Personal Blogs
Value playfulness and learning how to play together
Steve Jobs: has to be a more interesting read than Bill Gates
Steve Jobs in a word
What the publishers mean
B882 meets H807
The module ended 10 days ago so what am I doing having a dream about the thing? And given the course, 'Creativity, Innovation & Change' then once again, despite my best efforts, I can share with you that 'Working with Dreams' is a tricky one for the office.
The dream was about collaboration, not in teams, but in partnership. I'm re-reading the Walter Isaacson biography and tossing notes onto Twitter and Facebook.
My thoughts dwelt on the nature of close collaboration, how likeminds may be LESS useful than minds where there is conflict. The key is to have a common goal, indeed, very different 'personalities' by type, experience, background, response are beneficial so long as the 'GOAL' is a significant motivation that overrides everything else.
For anyone caring to join in I've set up a Steve Jobs: Walter Isaacson discussion group on Linkedin.
Currently I am talking to myself (was it not ever thus).
P.S. My bloods have come but negative, so I feel like taking a cold shower and changing scenes.
How to be creative. What is going on here and can it be measured?
BBC Radio 4 in ten minutes time.
That's 'Start the Week' from this morning. See my notes below.
Or click here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01gnq8y
Then return for a chat?
(Follow up)
How did I get that one wrong?
It turned out to be a rather interesting doccumentary on the children of the Olympics bid.
The innately interesting 'creativity'
Start the week with Andrew Marr.
JONAH LEHRER 'Imagine' How creativity works.
- A universal property of human nature (though it doesn't mean we are all equally good at it). Jonah Lehrer.
What is creativity?
A different kind of mental activity to sweating it out at the office, or the 'ah ha' moment in the shower. the epiphany.
Bob Dylan and his moment of insight (May 1965) when he least expected it (or wanted it), after a year long tour he took a break.
- The cortex sharing a secret with us. Jonah Lehrer.
What are the mental states and moods. Relaxed. Daydreaming is important, why a walk without the iPhone, a flight without the laptop, even in the bath is a place to tap into unconscious awareness.
Testament to unconscious ideas.
Value of collaboration, being surrounded by the right people, the big city, the 'cluster', such as Shakespeare moving to London (what was it about the 1580s and 1590s in London?).
Can we recreate another age of genius?
Grit. Single-mindedness. Persistance. Putting in the 10,000 hours.
Joanna Kavenna is a novelist.
Preparing for the 'great out pouring' then the potentially gruelling, striving.Defamiliarising yourself.
Robin Rimbaud – aka Scanner
Neurons firing, the heart beating. The social interactions that feed into this world.
Neuroscience confirms what we had always thought was necessary or going on, such as Colleridge going for walks (or Steve Jobs).
- Easily distracted.
A wall chart showing 22 projects. A morning, an afternoon and an evening session then quit.
Dr Rachel O’Reilly is a research fellow in the Chemistry Department at the University of Warwick.
A chemist. How to take a material and improve it. Problem solving for a company, the 'audience' we report back to, or funders, another 'audience'.
And here's a creative team to die for:
Steve Jobs and Pixar
Breaking out of the mindset
Preposterous process of 'growing a baby' and a new encounter breaks you out of your mindset and habit.
Childhood play and do i.e. 'playfulness' compared to the business-like 'job' at a desk (even at a keyboard).
If you are at all successful, you are then expected to reproduce what you did before and the habitual way you work becomes a habit. Andrew Marr. (And what publishers/the public expect and want).
A writer and a musician want to change their voice.
Being in the right place at the right time.
The 'Semilweis knee-jerk reaction'.
[While doing some of this at Connect Wisdom]
Peak ages of creativity
- Poetry early 30, like Physicists.
- Novelists mid 40s
- Caused by 'enculturation'.
- So always try new things, constantly risk reinvention.
- Painters peak late.
- Historian late.
Imposed archetypes
Inestimable confluences of influences. The writer who is obsessed with reading other people's works as well as writing.
Put Bill Gates and Steve Jobs through the Kirton Adaptor Innovator personality inventory and what do you get?
Re-reading the Steve Jobs biography with four months in hand before another MAODE module I am struck by what it tells you about Gates and Jobs and how self-evidently one is an adaptor 'doing things better' while the other is an innovator 'doing things differently'.
This drawn from doing a KAI personality inventory and all the reading around these tests for B822.
I came out at 144 on a scale of 160; I'd envisage Jobs as somewhere on the outer edges of 150 while Gates gets a 20 or 30, neither would be in the 60-130 zone for two thirds of respondents.
If they ever did one of these are the results known?
As most managers do observation and experience of a person's behaviour and responses must suffice.
I feel a desire to revisit H807 'Innovations in E-learning' while mixing it up with B822 'Creativity, Innovation and Change'.
I can do this through the 1000+ entries I have here and by refreshing my mind from the current and archived blogs of others blogging here currently (though few if any blog there way through the MBA programme and I am yet to find anyone blogging about B822).
Poolside swim teacher support
I'm poolside with an iBook, Kindle and various smartphones looking at how best to support swim teacher development. Micro-sized, images based, sequences, drills, parts of lesson plans.
