Cohort 19 Graduates!

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Congratulations to the class of 2014 (or better known as cohort 19)!

On May 22nd, QUEST students finally got to turn their tassels from the right to the left, symbolizing the transition from student to alumnus. This group of students has had a great impact on the university, the program, and me. The students of cohort 19 were a champion of growth for the QUEST program. They helped with many of the new transitions and changes. Now the QUEST community gets to see them become champions of growth for themselves as they make new transitions and changes.

I wrote a letter to my good friend and QUEST graduate Erika Carlstrom. In it I said graduation isn’t a Goodbye to QUEST and the university but rather a Hello to the new experiences you’ll make as an alumnus.
Thank you Cohort 19 from the entire QUEST community. We wish you the best of luck and look forward to what is to come.

-Editor, Nicole Blahut

The New Logo Is Here!

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It’s Official!
Over the course of the past several months, QUEST was buzzing with speculation about work on a new logo. The fruits of that labor were officially unveiled at the closing of the State of QUEST last month, and were met with positive and enthusiastic reviews. As a member of the QUEST Marketing Team, I am so excited at the wonderful feedback we have received for the new visual identity. It took input from all corners of QUEST – current students, alumni, the Quality Guild – to make it into what it finally is today. For those of you that haven’t yet seen the first step in the remaking of the QUEST brand, look and ask no further; here it is:
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Shortly after the event, fellow QUESTees could be seen around campus sporting laptop (and in some cases, water bottle or backpack) stickers emblazoned with the official new logo, which were given out at the QUEST barbeque and are still available for those who want them! We are looking forward to the next steps in developing the QUEST brand as a representation of this unique and powerful cross-functional program that we all know and love. Speaking as a member of QUEST… well, in the spirit of continuous improvement, it looks like we just keep moving up, don’t we?

Dr. Suarez’s and The Leader of One

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Tuesday, 10:45 am

Van Munching Hall

Upon entering the lecture hall, Dr. Suarez immediately throws down the gauntlet. He challenges the class, “Who here will compete with me in an arm wrestling contest?” The mood is curious, and the class remains quiet at first. However, a champion soon emerges in Danny Laurence (Q19). Danny, a former shot put All-American, makes his way towards the front of the class, and the odds look stacked in his favor.

As the pair lines up wrists, Dr. Suarez shoots a mischievous grin…
Dr. Suarez: “Danny are you ready?”
Danny: “Yes Dr. Suarez, I am ready.”
Dr. Suarez: “Are you sure Danny?”
Danny: “I am sure.”
Dr. Suarez: “Ok, so who will say go? This is very important.”
Cat Ashley (Q19): “I can do it.”
Dr. Suarez: “ Ok Cat, when you are ready…”
Cat: “Go!”

Danny quickly slams down Dr. Suarez’s hand.

Dr. Suarez: “I win, but lets play again.”

Danny repeatedly slams down Dr. Suarez’s hand, and Dr. Suarez repeatedly “Wins.” However, soon the pattern changes, and the two are slamming each other’s hands like a pendulum. Point by point, they accelerate until they both reach exhaustion.

The Great Theater

Watching the arm wrestling contest that day, I sat engaged but a bit dumbfounded. Luckily, Dr. Suarez’s explanation soon alleviated my confusion. Rather than winning a point when one slammed his opponent’s hand, this competition granted a point to whomever had his hand slammed. Hence, why Dr. Suarez initially kept pulling Danny’s hand down on his. Furthermore, while we believed only Dr. Suarez or Danny could win, in fact, they could maximize their respective point totals by working together. In this instance, Dr. Suarez encouraged us students to challenge our preconceived notions of competition. Rather than let competitiveness restrict our potential, we were urged to create systems that enabled us to maximize both our success and the success of others.

