The year in a cloud

Now that the new term has started and the "official" anniversary term is behind us, I think it's time to sum things up. What better way to do that than with a word cloud?

So we took all of the reports produced in term B08 and plopped the words into Wordle.net and voilà!

Not surprisingly, Venice is the most prominent (i.e. most frequent) word in all of the 7 reports produced by the anniversary teams this year.  I like this specific cloud because it's also shaped somewhat like Venice...

Aside from the obvious ones, I think a careful reading of all the other more-or-less-frequent words is intriguing and fascinating...   Like, click on the image and study it.  Like, we'll quiz you later people! Like.

Is Matt a WPI graduate?

Actually, Matt Harding never went to college, but his well-traveled video might be an inspiration for us to create an equivalent round-the-world rhapsody touching all of our global project centers...  Wouldn't it be great?  

Let's invite him to campus, give him an honorary degree and enlist him into an intercontinental dancing project to celebrate together the global perspective program!  I'll be the cameraman...

Drink this killer graphic!

My friend Joe Moreau sent me a link to this really cool dynamic presentation with lots of spiffy moving graphics. It explains a lot about my life and may also give some insight about student behavior in general (and perhaps in Venice in particular)... If you can work through the heavy accent, IT'S FANTASTIC!

Happy Epiphanies on the Befana...

Today is the day of the Epiphany, marking the arrival of the Magi (three kings) to Jesus's birthplace.  In common parlance epiphany refers to the sudden realization or comprehension of the (larger) essence or meaning of something...

I always wonder what (if any) epiphanies the intercultural experience in Venice may have generated in the 500+ students who came to the Venice Project Center in its 20 years of existence.  If you read this and you want to share your epiphany with me, please do so.  It would be greatly appreciated...

I have had some major epiphanies this fall myself.  I have realized how difficult it is for me to stay "present" when I interact with people since my mind is always racing ahead and thinking of the next thing that I need to do.  I have resolved to give myself the present of presence this year as the anniversary continues.

On the night prior to January 6, the Befana (basically the Italian version of the wicked witch of the west) comes to visit all children in Italy and fills their stockings with sweets if they have been good or coal if you have been bad (but how bad can children really be?).  We don't do the stockings at Christmas, but only on the Befana and traditionally schools in Italy do not restart until after the Befana.  In Venice, in recent years, the Befana has been celebrated with the regata delle befane, with rowers from various clubs (including the Settemari) dressed in funky witch dresses.  Very colorful.

So Buona Befana a tutti! 

And may this year and the rest of your life be full of epiphanies until you reach satori...

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Bona Zirada!

Well, the official 20th anniversary year is drawing to a close, but we still have another year to celebrate this milestone.  I find this card, created by fellow Settemarian (Carlo Dedy) to be not only beautiful, but also appropriately symbolic, personally as well as professionally.  It represents the "new" bridge on the Grand Canal (nicknamed Ponte di Calatrava after its architect), connecting the Railroad terminus with the car/bus terminal of Piazzale Roma.  Yet, it was planned way back in the 15th century, as documented in this map from the Venice state archives (a rare gem I may add).  Thus, this bridge confirms that "Everything new is old again" and conversely also that "Everything old is new again"...  So, in the grander scheme of things, what's another year?  All we really ever have is this moment, so let's accept its inevitability and enjoy it as it happens!

Bridges are often used as metaphors of positive forward change too (remember the Clintonian "bridge to the 21st century"?).  It would be tempting to use this modern bridge, connecting two symbols of progress (trains and cars), on this day of passing from one year to the next, to make it be a good auspice for the future.  I am choosing instead to avoid attaching lofty meanings to it and stick to its simpler symbolism of connection.  
Let this bridge be a constant reminder for us all to stay connected!  With ourselves, with those we love and with all of humanity!

Finally, the Venetian name for this bridge (on the bottom of the postcard) is Ponte de la Zirada, which translates to "bridge of the turn".  
So, may the end of this year be an authentic turning point for all...

Bona Zirada!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Just a quick entry to wish all of our Venice alumni, advisors, sponsors and friends a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY 2009!!!  

One more year of celebrations for our 20th Anniversary!

Last Day

Today, the students are leaving Venice.  Another year has gone by... 

The students have crossed the metaphorical bridge of sighs and are now flying back to the US to complete their education, with a major milestone behind them. 

Next year, 28 more students will come and continue the work we started in this pivotal year.  They will still be 20 years old, as they have always been, but I will be one year older.  I will also be wiser, I think.  This has been a challenging year for me, both on the personal and on the professional level, but these challenges bring about transformation and insight, which I am confident will translate into even more fulfilling experiences for us all.

