Assignment Description: What is your response to the dream day/survey of the past exercise? What did you learn about yourself and what you hope to achieve? What values and/or interests did you identify that will impact your future career (and internship search)?
I started writing this assignment with the intent of imagining my perfect work day at The Moth (my #1 internship pick), but I quickly realized that my perfect day encompasses more than what I could do at The Moth. I want to have great variety to my work, allowing me to plan, write, teach, facilitate, socialize, lead, etc. There are elements from The Moth in my dream day (the storyslams and marketing meeting), but editing the article and the workshops are not something I could do through The Moth (at least currently). This tells me that while right now my dream job is to work with The Moth, in my dream world, I will eventually move on from The Moth (or expand it) to develop my own projects. In my dream day, the organization I work for is running successful workshops I created. So, I know that in my dream job, I will be integral to the success of the organization. So, although I put status and prestige on the bottom of my Value Prioritization list, it does matter to me that my work will be used, appreciated and possibly even leave a legacy. I’m not as concerned that my name is attached to the work, but that the work is important to the organization. This also tells me that in my dream world, I am in a managerial position, possibly even a founder of the organization. Of course, my dream day comes after all the hard work that it took to get to that place.
Based on this dream day, I do have high autonomy over my schedule and my social life (another value that was low on my list). I don’t ever want my work life to take over my entire life. I like to have variety in my day and as seen in my Value Prioritization, socializing and discovery is important to me. Thus, I would want to find a job that allows me to have a life outside work and especially to experience other cultural events in my neighborhood. Also, while yet again I put physical challenge/prowess low on my value list, getting exercise and maintaining my health is important to me. I just don’t care about competition and physical prowess.
Lastly, this dream day truly reflects my ideals of live by doing, altruism and creativity. I find inspiration and motivation from activities that uphold these ideals, so in my perfect day, I feel fulfilled all day. I want to love what I do and to do that, I have to feel like I am helping others and helping myself grow and learn. I never want the sense of discovery to end. I have a feeling it never will.
Once you have finished the values prioritization worksheet complete the following:
What are your top 4-6 values? For each value, identify factors you will look for in an internship so as to live the value (be specific).
Top 6 Values
Note: I added some values in the space provided in the worksheet, so 3 of my top values come from my additions.
1) Community-based/grassroots: importance placed on community participation, public-participation; ground-up planning
This value is the basis for all my career choices and probably personal choices. Wherever I work, I want community participation to be a main objective. This idea was largely shaped by the Community Cultural Development class I took last quarter. I had already placed a high value on community driven work, but after taking that class, I realized the difference between top-down and ground-up organizations. It is hard to develop truly ground-up arts organizations (especially in education), but I would like to work with organizations that build from within the community, rather than bringing in art from the outside. But mostly, I want to work with an organization that works with a community to create art, that focuses on public participation in the arts.
2) Social Relations/Affiliation/Community/Cultural Identity/Family Orientation: Needing to have a supportive circle of friends inside or outside the work place. Belonging to a cultural, religious, or civic group. Strong emphasis on relationships, family, and friendships.
I am an extroverted person, so I know that I function best when surrounded by people. I go to cafes to do work, I develop friend groups for socializing, and depend on my friends for guidance and support. I also really enjoy feeling a part of a movement or organization. I stand in the middle of a crowd during a concert, I join clubs full of people with the same interests as me and I love working towards a cause with a group. Thus, it isn’t surprising that my number one value puts such a strong emphasis on community. I guess this means that I would want the organization I work at to have a strong cohesive group environment. However, I have worked at organizations that are very independent, so I developed a social atmosphere outside of work. In my ideal world, I have both, but as long as I have some supportive group atmosphere, I will be fine.
3) Live by doing: habits represent ideals, emphasis on acting on goals, make it happen attitude!
This is another value I added. I try to live by doing as much as possible. Part of this has to do with wanted to represent my values through my actions rather than through preaching (environmentalism for example). Also, I realized that if I want to develop a new skill or realize a goal, that I could just make it happen for myself, rather than wait for the right opportunity. I feel like this is how many young professionals make their start. They build their portfolio independently and then they can show employers that they are dedicated and self-motivated. This value is also very related to the Personal Development/Growth Orientation (#7). This would mean that the work environment I choose, will have opportunities for me to grow through doing, a very hands-on approach. This would also mean that I would want to pick a career that highly reflects my values, so that my work reflecting my values.
4) Altruism/Social Service/Helping Society and Others: Wanting to contribute to improving the human condition, society, and/or individuals’ quality of life.