While this lesson remains one of the most memorable for me personally from Systems Thinking (BMGT390), the experience is in no way an outlier for the course, as many will attest. Whether recounting tails aboard Air Force 1, discussing sessions with Fortune 500 executives, or even recollecting experiences with former QUEST students, Dr. Suarez routinely transforms his classroom into a theater for innovative ideas and personal inspirations.

 

Leader of One

Finally, prompted by students and colleagues alike to codify his teachings, Dr. Suarez has published his first book, Leader of One. Although initially composed utilizing the back of napkins and voice recordings in the car, the book provides an unparalleled, holistic vision of Dr. Suarez’s ideas and philosophies. Chronicling his work with great thinkers like Russell Ackoff and W. Edwards Deming, experiences in Clinton and Bush administrations, and time as Executive Director and professor of the QUEST Honors Program, Leader of One immediately transports the reader back into Dr. Suarez’s theater in Van Munching Hall.

I spoke to Dr. Suarez and asked, “Who is the Leader of One?”

“The title came about from a realization that we are accountable for ourselves, that, at a minimum, we need to lead our way into the future that we want. In my corporate experience, government experience, and as a coach of executives, I hear all the time the notion of “somebody should do something about it.” We begin to delegate that notion of responsibility and accountability, to take action, to people in positions of power or rank. The theme that began to emerge was that we can lead from where we are, and to mobilize others into action we must first mobilize ourselves. The book takes the approach that we begin with ourselves and then we begin to influence those around us, to steer them and to tap into their expertise to advance causes that are greater than any one individual. And the purpose of leadership is to pursue causes that are bigger than any one person—I begin with the person, then the team, then others. The leader of one is the process of first, self-awareness, self-discovery, reconnecting with our aim, our intent, our desires; and then inspiring others to join us and shape the future!”  —  Dr. Suarez

Leader of One is sure to capture the hearts of readers looking to reconnect with their core values and reflect on ways to shape their future. QUEST students should be warned, however, you may just cross a story or two from your time in the program.

Purchase Dr. Suarez’s Leader of One on Amazon or CreateSpace.

Quest Credentials: Extend Your Quest Beyond Graduation

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As graduation has come and gone, the seniors of Cohort 19 were reminded that “the QUEST never ends”. I’m sure when many graduates hear this, they think about all the friends they plan to keep in touch with or coming back to the classroom to give feedback on student projects. However, QUEST, in addition to being a tightly-knit community, is first and foremost an honors program and learning does not stop once you leave campus.

In this vein, QUEST and the QUEST Alumni Board is proud to introduce the QUEST Credential program. The goal of the program is to offer classes on interesting subjects related to the core concepts of the program which are taught by qualified alumni. We are currently working on an application for the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) so that we can offer CPA credits for these courses so our alumni who require these credits for their certifications.

The program underwent a pilot this spring with the course called Quality Web Development in Business, a course modified from an elective we developed and taught in the spring of 2013. Over 4 weekend sessions, we taught 9 current QUEST students and an alumnus the fundamentals of web programming while also focusing on the QUEST edge of design, metrics for success, and fast iteration. In addition to enjoying fine local College Park food for breakfast and lunch, the participants spent their time in a mix of lectures and team time to build their own projects. At the end of the course, the students were all glad they took the course and said they learned a lot in such a short time.

At the end of the day, this program cannot be successful without alumni participation. To paraphrase Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, “Help [us] help you”. The Alumni board wants to offer content that you are interested in taking in at a time you would like to take it and we need alumni interested in sharing their knowledge with the community. Please take 5 minutes out of your day and indicate your interest in this survey

Josh Kohn and Danny Laurence
Cohort 18 and Cohort 19

The Relationship Between Sisyphus, Camus, and Hackathons

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The relationship between Sisyphus, Camus, and Hackathons

