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July 11 - 17
Our final presentation was yesterday. It was a good presentation. We met with Jason from INL at the Ecenter. We were there for about an hour. Robert, Andrew, Jordan and Sean All presented and were able to give a really good presentation. Jason said that he was really excited about the work that we had done and that it had helped out a lot. His biggest issue was the implementation of our findings. The majority of our findings came to intangibles. The intangibles were mostly pertaining to communicating with large alumni networks, employees with experience and culture. Having a culture of success is a big deal, because without it the employees don't have the drive to work hard and make successful transfers in technology. I am really excited to have done so well on our presentation. I am also grateful to have done this project because I have learned so much.
July 4 - 10
This was our last full week to spend working on our team project. On Tuesday this next week we have our final presentation. I think we are all pretty excited to be done and at the same time we are all excited to give our findings to INL. This week I worked on putting together the final product. I went to the writing center twice and was able to completely revise my part. I was also able to put together the slide of what was to be presented on part of BYU. On Thursday we had a practice presentation and we were able to be given pointers on how to adjust and better our presentation for Jason at INL. Our presentation was pretty good. But, we figured that having all of us present would be too much movement and it would distract from the presentation. Next week we have our presentation and we are done.
June 27 - July 3
This week we really worked on finalizing each of our parts to make sure that we had all the information we needed. We all wanted to make sure that we had the right amount of information to give a good amount of insight for Jason. I was able to add in more information from Dee and put in more information into my part of the report. I read through my report so many times I didn't know what was wrong with it. But after talking with Robert more. I could see that my report didn't seem very professional. I tried my best to reword it and wanted to see what Robert had to say. If it still isn't professional I am going to take it to the writing center to make it better.
June 20 - 26
For this week, we all added more information to our parts of our project. My entry today might be somewhat short. I went through the interview I had with Dee Anderson and added more information to the report. I have realized there are a few more things I probably need to ask him, so I'll email him this coming week. We didn't have a group meeting this week so we did phone calls. Robert our lead intern called us and talked to us about our submitted information and we also talked about how we were doing in the group project, if there was anything we could do better, and to keep up the good work! This next week I'm going to try to do some editing and final information. We are going to try to finish up my report so that I can help Andrew with the private industry part of the report.
June 13 - 19
So for this week we finished putting together a presentable copy of what we were going to present to Jason at INL for our second consultation. We all had our assignments in by Thursday morning. We were all prepared to meet with Jason that afternoon. Turns out he couldn't come up to Rexburg to meet with us. He had a time constriction. So we were able to have a telephone conference with him. We talked about what we were going to add to our parts and asked more about what else jason wanted to know according to the information that we had already given him. He pretty much told us that we were on the right track and that we just needed to get down to the nitty gritty. I think that most of us were able to get about 60% of our own parts of the project done. We still have quite a bit to go, but we are well on our way to getting this done. So the plan for this next week is to add more information to the paper and ensure that it is complete and edited in full.
June 6 - 12
Our final presentation was yesterday. It was a good presentation. We met with Jason from INL at the Ecenter. We were there for about an hour. Robert, Andrew, Jordan and Sean All presented and were able to give a really good presentation. Jason said that he was really excited about the work that we had done and that it had helped out a lot. His biggest issue was the implementation of our findings. The majority of our findings came to intangibles. The intangibles were mostly pertaining to communicating with large alumni networks, employees with experience and culture. Having a culture of success is a big deal, because without it the employees don't have the drive to work hard and make successful transfers in technology. I am really excited to have done so well on our presentation. I am also grateful to have done this project because I have learned so much.
July 4 - 10
This was our last full week to spend working on our team project. On Tuesday this next week we have our final presentation. I think we are all pretty excited to be done and at the same time we are all excited to give our findings to INL. This week I worked on putting together the final product. I went to the writing center twice and was able to completely revise my part. I was also able to put together the slide of what was to be presented on part of BYU. On Thursday we had a practice presentation and we were able to be given pointers on how to adjust and better our presentation for Jason at INL. Our presentation was pretty good. But, we figured that having all of us present would be too much movement and it would distract from the presentation. Next week we have our presentation and we are done.
June 27 - July 3
This week we really worked on finalizing each of our parts to make sure that we had all the information we needed. We all wanted to make sure that we had the right amount of information to give a good amount of insight for Jason. I was able to add in more information from Dee and put in more information into my part of the report. I read through my report so many times I didn't know what was wrong with it. But after talking with Robert more. I could see that my report didn't seem very professional. I tried my best to reword it and wanted to see what Robert had to say. If it still isn't professional I am going to take it to the writing center to make it better.