Content needs to be:
- Simple and clear
- Varied
- Of use to coach and swimmer
Mind-map, Mind-dump and the written examination
Faced with an exam this is what I do. Here is Block 1, ostensibly Part 1 of a three part examination.
I've grouped sets of ideas and reduced them to a mnemonic or phrase.
These become the 'peg' from which I recreate something not dissimilar to the above on a sheet of Rough Paper.
In practice, never having done an OU exam before, I used an ENTIRE question book, filling it with part 1, part 2, and part 3 doodles and lists such as these.
When I saw the questions I took out a coloured pen, they happened to be red, orange and yellow.
I then circled those chunks of ideas that I planned to use for that question
a) seeing that per question I was essentially sticking to the appropriate block and
b) ensuring that there was no (or mininmal) over lap.
In fact 'SPICES' and 'CHALKPR' (as I rephrased it) cover some of the same ground in defining a creative organisation so I used the first in one question and the latter in another.
Did it work? We'll see.
As for the learning experience?
However much I dislike exams I am reminded of the extraordinary value of having to refresh, consolidate and build your knowledge. It had to stick for a few hours for an exam, but I feel that without the exam I would never have compressed my thinking or seen how many of the ideas are remarkably straightforward.
Were I designing learning I would certainly want an examination during and at the end.
Not just the written paper, but multichoice, open debate, a testing tutorial designed to get the synapses working ... many ways to get students to engage with the cotent and make it their own so that it can be applied and remembered.
Digital Marketing
Is the written exam an expensive and archaic indulgence that fails e student and the institution?
Sitting an exam for the first time in 28 years got me thinking how so much is assessed by assignments and 'doing'.
Just clinging to a pen for more than 5 minutes is a novelty to me.
Surely the technology we now have is capable of 'getting into my head' to show that I do or do not know my stuff. But here's the difference, have I been taught to pass an exam which could only prepare me to become an academic, or have I been applied to apply what I have learned which is very different.
My first ever OU exam in 2 hours
My first and only ever exam too as 'normal' MAODE modules don't require them relying instead on asignments.
I wish I was this keyed up before tackling an assignment, that feeling that I can now sit down and write actively, with a smile on my face, for three hours.
A lesson I may take forward, putting far more into the preparation of an essay so that I write fluidly rather than assembling stuff.
Carnivore to Vegan
I forgot to mention this one but two months ago I was given nasty cholesterol score and a dear friend and neutrionist rather than see me on satins gave me a comprehensive health review, some don'ts and does (recipes) and some supplements.
Six weeks on and my pot belly has gone, my poo still floats and I fart a lot and my cooking range has been extended.
I was also supposed to give up alcohol and coffee; whilst the former is down to close to zero I drink even more coffee, though it is black. My vegetarian daughter is delighted and our shopping bill is down 30%.
Porridge with soya milk every breakfast, fresh pesto and pasta at lunch, home made soup in the evening sometimes turned into a casserole or with brown rice.
And as well as coaching the local swim club I now swim with it too; the extraordinary insight at being the swimmer being coached for the first time in 32 years a bonus. So a healthy mind and a healthy body, both thanks to The OU as it was while living and working up at Milton Keynes that all of this happened.
And I have an exam tomorrow. Just surving this far through the module has been an achievement as life around it has been somewhat difficult.
B822 exam: 52 hours to go!
Talking with your fingers
'Consider this medium as like talking with your fingers - half-way between spoken conversation and written discourse.' (Hawkridge, Morgan and Jeffs, 1997, quoted in Salmon 2005)
Salmon, G (2005) E-moderating.
The Key to teaching and learning online
More on creativity from John Cleese (two decades later)
... and the importance of the unconscious.
- Sleeping on it.
- Writing it out a second time having lost the original.
- The danger of interuption
- We do not get our ideas from our laptops.
- Create boundaries of space (to avoid interuptions)
- Create time
B822 'Creativity, Innovation & Change' Hear what John Cleese has to say on creativity
This works for me and plays directly into B822 'Creativity, Innovation & Change'.
Listen then act.
I'm going create the space and make the time! And play.
- Space
- Time
- Time
- Humour
FURTHER READING
Amabile, T. M. & Sensabaugh, S. J. (1985). Some factors affecting organizational creativity: A brief report. A paper presented at the Creativity Innovation & Entrepreneurship Symposium at the George Washington University, Washington, D. C.
Ekvall, G. & Arvonen, J. (1983). Creative organizational climate: Construction and validation of a measuring instrument. Stockholm, Sweden: The Swedish Council for Management and Organizational Behavior.
Gryskiewicz, S. S. (1982). Creative leadership development and the Kirton adaption-innovation inventory. An invited paper delivered at the 1982 Occupational Psychology Conference of the British Psychological Society meeting on "Breaking Set: New Directions in Occupational Psychology" at Sussex University, Brighton, England.
MacKinnon, D. W. (1961). Creativity in architects. In D. W.
MacKinnon (Ed.), The creative person (pp. 237–251). Berkeley: University of California, Institute of Personality Assessment Research.