By Tochi Eni-Kaul

Greek mythology tells us the story of Sisyphus, a former king of Corinth who was condemned by the gods to an eternity of physical and emotional torture. His punishment? Pushing up a large boulder up a hill every single day, only for that boulder to roll back down to the hill when the task was seemingly completed.
Only fools and theoretical physicists would envy the nature of his punishment. He toiled away under the scorching heat of the sun daily, directing his efforts towards the achievement of a single goal; a goal which, by the decree of the gods, was unattainable. Surely, Sisyphus must have been an unhappy man. But was he?
In 1942, a certain man named Albert Camus wrote an essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” in which he dismissed the theory of a glum Sisyphus. Mr. Camus, who happened to be a Nobel laureate, argued that the mythological figure was indeed a happy man. Why? Because “the struggle itself…is enough to fill a man’s heart.” In layman terms, Camus was essentially saying that joy is derived from the process of doing.
What, then, do Greek mythology and the opinion of a Nobel laureate have to do with hacking and hackathons?
A lot of the code you write at a hackathon would probably not end up in the final iteration of your hack. Your hardware hack, at times, might begin to resemble an exercise in futility. Participating in a hackathon can seem like a sisyphean undertaking, especially to novices with sparse or no programming experience. This, I believe, is why many non-coders I have spoken to have been apprehensive about going to hackathons. Myths surrounding hackathons have disseminated fallacies about insurmountable challenges requiring herculean feats of heroism (in this case, awesome coding skills) in order to succeed. Despite the explosion in the popularity of hackathons in the last half-decade, a lot of people out there still believe that hackathons are competitive events for code monkeys. According to their logic, the absence of coding ability is a barrier to participation. A hackathon attendee without coding skills is an embarrassment, and thus, has no “shot at victory.”
The very existence of these myths points towards a sizeable problem: a fundamental misunderstanding of why people hack.
The most important takeaway from any hackathon should be the experience of participating in one. Any seasoned veteran would tell you that, in retrospect, you would cherish the long hours spent working on your project and the joy of meeting hackers from other schools more than any success which your project may enjoy. Yes, prizes are handed out at the end of most hackathons, and, yes, some team would walk away with “Best Hack” and a few thousand bucks. That said, no one really cares, nor should you (unless you’re a megalomaniac). Hackers hack for the sake of hacking. It is “the struggle” of cranking out a project that makes hackathon attendance worthwhile, not the acclaim or prizes which a hack may receive.
Anyone can go to a hackathon. You don’t need to be GeoHot, nor do you need to know that Ruby is actually a programming language. If you don’t know anything about code, you will learn all you need to know about code there, but only if you want to. Purists will argue that a hackathon is a more effective way of learning how to program than sitting in a dull, dreary classroom; many will wholeheartedly agree. For someone without a programming background, a first hackathon can be a nervy affair. Learning a programming language in a faced paced environment and using that newly acquired knowledge to make a hack can be challenging, but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. After all, everything is hard before it becomes easy.
If you’re still dithering about going to a hackathon, you should probably come to Bitcamp. You’ve missed out on a lot already. Don’t miss out on more.

IBM/Watson Case Competition

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On Friday, March 28, students from all over QUEST gathered in Van Munching Hall to kick off the first IBM – Watson Case Competition on the East Coast. Teams didn’t know much going into it other than that they would be working in some form with Watson the supercomputer, known to many as the computerized star of Jeopardy. “My expectations of the competition going into it were high.” said Jason Rubin (Q21), member of the winning “Team Sherlock” along with Praneet Puppala (Q22), Jessica Manzione (Q22), Yash Mehta (Q22), and Brendan Rowan (Q22). “I knew QUEST was built from an IBM initiative, and that they had strong relations. A high-quality program like QUEST, with a large and highly-reputable company like IBM, would definitely provide us with a great opportunity.”

The event on Friday began with introductions from several IBM representatives to provide background: the goal was to find a new and innovative use for the Watson Engagement Advisor, which breaks down natural language questions like “What does the housing market look like near me?” into key words the computer can understand, and then returns to the user the most relevant articles or information from its database. The WEA is already in use by some companies, and each individual company that uses it can populate their WEA database in a different way.

