Applications

Red, Mentor

Monday night I went home very early (6:30pm) because I was so tired from the few hours of sleep I got mixed, with study, and rode down in the elevator with Red Burns (our department chair). I mentioned that I was going home because I was tired. Our exchange went something like this:

David: …yeah, I’ve been here a lot. I’m going home early - too tired.
Red: Physically or mentally?
David: Physically, right now. I worked until midnight last night and fell asleep at 3am, then opened the ER at 9am this morning. I found out I don’t have enough time to sleep between 12am and 9am.
Red: Haha, I could have told you that…

I’ll be the first to admit that Red is still very intimidating to me and I’m always fumbling with my words when we talk, but she has such an incredible way of making things succinct, pointed, and cutting. And when you catch them, they’re the most inspiring phrases you’ll hear.

Later on I was doing some web browsing (is it passe to say “web surfing” now?) and looking up information from Tom Igoe, Danny Rozin, and my other professors and came upon the page for Red’s 2002 Chrysler Design Award. I attempted to find more sources about Red, but there isn’t much out there (I’ve contacted the other ITPers about working on, at very least, a Wikipedia biography in attempts of “solving” this, but there are many reasons why the most powerful woman in technology would not want her personal and professional information accessible by all…). On John Maeda’s blog entry last year, he linked to a very small biography, but with very little content.

Yesterday during work in the ER, Red walked by: “You’re here working again?” - “Yeah, I work Monday and Tuesday mornings. I think being around here is definitely worth it.” She smirked, nodded and kept walking. I found the TED website I posted here and watched the speech Maeda gave to TED in July. At 4pm I went to our Applications class, taught by Red, and who was our speaker for the day?… John Maeda. He hadn’t been able to make it down from Boston before, but decided it was important and took time off of teaching to come and speak to our class. I won’t go into our mixed reactions about John Maeda’s speech (insightful with incredible work, but came out as patronizing during Q&A) but being able to see the brief interaction with Red and John (who counts his original mentors as Paul Rand and Ikko Tanaka) was great, as always. No matter the speaker in class, they always have such amazing reverence and esteem for Red. I’m extremely honored to be studying under her and can’t wait to fill my sketchbook with wisdom tid-bits from even the briefest of comments and conversations.

More times than not, the idea doesn’t need the technology.
- Red Burns, 2007

Technology should be in the service of the idea.
- Red Burns, 2007