I am also beginning to feel like a strong contributor as well. Others in the factory are noticing my skills and are very pleased with the work I have done so far. However, Menlo Innovations is not so much about the work that we do, but how we do it. This was a point we were communicating to the client this afternoon, and has been the focus of my attention while working at this company. Daily I am blown away by the honesty, acceptance and pride of the people that work at Menlo.

On Tuesday, Lisa and I interviewed Rich, President of Menlo. The most remarkable aspect of this interview, aside from his message, was the informality yet seriousness of the set up. Lisa and I grabbed a free table in the factory, Rich grabbed his lunch, and we sat down for an casual conversation. The passion with which Rich spoke was exhilarating. He told us the story of Menlo’s beginnings, of a transformed client, of the “hope” that Menlo’s vision can bring the software world and the professional world as a whole. I was almost brought to tears by his heartfelt words, and by realizing that I have been given such a fantastic opportunity.

I left that day realizing more about who I want to be in my professional life. It may sound cheesy, but each day I grow exponentially as a professional. The open and collaborative environment, the constant feedback from my pair-partner, the energy in the factory and the honesty and integrity of everyone at Menlo is so amazingly refreshing.

It will be my task to capture Menlo’s unique perspective in their website. I am impressed and awed with Menlo on a daily basis, so this feels like a daunting task. I am however, using various user-centered design methods to break down the task into manageable chunks—smaller iterations that can be evaluated more frequently. This process feels slow at times. It also feels thorough and necessary to fully inform the design.

Ultimately, I can’t express how inspired I am. Perhaps the euphoria will wear off in the next couple weeks, and I will do a little less gushing and a little more reporting, but for now it just seems natural.

I began the week in a pretty unconventional way. On Monday, I sat in on one of Menlo’s educational classes called Agile Explained. This was an eight hour class focusing on the methodology of their design and development environment. A group of about 30 individuals from Health Media joined me and one other intern in the session with Rich and James. Tuesday was even more unconventional, as I joined Rich and James and Menlo’s art department (Brian and Ryan) on a trip down to Sylvania, OH to visit with the innovative “mind mapping” organization, Root.

Wednesday marked the first full day in the “factory”, as Menlo likes to call it. This work environment breaks all the rules, ignores all the conventions of a typical software development firm. The space is open and collaborative, with no personalized computers, desks, chairs, or spaces. When my chair disappeared after lunch one day, Brian insightfully informed me “to grab one without a butt in it.” Later in the week, he would also say to me that “at Menlo, the only rule is there are no rules.” This is really only partly true. While the environment breeds collaboration and innovation, there is also a strict protocol to follow when working for Menlo. This combination of freedom and structure seems to work very well for me so far. I very much appreciate the transparency throughout the organization and the open and honest attitudes of the management and fellow employees.

Ultimately, I am really excited about the experiences I will have this summer working for Menlo Innovations. The primary project I will be working on is to redesign the Menlo website utilizing the principles of their High-Tech Anthropology practice. The HTA role at Menlo uses user-centered approaches to inform the design of software that is extremely usable for the end user. I will be employing these techniques, which are very similar to those explored in SI 622, Evaluation of Systems and Services, as I redesign the Menlo Website.