FRIENDS OF DESIGN: BUILDING A TECHNICAL SUPPORT COMMUNITY FOR CAPSTONE PROJECTS

'Friends of Design' is a resource network developed to support capstone design projects. Our goal is to provide students with access to a broad community of students, staff, faculty, and professionals who are available to provide advice. This paper discusses the necessary people, organization, and resources. The network is modeled after Malcolm Gladwell's book, the Tipping Point and its premise that successful social movements depend heavily on a few key people in the roles of Mavens, Connectors, and Salespersons. Mavens possess the technical expertise. Although faculty members naturally fit into this role, often, they have little time to assist undergraduate students, and so we draw upon alternative groups such as alumni, staff, graduate students, and professionals. Connectors provide the cohesion in the network. They link the various technical and social subcommunities. We desire a network that is not only broad in its technical knowledge, but also in its representation of the department comprised of students, alumni, staff, and faculty. Finally, salespersons are the persuaders and the leaders that drive the network, with juniors members helping bring inquiries forward and senior members enlisting fellow experts to provide responses. Drawing from the Tipping Point, the network organization and communication model follows from the popular 'six degrees of separation' concept. Student inquiries are initially handled by Connectors, whose role is not to answer the inquiry outright but rather to act as conduits, forwarding the inquiry on, until it ultimately reaches an appropriate Maven. Promoting the Connectors' role in handling inquiries is crucial to making the network scalable, and should help promote interactions across disciplines and a stronger sense of community.