Science policy program

My system architecture prof. Crowley spoke at White House after President Obama's Science Policy Announcement.

Odor

Before Spring Break, I met one biology student at laundry room, who told me that is her first time to do laundry in the spring semester. I could not believe it until I see how many load of clothes she is doing. Lately I have been sit next to a few 'smelly' students in the class, or some students hair have been clearly standing up, I wonder if there is a ratio between stress and hygiene cleaning practice.

Now CNN has a video.

Celtics

Boston's weather is like little baby's face, one moment with rain and wind, another moment has 80+ degree. That was what we had on Tuesday. Suddenly I realized that I have not prepared summerish clothes here :( But outside blooming cherry trees totally let you forget that short moment of concerning 'what to wear'. I took time walking by Charles river, all what I could say is 'WOW', never thought this part of Cambridge/Boston beauty, which is totally stunning. A lot of boats by the river. One of my classmates asked me to take Sailing class since we all can get a sailing card here and MIT has a great collection, why not.

This afternoon I had the most disagreed talk from one of my class. The prof. has strong opinions about believing to bring manufactor back to Europe and U.S., and think regulation is the fundamental reason to drive companies' innovation. I challenged with facts of U.S. skip building plants domestically but another country. The current high tax has not helped U.S. economic development. NYTimes Friedman's column has one article about his interview with Intel CEO last month. Though we all have our own opinions, the great part of this talk, or should say the great part of MIT is to tolerate everyone's opinion and everyone will listen instead of avoiding.

Then evening my CEO perspectives class has Celtics' CEO to speak. Have to admit, even for me, a totally non-sports person, totally got fire up by his words, even want to see Celtics' place. Sports management is quite foreign to me, he really articulate well about how he transitioned himself from VC to own a basketball team, all about passion, about taking risks, trusting your guts feeling, on top of that, his wife really gave him huge support, despite they could potential lost all the deposit for purchasing the team, while other investors did not want to join. He credited to the people, let yourself surround with best people, aim high, as high as possible(do not set bar for life, but in short timer), and just hanging in there and be little longer, you will see. He started to tell us that he is not the best CEO but he learns and work hard, do not try to be one he is not.

This week I am reading book, very good one, comparing with first half-term user-center, user-driven innovation, this is quite different perspectives.

Breath in and Breath out

Have not updated blog for several weeks, just solid busy and constantly feel behind.

During Spring break, I went to Russia, mainly Moscow for a week, which was great. The moment I landed Boston, I was in the unstop clock, even busier than the time I left. Literally, I can see now is the heaviest time I have in MIT. After one week trying to catch up, especially friday to work late on papers, Saturday I was sort of on strike after finishing my reading. I need to be away from MIT campus, where should I go? search....

There is the World biggest Pillow fight in Boston on 3rd afternoon, well, I have to experience one, bring my pillow, heading to Harvard Spare, ready for a 'fight'. Really, how often can you hit someone, and still legal?? when i reached there, oh, my, I run to a group of very buff guys, asking if I could join, considering I am wearing glasses, now I am all set, throw the pillow to whoever I could see or not see... if adviser suggests that we need a break and should find a way to relief your stress, I am definitely doing that, soon, arms sore and I was out the fight.

Sunday is Eastern, for past several years I go to Dragt family to spend the day with them, join the family picture taken, oh, I miss them!! Fortunately, my Olympia friend Spee's daughter Anneke invited me to join her family to celebrate the day. She has a beautiful and cool daughter. the reason of being cool is that she does not do those screaming cry or whining sounds, not too shy, so, soon I got playing with her, feeding her(I only wonder after she has ate quite a few food, how come she is so skinny?? I asked the same question to Anneke.) and just bouncing her on my knee. I have to say, this is my best relaxing moment. What a joy to have a little one who keeps smiling face looking at you. I told Anneke that I should come here to play with Mary Lou often.

