Strategic Planning and Avoiding Museum Security

So... day two was exciting.  There are several ways to access elevators to the third floor offices.  I'm told that most staff use the loading dock entrance.  I think that's boring.  Loading docks are for registrars.  I like the galleries.  If I come in via the John R entrance, I end up walking through several galleries before I find the giant bronze elevator that will take me upstairs.

This sounds wonderful... except that today I got a little lost.  Apparently, security was alerted that I was wandering around the galleries without any credentials.  Oops.  Well, eventually Sondra found me and I was swept away to the security office to obtain an official badge.  Awesome.

But come on-- wouldn't you want to wander around here too? 

The hallway that leads to my elevator.

This is the insanely huge elevator to the third floor.

And once I got upstairs, I found my desk without getting lost.

My desk.

Today I worked on some stuff with the DIA's new strategic plan.  It was actually pretty interesting.  Their fiscal year is about to end (June 30) so they just had a strategic planning meeting where the staff were able to give their feedback on the main objectives of the plan.  Staff were asked to write their questions and comments on post-it notes, which were later used in some kind of activity (I wasn't at this meeting, so that's about all I know.)

I was asked to find general themes within these comments, organize them as such, and type them up.  It sounds mind-numbing, but it was actually really interesting.  It was almost like eavesdropping on the inner thoughts of the institution and it served as a great overview of the staff's most pressing concerns about the future of the museum.  I'm not sure if I'm at liberty to discuss what these concerns are... so I won't.  But some were what I expected (the obvious budget issues, etc.) while others were surprising.  Overall, I found it to be an interesting little project.

Yesterday, Sondra took a picture of me with her iPhone, and emailed it to the entire museum as a means of introducing me and soliciting for projects that they may need help with.  As a result, I had dozens of people stop me in the hallway today to say, "Hey!  You're that intern!"  Yup.  I'm that intern.

Tomorrow I have a meeting-- the topic of which is still something of a mystery, but I can't wait to find out.  At least everyone in attendance will know who I am.