Over the course of the next day and a half, teams worked furiously on brainstorming ideas, refining them with available mentors from both QUEST and IBM and then distilling them into final pitches for Sunday morning. For some, the hardest part was just settling on an idea. According to Praneet Puppala, after Team Sherlocks initial listing of many different ideas, “we gauged their impact, and then chose an idea that we all were excited about and also had potential for large impact.” That idea was HomeWiz, an application for Home Depot that users can access in-store in order to help them pick the best advice, tutorials, supplies for DIY home projects. Once materials are identified, users would be able buy them straight through the Engagement Advisor. The application could be applied to anything ranging from simple repairs to more involved installations and projects.

Several seasoned case competitors within the teams commented on the uniqueness of the weekend-long Watson competition. “It was very different from other case competitions in which I have competed with companies such as Unilever and PwC,” said Jessica Manzione, from Team Sherlock. “We only had three days to think of an idea and create a presentation, when most case competitions provide a few weeks. This forced us to work harder and more efficiently.” Some participants likened the case competition to a hackathon, which can run for several hours or several days straight through. It seems only fitting that the first QUEST-only case competition combines aspects of both business and tech events.

Overall, the teams came away from the event having learned something they hadn’t known before, whether that is about Watson technology, case competitions, or something a bit more general. Puppala said of the overall experience, “As a computer science major and someone that loves to learn and know about the coolest tech products out there, I really liked learning about Watson Engagement Advisor and its capabilities. I loved working with my team and the mentors available at the competition who gave us some great advice that we could use not just for this competition, but also in our futures.”

The case competition may have also sparked new inspiration in more than a few participants. According to Rubin, “Any problems we currently have that include extremely large amounts of data and the need to make sense of that data, whether it be to better understand something, predict future implications, or produce a personalized solution, will be able to be solved through Watson.” Watson’s potential grows every day as it is tested, applied, and improved. Will a QUEST member be the mastermind behind the next Watson breakthrough?

A Sweet Startup: Sweetbuds

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Sweet Buds, or scented earring backs, came to Allan Nicholas in China. “The idea came about in a study abroad class in China through the QUEST program this past winter break. My team members and I were very excited about the project and we decided to pursue it outside of the classroom and make an actual company around the idea,” said Nicholas in an August 2013 interview with the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship.

Sweet Buds is an earring back that releases perfume throughout the day to solve the problem of the perfume becoming weaker as time goes on. “Sweet Buds work when the user puts their earring on. The earring post punctures the back and ‘pops’ sealed fragrance inside of it,” says Nicholas. Users no longer have to re-scent themselves to keep smelling fresh throughout the day.

In 2013 Nicholas and Sweet Buds won a $1000 dollar grant from the Dingman Center and have used to file a provisional patent and to help finalize their design. Right now their biggest challenges have more to do with the actual perfume than the Sweet Buds design. “We are having problems with increasing the shelf life of the sealed fragrance within the Sweet Buds,” says Nicholas. Despite this they still are still confident that Sweet Buds will strike a chord with consumers.

Sweet Buds largest competitors are other companies that sell fragrance jewelry. These companies, however, make their jewelry with fragrance beads. Fragrance beads are permanent, but also more expensive. A niche for Sweet Buds exists in the current fragrance jewelry market. Sweet Buds hopes to appeal to consumers because of the existing nature of earring backs. Earring backs are easy to lose, so Sweet Buds can fill the need for a cheap replacement while offering some additional utility. “[The current] plan is to sell Sweet Buds direct to customers through an e-commerce platform but also hope to have a retail presence in department stores and boutiques,” says Nicholas.

Nicholas is very excited to continue working with Sweet Buds in the
future, “I love working with Sweet Buds and start-ups in general because the amount of effort you put into the project is directly correlated with the results you will see.”

End Of The Year BBQ!!!