June 20 - 26
For this week, we all added more information to our parts of our project. My entry today might be somewhat short. I went through the interview I had with Dee Anderson and added more information to the report. I have realized there are a few more things I probably need to ask him, so I'll email him this coming week. We didn't have a group meeting this week so we did phone calls. Robert our lead intern called us and talked to us about our submitted information and we also talked about how we were doing in the group project, if there was anything we could do better, and to keep up the good work! This next week I'm going to try to do some editing and final information. We are going to try to finish up my report so that I can help Andrew with the private industry part of the report.
June 13 - 19
So for this week we finished putting together a presentable copy of what we were going to present to Jason at INL for our second consultation. We all had our assignments in by Thursday morning. We were all prepared to meet with Jason that afternoon. Turns out he couldn't come up to Rexburg to meet with us. He had a time constriction. So we were able to have a telephone conference with him. We talked about what we were going to add to our parts and asked more about what else jason wanted to know according to the information that we had already given him. He pretty much told us that we were on the right track and that we just needed to get down to the nitty gritty. I think that most of us were able to get about 60% of our own parts of the project done. We still have quite a bit to go, but we are well on our way to getting this done. So the plan for this next week is to add more information to the paper and ensure that it is complete and edited in full.
June 6 - 12
So for this week we were able to have everyone turn in their weekly assignment on time. We had pizza to celebrate. I had been able to get a hold of Dee Anderson at BYU. It turned out I was already going to Orem to go to a friend's wedding, so I made an appointment to have an interview with Dee. On Friday, I went to the Library on the BYU campus and had an interview with him for about 45 minutes. It was a really good interview and I learned a lot more about BYU's Technology Transfer Program. They are number one for start up companies, they are much better at getting a revenue based on research dollars. They have as many licenses as some of the larger schools, with less money; so instead of spending 3 billion dollars they would only spend about 30 million. Much smaller amount of money. They way they run their program is not quite the same as the other Universities. Tech Transfer isn't a main aspect of BYU; which in most cases for other universities, it is. I learned how important it is to be prepared. I'm so very glad I came prepared to ask him the questions I asked. That I was prepared to record the conversation, take notes and ask questions that would give me the information we need for our project. Now, I have to do is a write up on what was discussed and fill in our report.
May 30 - June 5
So this past week for our team project, we did more research, we were given the assignment to find out more about our given topics. I had the hardest time finding enough information on tech transfer in government labs. There wasn't much on the sights let alone, finding anything about success rates or models that they used. So, I ended up email some of them. I have heard back from only one and she won't be available until Tuesday because she was going on vacation. At the group meeting Robert (our lead intern) and I were able to talk more about what I could do in the mean time. I felt that I wasn't contributing to the group. I didn't really have any information to give them. So, Robert and I decided that it would be best for me to do some research on BYU's tech transfer program in the mean time. I was able to finish a draft copy of some information I found about BYU. The biggest issue is that most of their page hasn't been updated since about 2006. There were some updates. But, I'm going to have to try to email them and see what I can get. If I don't get anything I'll have to give them a call. I guess I didn't know that BYU had such a large tech transfer program! On a forbes list that Robert found, BYU was listed as #5 and on a Business Week article they were listed as #1. Each article was based on different criteria. I hadn't really thought about all the criteria that something could be based on. At first, this project seemed somewhat hopeless for me because I couldn't find anything. But there are some things to be found, it just takes time and patience.
May 23-29
This week, we did some research about Tech Transfer. We went over the tentative plan for the Table of Contents, and what the paper would consist of. We talked about what we need to focus on the most. We all did different parts of research on Tech transfer. The research was split up by; Universities, National Labs, and Private Industries. After doing a lot of research and discussion, we all decided that it will be difficult to get the information we really want/need. So, we were all going to try to make as many contacts as we could and see what information we could get back. We talked about how successful they are, how they measure success, what is so special about their tech transfer system, and so on. It's been interesting to do research on tech transfer. I never really knew how much tech transfer involved. I had never realized all the steps involved as well as all the people that it involves. The thing that I want to know most is what really does make them successful and why? I still have a lot to do, and I am excited to learn more.
May 16-22
This week for our group project we had our first consultation meeting with INL about Tech Transfer (TT). We went to Idaho Falls to check with them and make sure that we were heading the project in the direction that they wanted us to go in. It turns out, that we weren't exactly heading in the direction they were thinking. We were able to clear things up and understand where they were coming from and what exactly they wanted. It seems that they wanted to more about WHY the other TT facilities were doing so well, what were they doing to make their TT work so well, and how can they possibly input that into their company to make their TT work better. We also had a group meeting on Thursday right before the forum. We reviewed what was discussed in the meeting. We also handed out some research assignments to further our project with INL about TT. We've been using google wave to keep a link with each other and post information for everyone to see instead of sending a million emails. This project has piqued my interest in how TT works and why and what is the benefit of it. I'm curious as to how there are a few universities that are making it work, and there are so many other places that can't make it work. Why haven't people taken more initiative to be more like the select few universities that are doing so well with it.
