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B822 Techniques Library: Visual Brainstorm

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 5 June 2014, 05:24

 

The Perfect Essay(as described to me by my Geography A'Level Teacher, D.Rhodes, 1979)

After McKim, 1980.

Defer judgment. Don't be critical of others.

Aim for quantity. e.g. 30 thumb-nail sketches in 60 minutes

 PHASES

  • Idea Generation
  • Evaluation phase
  • Display your ideas
  • Offer constructive comment
  • Try different tactics
  • Compare sketches
  • Make written notes

How many of my early essays turned out.

REFERENCE

Adapted from McKim, R.H. (1980) Experiences in Visual Thinking, Belmont, C.A. PWS Publishers (Wadsworth Inc.) pp. 125-7

 

How many of my essays turned out even as an undergraduate: journalism. Heavy on the main idea but light on facts. 

 

No introduction, no conclusion. What a shame.

Skewed. How those with a political stance write.

Short, but beautifully formed. More of a blog post than an essay.

A bunch of ideas that show potential, though none of them are relevant to the question. Sounds like me. I do get distraced. I like variety.

The seasonal distraction. Could be Easter or Summer, Halloween or Guy Faulkes. Something in the news or on your mind. It has nothing to do with the assignment. With a TMA deadline and a job interview coinciding I re-wrote the TMA coming out of the interview and just scraped a pass. Enthusiastic, full of ideas but no referencing.

Anyone like to offer some more:

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Is education a problem or a business opportunity?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 2 Nov 2012, 23:40

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'In Business' with Peter Day on BBC Radio 4 recently included insights on higher education from the Open University Vice Chancellor Martin Bean.

Martin Beanenlightens, enthuses and convinces us of a model that puts the student at the centre of things, supported by great teaching that exploits everything online and distance learning can now offer.

Personally I always need a transcript alongside radio or TV if I am to start to recall much that is said. I offer here a partial transcript.

The Open University point of view is expressed in the first eight minutes.

PETER DAY (PD) suggests that people are complaining about education. This is 'In Business' so that angle is on the graduates that join companies.

'Almost everywhere education seems to be failing to produce what people want from it'.

Now businesses are getting much more involved we are told.

Is education a problem or a business opportunity?

'Wherever they come from and whatever they are learning what should students be taught? That’s something companies are increasingly getting involved with because they are finding it difficult to get the trained people they need'.

Various industry leaders are interviewed, but a substantial part of programme, indeed the first 8 minutes of a 30 minute piece goes to the Open University, Vice Chancellor, Martin Bean, (MB) who we are reminded comes from industry himself having led education at Microsoft.

How is the OU introduced?

One of the global pioneers in new kinds of education was the Open University set up by the British Government 43 years ago to create distance learning based on broadcasting to reach students outside lecture halls. The Internet now provides huge new opportunities for the Open University. Here’s one of the OU’s online lessons:

The History of English in 10 minutes (narrated by Clive Anderson), an iTunes podcast is offered as an example of the online learning experience.

PD: Education is in some kind of crisis: why?

MB: Institutions needs to have the student at the heart of the equation otherwise it leads to dissatisfaction either with the teaching, or worse still the outcomes when they graduate.

Are employers getting 21stcentury skills, softer skills that are really about people, about the ability to collaborate, group problem solve, the ability to communicate effectively verbally, the ability to work in teams and our model as you know is based on practice-based learning, so the beauty of embedding learning in the workplace with the Open University model means that you're actually getting the best of both worlds. I think the fact that over 80% of the FTSE 100 companies in the UK sponsor an OU student gives a pretty clear indication to me that that model is one that overcomes some of that.

PD: There is competition from the more traditional universities now?

MB: Other more traditional universities are embracing more innovative practices that we’ve been using and I think that’s fantastic, that’s what students are demanding, these are students now that view technology and access and real time interaction an absolute necessity in their life.

It’s all about embracing the technology of the day.

