Christoph Hewett

I thought it was a good time to re-do some personality tests.

Myers-Briggs Personality Type

INTJ — The “Strategist” (no surprises here)

INTJ Strategists are private, independent and self-confident. They strive for perfection and achievement. They are gifted strategists with analytical, conceptual and objective minds. They are flexible and like to formulate contingency plans. INTJs are able to see the reasons behind things.

VIA Signature Strengths 

WEEK 2 – Interest-based Learning

This will be a rolling blog of thoughts while undertaking the 14 week MOOC on “Learning Creative Learning” being run by MIT and P2PU.

It is an interesting reflective exercise to remember the toys and games of my youth and think of how they shaped me. As I reminisced, I recalled many examples of my youthful play – the main ones centering around information and organisation (actually more fun that it sounds)

The first that came to mind was LEGO. A favorite of many a boy and girl, and a tinder for many a imagination – although my approach was a bit different. I was not a great drawer, so the large box of miscellaneous LEGO piece was like structural playdoh. I could turn my mental creations into (approximate) 3D prototypes lightening fast – at least enough for me to play and create more.

An application of this became more prevalent in my late teens. While my family had a big clunky beige desktop computer, it was in the study – well away from the television, which was where I preferred to be. So when it came to organizing my weekly schedule, LEGO provided a creative solution. I created a base plate of 24×7, colored bricks to “blockout” set time slots (eg, School & Meals) and a series of smaller 1×2 and 1×3 plates to coordinate my other activities. As shown below:

Another organisational trait that is well known to my family (and even co-habitants in adulthood) was my tendency to re-organise furniture. Just like LEGO at life-scale, I often thought about how to create more efficient spaces around the home. His chair here; that couch there; what if the TV was over there – if it wan’t fixed, nothing was off limits. Even now I always look for way of improving my life – much like my LEGO block; once it was built, it can be “enhanced”.

Also, as a child I was an avid reader. While I enjoyed fiction reading I also had many greatly treasured reference books – atlases, almanacs, dictionaries and encyclopediasn (The Guinness Book if Record was a particular favorite). In fact there was one point when I insisted that the families 25 volume encyclopedia had to be put on my bed head so that I could be as close to the ready information as I could. Library visits were also a regularly scheduled event. Now, of course, all those reference books and library visits are not as important as they once were. The internet is the ultimate reference book, although it does lack one thing - structure. Search engines can help you find anything you want, and hyperlinks connect various information sources. But it is very difficult to compare information across sites; like very rarely equals like.

I do wonder about the difference between Pedagogical and Andragogical approaches to the internet. The internet was created under an andragogical methodology; searching, hyper-links and self-discovery indicate that a knowledgeable and self-directed learner would be able to make the most of the medium. It is shown through the poor use of tags, hashtags, and other meta-data that the average user cannot structure information in a meaningful way, resulting in only superficial usefulness.

How can we manage creative thinking while also increasing understanding of structured information/systems? Are they mutually exclusive, or can they both be part of the learner’s toolkit?

The opportunity was perfect. With tickets for Bruce Springsteen at Rod Laver Arena, my wife and I needed to find an easy way to get from Flagstaff Gardens to the concert and back again in a way befitting the event – No Stress, No Fuss, and Price Competitive. It was time to test Uber. Being 6 & 11pm on a Sunday night there should be no issue.

The Why?

You may well ask, why book a chauffeured car for a 6 Km round trip? We don’t have a car, so the only alternatives were walk, Public Transport and taxi – Bike Share was a distant option, also not worth considering.

The Service

I can honestly give high praise for the quality of the Uber. I gave no advance booking, so (for the pre-concert trip) booking to pick-up was 10 minutes – the timer on the app meant we could stay indoors and go to the street just as the car arrived. A luxury Lexus whisked us to Rod Laver in ten minutes, dropping up off near the Batman Avenue, Swan st intersection – right at the front gate. The real test was going to be post-concert, with any transport more difficult among the crowd. I made the booking as I stood up from my seat (still in the stadium) – that meant only a 3 minute wait. The app provide the make and license number to make find the car easy in the midst of the existing crowd. As before, the trip took 10 minutes, as total of 20 minutes “stadium-seat to couch”.

