Day 43: Bias Towards Action

We had an exciting and diverse Friday, meeting Waste Management employees and East Oakland youth for a morning event, visiting past Big Green Bussers for a Google tour, and hanging out with Dartmouth Alumni for an evening dinner and pong tournament.

​Our morning event was energizing. Rebecca and Joe from Waste Management joined us to meet kids at Reach Academy in East Oakland. They got a tour of the Bus and learned about the Waste Management trash truck, which runs on natural gas. The kids were primary and middle schoolers enrolled in a summer program run by WELO (We Lead Ours – In the Right Direction), a non-profit leadership organization that offers education, civic leadership, health, and fitness training. The kids were excited by the Bus and impressively energetic and engaged, so we all had a lot of fun. Rebecca from Waste Management did a great job of explaining how WM runs their trash trucks on landfill gas, a complex discussion for six to twelve-year-olds! The process is actually pretty cool, and you can learn more about it here (liquid natural gas used in vehicles is a little different, but you’ll get the idea).
The next stop on the tour was the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, a trip the Big Green Bus has made every year since the beginning. Google extends its innovativeness to sustainability more impressively than any other corporation we’ve encountered. You can learn about their electric vehicle fleet, solar array, and employee bus program here; but what I really took away from our afternoon at Google is what Craig Rubens called a “bias towards action.”
Craig is a communications specialist at Google and a founding member of the Big Green Bus (in 2005). He met his fiancé, Steph Lawrence, when they were both on the Bus in 2006. Aside from telling us awesome stories from the early days – and proving that Bus love can last – Craig told us about Google employees’ bias towards action. This concept is just what it sounds like – a tendency to do rather than not do – and it is responsible in large part to Google’s success. Instead of sitting around discussing whether something will work, just do it! – and you’ll find out soon enough. Craig acknowledged that this bias is a little easier in a big company with plenty of resources to devote to potential flops, but I think the motto extend beyond business to everyday life. When you’re deciding whether or not to do something, see if a bias towards action works for you.
Our day concluded at a fun evening event with the Dartmouth Alumni Association of Silicon Valley (DAASV), where we had a relaxing dinner outside and played some games of the famous Dartmouth pong. Check out this clip of Craig and Steph and visit our website and the “crew” page for more fun bus history!
 
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