MB: What’s on my agenda now is to continue to leverage the web, and the personalisation of the web, to fully embrace these new tablet and mobile devices that are proliferating the world and directly link them in to our virtual learning environments, so that people can get as much out of a tablet or mobile device as they do for entertainment today they can get as much if not more using it as a Higher Education learning device.

PD: Looking at the history of technology it is often thought that the new will replace the old?

MB: We have to redefine what personal means. The web has moved from being very content centric to very people centric.

The personal side of higher education is where the magic happens.

MB: What’s interesting though is the redefinition of what 'personal' can actually be. We used to think of personal as meaning physical, having to be in the same room, what’s interesting in what has happened to the web is it has moved from being very content centric to being very people centricand enabling us to engage and collaborate in Facebook-type ways that we could not have contemplated even five years ago.

PD: Is it better?

MB: It's not fair to compare classroom or lecture with online as it is all to do with the quality of teaching.

What is effective teaching?

When we get that precious time with an academic we want is discourse, want we want is challenge.

The real question is ‘what’s fit for purpose?’

 

Other contributors were:

Nick Wilson
Managing director, HP UK

Rob Williams
Principal lecturer, University of the West of England

Ralph Mainard
Deputy master, Dulwich College

Joe Spence
Master of Dulwich College

Jim O’Neill
Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management

Kunal Bahl
Founder of Indian coupon website Snapdeal

Krishnan Ganesh
Founder Tutorvista

Eric Schmidt
Chairman, Google

REFERENCE

Day, P (2011) In Business. TX 5 JAN & 9 Jan 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018xwtc (Accessed 10 Jan 2012)

 

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B822 Techniques Library: Who are you?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 10 Jan 2012, 07:33

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Performing as Dracula in the 'Dracula Spectacula' at the People's Theatre, Newcastle December 1979

Who are you?

Is the problem deeper than 'making things work better' ? Are there issues regarding your 'identity' or 'life strategy' ? (Techniques Library, 2010)

Who am I?

or from a team perspective 'who are we?'

Write as many answers as you can.

When you run out ... keep going.

Put down anything that occurs to you, play word association, until 'something emergers'.

Working with a partner

Sit opposte a partner and give each other five to fifteen minutes each before the other takes up the 'call'.

The listener does no more: no comments, nods, smiles, frowns, just attentive listening.

(Sounds like a form a therapy to me, whether cogntive behavioural therapy or even psychiatry).

The listener can review but DON'T GIVE ADVICE.

Life Review

St Ignatius Loyola suggested looking back on your life from your deathbed.

Imagine your infancy

Imagine being five

Imagine being:

  • 12
  • 25
  • 40
  • 65

Imagine being very, very old

Imagine your death

Imagine being reborn

Return

REFERENCE

Adapted from Vaughan, F.E. (1979) Awakening Intuition, New York, Anchor, pp. 1987-9

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B822 Techniques Library: Visualing a goal

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 9 Jan 2012, 19:57

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The power of your wish makes the wish come true.

From Gawain (1982)

1) Set your goal.

Start on something easy, achieve it, and develop confidence in the techniques.

2) Create a clear idea or picture

Think of it in the present tense as something that already exists

3) Focus on it often

Integrate it into your life by thinking about it often.

4) Give it positive energy

Use affirmations. Suspend any doubts or disbelief. (This sounds like Zen. Did Steve Jobs get any of this on his trips to India in the 1970s?)

5) Continue 'til you have achieved your goal

6) Appreciate it when you get there

REFERENCE

Adapted from: Gawain, S 91982) Creative Visualization, New York, Bantam Boks, pp. 16-18

 

 

 

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B822 Techniques Library: Using 'Crazy' Ideas

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 10 Jan 2012, 07:15

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Ken Dodd

Ideas that could get you fired if suggested or are lauigh out loud funny; so there's a risk. (Techniques Library 2010)

Developed by Rickards (1974) as 'Wildest Idea' and de Bono (1982) as 'Intermediate impossible'.

Why beneficial?