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The QUEST BBQ Will Be On May 7th This year’s End of the Year BBQ will be on Sunday May 4th. There will be plenty of food and drinks as well a series of games/activities to help celebrate our seniors and welcome in Cohorts 23 and 24 of QUEST.   The schedule for the day is as follows: State of QUEST 12 PM- 1 PM VMH Rm. 1212 End-of-the-Year BBQ 1 PM-3 PM Washington Quad Make sure to fill out the RSVP form to confirm your attendance

Can’t wait to see you there!

190 Process Improvement Projects

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Process Improvement Cycle

As all Quest students know, continuous improvement is one of the core tenants of the Quest program, and something the faculty and students constantly strive for when evaluating and enhancing the program. As a result of this, the introductory BMGT/ENES 190 course has changed greatly over the past few years. 

190 now has students work on 3 separate projects over the course of the semester on their semester long teams; an atoms based innovation where students create a physical product, a bits based innovation where students develop a website or mobile application, and a process improvement project.

While this is already a significant change from past 190 classes, the Quality Guild and curriculum review board only continue to improve the class. Cohort 21 picked a process from an organization at random to improve, with little to no background knowledge of, information, or data on the process they had chosen. This led to many projects that were much more hypothetical and theoretical in nature than either the atoms or bits innovations were.

However, in the spirit of continuous improvement, the process improvement project was changed for cohort 22 students this semester. Students in the Project Scoping class were asked to reach out to on campus organizations to scope out processes on campus that could be improved, and these scopes were presented to 190 students for their teams to vote on. Students then had a month to work with their project champion on actual consulting projects around campus, gathering data and making recommendations to their respective organizations on how they can improve their processes.

Teams worked with various organizations including the Department of Information Technology, where a team developed a scoring system to determine what DOIT systems are most critical to the university in the event of a natural disaster; Ellicott Community Resident Life, in which a team of students developed a revamped process for educating and evaluating student safety; the Office of Sustainability, which sponsored a team to examine the process of recycling education and performance; the Robert H. Smith school of Business Career Office and Events Office, who looked at developing a website for streamlined event planning and reservations; and McKeldin Library, in where a team tackled the problem of an archaic library job application process and developed a website to streamline and improve the hiring and application process in the library system.

Scoping students, Quest faculty, and project champions all came away extremely impressed with the student’s recommendations and process improvements. It gave the students a chance to gain experience working with clients and doing actual consulting work, helped improve the university, and spread awareness of the Quest program throughout campus. The curriculum change was a resounding success, and looks to be a staple in the 190 class for the foreseeable future.

 

By Bobby Fitzgerald

Dr. Joe

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“Would you mind if we refer to you by your first name?” Employers and business associates ask this question in order to make the formal value exchange less clinical. Think of it as an honest attempt at rapport. After all, few words or phrases are as sweet to us as our name; only “free food” and “yes” come to mind. So what happens when a name changes?

QUEST Cohort 20 juniors Leora Prince, Eric Coraggio, TJ Falohun, Hannah Breakstone, and Mengze Xu are dealing with just that. In their 498 project with Beckton Dickson and Company (BD), their project managers have requested that they address each other on a first name basis. This is an easy task since the associations of Mr. and Ms. have yet to be formed; the trick comes in addressing Dr. Bailey, who acts as their mentor and sits in meetings on occasion.

Sensing that it would be inappropriate to refer to him formally when the client has requested a more casual air, Dr. Bailey has requested that the group call him by his first name, “Joe.” I walked into the QUEST lab to see the students laughing with each other after their brief meeting. Habits are quick to form and slow to change:

“He’s my professor so it’s odd calling him by his first name,” says Junior Marketing student, Hannah Breakstone.  “…when I’m with people who are not on my consulting team it’s strange to have the privilege of calling him ‘Joe.’”

There’s wisdom in the practice. By referring to our beloved Dr. Bailey as “Joe,” they avoid creating that dreaded “elephant in the room” when meeting with and presenting to clients. Even so, there’s a consensus amongst the team that the change is “just weird.”