Taking notes is an important way for people to record information they want to retain. And many tools have been built to address many note-taking use-cases such as todo lists, team-wide knowledge-bases, or general-purpose notes.
But finding the right tool to visually organize study content remains quite an elusive task, especially for technical topics like STEM which rely on examples or references.
This problem led to a side project of mine that would become WingNotes, a two-column note-taking app designed to help organize study notes and make it easier to review your content. …
Part III: It’s your job.
As a leader in your position, you have huge responsibilities to take care of. You are the head of a multi-billion dollar company. You have multiple departments, committees, faculty, and board members vying for your attention and time. And yet, there are internal problems within your organization and it’s affecting its operation.
If you’ve followed the employment industry lately, you would know that there’s a growing trend of employees seeking out companies that provide freedom, purpose, fit, culture. You were right in saying that money only works up to a point. And the same goes for prestige, image, and brand…
Part II: On Reality.
I wanted to comment on some realities that often go missed and without thought:
Corporatization
- MIT is a company. It has a board, it has a CEO (ie. you), it has VPs, it has paying customers (students, government, etc), it has multiple ‘products’ (students, research), it receives a substantial amount of revenue which it uses to cover expenses…you get the point.
- MIT has a well-known, global brand that requires a huge amount of maintenance and care in order to sustain such a lofty, prestigious image.
- Liability is one of the greatest threats to MIT’s global brand. Everything must be politically correct…
Part I: Being Candid.
Before you entered your presidency in May of 2012, you urged the community to be candid with you. You encouraged us to speak with you frankly, even if it’s not what you want to hear. You correctly identified that part of the secret to MIT’s success is a culture of openness, of vocalization, of ideas, and subsequently, of collective improvement.
But at the time, I didn’t have anything to say to you. Nothing to be candid about. It was my freshman year and I really enjoyed MIT. Of course, rosy retrospection may bias my opinions now, but compared to high…
A belated travel blog
About a year ago today, I was on the beaches of Bali, 8,699 miles away from home. I had traveled more than 13,000 miles through Europe to get to Southeast Asia and I still had another 12,000 or so miles left in my journey.
At the age of 19, I was doing what many others have only dreamt of doing, spoken of doing, “planned” on doing. I took 3 months off to travel through Europe and Asia. …
Brandon Le
Always learning, doing, and exploring. Formerly @yc @mit, @supplywireless
