Changes are taking place quickly here in the internship program! These are actually updates from a month ago, but things have been so fast-paced that I haven't had time to write about them until now.  

I used to be concerned about starting up intern mentoring (as I've mentioned before). The intern retreat we held convinced me that senior interns actually wanted to be relied on as experts. I was still worried that setting up interns to mentor each other might be logistically difficult.  

Well, I should have trusted more in the skills of my intern crew. When Ryan started up in early June, I told him to ask Mark and Jeysree (two senior interns) questions. Both of them were extremely helpful in getting him started. Besides saving me work, this had two unexpected benefits: I got to see how other interns did tasks (which allowed me to make corrections), and it built morale between the interns.  

Our first completely intern-planned ownership initiative was completed, as well! Jeysree and Mark carried out the first of the Community Office Hours successfully. Now that Mark and Jeysree will both be gone from the office, I'll have my first practice transitioning a project to a new set of interns.  

Last month I also started Jeysree on our first official Learning Project. The idea of the Learning Projects is that we will offer interns specific skills to learn, and assign them a project (e.g., an ownership initiative) that will force them to practice this skill. The ultimate goal is for them to become proficient at a new skill.  

Jeysree was working with the Prezi presentation platform (prezi.com). I haven't quite figured out a way to integrate learning projects, though - they sit a bit uncomfortably alongside the ownership initiative structure. Ideally they would mesh, but I'm having trouble finding ways to work them together. Perhaps I need to spend more time matchmaking between interns, skills they'd like to learn, and projects that could benefit from those skills.  

The success of the learning projects idea may depend on whether interns are more attracted to a project because of the skills it will offer them, because of the project itself, or because of the people already working on the project. If the latter two are strong attractors, I may need to focus on assigning learning projects to interns already on projects, rather than trying to match interns based on skills they want to learn.
 
 
My interns, apparently, aren't as wild about initiative as I thought they'd be. It turns out they want a bit more structure.

We recently had an Intern Retreat - we got all the interns together to talk about how things were going, and to ask them to suggest improvements. A few quick findings:
  • Everyone seems to really like the program - they had plenty of improvements to suggest, but hardly any complaints. I'm always open to complaints, so I don't think they were just biting their tongues out of fear.
  • Interns like the freedom they're given to dream up their own projects, but also really want some preapproved projects to choose from if they just want to get started on something.
  • Experienced interns really wanted more opportunities to act as leaders and help mentor newer interns. I've been wanting to start a mentoring program for a while, but feared that the older interns would view it as a hassle. Au contraire!
I'll write another post soon about the intern mentoring I've started up. I have also begun an Internships page of this website to describe what I've learned about starting and running an internship program. For now, I'll start with my biggest surprise, which was that most interns seemed to want more vetted projects.

When I dreamed up the idea of ownership initiatives, I thought the biggest appeal would be that interns could think up their own projects. One of the aspects of my job that I've always valued the most has been the freedom to initiate a project I thought would benefit the office, and I imagined interns would clamor at the opportunity to do the same. So I developed the ownership initiatives around the idea that interns would propose an idea, then investigate how to turn that idea into a feasible project.

Well, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that things don't always go as smoothly as I imagined. There are at least three things that stand in the way of my idealized vision:
  • Many interns - even motivated, creative interns - don't come in with a good understanding of what sorts of projects our office will want to take on.
  • Roadblocks, often completely unexpected, can derail good ideas, which is frustrating for interns.
  • Most of our interns are energetic and don't want to spend weeks investigating a potential project before getting started - they want to get started now.
What interns need is a pool of vetted projects they can get started on immediately, which have been cleared of roadblocks, and which I know will further the cause of our office (providing assistance to constituents, and providing a communication channel between constituents and Senator Steinberg).

The ownership initiatives now have a slightly different focus. Instead of trumpeting the benefits of being able to work on projects that interns can design on their own, we emphasize the appeal of having ownership (responsibility and commitment) over a project. We help new interns find places on existing projects. I spend time making sure projects aren't getting stuck. What I still need to implement is a list of fully-vetted projects with notes on how to get started.

Beyond that, I talk to interns about ideas they may want to pursue on their own. I know that there are interns who want to design projects of their own, and I want to make that possible. But I also realize that not everyone wants to invent a completely new program; they just want the opportunity to contribute something of value for which they will be recognized.
 
 
I've been slowly trying to get interns to work together more. I've been doing it both with my Davis Dollars interns and with my interns in Senator Steinberg's office, with different strategies.

