Keep Doin' Whatcha Doin'

I've come to realize that public policy isn't where my future is. I got all caught up in the excitement of FoodWorks and suppressed my dream of being an urban farmer. That isn't to say I haven't had a good time, on the contrary I learned a lot and have really enjoyed working in Community Outreach. I feel appreciated and capable and better equipped for other jobs and interviews.

Something funny happened during my internship though. At one point I was put to the task of inviting some 3,000 fans of Christine Quinn to events through facebook (in addition to cold-calling, e-mailing, and faxing invites). The woman holding the position of "Web, Digital and Social Media Manager and Press Officer" signed me in to the Speaker's Facebook account and let me rip (or click) away at the invites. Now this is nothing new to kids these days, I personally grew up with a computer in the house, I started blogging when I was 14 and I'll admit I was a bit of a late bloomer getting on Facebook ( I logged in for the first time in 2005 but didn't really use it until 2008). Now I've got a twitter, a tumblr, a blip.fm "station", a flickr, and a foursquare. Since I started driving the ice cream truck, I've been pretty familiar with promotion using 140 characters. The point is I consider myself social-network-comfy.

So one day I arrived at my internship and checked in to "250 Broadway- NYC Council" on foursquare, as I had been doing 3 days a week. For some background, Foursquare is a social networking site that also works like a game, one can "check in" to a venue they are at, be it a library, restaurant, or even a cab, and earn points for each check-in. Checking in to a place for the first time gives you more points, as does creating a venue, and you can unlock "badges." The most fun is ousting the "mayor" of a venue once you check in more times in a month than the current mayor. Well thats exactly what I did, but the mayor I ousted was the Press Officer.

Of course I had selected in my settings to automatically tweet every time I oust a mayor. Whoops.

Within a few minutes I got an e-mail from the Press Officer asking for my in-house phone extension. Then my phone rang.

"I've seen your twitter and your tumblr... tell me about your experience with social networking," she said. I found myself in the middle of an interview (a lesson to always be prepared). By the end of the call I was offered an internship in communications and given some time to think.

A few weeks later she and I ended up at the same event together which was hosted by the speaker and we checked in to the event's "venue" together, which I created. That day I interviewed with the Director of Communications at the office of the City Council Speaker and was asked for my availability.

So it looks like I'll be staying with the Speaker for another semester! I'll miss Community Outreach, but web communications is just another way of reaching out to people, no?

"Its right up my alley, which is less of an alley and more like a feild"

As I sit down to write this I hear the bells of an ice cream truck and the hum of it's generator as the truck passes under my 3rd story window in Brooklyn. I can't help but wonder if they're coming for me.

Up until about 2 months ago I drove and ice cream truck for well over a year (I served coffee all winter) and before that I worked in a holistic health center and before that in several restaurants. I had been a model, which is to say I didn't eat. I had been a vegan, which is also to say I didn't eat, and I had hoped to eventually work on an organic farm. I have clearly been heavily involved with food for quite some time. Many would say obnoxiously so.

So how does a 24 year old ice cream truck driver with a food-obsessed history end up interning with the New York City Council Speaker? As I have expressed once before, I came to understand the power of government through ice cream. Yes, I had been working for an amazing company that contributed to the sphere of "good" food in our great city (albeit a treat), but it was painfully obvious that a lack of "good" food was available to the masses long before I entered the biz. With a few Urban Studies classes under my belt it became clearer to me that public policy, even on a city-level, could shape the way people eat.

Mind-blowing, I know.

When I first interviewed at the Speaker's office I was terrified. For starters I couldn't remember submitting my resume, which was obviously sprinkled with hopes of finding myself working in a garden or farm all fall. My other concern was that the City Council might not be for me because I had an ice cream scoop's chance in hell in getting to work on something food policy-related, which was all I really wanted.

I guess hell is pretty cool this time of year, cause only a few weeks in to my internship I got assigned to work on the Speaker's FoodWorks Initiative. Most of the heavy lifting had been done, the reports for the launch nearly completed. I helped put some finishing touches on the big report to be released on November 22nd and soon began the invitation process, an intense task that lasted 2 weeks. A fantastic showcase of my networking abilities presented itself, it turned out I personally knew a lot of the right kinds of people to be inviting to such an event. I'm glad to have gotten in at the right time.

I'll post the official report once it is released on Monday, but I'll say its quite exciting. Until then- goodnight!

(Subject quote from a Blue Kid song.)