Rethinking, Social Media, and Eye of the Tiger: My SLC Experience

The UBC Student Leadership Conference is a signature event of UBC, bringing together over 1300 students to a day filled with leadership opportunities and the chance to meet with industry professionals and UBC student leaders. I had the lucky chance to dedicate 9 months of my life for this year’s conference and had a fantastic, fun, memorable, laugh-out-loud time with a group of the best people around.

SLC has definitely been my favourite volunteer experience ever. I’ve met great people, learned a lot of great skills, and had an experience of a lifetime. I sometimes can’t fathom that it was over 2 months ago that all our blood (literally for me), sweat and tears came together on one Saturday in January. SLC 2011 had great reviews from everyone and I’m extremely happy they had a great time.

But what was most memorable for me was the process of making the conference happen. At our midterm retreat, one of our advisors, Shannon, said that she could pull off SLC by herself and that it would be a lot less trouble. Well, Shannon, if SLC was like that it would have been a lot less fun and I bet she doesn’t regret putting up with us

Call me an oldie, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to remember everything that’s happened in a span of 9 months. So in honour of the UBC SLC 2011 and the planning committee, I’ve written everything down that was most memorable for me because, really, if I included everything, it’ll be a few thousand words. So I’ll focus on the most memorable aspects during my time at SLC and cap it off at (I won’t tell you the number because you might not reading it )

Joining or not – yeah, I’m joining.

The idea of not joining the SLC crossed my mind for a few minutes back in May when I was offered my position. I had originally applied for Volunteer Coordinator because I wanted to work with volunteers and I’ve had that kind of experience before. But I had been offered Media Coordinator, not that it was a bad position (it ended up being awesome). I wanted to step out my comfort zone a bit, which in hindsight was actually the opposite because I’ve done more volunteer-related extracurriculars, so I didn’t accept the position right away. At the end of the day, literally, I accepted the job the next day because it was on my mind for months after the 2010 conference and I would have regretted it incredibly if I did not join.

Sometimes things don’t go your way and it turns out to be for the best. Sometimes, silver linings do exist. And they turn out to be bright pink and blue and a whole lot of awesome.

Wiggio

Oh god, Wiggio. For those who don’t know, Wiggio is an online application meant to make group collaboration more efficient and easier, and a lot of student development programs use it. Think of it as an upgrade to the Facebook Group with calendars, ability to conduct polls and file sharing. Well, it didn’t live up to the hype, the thing caused more frustration than without it. People would upload files, but no one could find it. We had profiles which everyone was supposed to upload their photo, which of course 5 people of our 25-person group did.  We would get notifications that the calendar changed, but no idea which part of it did. We were supposed to upload timelines in May, which only a few people did again (less of Wiggio’s fault I guess). Polls would be conducted, but not everyone would/could vote. Updates would be posted on Wiggio, but we have our SLC e-mail accounts, which are with Google so we have Google calendars, docs, and everything, so why couldn’t we send a full-team update there? Everyone ended up casually ignoring Wiggio by the end.

Passion Worth Blogging: Life Saver Bottle

TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) is a set of conferences built around the theme “Ideas worth spreading.” Speakers from various professional fields share their research, life, and ideas. All videos are uploaded onto their website and is free for viewing and viewable in Canada too (none of that “you’re not in the USA so you can’t watch this” crap). I’ve been inspired by many of these talks, and I think lots of people would benefit from seeing individuals around the world working on what they are passionate about. Great ideas need to be shared, so let’s start sharing.

The first video I’d like to share is speaker Michael Pritchard, the inventor of Life Saver Bottle.

Basically, the concept is a filter bottle that filters at a smaller diameter than most filters. Thus, it filters out bacteria, viruses and other organisms from water at higher than approved rates, which is a big concern if you are receiving water from polluted areas.

Amidst the Japanese and China earthquakes that occurred within 1 hour of each other (the one in China has been relatively unnoticed because the one Sendai, Japan is more severe), it has made me think about this bottle and its potential use for those desperately needing water in the event of a disaster. If not for the price ($149 USD), I would definitely buy myself one just in case. Vancouver is sitting near major faults, similar to the situation in Japan, therefore making Vancouver a prime target for earthquakes. Also, coupled with the fact that many Vancouver buildings are not up to modern seismic standards, meaning  they are not able to withstand earthquake tremors and are more prone to collapse, an earthquake could have very devastating effects for Vancouver. Although I have not researched on the statistics of how helpful this bottle would be, I think the concept is admirable and I’m glad to see some people of our world trying to help others.

There are many news networks that are keeping up with the news with the recent Japanese earthquake. NHK World, a Japanese broadcasting company, has English-translated news. Aljazeer is also quite good and unbiased. If you know any good websites, please put them in the comment box. Ideas worth spreading, guys.

(Pics and video: TED.com)

More Passion Worth Blogging

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