Category: Thoughts

Book: Drive by Daniel Pink

This is the entry to review my thoughts on the book “Drive” by Daniel H. Pink. I found the writing style highly persuasive and engaging. For the YCISL workshop, there is quite a lot to relay [in fact, I did use several topics from this book in the June 2011 workshop].

The main idea that comes through is that intrinsic motivation is very powerful and enduring. While extrinsic motivators such as cash incentives can result in increased yield, its effects are temporary and decline in peak performance with every use – like with rechargeable batteries. Extrinsic motivators also include punitive actions which are equally unsustainable and ineffective.

For our YCISL context, particularly notable is the section “Type I for Parents and Educators: Ten Ideas for Helping Our Kids.” The idea of a DIY Report Card is interesting in the sense it might have a positive motivational effect (traditional report cards would have, I would hazard to guess, about a 50-50 chance of being motivational – because of the limitations to standardization) with little downside. Pink states that “Good grades become a reward for compliance – but don’t have much to do with learning.” I’m not sure I would agree with  exactly with how Pink proposes it should be done – his description sounds like an adult workplace performance review – another thing not to expose to youth. What if the report card, for say an elementary student, was done within the framework of a SkillScan card sort? Analyze how the cards get sorted at the start and the end of a term, and see if there is a correlation to the teaching effectiveness and student behavior.

Other notables:

(1) In the section “Words”, page 138: “And a powerful way to provide that context is to spend a little less time telling how and a little more time showing why.” I should constantly remind myself of this point. I am very focused on the typical failure to show “how” because of the attention paid to “Here’s point A, and there’s Point B”; to keep my message engaging, I need to periodically remind ourselves of “why.”

(2) In the section”Purpose”, page 130: If so, when am I going to do something that matters? When am I going to live my best life? When am I going to make a difference in the world?” The author’s point is that motivation is suppressed in adults to the point that delay after delay is the norm in leveraging that motivation. This suppression of course is that which we experience as children in our learning environments, and carries on in adult life in various other forms.

(3) In the section “Oxygen of the Soul”, page 127: “The days that people make progress are the days they feel most motivated and engaged.” Also, “You start to get ashamed that you’re doing is childish” <- this second quote is attributed to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

(4) In the section “Type I and Type X”, page 75: “Type X behavior is fueled more by extrinsic desires than intrinsic ones.” And “For Type I’s, the main motivator is the freedom, challenge, and purpose of the undertaking itself; any other gains are welcome, but mainly as a bonus.”

(5) The Three Elements are “AUTONOMY”, “MASTERY” and “PURPOSE.” I would call these the ideals for motivation.

(6) The Four Essentials of Autonomy are “TASK”, “TIME”, “TECHNIQUE” and “TEAM.” I would call these the ingredients that need to be assembled into an engagement in order to attain the Three Elements.

(7) Motivation 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0: overall, I am not certain that version 3.0 is going to supplant version 2.0, and even whether version 3.0 is real or better or even an actual stepping stone (maybe it’s actually an alpha or beta version currently?). There is mention on page 19 about version 2.1. Perhaps for the time being, we would be better off using version 2.1 and waiting for version 3.1 instead of jumping into 3.0? Version numbers aside, it would seem that we want to focus on the features of 2.0 we should retain, and add a digestible set of new features – in order to design a new way of doing things. Granted this isn’t “disruptive” which is how some people think things should be done (aka the grass is always greener on the other side).

Creative Choices: How Many Ways Are There to Cut a Strawberry?

Just put together some fruit and cereal for breakfast. Made some choices (creativity at work): got my usual bowl, added the usual Honey Bunches of Oats, some ground flaxseed, and frozen blueberries. Right before drowning everything in 1% milk, I spotted fresh strawberries in the fridge (an occasional treat in our house). I decided to add strawberries to my otherwise typical breakfast (actually a snack at any time for me). Pulled out the chopping board and a paring knife. Took a couple of strawberries out of their container and rinsed them. I knew I had to remove the strawberry leaves and core so I did that. Then I paused a few seconds to decide how I wanted to slice the strawberry. There were at least two possible ways I was contemplating – from top to bottom, or side to side. I decided I wanted to make o-rings today so chose to slice them top to bottom. I didn’t really think about slice thickness. So, for a few seconds, I employed creative (although not innovative) energy. Like regular physical exercise, it must be good and healthy to regularly work out with creative exercise. Fortunately, I was able to make a fairly quick decision as indecisiveness in a creative situation would be a bad thing.

