Asbury College at the Olympics

Today is my fourth day at Cesana Pariol. It really is quite enjoyable here. The work is good and it’s been a lot of fun hanging out with my coworkers. I worked two days, had the third off, and then went back to work again today.

What I am enjoying the most about work is the chance to create practicle innovation. Before I came to Italy, I was reading a book entitled The Ten Faces of Innovation. This book traces design firm IDEO’s strategies for cultizating innovation in organizations. I feel like my work days so far have helped me to understand and experience some of these “faces� in a very elementary way.

During my second day of work, for instance, we were handed shovels and ice picks and told to rake out the snow from around the various buildings that the bulldozer couldn’t reach. We did this for a long time. But my coworkers and I started to notice that our work really wasn’t doing much. Many areas were still quite slick, others deep puddles of mud. Without the prompting of our managers, we decided to quietly collect all of the tossed-aside wooden palattes from around the compound and place them in front of the entrances to all of the buildings. Instead of simply removing all the snow, we actually used the snow to make the palattes level and balanced, as well as to anchor them into place. Now, three days later, the palates are actually frozen securly to the ground. These palattes have prevented people from slipping on ice and stepping into mud puddles and have acted as a type of stair to make entry just a bit easier. To me, the palattes were a practicle way that we were able to spot a problem and create a solution with the material that we had.

Today I had another chance at innovation. When we arrived, the most-trafficed ground in the center of the compound was a solid sheet of ice, making walking very slow and dangerous. Our first assignment of the day was to fix that problem. Traditionally, that simply meant breaking through the ice with the picks and shovels. The first innovative idea was to use hot-water from the office coffee maker to help melt through the ice. I poured four or five batches of water onto the ice as a couple of the other guys kept pounding away.

Eventually, we succeeded in digging a sidewalk-type ditch six inches through the ice to the ground below. The path started just outside the entrance to the main office and continued about 10 feet outward. At this point, our job was done according to our manager. But, upon consulting with my coworkers, we decided that the ditch solution would not last. Tomorrow, after the ice melted and re-froze in the ditch, the situation would be reset and we would have to do the same ice-breaking task day after day.

So, the group creatively collected cardboard and wood and began filling the ditch with these items. The plan was to elevate the sidewalk above the ground so that water would drain off to the sides and ice would not form on our path. We topped off the cardboard and wood with a bag of gravel that we had in storage. Our bosses again assured us that that was fine. So, we would move on to other projects. But, when there was downtime again, I would go back to work on the sidewalk. To me, it still wasn’t lasting enough. I had to be resourceful, though, because there was no more gravel available. My solution was to go behind the buildings and collect gravel and dirt and transport it by shovel to my path. At the end of day, I quietly grabbed a shovel load of salt to top of the sidewalk. Tomorrow, I’m confident that amongst a sea of slippery ice, the elevated path of gravel will be firm beneath people’s feet.

The sidewalk was innovative in many ways. When our managers urged us to quit (little picture), we continued to improve (big picture). Improve in spare time, that is; I was very intentional to communicate that if they needed me to do anything, I would immediately get to it. We had to penetrate the beuoracracy in order to innovate. We also had to be very resourceful: cardboard from the garbage, wood from broken palattes, and gravel from behind the buildings. All in all, working under managers and with coworkers is teaching me a lot about how to get other people on board in order to bring about creative, more effective new solutions while not get shot down by the bosses.

I really like the people that I’m working with. They are all a lot of fun. Heather, an Asburian, is the only non-Italian of our 8-person logistics team. Suprisingly, I am the youngest of the group while one of my roommates, Eros, is the oldest at 32 (but he seems like he’s about 25). Most of the group is studying at the university in Torino. We eat breakfast together, go to work together, and many times eat and hang out at night together, as well.

Yesterday, a day off for everyone (our venue was being secured by the police), was especially enjoyable. After sleeping in and going to breakfast, we went to lunch at a crepery, which was quite good. Afterwards, we walked around Cesana for a bit before heading over to Stefano’s appartment (Stef is my other roommate). Stef’s family has a vacation house here.

We played Monopoly. But not just any Monopoly, a really old version of Italian Monopoli using the old Lyra currency. All the property names were very different, and figuring out what the chance and community chest cards said was always a trip (no pictures). But, nevertheless, I won hands down after achieving a great strike of luck. I landed on the Italian equivalent of Park Place my first trip around the board and, on my next turn, rolled double ones (i.e. Boardwalk).

That evening we went to the store bought the supplies for a meal. We had a good time of just hanging out and taking it easy.