Both ways, the ride is as effortless as you could imagine. The driver was very nice and chatty (I gave 4 & 5 stars for the trips) and the car was very clean and comfortable (except for the expected roof issues for my 6’7″ frame).  Uber charges your credit card automatically upon arrival at your destination, notification arriving via the app. So it literally is a pick-up and drop-off service; about as easy as it could get.

So no complaints, however…the price, $22 (each way). A total of $44.

The Comparison

Here is the raw comparison of Time (broken down by Exercise, Waiting & Travel), Relative Stress (personal estimate using Uber as the base), and cost.

*Without a taxi booking I’ld estimate wait time at 10 minutes pre-concert, 20 minutes post-concert (half of which is walking). Likewise for car, given parking.

Using the following Formula to find the Total Effort Minutes = (2e + 1.5w + t) * S. While it could be a fair claim that this formula is biased toward Uber (weighting heavily for extra effort AND extra stress) but it still showed…

• Walking is 6.89x more effort but 44x less expensive. (eg. 1 hours hard graft could have earned me a concert t-shirt)
• Public Transport is 4.2x more effort by 6.29 less expensive. (eg. 20 minutes shared with fellow concert goers, and 40 minute walk could have paid for a concert program)
• Taxi is 2.59x more effort but 2.00x less expensive.(eg. Taking a chance on a cab could payed for a round of drinks)
• Car is 2.32 more effort but 2.93x less expensive. (eg. Some effort parking could have paid for a concert program)
• Bike is 5.14x more effort but 8.19x less expensive. (eg. An hour of pedal power and carrying a helmet and I’ld score a concert t-shirt)

The Conclusion

… but was it worth it? YES, yes it was.

For Uber to work in Melbourne there must be two undeniable conditions, the Taxi System and Public Transport System must be severely broken. There is nothing about the service I expected of Uber that I shouldn’t normally expect from any Taxi company. Likewise Public Transport should provide an effective option for a event like this (especially between two inner city locations). I’m certainly  not alone in saying that both these system are broken. As long at the reliability and comfort of Taxi and PT is in doubt, Uber has a opportunity – as long as it can consistently provide an effective service – to charge a hefty premium.

This will be a rolling blog of thoughts while undertaking the 14 week MOOC on “Learning Creative Learning” being run by MIT and P2PU.

WEEK 1 – Intro to Creative Learning

My attitude to Creative Learning, Education Technology and teaching in general is summed up in this picture & quote.

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once they grows up“. Pablo Picasso

Therefore, I was quite interested when the first readings of the course was Mitchel Resnick’s “All I Really Need to Know (About Creative Thinking) I Learned (By Studying How Children Learn) in Kindergarten“, as it seemed that there was clear common ground. (read the article here, http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/CC2007-handout.pdf)

While the premise of the paper was pleasant enough, in which Mitchel says “Instead of making kindergarten like the rest of school, we need to make the rest of school (indeed, the rest of life) more like kindergarten.” It seemed to me that this was stated as a truism, to be accepted on faith, with nothing in the way of proof or application. By promoting a childhood based on creative play, you are actually delaying any preparation for real-world necessities.

In Mitchel’s article there is 5 mentions of the word “teach” (or derivatives) and 64 mention of learn (or derivatives). Of the five “teach” mentions, there are either negative in connotation or passive in direction. What does this mean for the teachers’ role in creative learning? The apperance is that creative learning does not have any outcomes, or requirements to be achived, just the ongoing iteration of problem solving and creation. Therefore the teacher only has a marginal role. I believe that the answer to this is peer-teaching, as demonstarted in the El Sistema music program of Venezuela (See this 15 minute video to learn more about El Sistema. http://www.ted.com/talks/jose_abreu_on_kids_transformed_by_music.html)

However, if we expand our scope a bit, much can be gained. There seemed to be significant similarities between Mitchel’s model for creative learning and the Scientific Method, or as Adam Savage of Mythbusters says, “Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.” This could be a useful means to compare and contrast the two methods (as outlined below)

 So it seems that there is a place for creative learning, not to replace conventional learning, but maybe to augment it. If, rather than re-branding everthing, we can appreciate and manage the nuances, it can be a powerful tool for masterful creators. There just so happens to an examplar of this: Walt Disney.