In the SP YCISL workshop, I used dressing in the morning as an example of a creative exercise (more so perhaps than other dressing occasions because there really is usually a blank slate, new attitude and refreshed inspiration after waking up in the morning – at least normally, I would guess). Even where a uniform is involved and choices are limited, there may be at least one creative decision involved even if the decision is the same as the one chosen the day before.

Book: Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki

I just finished reading “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions” by Guy Kawasaki. It joins my collection of Could-Not-Put-It-Down books. It was overall a fluid and well-structured treatise filled with practical suggestions and insightful observations on behaviors that trigger responses of inner attraction and appeal. (Underlines are my way of “sucking up.” Read the book and you’ll get the idea!)

[I will digress for a moment to put enchantment in terms of the ion attraction models that I am familiar with. If two bodies are at infinite distance apart, there is theoretically zero attraction. At any real distance however there is some level of attraction (think exponential decay, approaching but never reaching zero). As the bodies get closer, there is an increase in attraction. At some point, the bodies are close enough to be involved in some weak holding pattern (the outer layer of influence -> speaking in 2d but we could just as readily say outer sphere for a 3d model). Closer still, the bodies interact and actually form a strong bond (high energy) and deviation becomes limited (an inner layer that is somewhat structured and ordered). If the resulting proximity of the bodies can result in a reaction, then the two bodies might transform into a new entity (hopefully stable) OR if there is a propensity for it, a smaller body might bind in the inner channels of the larger body.]

So how did that relate to the book at hand? Enchantment discusses a phenomenon like the inner layer bonding. Enchantment happens at a point at which reactions are likely to occur and there is a level of fixation. But the bodies need to get close enough, through the outer layer – and in a realistic scenario there will be many competing bodies that will serve to thwart bodies reaching the inner layer level (unless sheer Brownian motion or physical momentum causes an actual or near collision).

Time to list my favorite parts of the book:

(1) I found Chapter 2 How to Achieve Likability – Make Crow’s-Feet a great way to show that Enchantment is a genuine and honest pursuit. You can think about your own likability as shown by your muscle behavior, or detecting other’s likability. Likability may be difficult for some to pervade or one may have a phobia about putting forth a likable personality. However, understanding that Likability is an early step to achieving a connection will help our students find an opportunity to even “step into the ring” to start their journey of innovation and leadership.

(2) Chapter 5’s discussion about the “First Follower” is worth presenting to our students.Working in teams in a school (where social structures generally guarantee the availability of first followers), it would be useful to begin the presentation of a new product or idea by having a first follower become engaged in plain sight of potential additional followers. [Quick digression: I guess this has started to get me to think about Flash Mob Dancing – what an exhilarating phenomenon!]

(3) In Chapter 8 How to Use Push Technology, I like the section on Email. Perhaps I will try it by composing an email to Guy Kawasaki, and see if this works for me (I realize mileage may vary). In particular, I like the advice to “Keep it to six sentences.” This is highly consistent with how I have created assignments in my teaching career. When I design an assignment or question, I am looking for an initial response showing that the student is revealing thoughts in an appropriate direction. I would prefer to leave it to the student to determine the depth to which they would go to be satisfied, and develop their answer in a short form just to convince me that that is where they are headed.

I would close by noting that there are many useful tips in this book that could potentially fit into the YCISL content and benefit the participants. These tips could help inspire us to create some great modules. However, the book does seem to weigh closer to adults so some refining or contextual adjustment may be necessary but when it comes to life lessons, there is great value that Guy Kawasaki has shared.

I am also quite excited to start a new analysis based on the fact that for the books I am reading in printed format, I am attaching PostIt tags when I find something that I may want to go back to because it might contribute to the YCISL program. Enchantment received 18 tags. For an 184 page book, that becomes an Earned Tag Percentage (ETP) of 9.8 (divide tags by number of pages then multiply by 100). I am also attaching a photo of the book with its tags showing, and will retroactively update earlier wiki entries with photos and their ETPs. What fun!

Module: Our Guest Answers Your Questions

Imagine you’re in a school lecture: how likely are you to ask a question? Imagine you’re competing in a science fair: how likely are you to have prepared your presentation with the help of questions? Just what opportunities are there for youth to learn to ask questions and ask them well? Not many really. Youth are taught mainly to provide answers. But the skill of asking questions, especially creative ones, is critical for discovery, innovation and leadership.

In a university setting, creative questioning sadly does not become a significant opportunity until graduate school. So, one of the skills our youth program would like to impart to youth is thinking of and asking good questions. First, it would help to know what kind of questions are at one’s disposal:

(a) clarification – perhaps the easiest because it safely stays within current scope and can cycle on itself until full clarity is reached.

(b) extension or tangent – the question could suggest a further conclusion or further work. Ask if it is useful to the discussion.