  • They break down assumptions.
  • The humour can energise a group and trigger more ideas (inlcuding some unthought of that might work)

Use these techniques:

  • Brainstroming
  • Free Association
  • Excusrsion

Treat it seriously to see where it takes you

Don't get stuck on a non-starter (but aren't they all implicitally a non-starter if they are going to get you fired or ar laughable?)

REFERENCE

Rickards, T. (1974) Problem-solving Through Creative Analysis, Essex, UK, Gower Press.

de Bono, E. (1982) Later Thinkking for Management, Pelican Books.

VanGundy, A.B. (1988) Techniques of Structured Problem Solving, 2nd ed. Van Nostranran Reinhold. Technique 4.61. p. 202


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Super-selection creates a monoculture that does not benefit society

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 28 May 2012, 17:34

Tim Blackman, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Open University: in response to the article by Baroness Blacktone in the THE: says,

It's interesting that selection has always been a hot topic in secondary education but widely accepted in tertiary education. Just as selective schools are our 'best' schools because of very little to do with the teaching but a lot to do with who they keep out, we should start to question just what makes a 'top' university.

What do you think? My take is as follows:

Life is messy; selection based on consistency of performance suits a type, not simply by background but by character. We gain when everyone is able whatever route they take to satisfy their desire to learn, indeed there may be greater appreciation and gratitude of the worth of education for those who haven't gone through via the conveyor- belt of privilege. The caveat is to respect those who not only don't want to study: they like to learn by doing, but who seek out to learn in a way that suits them and their circumstances. Flexibility has been the watch-word for this group until now; 'personalised' learning that turns an education into a carefully tailored and personally adjusted garment is the next step.

The thing that binds the extraordinary diversity of students at the Open University is 'the desire to learn', something that I find most humbling in those who have been imprisoned for their crimes and find salvation in learning, invariably through the OU, others, 'prisoners' of circumstance, can equally find the OU offers a way out and on, if not up and into parts of society that had shunned them because they not dine things in the right order and at the preferred time. Increasingly, in this century, courtesy of personalised learning through mobile devices the OU model of flexibility and 'distance' or e-learning could be picked up at secondary, even primary levels, something that is perhaps being demonstrated by the Khan Institute in North America, indeed happens anyway vicariously through learning in social networks or in online games.

The shift towards increasingly personalised, flexible, online and even mobile learning can only be achieved by self-selection; in the case of learning this becomes the point where the individual's desire to learn is 'activated' never mind the advantages or 'disadvantages' of their prior life opportunities. The 'system' will improve and benefit more by valuing this moment and therefore nurturing those who make it to a course or through a qualification via what is currently thought to be a 'different route'. To which I might add that 'who you are' at and during a short or extended period of learning matters more than the grades you were able to achieve in your youth, 'privileged' or otherwise. For many OU students the opportunity to learn, whoever and whenever they make a start, can with the nurturing and supportive environment and 'personality' of the OU result in countless extraordinary stories of lives being enhanced, turned around, given meaning, value and even status.

A final thought, I had this 'converyor belt of privilege': boarding prep school, public school, Balliol College, Oxford yet my love and respect for learning has only come from the Open University; I am a better person for it.

Might I also suggest that this perceived selection process leads to expectation that someone with such an education (not their choice but their parents') is then possibly obliged, like it or not, to continue into the Foreign Office, MOD, Banking, Law or Accountancy instead of developing a sense of how they are instead of what others want them to be?

REFERENCE

Tim Blackman, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Open University: in response to the article by Baroness Blacktone in the THE:http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=418423

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B822 Techniques Library: Time Line

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 9 Jan 2012, 19:53

Mark out a Time Line and begin at the 'time' the problem began.

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Time Line Software

Developing a careers information video some years ago I did this exercise with 50 Youth Theatre students by placing out long lines of coloured discs on the floor. I bought these from a sports shop: I think they are used in P.E. Classes.

I could then help them go through periods of their life imagining where they would be and the steps, literally, that they'd have to take to achieve their goals.