Similar to DeBono’s Six Hats, the Disney Method comprises three seperate sub-methods (and corresponding rooms), all used to achive fanastic creative output; they were,

• The Creative Room
• The Concrete Room
• The Critic Room

These methods can not be used in conjuction, rather only seperately, which is why Walt used three room. In the Creative Room anything was possible, the Critic Room problems and issues were raised, and the Concrete Room, matters of practical application were discussed. (To find out more about the Disneey Method, read http://www.wiredportfolio.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/DisneyPaper.pdf, It is actually very simple but thinkers have create many variations)

This, in conjunction with a “El Sistema”-like peer-teaching, seems to bee the best framework by which creative learning can be incorproate into a multi-method learning/teachning environment.

(Yes it has been a while)

This article from Brain Picker gave me pause to think about the creative process. I thought I’ll fire up the Resonant Integrity blog again and share my thoughts.

“Classic: A 5-step technique for producing ideas circa 1939 http://j.mp/K5G4Uy“

The article talked of a 1939 book, A Technique for Producing Ideas (public library) by James Webb Young. As I read through the steps I saw an intriging connection with an old theory of mine. As an intrenched introvert I have always been sceptical of the creative process being too open, as if by committee, and often burden by it own transparency.

The steps outlined  are:

STEP 1: GATHERING RAW MATERIAL

STEP 2: DIGESTING THE MATERIAL

STEP 3: UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSING

STEP 4: THE A-HA MOMENT

STEP 5: IDEA MEETS REALITY

This process seems to me to be more analogious to the solitude of night (with it dark subconsious methods) than the highly rational and evidence-proven processes that are frequently promoted by science, business and governance (often portrayed as if “enlightened” by day). A group approach may suit what I would call Imaginative Creativity, which has very few contraints and external depenancies. The group can be a carefree as it wishes, and inspiration will come from each person’s adaption of the shared concepts. What I call Practical Creativity is more dependent on existing concepts and uses the brain’s non-rational ability to create new connections as the adapation process.

It seems that recent trends in mindfulness, workplace mediation and remote work is recognising just how important solitute is, and that it can be embraced as a useful creative tool, even in highligh rational environments.

Would you use this approach in you workplace or field of interest?

This is an experimental post. A trial of live-blogging a book review. I’ve just started reading Dan Pink’s “A Whole New Mind.” Yes, it is five years old, but I’ve noticed that the new wave of researchers seem to be referencing this book more than others in the same genre. As if five years ago they read “A Whole New Mind” and decided, “I’m going to research right-brain thinking”. Now their evidence is coming forward, and whether beneficial or no, I thought it was worthwile to go back to the source.

To give you some context, here is a well known talk given by dan Pink on motivation (based on his first book, “Drive”)

Into the first chapter and Dan is going to great length to describe how science it proving the difference between the left and right brain. The explaination seems to be emphasising the necessity and superiority of the right brain – “right brain is the picture, left brain is the 1000 words.” Is this forgetting the fact that all animals, not just humans have had two brain hemispheres since the dawn of time? Animals are not just amygdala driven simpletons. They were making the left/right divide work to handle their environment before language, before calculation, and before societial orgnisations.

We just reached the point of the two half brains. “The left hemisphere know how to handle logic, the right hemisphere know about the world. Put the two together and one get a powerful thinking machine” – Yes, a brain. Here Dan now uses left/right as a metaphor. L-directed thinking and R-directed thinking has become a construct, based on societial observations. Is this for real?

In Chapter Two, Dan Pink is paying out on all qualified professionals. Is “L-directed thinking” now a dirty word, used interchangeabily with “SATocracy”? He is now going to persuade everyone who was not sold by Ch.1 by explaining his theory in simpler “L-directed” language. Geez. The macro-trends he describes are Abundance, Automation & Asia, and, short of the few personal observation he makes about US consumer life, he does not validate these trends. Abuance proves that people now prefer pretty things (disregarding the production & distribution models that make 1st world abuance possible), Automation make number crunching easier (ask anyone in data management, this is not so), and Asia is taking all the menial L-Directed jobs (demeaning and a little bit racist).