(c) speculation or propositional – the question could suggest an alternate interpretation or conclusion that has yet to be supported. Some element of risk but potentially impressive. Demonstrates vertical thinking.

(d) connecting – the question could ask whether the topic at hand is connected to another topic that was not presented. Demonstrates lateral thinking.

(e) gap-filling – the question could ask about the existence of missing information or if/when a gap might be filled.

(f) philosophical – especially useful in data-driven communications is to look for the intangible forces behind a work. For example, ask who would benefit from a product or new knowledge, or how a paradigm might shift as a result of the new findings or strategies.

(g) critical – a difficult question to frame because of potential misunderstanding and conflict. Requires experienced questioning skill.

Now down to the practical application of this to a YCISL workshop. We could have a guest speaker prepare just a few minutes introduction or none at all. It would be entirely up to the audience of students to ask questions to drive the conversation. This is consistent with the desires to: (a) facilitate bi-directional flow of ideas and thoughts, (b) encourage students to discover by asking questions, (c) ease the pressure on speakers to formally prepare material or topics for their session, and (d) encourage spontaneity.

For this to work, we would need a good moderator. We might videotape such a session so the students can (a) review how they asked the question, (b) gauge the speaker’s reaction, (c) listen to the response elicited by the question, and (d) gauge the audience’s reaction to the resulting question-answer exchange.

And I should mention why I even considered such a module. It’s because I have observed how some students might not get connected with a speaker because (a) they are the silent type, (b) they are worried about how they will be perceived by their interaction, and (c) they are worried that their knowledge about the subject matter is novice and potentially annoying to the speaker. By putting the responsibility to drive the conversation on the students (and having a speaker who is open to questions), we can demonstrate to the students the importance of asking good questions.

Messages: For Parents, Students and Educators

I composed a few brief statements to highlight the appeal of the YCISL program to the students, their parents and their educators. I was partially inspired by an article in IBD which recommends addressing the more important “customer needs” and matching them to the list of product attributes (Article is titled “Mull Customer Needs to Set Right Price”, online version http://news.investors.com/article/605408/201203231546/pricing-customer-needs-market-research-selling.htm).

MESSAGE FOR PARENTS: SHARE IN YOUR CHILD’S ASPIRATIONS
For parents, few things are more nervously uncertain than the time a child undertakes their preparation to leap to college. The intention of our workshop experience is to complement – using Stanford’s emphasis on critical and creative thinking – the college preparation that parents as well as schools and counselors provide, and ensure that the student reflects on their passions and strengths.

MESSAGE FOR STUDENTS: MAKING CLEAR CHOICES
Schools are excellent foundations for building knowledge and developing your logical and deductive reasoning skills. However, we also know that your growth and success also depends on you emerging as innovative thinkers and leaders. We believe that by harnessing your creative energy, and showing you how to get from ideas to realization, that we can impart clarity to your choices and confidence in your decisions.

MESSAGE FOR EDUCATORS: PRECIOUS RESPONSIBILITIES
With your experience in youth education, you have undoubtedly witnessed the amazing growth of youth as they progress upward through your school. We have come to appreciate that providing an education to youth is one of the most precious responsibilities we have in life, and you are probably always striving to improve their chances of success.  Our program aims to task students with unleashing their creativity – we call this “Exploring Your Creative Universe” – where ideas appear and exist within the mind. By bringing all these aspects together, we hope to have empowered students with the insight and technique to innovate into the future.

Book: Out of Our Minds by Ken Robinson

It was slower going through this book (Out of Our Minds, 2011 edition, by Ken Robinson) compared to the time I read The Element. It might have been that there was less for me to “grab on to” or “reach out for” in terms of relatable situations, or perhaps there wasn’t much I was making notes of that would pertain to the youth program. In this entry (at least in the initial draft), I note some notable parts:

– “Creative schools are creative with the schedule”, p. 260. This reminds me of the curriculum at Bowman International School in Palo Alto where there is no strict subject schedule – except for a regular language class where it is essential for students to be feeling immersed in the language and speaking to each other and the teacher in that language. But even so, there is a thought-provoking argument as to whether having schools’ daily schedules suit the traffic schedule, the parents’ work schedule or the teachers’ workload schedule (as opposed to an optimum schedule for student learning) – are detrimental to the desired outcome of learning in depth and to a command level. What do the students in the YCISL workshops think?

