I was one of the first to arrive, and since other early arrivers were also newcomers, initial discussion centered around food, drinks, and questioning about whether we were in the right place. But within a few minutes some long-time members arrived bearing pads of paper, which they tossed onto the table for all to share.
Vic, the club's president, got started by addressing a few of us first-years with a question about what has stuck out to us recently in our Core classes. One frustration immediately came to my mind, which I proceeded to jot down on the back of a Far Side page-a-day calendar: The process of professors assigning work through to students completing the work is terribly inefficient. Think about it: A professor may assign the work through a verbal command in class, through a display in class, through email, through a document on a shared server (OnCourse at the Kelley school), or through a number of other avenues. Then, each student has her own way of documenting the assignment such that she remembers to do it, which may involve writing it in a notebook which then gets typed into an Outlook task, or may involve typing it into a phone task manager which then gets emailed which then gets flagged as a to-do item, or may involve simple memory. In any case, each student interacts with the reminder to do the assignment several times before it is actually done, each of which costs effort and time. To put this problem more succinctly: There is a mismatch between the desired process and the actual process.
Desired process:
- Professor assigns work
- Student A performs work
- Student B performs work
- Student C performs work
- ...
Actual process:
- Professor assigns work
- Student A writes assignment on paper
- Student A translates assignment from paper to Outlook
- Student A performs work
- Student B types assignment into phone
- Student B emails assignment from phone
- Student B flags assignment email as a to-do item
- Student B performs work
- Student C...
- ...
There must be some missing solution to this problem, since if there was a perfect solution, students would not be using so many different methods to solve it.
This identification of a missing solution was just one subject discussed in the meeting. Another topic involved asking the question, "Why is so-and-so made in such-and-such a way?" Vic first posed the question, "Why are train tracks the specific width that they are?" The answer involves the widths of rail carts in old New York, which involves the widths of horse-drawn carriages in London, which involves the widths of wheel ruts discovered in ancient Rome. Thus, the standard width of train track is based on the most popular carts used by an empire dead for 1200 years. Such examples beg for disruptive innovation; the key is to first identify the examples.
The Napkin Club meeting facilitated a host of energized discussions and produced numerous drawings and bullet points scratched out on slips of paper. But most importantly, as I eyed up the 20-or-so students gathered around the table, it felt like the launching of new careers.