This is absurb! I decided to search out some reviews of “Whole New Mind” to check my own perpective. I found that about half of Amazon and Goodreads review describe “Whole New Mind” as shallow and simplistic, expounding from a flimsy premise. I also found this review. http://fno.org/may08/pink.html which (like others) recommended that “Whole New Mind” is a book of two halves. First half is Pink defending his case that right brainers will take over the world, with little evidence or science involved. The second half has much more value outlining in some detail six new “senses”, or skills, for the Twenty-First Century. I’ve decided to skip forward to the second section. 

I’ve skipped forward to the start of section, and caught the end of the previous chapter where Dan outlines the Six Senses. He make a point that these sense have always been a part of what it is to be human, but after a few generations of the Information age they have atrophied. Surely the right brain (or R-directed) thinkers that he is trying to evoke would disagree with this; the statement lacks any evidence or rationality. On to the six senses…

Not just Function, but also Design.

Immediately, my scepticism starts to disolve. This is not an either/or proposition (or L vs R-directed thinking). “Design” also (and somewhat essentially) incorporates Functional Design with the Artistic. The reason is not that the Artist is better, or intrinically adds more value than Functional, it that the tools of Design are not cheaper and more accessible than ever before. Art is easier and less exculsive than in previous generations. “We may not all be Dali or Degas. But today we must all be designers“. 

Now the market imperative is used a rationale. I belive that this is a rolling theme for all sense, and it is based on an assumption. L-directed thinking is static, and R-directed thinking is dynamic. If a L-directed thinker were to change a standard feature/process (no matter how logically) they would be embraced as a R-directed thinker.

It’s good to see all forms of design thinking concidered, not just functional or artistic, but also social design, environmental design, and others.

Not just Argument, but also Story.

I have been a big fan of Joeseph Campbell and the Monomyth for a long time, so you won’t find any disagreement from me in this. Robert McKee and Steve Denning have also been on my reading list. I would just ask, is this new? I suppose if this is a new concept to you then Pink does provide a useful introduction.

Not just Focus, but also Symphony.

Symphony is that ability to look at the big picture, apparently another exclusively right brain activity, and the skill that brings Symphony about is drawing. Pink evokes on hius experiences and a “drawing on the right brain” course that he undertook. “Drawing is largely about relationships, that when combined, create the whole.”

The masters of symphony are called Boundary-crossers. While is disagree with the label, I am fammilar with this phenomenonl having crossed many professional and personal boudnaries in my life. Does that make my particulary skillful or R-Directed? No. 

Some interesting science is provided. Aparently the Eueraka experience, or a-Ha moment, when do using creative R-directed, correspondes with an exposion of neural- activity in the right hemishpere. When using methodical L-directed methods this areas is not enlivened. While it is hard to draw conclusions from this (Pink certianally tries) it does empirically demonstrate the dffierence between Left/Right mental techniques.

Pink also refers to use of metaphor and a few powerful and entreprenurial dyselxics to show how big picture things as given people and advantage in the world. Not quite a through investigation.

Beside the momentary mention of science, I striggle to see anthing tangible about this. Pink seems to idealise R-Directed thinker who use symphony as masters of their relationships and environment. Apparently, through sketches and metaphor, these people can negotiated the complexity of the world better than their L-Directed counterparts. I fail to see any evidence of this actually being true in the world.

Not just Logic, but also Empathy.

 Now the spherical divide of the brain gives way to a gendered divide of the workforce. According to Pink emaphy is a predominately a female trait, an over used simplification. Whether or not this is a valid claim or not is impossible to determine, as no demonstraoble evidence is provided just observation and a diatribatic declarations. To explain I reference The Anthrax example used in this chapter. Two doctors treat two differnt patient, both claiming to have been exposed to anthrax one tested for antrax the other didn’t. both patients, in fact, did were exposed to anthrax, on died teh otehr didn’t. Apparently this is evidence of empathy over logic, or could is as easily be used ofr logic over empahy – oh, the “correct” doctor was female, so she HAS to be be more empahetic.

Not just Seriousness, but also Play.

