Thank you

I want to thank Carlos Rascon for giving me the opportunity to intern at education Leadership analytics, I know that at times it must have been difficult for him to have to walk me through so much, but throughout the entire process he has been patient, understanding, and an amazing teacher and mentor to me. I am a better prepared professional and a better person because of the lessons he has taught me, a thank you simply won't do him any justice, so I just want to say that I will continue to apply the lessons learned here throughout my career. Semper Fi Marine.

Lessons learned

I have learned so much from my internship that I have joked with the director about ASU owing him a cut of my tuition. I have definitely achieved all of my goals for this internship. I now have a better understanding of the private sector, which will help me develop better strategies for programs or projects involving cross-sector collaborations. Many times these cross-sector projects are abandoned because one or all sectors feel that they are not worth carrying out because of miscommunication among all sectors, being able to understand the different sectors and what they value will allow me to articulate how these projects/programs are in their best interest. This internship also taught me the importance of having data to back up your stories and research, simply put data completes the story in a way that legitimizes it and can help increase funds and donations for your cause.

Dropping my pack

I have to admit I "dropped my pack" about 3 months ago and getting back on track was torture. For the veterans in here I am sure you are familiar with the phrase "dropping your pack". For those of you that are not familiar with this term in the Marine Corps this means that you are done with your service or your mission is over. In the academic world this is known as senioritis meaning our minds have checked out somewhere between the week before or after midterms. Anyways, I fell horribly behind this semester and am now just catching up with it all. Finals are here and its time to wrap it all up, so I wish you all the best of luck and I will see you all on the flip side.

First impressions (free write)

A couple of months ago I was at a professional networking event for small business owners with a client. We were making the rounds introducing ourselves to people and everyone seemed to be so be launching some tech company or travel agency. Anyways they all sounded alike and to be honest they were boring me to death. I'm sure that their product was great and innovative but they were so boring when describing it that they completely lost me. Fortunately, I met this really nice lady there that rescued me from all of this boredom. When I asked her what her company did she told me in the most enthusiastic tone ever, "I take people dancing!" I was immediately hooked, I had to know more. She went on to describe her company in the most lively and fun way possible, In essence she runs a travel agency that integrates dance classes to their program. So say for example you always wanted to learn how to Samba, she will book you a trip to Brazil (the birth place of Samba) and schedule you a Samba lesson with a local dance studio. This way you get to visit Brazil, see the sights, and learn how to dance. Moral of the story is she could have just told me she ran a travel agency but instead she gave me an unforgettable experience and taught me a lesson about making good first impressions.

Technology (free write)

I really wish that people would stop assuming that just because I'm younger I automatically know abut technology. I know that I should probably make an effort to learn more about technology but I am a people person. It took me about a month to figure out I had to hit the PUBLISH tab on the corner of this blog in order for you all to see what I was writing. I even went and told the professors that I thought something was wrong with my blogger because nobody was replying to my post. If I have a tech related question I have a group of friends with different expertise that I call upon, funny thing about that only one of them is my age, one is younger, and the rest of them are well into their 40's. Maybe it's just me and every other millennial is on point with their tech game, if that's the case I really hope I can use my people skills to get through life.

Public Service

Even though my internship is with a private sector firm, we have a heavy focus on public service. Much of what we do is focused on raising the standard of living of every Arizonan. We constantly advocate for financial literacy programs and work with educators in making education as accessible to everyone. We also do a lot of work within the veteran community, advocating for veteran rights and constantly finding ways to improve the standard of living of the veteran community.

Strength of the organization

If I had to choose what the main strength of this organization is that everything is evidence based. The fact that we deal with numbers in an unbiased and analytic manner brings great value to the table. We work across all three sectors to provide them with the analytics they need to inform their decisions, and having an unbiased approach is helpful. If I had the opportunity to run a similar organization, I would probably be doing the same thing the organization is doing right now. Not that I think everything is perfect or that I don’t have any ideas to offer, but I honestly don’t think I would do much to change the current system. The organization has a good business model, the only think I can think I would do differently is perhaps focus on building more relationships with key leaders in all three sectors.

