Sticky!!!

Steve Gold talked with us about this vague, ambiguous concepts of "Sticky Ideas." His definition was that personal ownership and the conferance of value from the object to the person is what makes ideas sticky. Value was the "glue" that makes people and ideas stick to each other. I don't know how much I agree with this but I do know that there are certainly some things that are "stickier" than others.

As I was going through these last couple of weeks, I was trying to come up with a list of fads at Olin.

• whiteboards
• hating Bio
• propped doors
  
• Timbuk 2 bags
• linux
• Windows bashing
• "Outlook runs my life"
• Checking e-mail all the time
• nalgenes
• leathermans
• Robots
• Bashing Babson
• Complaining about UOCD
• sustainability
• baking
• bunny ears??? (why am I seeing these all over the place?!?!?!)
• Guitar Hero
• Project Runway
• SigSys Parties, UOCD Parties, Etc.
• sleeping in lounges
• "stealing" cookies from d-hall
• calling it the d-hall
• mid-afternoon snack
• not wearing seasonable clothing
• not getting enough sleep and bragging/complaining about it

These are just a few of the weird cultural idioms that we have at Olin. What is it that makes these ideas stick to so many of us. Taking a cue from UOCD, I have decided to find an interesting way to group them.

I guess you could say I am taking this idea of stickiness and working backwards with it. How can we use these sticky ideas to find out more interesting things about Olin students.

In grouping these ideas I came up with a couple major themes.

1. This idea of being tough and "hardened" by the workload here at Olin

• hating Bio
• Timbuk 2 bags
• linux
• Windows bashing
• "Outlook runs my life"
• leathermans
• Bashing Babson
• Complaining about UOCD
• SigSys Parties, UOCD Parties, Etc.
• not wearing seasonable clothing
• not getting enough sleep and bragging/complaining about it

2. This desire to be social, a little a-typical from the traditional engineer

• Propped doors
• Checking e-mail ALL the time
• Guitar Hero (believe it or not, some video games are about the social. DDR is another example. This ties into lounge culture in general)

3. A desire to be creative and a little out-there. We are still engineers after all and I think we really resonate with that idea

• Whiteboards
• Robots
• Sustainability
• Baking
• Bunny Ears
• Project Runway
• calling it the d-hall
  

4. And then of course there are physical needs that we solve in perhaps more unusual ways due to our environment.

• Nalgenes - kind of a new england-y thing I think
• sleeping in lounges
  
• "stealing" cookies from the d-hall
• mid-afternoon snack

From this little exercise of mine, I think I can give at least one reason why some things are sticky. The ideas that resonate most with a person or a certain group of people are those that fulfill some of their basic "needs."

Wow, i am actually learning something in UOCD! That is pretty exciting.