Keep breathing, I can do this!

a week of ups and downs

This week started with so many ups and downs. in the end, I would say, the journey is much more enriched and full of surprise.

Start on Monday, March 8th, do you know what day is that? I walked in my HAL lab, finding a beautiful bouquet on my table, soon I found out that our labmate Armin from Romania who bought all the flowers for all the ladies in the lab to celebrate this international women's day. Wow, for 11 years in U.S. this is the first time I know someone around who know this day. He told me that back his country on this day, every lady has flowers in her hands, which he wants to make sure we all have flowers, how sweet! I told him that back to China, ladies even have this day off, doing nothing and just enjoying, relaxing...




I started looking much pale, from short of sleep, having been consistently short of sleep. Finally my body fought back, I am sick. When you are sick, you miss all the familiar food and familiar friends, brain, eyes, nose and throat are all giving me red alarms...

For past 4 weeks, every Thursday we have two hours Clay Christansen's lectures. He's research and influence in technology innovation and development have been influnced over 20+ years of tech interested people. I read his book of innovator's dilemma three times already, still want to read again. This week, the lecture got changed to Tuesday. During last week one, he took 10 mins to go beyond research and academic study, advice us in personal life's choice and decision-making, at one moment, he was emotional and his word touch our hearts deeply. We could not believe that he could share with us so much personal life wisdom, the career, marriage, family and social responsibilities. He will start his kimo, I pray that he will go through this hard time and recover soon.



Tuesday night was SDM information session. Due to this year lack of enough ladies, only 4 women, I was invited to be on the panel facing all the potential applicants sharing my choice to SDM, experience so far. I really try to not give any bias opinion but to let them see the prons and cons. Looking at them, I was reminded of past couple years while I was searching, exploring options, wondering if that is the right one, questioning how this could help me grow professionally and personally. It was a long session, then I have a group meeting on the final preparation for Wed. presentation.

The presentation will be on Technology Strategy in Prof. Utterback class. Our topic is the diffusion of innovation and substitution, which covers in so many fields changes, how disruptive technology helps the business to be successful or fall out the market, how to analyze this chunk data have been challenging, plus, we delegate almost two books per person. Nowadays, the rate of my reading speed is improved, starting from wave shape to S-curve now(remember in our innovation book, we talked about S-curve so often!). I am one of presenters, and start first. This is one thing I told myself that I will volunteer for more public speaking to keep practice, actually, I really enjoy the public speaking but sometimes I speak too fast, or not articulate the thinking well, which should be one of my main focus to get better during the study.

This week is also the SDM business trip week. Only for the distance students, this is business trip, for rest of us, it is free lunches & dinners, more related speakers week. Michael Davis spoke about the product development and technology strategy, marvelous, which I will definitely take his course in the fall.

My CEO perspective course speaker this week is Donkin donut CEO, who brought so many donuts to lure our stomach, especially the new baking one. I did not know there will be food, plus, so sleepy, I came to the class with Starbuck's coffee, while the CEO asked me if I would consider to switch to his company's kind. Seriously I never try that one, plus being live in Washington, I got to like Starbuck's, so honest me telling him that I would prefer to stick with my favorite kind. That certainly lead us to some interesting discussions.

Thursday evening is SDM banquet. Oh, this program feed us too good, I really need to think about my weight. We had lobster with great wine. There are SDM'08,'09 and'10 there, what a good networking event! My table has so many fun smart and kind people, Super Matt works in the company in China, his efficiency working style totally wins him with the title of 'Super Matt', Swope with his wife who is expecting a baby in July(which he currently just acts like a kid :), I always consider him as the 'guard' of my team work before we submit since he can sharp the final draft to the next level, Vicent is such a good listener, which he still hold the 'grudge' to me while my team beats his team badly during power and negotiation class; Brian with his wife, who are serious runner, and huge motivation for us to get more invovle in community work; Donny, oh, great personality and you can always count on him if you need help.