Leadership

Leadership is displayed in the organization every day, whether it is meeting with clients to help them solve a problem, working on projects that impact our community, or learning the systems that help us better inform our decisions, leadership is always at the forefront of what we do. That being said, each sectors has different way of viewing their role within the community, and the leadership practiced in each sector is meant to accommodate those views. Our roles as leaders is to make sure that we are empowering each sector to be more efficient and increase cross sector relations. Through this internship I have been able to grow my leadership skills and put them to practice. More importantly, I’ve learned that I have the ability to inspire others to become leaders in their communities too. 

Interview

For my interview I talked to Carlos Rascon, Director Data Science & Analytics, at educations leadership analytics. In our conversation we talked about different leadership strategies and best practices that have helped him succeed along the way. For him having his MBA has certainly helped him, but the leadership skills required to be successful didn't all come out of a text. For example, his experience in the Marine Corps and working at the pentagon has helped him develop the confidence needed to lead a group of people. This also helped him learn that having the ability to work across all sectors is important. This is especially true since there is an increase trend among cross sector relations.  Also, learning the ins and outs of business by stepping outside of his comfort zone and taking risk has helped him develop more professionally. Sometimes all the training in the world won’t make a difference if you are unwilling to take the risk and just get started.

Leadership and thank you note (free write)

"Leadership is the ability to influence others" unfortunately for some this quote conjures images of commanding leaders bossing or ordering their subordinates around. However, if we notice there is no mention in this quote of a leader "bossing" or "ordering" someone around. Similarly, there is no reference to titles or positions, it simply refers to those that can influence others as leaders. Even though it is not stated in this quote, it is implied that the influence we wield should be a positive one. I know many of you know this already, and having looked at the amazing work you are all doing I consider all of you leaders. However, this past week I was sadly reminded that some leaders have forgotten that our ability to influence others should be used in a positive manner. I was at a conference out of town and was thrown aback by the attitude that many of these "leaders" had about their community and their roles in making things betters for others. I guess that in their mind after you achieve a certain level of success you can stop worrying about others and focus on maintaining that success.  Because I have been surrounded by leaders like yourself for so long now, I had almost forgotten that we are in a real leadership crisis even within our community. So I want to take a moment and thank all of you for your leadership, for your ability to influence me in a positive way, and for giving men hope that we as leaders have the ability to transform our communities in a meaningful way.

Education starts at home (Free write)

My recent post about the education system made me reflect about what I can do as a father to educate my daughter. I know that education starts at home, and my wife and I are teaching our daughter the importance of being an educated, civic minded, and respectful of others. However, I am still concerned about making sure she gets the best education possible at home. For example, my wife is an artist and she does a lot of art projects with my daughter. So I began to teach my daughter the importance of being able to communicate with others. For the past three weeks we have been doing “book analysis reports”. She picks one of her books reviews it and then gives me a presentation on her favorite part, least favorite part, and how the book can be improved. She is 5 and these books are picture books, but we take this activity seriously. She sits in front of my desk at my home office and gives this presentation. Then I give her a review of her presentation and analyze with her what she has suggested to me. She is a natural communicator and a really caring person, so I am focusing and building her confidence and learning how to communicate in a professional manner. Of course I don’t tell her this, for her it is just a fun activity with daddy.

Education System (Free Write)

Recently, I have been looking for a school for my daughter and let me say I am truly amazed at the sad state of the public education system in Arizona. It all began by doing some research of the west valley public schools near my home. I was surprised at their poor test scores, however being the opened minded individual I know that test scores do not necessarily paint the full picture; so I began to tour a lot of these facilities, and spoke with many of the administrators. That experience was so bad that I immediately contacted my state representative. After a conversation with him I realized that the best option for our family was to begin to look at charter schools and private schools for my daughter. Maybe I am an idealist but I still want to believe that we can make our public schools work for every family. With recent talks about cuts to education I am left wondering, what is left to cut? Many of the school districts around me already began to let teachers go and most of the text and materials used in these classes are sadly outdated. I did more research and found that this is not just the west valley but all across Arizona our children are being let down by a broken school system. Please know that this is not a rant against teachers, I have friends that teach and some of you I know are doing the Teach for America program, and I know that the overwhelming majority of our educators have their hearts in the right place and take their jobs very seriously. However, as a father to an amazingly smart little girl I am truly concerned by this issue.