This was in turn translated into a video production where we represented all young people (Year 9) with one character and had them move through time using the combination of a partially dismantled running machine and a green screen.

There's clip on YouTube (JJ27VV) Corporate Showreel

I agree that this approach makes it 'easier to get into a strongly 'associated' or 'merged' state'. That the idea is easy to grasp, not simply because we follow Dr Who or saw 'Back to the Future' or even read HGWells, but we all have, written or not, a personal journey that can be envisaged as a time line with a past, present and future: a beginning and an end.

We are told that this could be considered as a variant of other 'Neuro-linguistic Programming techniqes' 'aimed at helping you shift your perceptual position'. I don't see this yet but am referred to a technique I've thus far ignored called 'Disney technique'.

REFERENCE

James,T. and Woodsmall, W (1988) Time Line THerapy and the Basis of Personality. Capitola, Meta Publications INc.

Bodehamer, B.G. and Hall, L.M. (1997) Time-Lining: Patterns for Adventuring in 'Time', Bancyfelin, Anglo-American Book Company.

 

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B822 Techniques Library: Keeping a Dream Diary and Working with Dreams

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 19 Apr 2012, 08:08

Other people's dreams are a bore.

So don't read this unless you too are interested in using dreams or guided imagery to interpet and solve issues.

I woke with two dreams and lost one; they are after all like the proverbial 'fart in the wind': difficult to hold on to.

As I think about the dream I can recall I've decided it reveals too much about my character ... and is irrelevant to problem solving at work!

CONCLUSION

If you want to use a technique that is like chasing guinea-pigs around the garden do so. I'd keep it to yourself though or at least work with the insights offered rather than the content, feelings, images and actions of the dream itself.

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B822 Techniques Library: Keeping a Dream Diary and Working with Dreams

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 19 Apr 2012, 08:04

A dream in which people set value in 'winning' the right to be assessed only once they have undertaken a challenge or initiation in which they have to run into an 'arena' where a coach & horses (think Wild West) is speeding around the circuit and like a game of tag must stamp their fist/hand on the roof of the carriage.

For reasons unknown seemingly because it is the end of the 'season' (period, ers, term) or ere are no (or very few) people about (audience) as the driver of one of these carriages I can, and do slow right down.

To disavow you of the apparent risk or danger the pony and carriage might be somehing brought into the 'ring' (it was open air, dusty and improvised) by a clown or dwarf (though it wasn't) as, looking at it, you can reach its roof at shoulder height, in other words, this 'carriage' could only carry one person (such as a child) I may sit atop to 'drive', or lead it/run it around the circuit, even though it is carriage-like in look and behaviour I don't recall any horses or ponies, biut it is powered (electric car or internal combustion engine).

Having 'enrolled' or help or enable a number of people to achieve/ do this task and so 'join' or have this chance to be part of the 'scene/group/exercise or 'assessment' the suggestion is, to give a particular well-known 'somebody' a chance to 'register' for the first time. I should slow right - might even come to a stop and go off for a while. The character who then raps/taps his hand/fist on the top of the 'carriage' is a 'Bill Wyman' type.

Elsewhere in this blog I have a set of 27 or so probing questions that are designed for me, the dream 'owner' to extract meaning and value - as I perceive it. I will do this exercise and PERHAPS offer it as a separate document. However, as this will of necessity touch on facets of who I think I am, the personal not just the public me, and potentially my work set-up (people-and institution) I must of course be wary of such 'exposure' and 'disclosure'.

Importantly, for B822 'Creativity, Innovation and Change' this has or will prove to be an exercise that I can offer for my next TMA; what I don't expect are colleagues to start sharing their dreams with me because to do so is highly personal. The context, people forget when considering a dream and its interpretation is the inner workings of a person and their feelings which are often contorted and exaggerated and reflect the interplay between their conscious and subconscious, their genetic make-up, and their upbringing and personal history.

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B822 Techniques Library 'Working with dreams and imagery'

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 5 Feb 2013, 06:05

There's a warning on this activity, that the techniques may draw up uncomfortable events from your past.

