The end is nigh....

After close to 10 weeks of work I was finally ready to deliver!

My final presentation was scheduled for a weekday afternoon, via a conference call that would be attended by some of EDF’s experts in nitrogen management and agriculture. I was nervous but comforted by the confidence my boss had displayed in my findings by inviting his colleagues to my briefing. I had never delivered a presentation over a conference call before and found the prospect of talking to a phone for 45 minutes discomforting! Nevertheless, I did the best I could and my audience followed along with the slides in front of them.

The presentation was over quicker than I thought it would be and there were plenty of questions as I went along. This resulted in my having to hurry up toward the end and skip over a few parts of my presentation. Luckily I did not have a hard audience and I was able to reach my conclusions and recommendations without a problem. On hindsight I would have had my boss moderate the entire presentation so that we limited questions during the presentation and saved more time to run through the slides. This is a common mistake and even harder to manger via a conference call with attendees dialing in from different locations. There are no substitutes for face to face meetings, it turns out!

On the whole, the internship was a great experience for me and hopefully provided EDF some good material and research on which to base their nitrogen interventions. I had the chance to learn about agriculture, cropping systems and the environmental impacts that fertilizers have on our natural resources. This is a big bonus for me as I’m also concurrently pursing a Master of Sicence and this definitely helped my understanding of agro-ecology. Finally, I was surprised to learn that it is remarkably easy to identify gaps and need for coordination when one talks to enough people with different points of view. My project is now wrapped up and I’m looking forward to working with EDF in the future again!

Deadlines looms large

Talking to experts, researching fertilizers and learning about farming has been really interesting! However, it was week 4 and I had the final deliverable looming ahead of me. I was starting to feel knowledgable about nitrogen fertilizers, cropping patterns, environmental impacts of nitrogen pollution and had not given a thought to how to translate this information into recommendations that I could pass onto EDF. The biggest difficulty I faced was obtaining enough high quality information that was peer reviewed and published as opposed to internet published data from practioners who may have biased opinions. Furthermore this information was scattered and much of it resided with the experts and academics. How was the average farmer supposed to make any informed decisions on fertilizer choice if the information was this hard to find? This thought spurred a couple of recommendations for EDF and I discussed this difficulty with my boss - could there be a niche that EDF could fill here? He was defnitely interested in hearing more!

The pressure was however definitely building as I was down to my last two weeks. I started to build a ‘strawman deck’ which is consulting speak for a partially completed PowerPoint presentation that defines a detailed outline without providing all the answers. This is crucial to give your client an idea of what to expect and how much work is remaining to be done before the final presentation is ready. There are pros and cons to this approach and although I would highly recommend doing this, one should be prepared to push back against last minute scope additions. In my case, the strawman was very helpful in getting the end deliverable to a quality that was acceptable to EDF, but it also meant additional work and data gathering at the last minute. I was working feverishly to plug the gaps in my analysis so that I could defend my recommendations. Things were starting to come together and I had some clear recommendations for EDF to pursue. I just needed to figure out how best to present it! ...It was going to be a tough week ahead.

The work begins...

I'm really in the thick of things now! - Once I had my scope nailed down, I quickly settled into a routine. I would identify experts, perform research and send request for interviews between Monday – Wednesday. Thursdays and Fridays would be interview days and my boss would join me for some of the more important calls. Initially, I would just listen and learn about how to manage interviews and how I should position myself as an independent third party. By the third week, I was leading calls and managing my own interviews. This was then the real fun started – nothing prepared me for the diversity of individuals I would be talking with. I spoke with farmers and crop consultants early in the morning, most of them were on the road in their trucks and had quite obviously never spoken with an Indian sounding person before! It was my first time talking with ‘southern’ folk and I quickly warmed up to being addressed as ‘Ma’am’ – this job was turning into quite a cultural education. I also quickly realized that I would have to adapt to the working style of farmers and researchers. Professionalism meant different things in this new environment and I realized that I could just pick up the phone and call a stranger based on a referral without having to pre-arrange a meeting time or block off their calendar. This too was quite refreshing! The willingness with which people spoke with me and the way they freely shared knowledge, information and perspectives too was quite eye-opening – a far cry from the corporate world that I was so familiar with. In this world of farmers, researchers and crop experts the only way to earn credibility was to be a practitioner with years of experience and scientific know-how. Being a graduate student affiliated with EDF got me a lot of mileage and I milked it for all it was worth!