– “Digital natives and digital immigrants”, p. 75 and 253. These terms are attributed to Mark Presnky, and are used to denote a phenomenon that moves in the opposite direction of [traditional] cultural transmission. With new technologies and platforms flying out of the idea factories, youth are far quicker to adopt, adapt and embrace these new ways of life, and often end up teaching the older generation (the digital immigrants – those moving out from the non-digital world). In normal cultural transmission, the older generation is typically engaged in trying to pass down traditions and processes that they grew up with in order to preserve them. So, for those youth who feel that they have something to teach adults, how would they do it?

– “The task of  a creative leader is to facilitate a resilient relationship between the internal and external cultures”, p. 224. We could think of this in terms of a cell which has several internal components that are somewhat protected as a group by a semipermeable (selective) membrane but nonetheless must interact with the external environment to survive as well as thrive. This makes me think about the layers of a web site where there is an external interface but several layers of  hidden internal function, form, design and architecture. The creative leader has to deal with all these layers.

– ” A culture of innovation depends on cultivating three processes”, p. 219. These processes are imagination, creativity and innovation. I don’t exactly agree with how this concept has been structured (including the exact definitions of the three processes in the book). If we are to follow the argument in The Element, imagination and creativity, don’t necessarily need to be “cultivated”, they need to be uncovered – by social or organizational pressures.  On the other hand, I think it is fair to say that “innovation” is cultivated. However, I would further the book’s definition of “innovation” to say that this process is a selective one. With regards to the definition of “creativity”, I would not exclude ideas because they are not “original” – the same creative idea could come about by different routes – and it all requires energy and expression. I guess you could think of this as a multi-path chemical reaction with similar reactants but the exact same product (albeit perhaps with different yields, energy of reaction and activation energies).

– “The intellect cannot work at its best without emotional intelligence”, p. 186. Perhaps something Stephen Murphy-Shigemtasu can address? More on Emotional Intelligence on p. 175.

– “Academic ability is based on the two capacities for logico-deductive reasoning and for propositional knowledge”, p. 83.

Basic Thinking Question: What are _____ going to look like in x years?

One of the basic questions one could pose to stimulate brainstorming and critical thinking is…

“What is [name your product/thing] join to look like in x years?” The answer could be in terms of form or function or both.

This question is related to another that I would like workshop participants to ask themselves…

“Where do you see yourself in x years?”

For the purpose of sharing insight in the workshop setting, the “product/thing” question would likely be more fun and participants may be more open to sharing thoughts.

So, for example, one could open conversation by asking “What are the streets in your city going to look like in 10 years?” I thought of this question because of the several instances that I am familiar where dirt roads have become busy thoroughfares. For those who experience “dirt roads” presently, I am wondering whether they can imagine traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, street lights, good drainage, no pot holes, cat eye reflectors, handicap accessible curb ramps (including those bumpy pads) pedestrian walk/don’t walk lights, walk chirping sounds, and so on (there are so many amazing things about cutting edge streets these days). Even the transformation to LED traffic lights has been quite amazing. Even if the participant lives in an area where the streets already have these features, what else could be done?

For the YCISL workshop, the question I would ask would have the students think about it for 24 hours, perhaps make it part of the photo blog exercise and look around the Stanford campus or elsewhere.

Perhaps, it could something simple like “staircases” (and they could look around various buildings on campus) or “windows.” On the personal product side, we could do digital cameras or personal computers.

Idea: Build-a-Store Brainstorming Project

The following could be done as a rapid-fire 1-hour brainstorming assignment.

A group of students would be asked to design a store (and this is the only requirement) for KIDS.

Originally, I was thinking about a Toy store but have each group discuss about stretching and staying within this scope. For example, a Toy store might sell what mainstream consumers might consider toys, or they could have collector’s toys, or just a subset of the Toy realm (eg, BoardGames, or Video Games) – or they could have magazines/comics on top of toys – if they think that is what would “drive” kids to their store.

The subsequent idea is to design any store so long as the appeal is to KIDS. Preferably, the store would be something that could be set up at their school – either as something that would open regularly (eg, daily, weekly or monthly) or just once a year (eg, something for the holidays or a school event).

Some of the things that they would brainstorm and pull together are:
(1) Scope of the store – customers (eg, age and male/female/both) and type of goods/wares/services
(2) Sample of actual items they would want to sell
(3) Purpose of having the store
(4) Positioning of the store (how it fits into the proprietors or school’s goals); uniqueness and appeal
(5) Look of the store – design a storefront (real or virtual)
(6) Name of the store, design a logo and create a slogan
(7) Plans for growth and sustaining interest

Since this is just a brainstorming (dreaming) exercise, we would not discuss logistics. The intention of this exercise is for students to express their dreams without substantial practical consideration.

Question: What is wrong with today’s cell phones?