This also highlights a major problem with such techniques:they can throw up the unexpected.

I like to think I have ample experience 'working with dreams' ; I have used them to develop story-lines and ideas, even to some degree for personal cognisance so it felt like an obvious one to give a try.

Context is vital, picking the right activity or game for the people you are working with.

How well do you know them?

It also makes me realise that I'd like to be in a working environment with the kind of colleagues and friends where I could employ such techniques.

I feel like a big fail; there are two activities suggested for problem solving, or creativity, innovation and change: keeping a dream diary and this, which offers ways to explore a dream's meanings and to re-enter and work with this environment created by your subconscious.

There's plenty troubling me at the moment but I find repeatedly that holding onto a dream is like chasing autumn leaves in a stiff breeze.

Take this morning; just a few moments awake I recall I had been dreaming and that it had been a 'good one': vivid but apparently not memorable enough. I tried all the tips in the book to recover or return to the dream: you have to place yourself exactly as you were as you had the dream. I still can't get it; I feel like MacBeth clutching at the dagger; it is always just out of reach.

By way of example I have a snippet of a dream from a few days ago: returning to the campsite after some kind of trip or activity in the woods I find my tent has gone: everything has been removed, as if I had never been there. The plot is bare. Why should I be thinking this as I return to work after a two week break?

The 'activity' is then to work with and develop your feelings about this moment, been to re-enter the dream, not simply to see what happens next but to change or influence the outcome. This then MAY offer a solution or at least an understanding of your feelings so that you can deal with them.

How to work with a dream or metaphorical image:

  • Entering the dream
  • Studying the dream
  • Becoming the images
  • Integrating the viewpoints
  • Reworking the dream

Appreciating, reflecting, looking forward and emerging

P.S. I just returned to work and couldn't have entered a more friendly environment, my desk as I'd left it.

P.P.S. I realise why I am 'losing' my dreams: stress. I'm waking up with a jolt, some unpleasant thought in the back of my mind.

Steve Jobs was hugely influenced by Zen Buddhism; this I understand would play to the importance of intuition. Intuition alone is not enough; this for Jobs was also the product of intense effort to get his head around an issue; he immersed himself in it until, to paraphrase the historian E.H.Carr he could 'hear it speak'.

20 LIFE LESSONS FROM STEVE JOBS

http://mashable.com/2011/12/18/steve-jobs-20-life-lessons/

REFERENCE

Glouberman, D. (1989) Life Choices and Life Changes Through Imagework, London, Unwin, pp. 232-6

Isaacson, W. (2011) Steve Jobs. Little Brown.

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Apple to make an announcement on education

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 4 Jan 2012, 05:13

I'm used to commenting on the news after the event, in terms of my thoughts on what Steve Jobs might have done for education had he still been around it appears I was ahead:

http://tinyurl.com/7w6rk7l

The intention was to taken on the $8bn text book business, to give every secondary school kid an iPad preloaded with all the text books they could need.

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Level 3 ASA Swimming Coach

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As if I haven't got enough going on the ASA sent my results to date for the 10 part ASA Level III coach certificate. I have taken and passed 9 out of 10. All I have to do is submit a piece of Sports Psychology and I'm just about done. So a few degrees, an MA and a Level III Swimming Coach.
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Steve Jobs Walter Isaacson Discussion Group on LinkedIn

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Come and join the discussion in the 'Steve Jobs: Water Isaacson Biography' group. The idea is to bring together everyone who got the book for Christmas. I'm about to stand my second read. http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson-discussion-4236153?trk=myg_ugrp_ovr
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Steve Jobs on the future of education

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 2 Jan 2012, 20:23

'All books, learning materials, and assessments should be digital and interactive, tailored to each student and providing feedback in real time'.

Steve Jobs quoted in Isaacson (2011:545)

He also favours highly personalised online earning with loads of vide keeping class for debate and discussion. Surely the class to some degree is redundant too given the increasing quality of the online experience?

