here right now I’m a little bit nervous
but I’m going to push through so for
those of you who don’t know me my name
is Doug Gilmour it removes a little bit
of background about my time here at
Arcadia so I am just finishing at my
sophomore year studying print and video
communications in computer science I am
an honor student and the fall semester
of my freshman year I was fortunate
enough to win the honors programs first
big idea competition where I’m on five
hundred dollars to create better
sustainability initiatives at Arcadia
through a committee that I call wasting
to you so I’m going to talk a little bit
about making big ideas bigger actions
I’m gonna be honest I was a little bit
surprised when I was asked to present
today for people that know me they know
that i’m a person that loves to come up
with big ideas all the time i love to
share my ideas with other people and i’d
love to think really big but i have
never really thought about that being
something a skill that i could really
share with other people and teach people
how to do but i’m certainly going to try
i want to start with giving you guys a
little bit of background information on
younger Deb okay get ready picture me 11
years ago I am exactly the same height
I were coconut green boots every day and
I carried a stuff to deaf nic cheese
with me everywhere I went needless to
say I thought I was destined for better
things bigger things like Disney Channel
yeah that’s right I spent most of my
third and fourth grade year poring over
casting calls creating resumes for
myself getting headshots done in the
local Walmart and auditioning for local
productions unfortunately my goal of
becoming a dippy channel star did not
come to fruition as my parents worked
full-time jobs and I also looked 3,000
miles from Los Angeles but the process
itself was worth it so I’m here to talk
to you today about making big ideas into
bigger realities into bigger actions
taking something from inside your head
and turning it into something real it’s
it’s something good like sounds really
simple when you talk about it it’s
almost as if you can take it like in
that machine the speeches from dr. Seuss
have your big idea put it through some
fancy machine out pops the ID on the
other end this clipper is a little bit
strange so I’m going to get used to it
across but there is a lot more to it so
how do we do that how does that process
happen how do we start from an abstract
idea in our head and turn
into something real something tangible
I’m going to take you through my process
in 10 steps that I came up with so here
we have how to turn a big idea into
reality step one is to come up with the
idea now this in some ways is both of
the easiest and the hardest step because
it’s easy and that we come up with ideas
all the time you come up with ideas in
our dreams when we’re walking to school
in the shower sometimes even in our most
boring class I’m sorry for the
professors that are in the audience but
sometimes you have a boring class today
you come up with the coolest idea ever
for your band some of the first step you
come up with the idea and from there you
have to take it somewhere so that step
to find a partner in crime now you’re
awesome idea like for example I was
sitting at lunch with my freshman
friends first week of college
orientation and I was looking down at my
plate of food at the dining hall and I
just happen to have noticed and thought
about how much food waste there must
have been in the dining hall a lot and I
thought about bulgy everything in my
plate right now could totally be
composted and I came up with the idea it
was that simple composting but I could
talk about it to a million friends and
they can say oh that’s a really cool
idea but I needed somebody to care about
it as much as I did and I tia means
nothing if you’re the only person that
cares about it that would be like that
one vegan friend who’s yelling about the
abuse of chickens on the car ride to
chick-fil-a
they’re friends like it’s just it’s just
not going to work you can care about
something as much as you want but you
need somebody to care about it with you
you need to find a partner who is
equally passionate equally available and
equally willing to work on your project
as you are you gotta plugging into your
yang the silent era Garfunkel the
privateer Obama a lot of people say that
they hate through projects but frankly
life is a group project and your good
ideas this is actually a gift step 3
come up with a plan so we’ve got your
partner here oh you’re Biden and you’re
ready to go you’re passionate about your
project but everything is still really
abstract it’s like that suitcase that
you frantically packed for a really long
trip and you have absolutely no idea at
the contents of it in order to take
steps forward from this point you’ve got
to sit on packet organize it and put it
in some drawers when I entered the big
idea competition I was required to come
up with a detailed plan of exactly
everything that I wanted to do I had to
come up with a list of resources a very
detailed budget and a very extensive
calendar about how I intended to make my
idea a reality people will take you a
lot more seriously if you show that
you’ve put in the legwork speaking of
people taking you seriously you’ve got
to share your idea it’s one step that
you’ve got it all planned out but the
first thing that you got to do when you
have everything ready is to share it
with people that are important the first
thing that I did after I was lucky
enough to win
petition and meet with my fellow
students and faculty members that wanted
to work on the project as I arranged a
meeting with the head of the facilities
department that was the first step I
knew that I could not do anything moving
forward with sustainability at Arcadia
until I met with the people who are in
charge step 5 don’t talk take action and
I’ll let you guys in on a little secret
I really really hate long meetings like
I really hate long meetings and so for
waste edu I try to keep my meetings as
short as humanly possible we meet three
types of months every monday from seven
to 7 35 and we spent about 10 of those
minutes every meeting talking about what
