Today I headed up the 5 to Irvine, then back through San Juan Capistrano.
I started at the offices of Acufocus, makers of the Kamra inlay, a tiny disk that looks a bit like an EP record and is surgically implanted over the center of your eye in order to improve your near-vision without damaging your far-vision. Kathryn Webb is interning there, where she is helping the company get a clearer understanding of how the product is being presented not only on the websites doctors licensed to implant the kamra, but also across the wide and expanding world of social media. This is a new area for the company, so Kathryn has a very cool opportunity to help shape their social media strategy. You can read more at Kathryn's blog here.
Then I headed down to the Weseloh Nissan Dealership to see Wally Spillane. The first person I saw outside the dealership told me "They'll need to page him - they've had him all over the place!" Indeed, when he arrived (remarkably promptly) from being paged, he'd been shadowing mechanics in the Kia dealership next door. He took me on a tour of what appeared to be hundreds of cars over several lots, and told me that earlier, he and their other intern had inventoried every single car. Initially they'd done it by VIN number (a number visible through the bottom of the windshield on the driver's side, I learned), checking each car's VIN number against the five-page, single-spaced inventory sheet they were carrying around with them. These numbers are very long, apparently random, and appeared on the sheets in no particular order. I can't quite imagine doing this for this many cars. About halfway through the day, they realized they could just check the car's inventory numbers - a four digit number, and, even better, the cars were ordered by inventory number on the inventory sheet. I'm sharing this because it's such a cool example of learning that takes place because it NEEDS to. However, most of what Wally's doing sounds much more interesting than this! You can read more at Wally's blog here.
I started at the offices of Acufocus, makers of the Kamra inlay, a tiny disk that looks a bit like an EP record and is surgically implanted over the center of your eye in order to improve your near-vision without damaging your far-vision. Kathryn Webb is interning there, where she is helping the company get a clearer understanding of how the product is being presented not only on the websites doctors licensed to implant the kamra, but also across the wide and expanding world of social media. This is a new area for the company, so Kathryn has a very cool opportunity to help shape their social media strategy. You can read more at Kathryn's blog here.
Then I headed down to the Weseloh Nissan Dealership to see Wally Spillane. The first person I saw outside the dealership told me "They'll need to page him - they've had him all over the place!" Indeed, when he arrived (remarkably promptly) from being paged, he'd been shadowing mechanics in the Kia dealership next door. He took me on a tour of what appeared to be hundreds of cars over several lots, and told me that earlier, he and their other intern had inventoried every single car. Initially they'd done it by VIN number (a number visible through the bottom of the windshield on the driver's side, I learned), checking each car's VIN number against the five-page, single-spaced inventory sheet they were carrying around with them. These numbers are very long, apparently random, and appeared on the sheets in no particular order. I can't quite imagine doing this for this many cars. About halfway through the day, they realized they could just check the car's inventory numbers - a four digit number, and, even better, the cars were ordered by inventory number on the inventory sheet. I'm sharing this because it's such a cool example of learning that takes place because it NEEDS to. However, most of what Wally's doing sounds much more interesting than this! You can read more at Wally's blog here.