REFERENCE

Isaacson, W. (2011) Steve Jobs. Little Brown

If enough people wish to discuss Steve Jobs I'll set up a group for OU folk over in LinkedIn?
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What we can learn from Steve Jobs

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 19 Apr 2012, 07:47

 

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Getting to the end of the 600 page biography I struggle to draw a conclusion. Perhaps he was Janus like, always looking in two directions, impish, black and white, loved it or hated it. Able to bend. Loyal (at least to his wife), even to certain friends. Selective then. He was in love with the way his mind worked.

He has been instrumental in changing the world and I feel better for having followed his products, if not his crede.

My iBook died in 2011; I have to replace it. Do I need a laptop if I have an iPad though? My inclination is to have something large and powerful enough to cut movies. The 'Full Monty' a 90 minute piece, to translate scripts I've written even developed as photo journals and start bringing some of the scenes to life.

The Steve Jobs Discussion Group on LinkedIn

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson-discussion-4236153?trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

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If Steve Jobs had been around to revolutionise Tertiary education I wonder what he would have done?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 4 Jan 2012, 22:07

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Steve Jobs launching the iPod Nano

I can see that whilst the gift of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson is my gift of 2011 (on the last chapter), that I need it as a eBook.

I resisted making notes as I read 'because it's the holidays' yet now I am finding it repeatedly a nuisance to have missed a point or quote that under others circumstances I would have dutifully taken copious notes throughout. So here's one I couldn't afford to miss: From stand in CEO when Steve Jobs was ill in 2009 (but reflecting a Steve Jobs ethos)

'We are constantly focussing on innovation. We believe in the simple not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution'.

'We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allows us to innovate in a way that others cannot'.

'We have the self-honesty to admit when we're wrong and the courage to change'.

This is the kind of organisation I would like to work for. This is the kind of thinking needed for those studying B882 'Creativity Innovation and Change' and for H807 'Innovations in E-Learning'.

REFERENCE

Isaacson, W. (2011) Steve Jobs.

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B822 BK2 Technique Library 'Other People's Viewpoints'

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 4 Jan 2012, 05:07

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  • List three or four key people or roles
  • Allocated these to different groups
  • Get the groups to present their ideas

REF: de bono

REFERENCE

Henry, J. and Martin J.N.T. (1997) Creative Problem-Solving Guide, B882 Residential School Booklet, The Open University.

 

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Steve Jobs iIdeas

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 1 Jan 2012, 06:04

 

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"There's a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That's crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random disucussions. You run into someone, you ask what they're doing, you say 'Wow,' and soon you're cooking up all sorts of ideas". Steve Jobs after Walter Isaacson (2011:431) on the design of the Pixar building.

I'll be quoting from the Steve jobs biography often as I apply what I have learnt to B822 'Creativity, Innovation and Change', and share what he did for the world with the Apple, with Pixar, with iTunes and the iPad.

Had he got involved in education I have an idea of how he would have approached something.

Steve Jobs was the idea and for behind releasing on iTunes a box-set of EVERYTHING Bob Dylan had ever recorded; this in the Digital Age is the way forward. Even if I cannot read everything on a subject, I want it aggregated for me nontheless. I want every article or book reference in a book such as this biography, with links to every interview too.

REFERENCE

Isaacson, W. (2011) Steve Jobs. Little, Brown.

Happy 2012 folks!

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My secret pleasure

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I get to read this twice or three times a year when I visit my mum and step father; they have copies within reach in the downstairs loo. I love the jokes and the articles I stumbleupon. I enjoy the take on technology and life for the retired. The old still have wise words. I may also have found somewhere inexpensive to stay in London during the Olympics: LSE. I'll be poolside covering the water-polo for two weeks.

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Ban PowerPoints

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 4 Jan 2012, 05:12

They are worse than a crutch, they are a smoke screen of obfuscation, lack of nerve and even of understanding. All anyone needs to do is to get up and talk.

Steve Jobs banned PowerPoint. There's plenty of software I'd ban in favour of a napkin or the back of an envelope.

