Sitting, Waiting, Learning @ Wayne State
Arrived in town early Monday morning to get our kiosk setup at Wayne State. Can’t say its gone smoothly or quickly (at least not for me); but we’re making progress. I’m happy I planned on being here for a week. So far, the delivery driver has locked himself out of his truck, the techs got lost and were 3 hours late, and now I’m waiting on word from developers in Vancouver to straighten out some problem with credit card data.
Strangely, none of this really bothers me. 4 days in and I can say the staff at Wayne remains great to work with. I try to stay out of their hair, but if I ask for something I get it. Thanks to Kristen, Mike, Laurie in IT, and all the guys who helped me get the 500+ lb crate into the building.
Since I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, I’ve taken to checking out what the students are up to. Mostly just chatting when I get the chance, but also doing a little people watching. It amazes me to see how much activity goes on here. Right now, their gearing up for finals, yet everyday there is a slew of new events to checkout, tables supporting every imaginable cause, and so much socializing. Seeing all this, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what PhotoNow wants to do for students at Wayne and other schools.
PhotoNow was conceived around the goal of supplying affordable, convenient, high-quality photo-printing. Yet with a little tweaking, some creativity, and the application of the right tech we can and will provide more. As I sit in the Wayne Student Center , I think about all the events happening and the relationships evolving and I appreciate how significant a contribution our kiosks can make by increasing the flow of information. We’re alreadt distributing event notices for the Detroit Repertory Theatre & Detroit Historical Museums and will add more non-profits and creative orgs to the list as quickly as possible. Is this good PR? Possibly. Is it good for the community? I certainly hope so.
Let me try to translate the ramblings above:
PhotoNow allows you to print pictures as easily and quickly as anyone can. But why do you print pictures? Because you’ve had a great experience you want to preserve, you want to share that experience, or you need evidence in a pending trial 
With the exception of the last reason given, you print pictures to solidify your place in time, culture, society. It stands to reason then that the more opportunities you have to place yourself physically/emotionally/spiritually within those contexts,the more pictures you’ll print. That said, PhotoNow has work to do: not only must we provide the means to print but we must also help people find reasons to print.
Maybe I’m over-simplifying, but I think that enriching, or, more deeply connecting the community at Wayne & other universities will be good for business AND FOR THE COMMUNITY. And thats just awesome because that means the business model can also lead to larger goods. Business, by definition, pursues profit or gain; but lucky for me, in this case, I can include other metrics and goals: community building, participation, and a lot of fun.
This actually leads me to some thoughts about youth and opportunity that came up when I was speaking to Roosevelt H.S students about my work as a web designer/project manager. I’ll followup on those thoughts in a post later today.