This is a predicament I have found myself  in previously on various occasions. A product that you have been using for quite some time – learned it, used it, become quite fond of it, gotten attached to it – has reached it’s end-of-life; and you have the darnedest time trying to select a replacement. What might be so challenging? Part of the problem might be shifting feature sets, but there’s also the issue of build quality (eg, workmanship) and greater complexity (eg, feature-overflow). There are a couple of examples worth mentioning here:

1. Cable Television. When cable television first became available, it was quite straightforward to understand and a good value (compared to getting free over-the-air signals). Things got better as television sets got built-in cable tuners and larger and flatter screens. Next, value began to decline with higher subscription rates and the addition of undesired channels (polluted packages). The polluted packages also led to a decline in user experience and overall user-friendliness. The downswing has recently reached a new low with the switch from analog to digital service. Suddenly, the disadvantages of satellite television were thrown in with cable, and value plunged.  User experience was also impacted. But despite this horrible odyssey, a bright clearing has revealed itself – nothing terribly new, but it feels so pure and innocent. Digital Over-The-Air (OTA) signals! The old rooftop antennas miraculously have become of state-of-the-art utility again, and televisions with built-in tuners are no longer handicapped. With a little support from internet television, we find ourselves freed from polluted packages. Sanity has also returned with channels within the two-digit realm and quite straightforward to remember – and it’s generally QUALITY programming. Oh, and it’s subscription fee-free! Simplicity returns!

2. Clothing. What is the matter with the clothing industry? Low cost generally equates with low quality (workmanship and durability) and sometimes, high cost is unjustified by low quality. There are a few high cost-high quality options out there (Timberland comes to mind) but not enough. Lands’ End used to be the model for low cost-high quality but they have lost their edge and are hindered by limited choices. Tailor-made is available but quite set apart from mainstream. Why do low cost clothes have to be ill-fitting?

Not all products have gone through this plunge back to earth. I think digital cameras have been hugely positive (but the addition of HD video makes me wince, and I am saddened by the disappearing art of film developing) and automobile choices are generally on the right track (except the Hummer).

So back to the impetus for this entry…cell phones. There have been several tremendous advancements…most notably miniaturization, but also lower SAR readings. Competing digital technologies such as GSM vs CDMA has also been interesting with neither presently looking to be pushed out (ie, Betamax’d). Sure, GSM is more popular in general around the world, but phone to tower connections are relatively poor (and therefore require more unsightly cell phone towers). And cell phone plans (in the US) also have gone the way of cable television rates with poor value and lack of simple and affordable options. Hardware has also suffered with divergence to low-cost, poor quality units or high-cost, feature-excessive models. If we think about the quadrants model, there certainly is a lack of low-cost pro, and premium consumer models (ie, ones that work well but are not overly complicated).

So, for YCISL this may be a good way to introduce and discuss the use of the quadrants model to identify opportunities. For the hands-on part, we might be able to have students bring their cell phones and we would try different approaches to categorizing to quadrants. Then we could discuss how a model in a presently populated quadrant might be modified to fit into an empty quadrant, and see if that makes market sense.

Seth Godin: Standing Out (TED2003)

In this TED Talk, Seth Godin ponders “idea diffusion” – the way that ideas spread and become successful products. He described how the TV advertisement-driven idea complex (mass marketing, “average products for average people”) has faded and is being taken over by creating “remarkable” products (from remarkable ideas, of course) and to “market” to the segment of the market containing innovators and early adopters. In this talk, Godin provides numerous humorous examples that get his point across – most notably including the purple cow, the Water Salad from Japan, and the town-center 55-foot high lava lamp in Soap Lake, WA.

His points about “idea diffusion” and “being remarkable” are extendable to youth creativity (although his examples are drawn from marketing and tend to be adult-oriented where success is measured by profits). In a culture where idea flow is usually from adult-to-student or parent-to-child, it is useful to promote the strategic concepts of “idea diffusion” and “being remarkable” to enable reverse flow and to be heard. It is also likely that these concepts already exist in the youth context (ie, from youth-to-youth), albeit in low volume, and it could be applied youth-to-adult as well. Raising the volume in the youth-to-youth (shall we call this Y2Y?) context would be consistent with the YCISL lessons, and we could look for opportunities and appropriate ways to accomplish this.

The video: http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_sliced_bread.html
Seth Godin web site: http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/

There’s another Seth Godin video, this time from TED2009, at http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead.html titled “The Tribes We Lead.” In the latter part of this talk, Godin says “You don’t need permission from people to lead them” and “They’re waiting, we’re waiting for you to show us where to go next.” He also says that “Being a leader gives you charisma.” These are powerful and persuasive notions, and are worth exploring in the YCIS context.