we’re going to do the rest of the time
we do stuff we send emails we consult
with each other we do research we plan
events we push and we push and we push
because the truth is and a lot of people
don’t realize this is you can spend
about seventy percent of your time doing
things and thirty percent of the time
talking about it most people flip that
but you can always be doing things and
you should always be doing things step 6
let this one did it go to the step 5 no
okay step 6 but roadblocks encourage you
not discourage you so here’s the deal
you’re going to fail I know let that
sink in chooses are the original plan
that you came up with is not going to
happen exactly the way that you wanted
to when I first met with the facilities
department of
cool and talked about wanting to get
composting at Arcadia they told me that
I would have to create a five-year plan
in order to do so and that the
likelihood even at that point of it
happening was extremely slim I felt like
all of my work was pointless every month
that I spent planning every single thing
the calendar that i created the budget
that I created I may as well to thrown
out the window because at that point I
felt like I planned wrong I had
considered how unrealistic at the time
my idea had been but that brings me to
step 7 be persistent I didn’t give up
and that’s really important to remember
in your daily life and especially when
you’re doing things that are much much
bigger than yourself at the time
composting may not have been possible
but I said are you sure and I did more
research and I tried new angles and I’m
brought in more people and asked more
people and found out new ways to
approach the same problem and then I
expanded it and I found different
problems I realized well yes composting
is something that would be graded
Arcadia but maybe we should fix the
recycling system first and so we took a
step back when we tried it from a new
angle and that’s the key is that there
are always new angles that you can take
on a problem at the time
at this particular time full school
composting is not something that we’re
going to get by the end of this year and
by the end of next semester but last
year in organic gardening was certainly
possible step 8 track your results
failures successes and contributors so
as a communications major and a computer
scientist I have no choice but to take
the time to emphasize the importance of
dad you’ve got to track your results if
you’ve made it this far chances are you
have accomplished an enormous amount
you’ve hit a lot of roadblocks you’ve
made a lot of changes met a lot of
people and done a lot of things
documented pay attention to every
failure pay attention to every
conversation take notes take minutes
take research take surveys take pictures
put it on social media connect with
people in your general community in the
community at large tell more people
about the things that you’re doing
document it documented documented I
cannot stress that enough then after
you’ve documented it share it with
people so waste edu has over 200
instagram followers several hundred
facebook followers we have a twitter
that has
amount of followers and we regularly try
to connect with the Canadian community
and the community at large about
everything that we are doing all the
time it’s the best way that you can show
people that you’re actually doing stuff
it’s one thing if you have a mainly
meeting every week and you talk about
staffing you could also be doing a
million different things all the time
but if you don’t show people what those
things are they’ll never know so I’m
going to share with you something that
we learn to make CD you after conducting
a survey environmental survey that some
of you may have actually participated in
we had over 700 responses and one thing
that we found is that almost
seventy-five percent 75% of the arcadia
community does not know that we use
collected rainwater to water or green
and it goes into geothermal wells under
the ground that are then used to water
your plant beds and heat and cool this
building yeah Wow seventy-five percent
of people didn’t know that but we took
the time and we said hey let’s figure
out what people know and let’s share
this information back with them and we
will be sharing that survey with you
soon I promise come to our box step
lather rinse and repeat if you’ve made
it to one of your goals you aren’t even
close to being done yet because you
should think even bigger than that if
you made it to one little gold make
another one and then make another one
after that and continue making goals
until you have reached the point where
you’ve accomplished more than you ever
thought was possible when I started
based edu I was thinking small even
though I won a big idea
I was thinking I’m going to start this
environmental club and we’re going to
get composting in one year and then I’m
going to go on and do other things well
now we’re running a committee that
operates with four separate
subcommittees we have projects including
beekeeping aquaponics in our greenhouse
a full-blown organic garden a survey of
data collecting information we’re trying
to get brand new recycling bins
organizing conferences big events the
list goes on it has continued to get
bigger and will continue to get bigger
because the truth is you’re never done
if you’re a person that wants to be a
big idea creator if you are an innovator
your narrowed on coming up with ideas
and you never should be so ideas can
turn into actions so I encourage all of
you right now to just close your eyes if
you want to you don’t have to and think
about the last cool idea that you had
now imagine if it actually happened
imagine if you didn’t create that act or
that clothing line for bodies that you
actually have instead of going to the
store having to tailor all of your
clothes imagine if you were able to
start a club on your campus or a small
business or invent something well you
can your ideas are allowed to be big and
you should be allowed to explore that
and it is simpler than you may feel like
it is I really encourage all of you to
get out there and big and make it happen
thank you [Applause]