I think it's important for a lot of reasons.
  • It develops the interns' skills, initiative, and responsibility to be accountable to each other.
  • Two heads are better than one - they can think of more ideas together than they'd be able to think of working alone on their projects.
  • This allows me to tap into the creativity and intelligence of every intern. I can't think of everything. That fact is obvious, but assigning tasks unilaterally only makes sense if I believe I can think of everything we should do, and how we should do it. By allowing interns to talk about what to work on and how to accomplish it, they can come up with ideas I would not have thought of.
  • It removes me as a bottleneck - when I need to assign tasks for everyone, it means interns are stalled if they need to wait to hear back from me. By delegating some authority to the intern teams, they can bypass me. This requires some watching, however, to make sure I approve of what they're working on.
There are different ways I'm having interns work together. My Davis Dollars interns work in small teams (2-3 people per team) to focus on different things. Two interns work on business outreach. Another is working on community outreach, which is broad enough that she helps other interns out as well as doing her own projects. Another intern works on our Gardenscaping project to create gardens for people in Davis, and she has some auxiliary interns helping her out, which I've helped recruit. Yet another intern helps other groups by working on design issues (creating publications, logos, etc.). Grouping them up this way has been tremendously successful in that it capitalizes on their good ideas and reduces pressure on me to think of everything.

In Senator Steinberg's office, I've been a bit less successful in thinking of ways to get interns to work together. They work together on their ownership initiatives, but I’ve had more trouble finding ways for them to work together on their core tasks of writing response letters and working on casework. Many of these core tasks are (to my mind) highly individual tasks that are difficult to split up.

I’ve been thinking of broader ways to get interns to work together, though. Working together doesn’t necessarily require splitting a task down the middle. Rather than assigning individual tasks to interns, I could allow them to create a division of labor by assigning a block of tasks to a group of interns, and allowing the interns to split the tasks between them. This would give them more initiative and make them partners in figuring out the best way to get through all the tasks. My current method commoditizes both the tasks and the interns by making piecemeal work out of something that could benefit from more creative thinking.

I did notice yesterday that two interns who were just starting out spontaneously started helping each other with tasks. Lucy, one of the interns, has already shown more initiative than average, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when she started helping Rochelle (who is a bit newer than Lucy). But I could also encourage teamwork by assigning each new intern to a more senior intern, and ask that senior intern to be responsible for guiding and mentoring the younger intern.

What are your thoughts? Do you have suggestions? How do you work with interns?
 
 
I manage all the interns at my job in Senator Steinberg's office, and have recently implemented a leadership development program called Ownership Initiatives. I'll write more in the future about how the program is going, but it's best to start with the description of the project I wrote, and which I ask our interns to read:

We believe interns should be able to take on projects of interest - what we call "ownership initiatives", because we want interns to take ownership over the projects.

How it works

Nick will talk to you about what sorts of initiatives you're interested in. (See some initiative ideas below.) You, he and Susan will meet to talk about which is the most feasible, how best to accomplish it, and what deadlines are reasonable.

Nick will also assign you "core tasks" each day, which you must finish before working on your initiative. These are the tasks that it is important for our office to complete, such as writing response letters, casework, printing certificates, addressing constituent inquiries, and answering the phone. Nick will give you a fixed number of tasks each day, plus a share of any tasks that come in that day (e.g. new cases).

It is expected that you will finish your core tasks in the first part of the day, and then move on to work on your initiative. You should talk to Nick if you are having difficulty accomplishing all your core tasks. It is also expected that you will set feasible goals for your initiative, and accomplish those on schedule.

How you should start

Read this page, and browse through the list of initiatives below. Think about your own interests and passions, and how they might fit in to various projects.

Talk to Nick about your interests, and mention any projects you've thought of that aren't on the list already. He and other staff will think about what sort of project would be feasible to start with. We'll try to generate several options, at which point you have come to the Investigative phase of the process.

Investigative phase of the initiative

Like most real-world projects, your ownership initiative may not be well-defined from the start. It's possible you'll start working on an existing initiative, but it's equally likely you'll want to start working on a project that doesn't have clear boundaries. A big part of being successful is being able to (1) accept ambiguity, and (2) take actions to bring clarity to your efforts. Even if a project is already well-defined, your role in the project may be initially be vague. To begin your initiative, you'll need to do a bit of investigation and legwork to define the purpose and boundaries of the project, or of your involvement with the project.

