If there is one thing that we've learned from project thus far, its that communication is not an easy task. To this point, we've successfully reached out to many of the parties that we hoped to connect with, but we've also failed to get a response from many!
Our go to Psychology consultant hasn't responded to two seperate emails. One was lengthy, one was short and sweet asking her to point us to someone else. No go with either. Also, I've emailed the pychology department's general email address asking for some advice on with who I should talk to. No word back.
The CAD department also ignored my correspondence. I had to go to the office in person to get the material I was looking for.
In another instance, the woman in charge of the Tempe Campus garden and the garden club ignored my request to meet, but instead sent me a link to her website. (Let's keep this blog off the record: Ellen explained to me that she hasn't been seeing the success from said party that she has been expecting).
Some of the seemingly necessary stepping stones of correspondence have been big duds! Because of this, we've had to change our strategy some. We were hoping to do a behavior analysis with guidance from a psychology consultant, but we may not get that opportunity. So instead, we might try to set up a round table with the current poly tech garden folks. In the article I've attached, Psychologist, McKenzie suggests there are a few ways to determine behavioral barriers: "Foucs Groups, observations studies, and surveys." We did intend to do survey (we still may), but a focus group with the current Poly Tech kids might be more fruitful without the help of a psychologist on board. We're hoping to gauge the possiblity of that group with Jehnifer on Tuesday. McKenzie also suggests determining the differences between those people who participate in an activity and those who don't to understand barries. We believe we can accomplish this in such a focus group.
Be beyond bad communication and changing plans on the fly, much of our correspondence has been extremely successful. My conversation with Bonny Bentzin led me to Jehnifer and Ellen. Ellen today really gave us some new direction. Talking to Harvey led us to Lara Skutt who really helped us last week with a two hour convo (blog post to follow). And although we never got a response, talking with Aleks started us down our Psychology path.
McKenzie article (pg 5 is barriers...)
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B51oOLaUD-ScOTIzN2ZkOTgtNTU2Mi00ZmNkLWEwMTEtYTZmOGQ5M2ZhMmQ5&hl=en
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