PS: Here's a great report that i came across during my research

Setting the boundaries...

This is what water pollution actually looks like!


Before I even started the internship with EDF, I spent some time talking my reporting manager and setting expectations for the amount of time I had available and the type of work commitment I would be able to meet. We decided that 8-10 hours a week spread over 7 days was acceptable for both parties and once the expectations were set, we jumped into defining the scope of the project. Scoping is often the hardest part of any short-term project and the time it takes is often under-estimated. My project came defined with 4 research questions around enhanced efficiency fertilizers (EEFS):
a) The current state of the EEF technology
b) The industry landscape
c) The environmental impacts
d) The barriers and hurdles to adoption of EEFs.
I realized quickly that this was too broad and in order to be effective within my 6-week time frame I had to be far more specific. I went back to my boss and through further conversation clearly articulated questions for each of the above areas. We agreed that success for the internship would be defined by how successfully I was able to answer the research questions we formulated.

Now with my task cut out for me, I quickly designed a work plan and drew up a list of experts that I would need access to in order to execute my work. The first stage would be data gathering and I would spend the last couple of weeks synthesizing data collected for the final deliverable. EDF is a very well respected organization and I had no problem in getting access to experts or finding the right persons to connect with. I first identified experts within EDF to interview and most of them were able to connect me with colleagues and experts in the industry. I was excited at the opportunity to talk to a wide variety of individuals across a range of organizations, from farmers to research academics!

Fertilizers!

My part-time internship with the Environmental Defense Fund was structured so that I could complete the task assigned to me in approximately 6 weeks while simultaneously being enrolled in classes. The estimated workload was between 8-10 hours a week and because this was equivalent to a full course load, I decided to take on only 3 classes in Winter A. On hindsight this was the best decision I could have made! It required some adjustment in my weekly schedule and I had to plan my time so that I could dedicate an entire Friday to interviews, research and conference calls, while completing desk research during other days of the week. The work itself was to research the viability of using enhanced efficiency nitrogen fertilizers (EEF) to reduce the loss of nitrogen to the environment. The EDF Corporate Partnership Program prides itself on understanding the industry structure and key players in the ecosystem before they decide what interventions are appropriate. My research project would feed into their Nitrogen Management Initiative, a strategic focus on reducing the nitrogen pollution in US watersheds and rivers (particularly in the mid-west), which are heavily polluted with nitrogen run-off and other forms of fertilizers. My work would require Internet research and interviews with ecologists, farmers, consultants, businesses and academics. I had to quickly get up to speed on this extremely complex issue and then interview experts to understand what the barriers to adoption of more efficient farming practices were. This was a tall order to accomplish in 6 weeks! I was reporting to an experienced member of the Corporate Partnership Program and we arranged to have weekly/fortnightly check-ins via the phone and joint conference calls with a few experts. My deliverable at the end of the internship was a PowerPoint presentation to be made to the key members of the Nitrogen Management Initiative at EDF.

Greetings!

Hello everyone -  My name is Amrita and I'm a dual degree MBA + MS student in my 2nd year at the University of Michigan. I'm a fellow of the Erb Institute of Global Sustainable Enterprise, and am focused on findings ways by which businesses can enable positive environmental and social change happen! In particular, I'm interested in for-profit market driven solutions to our natural resource problems and I'm keen to explore the ways this can be achieved via entrepreneurship in emerging markets. 
My blog posts will be slightly unconventional as I will be writing about my experience interning with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) as a research associate with the Corporate Partnership Program. My internship was a part-time position that I was able to juggle my Winter A course load, so these posts will be based on my experiences interning during the semester. 
Environmental Defense Fund is a non profit that has a reputation of being one of the most effective organizations in engaging with businesses and corporations to make step changes in their environmental impact. I had heard about the Corporate Partnership PRogram for over a year and to finally have the opportunity to work with the group was very exciting. I was nervous about being able to perform up to expectations given my other academic and extra-curricular responsibilities, but I decided that this would be my priority for 5 weeks. I look forward to sharing my experiences!