You can consult with staff for advice on the investigative phase; here are some general strategies for clarifying your initiative:
  1. Talk to the point person on the project - that may be a member of the district staff, capital staff, majority caucus, or even possibly someone else. Ask them lots of questions about the nature of the project and how you can get involved; try to pin them down on lots of details. You should have a very clear understanding of what you'll be doing - try explaining your role to someone else, and if you find difficulty explaining something, you should go back to ask the point person more questions.
  2. Call other staff and offices working on the project (ask staff in our office for advice on who to talk to) about how you can help. This is important because you won't always be able to reach your point person immediately. It shows initiative that you're ready to move forward with the project even though your point person hasn't given you specific tasks yet.
  3. Do some research on the project, to figure out what else we might be able to do to help the project. This could mean calling a relevant state agency, calling some organizations with expertise in the relevant area, or looking around online for resources. (Talk to staff in our office before calling any outside organizations to find out if there's anything sensitive you shouldn't talk to outsiders about.) From your research, you can make some suggestions to your point person. It's an important skill to be able to anticipate things the project might need, and generate options to choose from.

Pitching a potential project

Some initiatives on the list below, and some initiatives you'll think of, have been dreamed up by interns, or by Nick. If one of these catches your interest, your Investigative phase will be heavy on the research aspect - you'll need to define not only your role in the project, but the project itself.

You'll also have to pitch the project and gain approval for it. For some projects, this will be easy - it isn't hard to get approval to run a tree-planting project in a neighborhood, for example. Other projects will require significant research beforehand before pitching. If you want Darrell to carry a bill, for example, you'll have to do a lot of research, some of which will be necessary before you even float the idea with staff (talk to Nick before embarking on anything).

Potential projects may not be approved, so talk to Nick and other district staff to get advice on how to improve your chances. This shouldn't discourage you from pursuing an initiative of your own design, though. Project proposals in the real world don't all get accepted, either. Even if your proposal isn't accepted, you'll earn the respect of the staff you work with.

Initiatives

  • Medium-term (1-3 months to complete)
    • Supporting the Arts (Jen)
    • Student Summit (Anthony, Leslie)
    • Autism Select Committee (John, Anthony, Leslie, Erik)
  • Very long-term (more than 6 months to complete)
    • Student Created Bill (Adam)

Potential Initiatives:

  • Short-term (a month or shorter to complete)
    • Constituent resources to the website (Mohamed did some work on this)
    • Tax Assistance Workshops - these are workshops that we need help in running/attending
    • Cash For College (CFC) Workshops - these are workshops our office is helping with; we could use more help on them
      • 1/13 SCOE event putting together packets for upcoming CFC workshops
      • 2/27 Woodland event; they especially need Spanish speakers.
    • A public, community map with resources on it. Does something like this already exist? It might make sense to augment an existing map, instead of creating one new. Consider what map capabilities exist (google maps, communitywalk.com, etc.).
    • Develop resources or procedures to increase our efficiency in the office (past examples are this wikidot, and our online district map)
  • Medium-term (1-3 months to complete)
    • Organize a tree-planting in a neighborhood
  • Long-term (3-6 months to complete)
    • District events - You could organize a new district event, or take responsibility for one aspect of an existing event (e.g. organizing the entertainment for an event, or handling outreach to organizations)
      • Volunteer Fair (talk to Nick)
      • Passport to Summer (organized by Diana)
      • Graduation event (organized by Ana)
      • we have other events, and you may have your own idea for an event
    • Community projects:
      • Organize crop swaps in a neighborhood
      • Help a neighborhood grow more of its food in gardens
      • Help a neighborhood association (or other community organization) set up a blog, website, newsletter, internship program, or something similar
    • Develop better ways to reach out to constituents. Some examples:
      • Hold "office hours" at regular times in certain places (e.g. farmers markets, on college campuses); staff will answer questions, take cases, and help people get more involved. This could possibly be in coordination with supervisors, councilmembers, and the Mayor's office.
      • Send out a questionnaire (by mail and/or email) asking people what issues are most important to them, or asking them for thoughts and suggestions.
      • …other ideas for constituent outreach you may have?
    • Design cartoons to explain general processes (e.g. how the budget process works) or specific occurrences (e.g. exactly what's going on with the cuts, or the importance of the water bond initiative), to be spread through email, mail, and fliers to constituents
  • Very long-term (more than 6 months to complete)
    • Research a potential bill for Darrell to carry. Some ideas:
      • Legalize growing and selling food from a home garden plot
      • Run a "students sponsor a bill" project, in which a high school or college class puts together bill ideas for Darrell to review, and works with Darrell to carry the bill through the legislative process
      • …other ideas?
  • Other types of projects:
    • Capitol Office projects - the CO may have projects they need help with