 The concept of play is one that has become partularly popular in the time since “A Whole New Mind” and I’ll forgive Pink for only referencing Laughter Club and not more recent example (becasue, obviously, they didn’t yet exist). But there is one line in particular that set me right off. “(In the context of laughter) When you are being playful you are activating the right side of the brain. The left side of the brain is limited, the right side unlimited.” Truism? It reads as such. Laughter, being a complex human emotion, actually uses many parts of the brain – left-side, right-side and the frontal lobe (where most of our higher function take place)  http://www.abc.net.au/spark/scienceof/laughter.htm

Pink goes on to talk about Humour more specifically, citing a study using humor on people with brain damage. Again Pink is elegant his selective simplity. His example describes, a control group that are normal and test group have damage to the right brain. The control group tended to pick the punchline, the test group didn’t. Again a bit of research shows humour is to complex for that; the type of joke/humour is highly contributry to the way the brain behaves. http://aphasiology.pitt.edu/archive/00000130/01/20-05.pdf

Not just Accumulation, but also Meaning.

Whether Spirituality or Happiness, Pink places meaning firmly in the right brain.

Having studied quite deeply on Positive Psychology and Mindfulness, and there are many benefits that are linked to both new fields of study. However, I (again) struggling to see how the search for meaning is so devoid from left-directed thinking. Pink never explains this satisfactorily.

Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far, you may fell I’m being overly negative. This was a great surpise for me; I had hoped to ge more from this book than I did. If I have missed anythind in these book, that may enlighten the process, let me know in the comments.

I guess the point that reoccured for me through out the book was the implication that the left brain was plain, dull and medicore compared to the freer, richer and in all thing better right brain. (as illustrated in this Mercades Benz ad)

Compare that to this alternate ad from the same series, where the unique charateristics of left and right brains are still clearly apparent, but both are still shown as vivid and dynamic (in their own way).

If Pink had have taken this more balance approach, acknowledging that left and right work together, in every moment, to deal with challenges, both simple and profound, then I think that this book would have been easier to digest.

“A person who is a master in the art of living makes little distinction between their work and their play, their labor and their leisure, their mind and their body, their education and their recreation, their love and their religion. They hardly know which is which and simply pursue their vision of excellence and grace, whatever they do, leaving others to decide whether they are working or playing. To them they are always doing both.” – Zen poet

I hope you take time out at some point in you day (like I did) and concider this quote. Does it reosnate with you? Or does it sounds like an unrealistic fantasy?

We found a lot of integrity and meaning in this quote. At the heart of it, this quote show us that modern society has radically mis-interpreted what Needs, Wants and Desires are. The goals of self-fullfilment and self-actualisation have been replaced by conformity and one-ups-man-ship. The essence of it is at the core of what we want Resonant Integrity to be and the service that we want to provide people. Let us show you how?

Jared Cohen: Don’t Pursue Ideas With Obvious Conclusions from 99% on Vimeo.

I love this short talk by Jared Cohen. Challenge your perceptions, everyday!

Over the last week I’ve be watching TED Global 2011, the annual conference of TED (Technology, Education & Design). TED is a international community of innovators and change makers, who share their ideas and creations in hope that they will help creat a better tomorrow. It can be quite mind goggling stuff, hearing about wild ideas and creation, in fact it can be quite hard to take in.

Since the conference I’ve started looking the otherway, into our past. The fact is 100 years ago car looked just like this 1909 Buick 10 Roadster (currently on display at RACV City Club, Melbourne) 

In another comparison, in 1911, the Wright Brothers’ “Vin Fiz” airplane was the 1st airplane to cross the United States. The flight took 84 days, stopping 70 times. It crash-landed so many times that little of its original building materials were still on the plane when it arrived in California.

It is amazing what has happened in the last 100 years. With this confidence, looked forward once again and returned to some of the most impactful of TED content. I hope to go into some of these in detail later, but one seemed partiularly pertinant.

ReZero, is a ballbot. (a what? you say) Yes, a ballbot. Of course words can not describe what a ballbot is. To find out more, have a look at the video below.

http://rezero.ethz.ch/

This is still very experimental and it is not the only robotics innovation around. But comparining this to the early experiments of air travel, showed me that change has always been with us. At some point along the way we lost the wonder of new innovationa and began to be complacent – as if awe was passe.

I encourage you to take the time to dicover something new, something you didn’t know – about the past, present or future…because through it all, there is not time like NOW.