The Interactive Qualifying Project instills great confidence in our students, who are thrown into a topic about which they know close to nothing, coached by advisors who typically are equally unfamiliar with the disciplines involved (clueless may be the word used at times).  The students are put in a "sink or swim" situation (bordering on torture as the students probably perceive it).  Yet - magically - they always swim away...  It's an amazing process.  And it works time after time; in Venice it has worked for over 500 students since 1988.  It proves that they are lot more resourceful than they even know.

This great invention, the Interactive Qualifying Project, is what distinguishes WPI from all other institutions of higher learning and once again the intuition of the founding fathers of the "WPI Plan" was confirmed by this 20th anniversary year's teams.

We should be seeing the final reports and deliverables in the next few weeks before the start of term C (Jan. 13, 2009).  

I look forward to that and to a new year full of creativity and success, as we continue to celebrate our anniversary until the fall of 2009!

Last Supper (or Lunch really)

We had planned to have our "last supper" at Pampo's at 8pm today since some students have to leave on Friday (despite clear  instructions to the contrary), but another Acqua Alta was forecasted for 11pm (140cm), so we decided to have a "last lunch" instead, around 2pm, right after the last presentation at UNESCO.  As always, it was a bittersweet occasion. 

We were all elated that the presentations were over and the projects had been a great success, but at the same time, it dawned on all of us that this would likely be the last time we'd all be together as a group.  We raised our glasses and toasted each other many times and Paul and I had our last chance to address the group to remind them how far we had all come from our tentative beginnings in August to the confidence and pride we all shared today.  

I pointed out to them that, as tough as the IQP is, it is also that much more rewarding when we cross the finish line.  It truly mirrors "real life" (unlike many traditional academic programs) by creating a context in which personal growth and transformation can occur, above and beyond the subject matter of the project.  For many students, it's a life-changing experience and for me it has been, and continues to be, the most rewarding aspect of my professional life.

All too soon, we were outside for a group picture and then off to the VPC office for more last minute printing, binding and even meetings.  

"It ain't over until the Marangona tolls" as we say in Venice...

(actually I made this one up, because the "fat lady sings" seems not very politically correct as it disparages weight-challenged singers)

Final Presentations - Preserving Venetian Heritage

The last presentations took place today at the Venice office of UNESCO.  Once again, the high tides affected the attendance (we had to move the presentations back 1/2 hour to wait for the acqua alta to subside), but those who did attend were high caliber people, including Dr. Carla Toffolo, the secretary of the Private Committees for the Safeguard of Venice, Dr. Emmanuele Armani, one of the premier restorers of works of art in Venice, representatives of UNESCO and other friends and students.  We combined two presentations back-to-back.  The first was on the development of a roll-out plan for the non-profit organization we call PreserVenice, which will take on the challenge of moving towards active preservation of endangered pieces.  The team put together an outstanding presentation which explained how they designed a fully-interactive web site to showcase our multimedia catalogs of almost 4,500 pieces of art that are visible from the streets and canals of Venice, and how the site could be used to solicit donations to begin the process of actually preserving this incomparable collection that has no equals in the world.  The richness of the data allows our sophisticated algorythms to instantly graph the condition ratings of each piece and thus automatically calculate the estimated cost and priority of each restoration.  If a donor is attracted to a particular piece he or she can "adopt" it by donating to its restoration fund.

In the spirit of the Venice 2.0 initiative, we sincerely hope that this project will mark the final stage of an effort that started in 1990 and will thus herald the beginning of a new era that will result in the active restoration of Venetian Public Art.  All we need now is seed funding to hire a part-time administrator of the fledgling organization so the restorations can start in earnest.  Click here to donate now to the seed fund.

(actually we can't accept donations now, so invest your money in a Madoff  "Ponzi account" and watch it grow while we get our PayPal account activated ...)

Venice -2.0?

With 2 days left to go, it feels as if Venice wants us out of here after 20 years... And it's going to flush us out with Acqua Alta.  Let's hope we don't beat the historical record of 1.92m, or Venice will be at -2.0 meter under... The current forecast (see figure below - which will change every day from now on) is rather ominous, and things don't look too good for the next few days, as we try to wrap-up our 20th anniversary projects here. We had to move up our Preservenice and Municipal Data Objects presentations tomorrow to 11:30 (they were originally at 11, just 2 hours after a 140cm tide). Plus, we had a dinner planned for tomorrow evening at 8pm (with a 130cm tide forecasted at 10:40pm) at Pampo's, which we changed into a lunch at 1:30pm (in between peaks). Luckily, the City provides fairly accurate and timely warnings about the upcoming tide events, using forecasts, sms text messages and even sirens.  Despite the failure of the December 1st forecasts, we are hoping that our friend Paolo Canestrelli, who runs the Centro Maree will get it right this time or at least get it wrong by overstimation...  In any case, tonight, tomorrow and Friday, we'll be hearing the new tide warning sirens in Venice quite a bit...  Click the Play button in the lower left-hand corner in the picture below so you can hear them too, and be with us in spirit while in the comfort of your own home...
For added realism, try wearing rubber boots!