * Running between things makes it hard to tell why you're doing one thing or another
253 * Mindfulness is difficult, blocking off time but doing less
254* What are the hardest parts of your day? In general/long term?
255 * Prioritization. Minute to minute. Hard to balance having long term goals in terms of direction but also flexibility! I have 10 nebulous things that I want to do or try
256* If you had a lot of skills and money, what would you make or do?
257 * "I have no idea"
258 * I so rarely have a back burner of lists of problems you've acknowledged and want to fix
259 * More of a running list of things you don't like
260* What is a time that you were pissed off at something?
261 * Visceral: Sig Nu doesn't have hot water. Boiler didn't get restarted. Came back from the gym at 10pm to no shower. Very upsetting
262 * Traffic, webpages that are slow and won't tell you
263* What is a time you noticed a clever solution to something?
264 * Feeling of "damn okay that's clever" most recently: checking signs of two numbers, make a fake matrix and it will tell you
265* What are some things you like?
266* What do you dislike?
267 * Social settings that you don't know but you have to step into
268* Products that you wished existed?
269 * Buy in for VR, self driving cars!
270 * Unless you get machine learning to the point
271 * Putting wearables in clothes
272 * Epigenetic data
273 * Large data in health care--the amount of research you could do if you gave them genetic information and could TRUST it
274* Could you tell me story about a time you ______?
275* What was your best/worst/craziest/most memorable experience with (area of focus)?
276 * Composting/Recycling
277 * Did a science fair experiment on compost and it was the roguest thing I've ever done and it didn't work at all
278 * Took temperature to see if composting was happening
279 * Daily routine used to be go to school, come back, take compost temperatures
280* What would I find surprising about . . .?
281
282### Record Any Observations
283
284* What were they doing while you asked them stuff?
285 * We were just sitting at the table chatting
286* Any particular reactions / emotions during the interview or specific questions?
287 * Madison reacted strongly and went into detail when talking about how he felt pressured
288 to always be doing something and how he felt like he always COULD be doing work.
289 He said it made him feel guilty during the times when he wasn't doing work or searching
290 for jobs, ultimately making it harder for him to enjoy the free time he did have.
291
292### Reflect / Conclusions
293
294* were there any problems or stories that made you think, "how might we help __ do __?"
295 * Madison's strong reaction to feeling pressure made me thing of Dartmouth's "floating duck phenomenon" which
296 conveys the feelings that many students have that everyone else is doing well and they are the only ones struggling
297 when in reality everyone is stressed and nervous and having difficulty with SOMETHING. The floating duck
298 metaphor encapsulates this with the idea that you see a duck floating serenely on the water, but can't see that to stay afloat
299 it's paddling frantically just below the surface.
300* what are some HMW statements you can draw from this conversation?
301 * HMW... help students to have a more realistic view of the status of their peers compared to themselves? (FAVORITE)
302 * HMW... help students to understand that everyone has challenges and successes?
303 * HMW... make Dartmouth an environment that promotes self-care rather than feelings of guilt?
304* for your favorite:
305 * who is the target audience?
306 * The target audience is college students, but could be expanded to include young professsionals or high
307 schoolers as well (maybe target imposter syndrome)
308 * what would the problem statement be?
309 * In colleges around the country America's next wave of bankers, businessmen, politicians and entrepreneurs
310 are being stunted by incredible pressure. At competitive schools, high achieving students are failing to
311 recognize their full potential as they fall victim to imposter syndrome and unhealthy mental outlooks. In
312 order to help the next generation succeed, we must address this issue and create a comprehensive product
313 which will help them to manage their time, thoughts and confidence.
314 * what would a potential solution be?
315 * Some sort of app where we can congregate data, advice, or time management/mental health tips and tools to help
316 young professionals, college students and even high school students manage their time, confidence and expectations.