I have a hard time imagining anyone wanting do something that didn’t contribute to society. I guess all kinds of jobs contribute in different ways, but I know that I would like to work on behalf of people, to help. My main hope is to work with people on the fringe of the art world, to help them interact with creativity and to express themselves. This isn’t what you usually think of when you think of altruism or social service. It has more psychological implications than physical, but it would still be improving people’s quality of life. Thus, I would want to work with an organization who’s mission (or specific department) is focused on working with these fringe communities, possibly an underrepresented community, people of low economic status or even a suburb/rural town.
5) Creativity/Creative Expression: Liking opportunities for experimentation and innovation, developing new ideas, programs, organization, solutions to problems, etc.
This value is also related to the values of Live by Doing and Personal Development/Growth Orientation. I try my best to work on developing my creative skills by taking on personal projects and challenges (30 Poems in 30 Days for example) and I would like my work environment to reflect that. I like to feel challenged and work towards goals, but I also like to feel I have the self-efficacy to accomplish said goals. Also, creativity and creative expression is my main interest and so I would want the organization I choose to also value them. As I mentioned, my hope is to help people be creative/express themselves creatively, so I am looking for organizations that help people do just that.
6) Flexibility/Discovery: willing to explore, change, adapt; emphasis on experiencing surroundings.
This is another value I added. It is highly related to the value Change/Variety/Excitement/Work on Frontiers of Knowledge, but not exactly. It’s not that I’m seeking out change, but that I want to be willing to let change happen. I love discovering new ideas and acting on them (yet again related to personal growth). I also love to explore my surroundings which I think relates to building or getting to know your community. So, whatever internship I find, I would also appreciate the opportunity to explore the area outside of work, to discover new interests and opportunities.
Here are images of the full list from the Value Prioritization worksheet. Click to see larger.
I interviewed Danielle Walter about her research project. I chose to interview Danielle because I knew that she was pretty far along with developing her research and that she was working with Animating Democracy to publish her work. However, I didn’t realize she was doing the Research Capstone, which I’ didn’t think I’m interested in doing. However, she did bring up some great points about how the Research Capstone can help you stay on track with your research since you are doing your research with a class schedule. I know that a lot of the 2nd years are struggling with a lack of schedule and motivation, so that is something I should definitely consider in my process. Also, what I found interesting in Danielle’s track towards developing her project was that she didn’t chose her internship based on her research. The internship reaffirmed the need for her research, but it wasn’t exactly related with her research. This is much different to my approach. It’s good to know that your internship doesn’t necessarily have to line up with your research. She also said that something important to think about is what I want the final product of my research to look like? How do I want it to be used? I feel as though I have an idea of the final product, but that will vary greatly upon the organization I work with. Perhaps I should develop a topic that is not so dependent upon an organization. With that said, here are my learning goals:
Research Methods:
Studying case studies: How many case studies? Will I be able to draw larger conclusions by comparing these case studies? Do I need to pick case studies I have to physically visit?
Collecting narratives: How many narratives do I have to collect to constitute as a good sample? Are narratives seen as legitimate qualitative data? What kind of resources will I need to find to back-up trends found in the narratives? How will I find people to interview?
Literature review: Has someone already done research on my topic? What kind of research exists on storytelling? Will it be harder to apply my lit review to a Professional Project? What databases, search terms should I be using?
Learning Goals:
I will not decide on the path I will take too soon. I should use the resources and knowledge I gain this quarter (especially the Lit Review) to better shape my ideas and narrow my topic.
I will develop a better understanding of the various methods I can use to do my research.
I will search for related research and see what scholarship already exists around storytelling and creative expression.
I will do more research into the organizations I want to work with and try to discern if my ideas are feasible.
I will take advantage of all opportunities to gain insight into my research process and proactively seek out advice.
And no matter what, I will be excited about my research!
I have several research ideas, but I am fairly positive that I want to do the Professional Research Project. This is partly because I want to work with an organization to develop something useful, but also because I think it is the most practical method to furthering my career track. Thus, my project ideas are very based on which organization I work with and probably where I do my internship. I am thinking that my internship would be the perfect place for getting to know an organization and planning how I could work with them next year for my research project. So, here are the 3 internship sites I’m looking into and the related research ideas.
The Moth: How Storytelling Can Be Used as a Tool to Engage Fringe Communities with the Arts.