Federal Resume (Career Service Event)

For my second professional development post I want to talk about a webinar I recently attended. The webinar was was part of the go government series put on by the “Partnership for Public Service” Unlike the other webinar I've attended from this organization this one was extremely helpful. So much so that I actually entered the link and watched the recording of the webinar again. This webinar was titled “resume” and as the title mentions the webinar was about federal resumes.
First let me begin by saying that I was actually in the process of applying for a federal job when I began looking at the webinar. Like many of you though I too get distracted and begin to do several things at once, but this was the best distraction I have ever had because as it turns out my entire resume was wrong! Some of you might have been aware of this already, but I had no idea that when applying for a federal job they have different resume format requirements. These are not small differences either, the entire format is different than what is taught at the career service center. Among the biggest differences is the fact that federal resumes are not expected to meet that one, two if you absolutely must, page rule that regular resumes follow. As a matter of fact it is not out of the norm for a federal resume to be 5-8 pages long. I brought this up with to a colleague of mine, who has worked for the federal government for several years now, and he said he thought this was common knowledge. He showed me his resume and it is a super detailed monstrosity with zero white space taking up 4 pages. He even said that if updated, his resume would probably be 6 pages long. Meanwhile, I'm breaking my head deleting important relevant information about myself trying to get my resume down to one page. Also, important is actually including the job post number, having minimum or zero white space, and making sure you state whether or not you are qualified for extra points i.e. veteran points, disability points, even having certain degrees and certifications can earn you points. Maryjo from the College of Public Service and Community Solutions will be posting this webinar up soon, I highly recommend watching it if you are at all interested in applying for a federal government job.

Financial Literacy (free write)

For this free write I wanted to touch on something I came across this week. Recently, I've been having  a lot discussions and reading a lot of books about financial literacy in hopes to learning what our role as leaders is in making sure that our children are given the best tools for success. One of the books I was reading mentioned that all of us learned our spending habits and financial management from our family or close family friends. Unfortunately, most American families do not have good financial literacy, hence why the majority of wealth is held in the hands of a few. For those of us that were not fortunate enough to be born into these families, the author suggest to forget what was passed down to us and learn about finances on our own. One of the ways to learn the ropes is by simply going out there and trying new things. However, this is very risky because you are gambling with your finances, most people that take this path end up being bankrupt within a year or two. The author suggest instead that reading and educating yourself before just jumping in gives you a higher chance of success. This does not mean that you have to go out and get a MBA before you can get started, but at the minimum you should learn the language used by the professionals and seek the advice of mentors, this can include books as well. Personally, I have found this to be very true. I can honestly say I have learned more in the last 8 months about finances than I have in the last 29 years of my life. It has been an amazing learning experience to see how all of the systems that are in place come together to move our massive financial machine. Learning the strategies on how to best leverage those systems to make them work for you instead of you working for them has been incredibly eye opening to me. I know many people get very cynical the moment you talk to them about financial strategies, but my advice is to keep an open mind and educate yourself as best as possible. It's important that we all do this not just for our own benefit, but for the benefits of our communities, families, and especially our children.

Federal Opportunities Beyond DC (Career Service Event)

For one of my professional development requirements I attended a webinar at the College of College of Public Service and Community Solutions hosted by the Partnership for Public Service. The webinar was titled "Federal Opportunities Beyond DC". This event was full of information and had a panel of people from various background all working for the federal government in various capacities and in different locations.

My main take away from this event was the fact that there are numerous opportunities for employment within the federal government without having to relocate to the beltway. For those that are not familiar with this term the beltway refers to the DC, Virginia, and Maryland area. This was of significance for me because prior to this event I was not really looking at federal careers because I do not want to relocate to the east coast again. However, as mentioned several times during the event every state has federal careers available, it really just depends on what it is you are looking to do within the federal government. That being said, one of the things I didn't really like about this event was that there was very little information given about the career opportunities in Arizona. They did go over navigating the USA Jobs website which list all of the career opportunities in the area, but it still would have been nice to have a panelist from Arizona to discuss some more area specific jobs. Since attending this event I have created a USA Jobs account and am currently in the process of applying for a couple of jobs in the area.

Overall this is a good webinar for those looking to gain employment with the federal government. However, there was not a lot of information provided for those of us wanting to stay in Arizona.