What a Day!

Today was epic.  Filled with the highs and lows of training and moments where we all realized just how exciting what we are doing is. This day will go down in history as one of the coolest stove days I have been a part of.

The training was incredible.  Working with the office managers Emilia and Elder, specifically, makes me wonder how we got so lucky with employees.

The hope for any high level training is that the process is a collaborative one; a learning process where, in this case, a system is learned but more importantly everyone is brought on board.  The hope is that the bigger vision in implementation is discussed, that managers engage and grasp on to exciting potential while simultaneously presenting concerns and suggesting changes so that the program works for them at its highest level. That was our training. I was nervous being the translator translating our training into spanish but it was all that you could hope for.

There was pushback but in the most productive sense.  Concerns were raised and then collaboratively addressed and there was a moment...

A moment after some particularly challenging questions where I explained in spanish the vision; the power this technology will give us to continue growing at our incredible rate, the power to take on Honduras and perhaps go even bigger.  This moment where everyone grasped just how big this could be and saw how this program allows us to scale and manage at a incredible level of efficiency was magical.  We all said it, If we went from 27 stoves in 2004 to 23,000 in 2011the future is almost scary. The current path is challenging but the end goal is incredible...  Emilia put it best, "va a ser dificultades pero adelantamos" - "there will be difficulties but we advance."

Am ending on a totally high, exhausted, mind numbed point.... and Stevan just walked in with some final configuring we need to do for the computers... so getting back in gear and then ready to sleep the rest of the weary.

Some pictures from the day...

Emilia showing how high the adobe pieces for the stove can get.... one day they are there and the next they are out the door in the back of a truck out in el campo

The office during a break session

The 2x3

Stevan and Emilia and the 2x3

Construction in the factory