MacKinnon, D. W. (1978). In search of human effectiveness: Identifying and develop
MacKinnon, D. W. (1978). In search of human effectiveness: Identifying and developing creativity. Buffalo, New York: Bearly Limited.
Our memory of how to do things is often tied to the situation in which it was learnt.
What does this mean for distance learning?
Is this why the odd residential school becomes such a focus and a vital memory? On the MAODE modules there are no tutor groups, nor any residential schools.
Does this make the Tutor Group Forum and the Elluminate sessions all the more important to get right?
The tutorial system of the Oxbridge Colleges does two things: it ties the learning to the personality of a tutor and it socialises learning within a small tutor group from (usually) a single college where the annual cohort may be as low as 30 and generally not far over 100.
How can this be replicated online?
The tutor relationship matters. Better and immediate tools engender the possibility of a closer relationship but the OU isn't geared up for it.
Are Associate Lecturers chosen for the e-moderating skills?
Social Learning
This isn't something new; the best way to learn is from and amongst others. John Seely Brown gets it right when he talks about 'learning from the periphery'. Think how in the playground or when joining a club where there may be no formal induction or training, how you gravitate towards the centre over time as you listen in to conversations, get the drift of what is being said, get up the courage to ask questions (which is hopefully encouraged), and in time gain knowledge and confidence to offer your own unique take and things. In time you gravitate towards the centre; you may even become the centre. the 'leader' or part of the 'leadership' those wise folk at the centre of things.
I recall this as an undergraduate on campus, an outsider for a year, at the centre for a year and then worrying about Finals.
The OU launched 'Social Learn' yesterday.
This is exciting. It brings the hubbub of the eclectic learning community online. This is more than a forum, it is a virtual learning space.
It will take all kinds of participants for it to work otherwise it is like one of those South American Pipe Dreams to build cities from scratch in the Amazon Jungle. It is the people and their ideas, thoughts, knowledge and participation that will bring it to life. It will require moderators, and leaders, and champions, and people to listen and guide and share. It will require moderators:
'The essential role of the e-moderator is promoting human interaction and communication through the modelling, conveying and building of knowledge and skills'. (Salmon, 2005:4)
And a new take on things:
'Online learning calls for the training and development of new kinds of online teachers - to carry out roles not yet widely understood'. (Salmon. 2005:10)
Hostede and nationall differences when it comes to corporate enterprise
P
U
G
I
Gives me:
Power Distance
Uncertainty avoidance
Gender (masculinity/feminity to describe the culture not the mix of people)
Individualism/collectivism
I need to remember this as:
Pd
Ua
G
Ua
and the author Hofestede and a date.
On reflection, none of the above work. So I go for:
Power Dual Gender INC
which gives me:
- Power Distance
- Uncertainty Avoidance
- Masculine/Femine
- Individualism/Collectivisim
How to define a 'wicked' problem?
'I could use a colourful swimming costume'.
This pegs the following ideas:
Interconnectness
Complicatedness
Uncertainty
Ambiguity
Conflict
Societal Constraints
And recalling the authors Mason & Mitroff (1981)
However, I need to visualise this. Perhaps the actor James Mason (in his Nabakov role of Herbert Herbert from 'Lolita') with a Russian girl called 'Olga Mitroff'. Everyone around them are wearing colourful Versace swimming costumes whereas their's are plain black. She is black and young, suggesting the 'complexity' required here and they are standing on the end of a springboard, like walking the plank, and holding hands to give me 'conflict' and 'connectedness' even disaproval from those around them and so 'societal constraints'. All I need to do now is peg this further with an orange flavoured fruit Polo. And then be able to add a couple of relevant sentences to each. Assuming there is a question from which this 'mind dump' can provide some detail.
Why does this all matter?
I've been learning in B822 how to apply a variety of creative problem solving techniques to business problems; both the theory and practice says the the problem you are dealing with has to indicate all the above to warrant a creative problem solving approach.
Beyond the exam I can and will apply this to what I do which has in the past been solving communications problems using creativity in the execution of ideas.
Creative Problem Solving B822
I stumbled upon this. It is timely for anyone faced with an exam on 24th April for B822 'Creativity, Innovation and Change', so much so I am going to transcribe this, analyse and learn its lessons as going through old exam papers this short video, in a fun and engaging way, answers to questions precisely.
This is why I chose to study B822 as an elective within the Masters in Open & Distance Education.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFYLeT9q8tk
A ghost is someone from your future
The iPad came on as I set off to my 'workspace' lighitng up he bedroom and conveninetly helping me locate slippers and dressing gown.
I held the suprisngly bright tablet close so as not to wake my wife.
As I passed a mirroer the errie glow made me think of a ghost and how ghosts might be travellers wandering through your present nosing about, researching their family or on an adventure of some other kind.
An iPad might be a valuable piece of kit for any timetraveller (not that you'd get a signal), handy for keeping a record of what you discover and perhaps a Google Timeline that let's you navigate in both space and time.
Time I went and wrote a trial exam question!
Suddenly feeling part of a generation that has had their chance and done their bit
This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.