REFERENCE Isaacson, W (2011) Steve Jobs. Little John
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B877 Techniques Library

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 31 Dec 2011, 18:02

The alternatives:

I've suggested lunch, my next is the long walk.

150 problem solving techniques yet the meal and the walk are not included, yet there are still two of the very best ways to get to know someone, to hold their attention or to give them a chance to speak.

Steve Jobs did the walk, my father did the meal deal, weekend and the walk all rolled into one getting people out if London to the Lakes for the weekend.

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B822 Techniques Library: Eating Out (the business lunch)

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 19 Apr 2012, 07:39

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Or is each one an apple?

The 'Techniques Library' is a collection of some 150 activities or games that elicit from a person, or group (as small or as large as you like) answers to business problems, or at least ideas (potentially innovative or off-the-wall). Forty or so of these hold some appeal so I am picking my way through them; missing is the the meal, two or more people gathered for what I might describe as a 'continental' dining experience i.e. where you indulge for a couple of hours, mixing socialising with work, finding the middle ground.

Two observations:

1) As soon as you do one of the 'techniques' your starting point shifts

2) Whatever you do next comes a) with the outcomes of that activity and b) with the experience of the strengths and weaknesses of what you did.

I am reminded of the concept of 'Hilbert Space' that I became familiar with in 2000 when working for one of the most creative web agencies of the era (BAFTA, Cannes, IVCA top awards). Hilbert Space imagines a vortex full of holes; you exist in this space wearing a blindfold and holding a bag of marbles; to progress you role a marble forward, when it roles down a hole you listen out for the shin king noise, shuffle off in that direction, pause, then role another marble: this is how you find your direction, it is progression that is iterative and not in a straight line.

What about dinner?

Why has this been left out? The Business lunch is not about feeding your face at the office's expense, it is in part the experience of the meal, its pleasures and challenges, but also about the conversation and how the longer meal is conducive to so many of the things these exercises set out to achieve: shared points of view, listening, sharing, disagreeing in a non-combatitive manner and potentially leaving the table with some ideas sketched-out on a napkin (or the table-cloth). Other bonds are created, insights too on a person's tastes (literally).

Our problem in the UK (I have lived and worked in France) is that 'we eat to live, whereas the French live to eat'. We had luncheon vouchers to use and went out every day for a proper meal, we might take a work problem with us, we might not (I know setting where no business talk was permitted before the coffee). The dining room table became a meeting room.

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Views from a train window

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 30 Dec 2011, 14:43
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Bruxelles Midi
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Dream Fail

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I need to get back into this. There was a dream that was 'project based' but I lost the plot despite my best efforts to 'retrieve' it. The trick is to drift into consciousness and if necessary shift around in bed so you are in the psition in which you had the dream: none of this worked even though i had the opening scenario my son in a football game played with a tennis ball that kept being kicked out of field. Then a Regional Manager I know made an appearance and we reconvene in a commercial kitchen. Now I draw a blank. In theory I may be able return to this moment tonight, in practice I may prepare better. Something needs to disturb your sleep without shocking you into consciousness. You can't make notes if it risks waking others either. As someone who can draw I have never found drawing a dream works, they are either too complex or shift, more importantly it is how you FEEL about the place, people and events that explains the dreams purpose.
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Dream Interpretation (big sis and B822)

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I thought I was well into my teens when I developed an interest in dreams, but as I am with my older sister she can put me straight: I was eleven. She would have been 14. So along with David Bowie, the Rolling Stones and Elton John she had me interpreting dreams. The way the wonderful way the mind does this as we talk about I recall a dream she had, even a freaky conviction that we both had the same dream and started telling each other what happened. What relevance has this to B822? Not much yet, but I doubt many people will follow through with this technique as one to solve a business problem or to generate innovation or support creativity: I plan to do so. P.S. This THIRD Christmas feasting has me helping a Project Director from the FT prepare carrots and parsnips; we try not to talk shop.
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