April 30, 2009 (Week 6)

This week I felt as if I was actually doing a few things that were practical and helpful for the company. I did a lot of research on examples of peer support and summarized information in notes. I did a lot of work with the website too, making links to connect blog entries and creating invitation links to start discussions in the "café" and to "contact us" if you would like to report a comment.

 
 

I also got to go with Philip to some more meetings and to a television interview. I like to think I have gotten a lot better at wheeling Philip around, but this meeting was a new challenge with tight squeezes between cars, narrow ramps, and ominous pool just feet away from where we were rolling. I felt nervous, and it must have been apparent because one of the video people commented on it while we were passing the pool. Great. Anyway, I still feel more confident than I did originally and I've also gotten better at knowing which tasks Philip is able to do on his own vs. ones that would be just more practical for me to do (i.e. putting the keys in the ignition, snapping his seatbelt).

 
 

We also met with someone who works with residential homes and she came to talk with Philip about his recent trip to rotorua, where he and Amy visited several homes. Philip made many interesting comments on the dress, treatment, and layout of the facilities that he thought could use improvement.

 
 

I have really enjoyed reading "Getting to Maybe." The book is both inspiring and informative. I also smiled a bit when I started reading Drucker's "Managing a Non-Profit Organization" because I thought it was quite appropriate to be reading another book by Drucker for my Entrepreneurship Internship.

I hope to get going a bit more on my proposal soon. Unfortunately that project has taken a back seat to research and web content lately, but I think I will be able to do reading and research for my project at home and start doing interviews in the next two weeks.

 
 

I think I may have hit something good in "Organizational Identity and Self-Transformation." The chapter on Organizational Identity breaks down the identity of an organization into three types- corporate identity, substantive identity, and reflective identities. It defines corporate identity
as the presentation of the organization to other observers is not directly related to organizational operations. For example, how the organization markets itself. I will be looking into this for my proposal by looking at how Diversityworks presents itself. Substantive identity is defined as shared rules, values and world views is realized in the organizational structures and as such influences all organizational operations. I will use my own observations of how the company operates for this section. My interviewing will likely be most important for the company's reflective identities. Reflective identities
are 'claims' or 'narratives' about the organization and are not directly inbuilt in the operations but are reflections on operations.

 
 

 
 

 Hours:

Week	Dates	Goal	Hours	Net	Total
6	27/4- 2/5	23	20.5	-10	165

 
 

Date		Hours	Description
27/4/2009		3.5	reading
29/4/2009		8	CM meeting, website links and research
30/4/2009		9	team meeting, project research, tv interview, client meeting about residential homes