The Moth is a non-profit organization based out of New York that focuses on the art of storytelling. They have storyslams all across the country (one just opened in Portland and I even competed!) where anyone can come and sign up to compete. Their main production is the Moth Mainstage where they bring “luminaries in the arts and sciences, newsmakers and news breakers, and everyday heroes” to share their stories. They then broadcast these stories with a weekly radio podcast. But the department I want to work with is the educational department where they go out into under-represented communities and help people tell and record their stories. I would like to observe how they do this and learn from their techniques. Currently their educational program is only in New York, so my hope for the Professional Research Project is develop this educational program for other cities (possibly Portland or Chicago). I’m not sure what I would be creating yet: a toolkit, a demographic study, guidelines? But the idea is that I could work with The Moth to bring their educational program to other cities where their storyslam is already established. I would then use the development of this educational program and The Moth as a case study to discuss techniques on how storytelling can engage under-represented communities in the arts. Of course, this idea is all dependent on if The Moth would want to develop their educational program in other cities, but I could still use The Moth as a case study if that didn’t work out for this topic.
StoryCorps: Civic Dialogue around Public Opinion of Creativity
This topic was my original idea coming into the program. I wanted to collect narratives from people on how they relate to creativity. My main goal in my career is to work with people on the fringe of the art world, but to do that, I have to understand why people don’t engage with the arts. Thus, the idea to create a collection of personal narratives around their relation with creative expression came to fruition. StoryCorps would be a perfect partner for this project. “StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives.” By working with them, they could provide me with the materials and expertise to conduct this research. Also, my research could become a part of their archives with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. It could even be aired on NPR’s Fresh Air! My biggest issue with this path is that StoryCorps is more focused on oral history and I’m more interested in performance and creative expression. But if I did do this project, it might also be a topic that Reanimating Democracy would be interested in. Thus, I could potentially have two partners!
Digital Storytelling Center: How Digital Storytelling Can Be Used as an Instrument for Creative Expression (similar to first topic)
Lastly, there is the Digital Storytelling Center in Berkeley. They run workshops on helping people tell their stories through a digital format. They have a focus on how technology can help people express their creativity and share their stories. One strong positive about this project is that the Trauma Healing Project here in Springfield uses the Digital Storytelling Center’s methods and training to create their digital storytelling film festival each year. This would be a great opportunity to have a local case study. I’m not sure what project I would create with the Digital Storytelling Center yet. I do know that the Trauma Healing Project has to send their volunteers down to Berkeley to get trained. Perhaps I could help create a class here. Regardless, the Digital Storytelling Center would be a great case study!
Logbook Entry: Define and describe your cultural product. List and describe the unique challenges of marketing your cultural product.
I have decided to develop a marketing plan for ELAN: Emerging Leaders in the Arts Network’s annual fundraiser Beats & Brushstrokes. I am already on the marketing team and the Social Media Chair, so this will be a perfect fit. Plus, since the leadership for ELAN changes so often, this marketing plan will be a great tool for future leaders of the club.
Beats & Brushstrokes is ELAN’s biggest fundraiser and event of the year. It is a silent auction of art made from re-purposed records and records sleeves. All the proceeds from the event go to funding ELAN activities, namely Arts Venture. Therefore, the success of the event greatly affects the club’s future activities.
It is difficult to describe Beats & Brushstrokes as a cultural product. According to Francois Colbert, a cultural product benefits the customer, though this event is a fundraiser benefiting ELAN. So what is the customer benefit? From what I understand, a lot of people come to the event for a social atmosphere. Beats & Brushstrokes has become to be known as a great party. However, if ELAN’s express purpose is to raise money through the auction, the party atmosphere my not be the most appropriate. Furthermore, some people come to event intentionally to buy art. They are not as concerned with the social atmosphere and might even leave if the party becomes to raucous. This is why this year we are ending the auction in waves, so that the first half of the event will be more focused on the auction and second half can gather the party crowd. We are hoping that this format will satisfy more of customer’s wants and expectations.
Beats & Brushstrokes is a specialized purchase. People who want to attend will have to arrange their schedules, transport themselves to an unfamiliar venue, plan to spend money on art they’ve never seen before and stay until the auction is over. This event will take a large time commitment and ultimately faith from the attendee that their time will be well spent. Fortunately, Beats & Brushstrokes has built a reputation for itself, so many people will return having the past events as reference. But what about new attendees? How will we draw them in? I believe this is something I will have think about more, but for now I believe the description of the event and related services to auction are big draw. The ticket price is fairly cheap and includes food and drinks. There will be great music, an MC and a photo booth. Plus, a lot of interesting art. If we market these key factors (especially the drinks!), we may be able to draw in a new crowd. If anything ELAN (branding!) is fairly well known in the art circles of Eugene and will bring back supporters.