Boston's weather is not getting nice at all, raining, no, should say pouring with crazy wind. I have been walking to the library with wet pants after walking outside. It certainly has not help my cold, soon my voice starts squeezy, like a duck!

Friday is my last H1 course on user-centered innovation. Solute to this wise professor Eric Von Hippel, not only teach us knowledge, but train our mind to think and learn how to analyze, esp. find the patterns among chaos of facts through the history.

There is definitely a down moment. "How can you communicate with others well?" becomes a fundamental challenge in one of my research project. How can you express your opinions, decisions, aline with the direction in a very professional way? This is academic field, a lot different with industry, but we all circle with "Communication", such a big word and require so much time to go through.

By end of Friday, it is draining, I could not go to SDM game night activity, instead, I was longing for some fun uplifting music, so I went to performance in Boston Opera House. Oh, this is a fabulous architecture, gorgeous, the performance is top of notch, some music, I almost want to sing along.

No doubt, I need to finish more assignment and catch up with my reading during the weekend. Since this is March 14th, Pi day, here at MIT, there is Pi competition tonight, coming to eat a pie, while watching people to compete with their Pi memory, so, how far can you remember pi? the winner got to 119 digits after decimal!!

close to the weekend -- Energy conference

March 5, after a long day classes and project meetings, I was so looking for the break, at 8 on campus there is Jazz performance. What could be more relaxing than going to a concert. There was one piece singing accompanied only by string bass, which made me miss my bass very much!

Saturday is MIT 5th Energy Conference.. This is such well-organized conference, with so many important players from corporate, government, industry, VC and Angel. From Technology to policy, from networking to business potentials, what global and industrial carbon emissions face. Energy, this is not my field, not quite something I know deeply, but in Jan. I did energy research and followed up what this trend is, finding this is quite interesting. The electric vehicle session is quite fun, what is car's future, how to short Hybrid, predict future will be completely EV after 10 years. For EV, it requires a lot of infrastructure changes, effective and useful milage balance, 3 primary charges location(home, work, shopping/parking locations). It got me, not a car fan, to get interests, esp. want to try BMW Mini E (completely EV).

Some highlights
---need government sponsorship on regulations and policies, but not to make decisions, only let capital market choose.
---U.S. is very behind this energy game and seriously needs to consider its position. For example, in nuclear energy part, U.S. did so much talking but no executing. Comparing with China, one of MIT professors pointed out how much he sees the immediate executing after making decision in China, but in U.S., people still do talk only. He pointed out that U.S. 'Visa Policy' is a problem, prevent U.S. getting more talented people involve in nuclear energy. He even spoke at congress, still do not see the improvement.( What a surprise to hear from this prof., and what a not surprise for me about this fact!)
---sequence: Government, research(academic, industry), angel, VB, corporate, capital market. Considering current situation, the capital market needs government's involvement to help out, only temporary, then go back to the circle again.

just so much information, very good discussion. I met people from all kinds of countries and industries, talking about how we can reduce energy usage, improve technology and keep innovative.

Now, I am so sleepy :)

fire alarm

This is a busy week, projects work, presentation and cases study, all my classmates feel the heat. I have not got much sleep. Thursday(March 4) night, I was reading my case study for business of software platform course, the fire arm went off. The speaker announced the evacuation.

I looked at the clock, almost midnight, and so much reading to finish. well, take my bag pack, coat and emergency bag(passport, legal docs and 3 days emergency kit) and run out. Every since my experience in Feb. 2000 Iowa middle of evening evacuation, I learned my lesson and prepared just in case.

It was cold outside. When you have so many students outside, you started chatting, i ended up meeting a Portuguese Ph.D. in energy, I got some basic energy 101 study from the conversation, while fire track got here. It was quite a scene. In the end, the cause of first floor big smoke and fire was generated in the kitchen. One of students misused the oven, instead of baking, she used boiling. Well, you can imagine that, somehow, the story is not new to me.

That was a long evening.