Visual notes and sketchnoting:
When I was in class in college, I sat next to a good friend who would take down nearly every word the professor said. His notes would go on for pages, because we took a lot of history classes together and our professors would typically lecture for the entire period. My notes, in contrast, looked something like this:
When I was in class in college, I sat next to a good friend who would take down nearly every word the professor said. His notes would go on for pages, because we took a lot of history classes together and our professors would typically lecture for the entire period. My notes, in contrast, looked something like this:
Not very impressive for a 75 minute class.
I would later go through the text and try to block out the major points of the text. In many cases I would actually make diagrams or charts that would summarize the major points. I just didn't realize (like Rachel Smith below) that taking notes in pictures was OK in class.
Four websites and/or visual notetakers that I recommend are:
1. Rachel Smith's TED talk: http://bit.ly/1Ht43Ml
2. Sunni Brown's information at http://www.sunnibrown.com (Sunni has a great visual summary of a book I like called "The War of Art"; she gave us permission to use it for LJC classes and you can see it at http://bit.ly/2bCgtV4)
3. Kathy Schrock's substantial index of visual notetaking information at http://www.schrockguide.net/sketchnoting.html
4. Sasha Chua's experiments at http://sachachua.com/blog/2013/11/okay-draw-simple-visual-notes/ (I used to work with Sasha a while back; she is a fun person.)
Creativity and Play
- As an adult, we may police our play and worry too much on the negative outcomes such as error or comparisons to others. Alex Bot gives encouragement on this topic at http://bit.ly/2bHiMGI .
- An important thought, pertinent to a presentation I gave this morning, is that play for adults is OK only when it is competitive play. It is OK to be a professional football player, or a competitive contract bridge player, but somehow most people are uncomfortable with the idea that play -- creative, artistic, non-competitive -- is not a "real" thing for adults. That insights came from a short article at http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/11/15/the-importance-of-play-for-adults/
- This last one, I think we will try in class. Let's see how Franklin College students will do with this visual vocabulary builder: http://bit.ly/2bBIYbr
Using small computers
There is a lot of information out there are small computers and how they can be used to provide useful and/or fun services to people. I've been reading up on these computers and have some sites here that I want to keep for future reference:
- Build your own cheap remote for a Raspi media center
- Using IR receivers with an Orange Pi computer (which has a built-in IR receiver)
Websites featuring design projects:
- http://www.pentagram.com/#/blog/64604 Pentagram's work for the Philly Museum of Art
- http://www.pentagram.com/#/blog/128792 The Shakespeare exhibit at the Folger's Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. Wow, what a creative way of displaying a life story. Also, a new item for me which I found from here, the Miscellany of Thomas Trevelyon. What a fantastic manuscript, enormous detail, not unlike something such as the Book of Kells, though much later in history. Materials from the Trevelyon work were used to create some of the illustrations at the Shakespeare exhibit.
- http://www.pentagram.com/#/blog/130159#images-lightbox-6 Another Pentagram display, this one an exhibit raising awareness of endangered species. Normally one would expect such a display to contain a photograph at least, but this one is made up entirely of typographic design elements. Wow.
- Dell is doing a program to support projects by girls with a technical bent. Their project list includes several creative ideas: http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2016/06/23/teen-entrepreneurs-working-to-changing-the-world-with-tech?dgc=SM&cid=11284&lid=503161314
- Rendever is doing Virtual Reality for senior citizens, an interesting approach to identifying an audience with needs that is no doubt underserved. Check out the story at FastCompany.
- This website features giving soccer balls to children in developing nations like Myanmar: what an interesting project! https://www.oneworldplayproject.com/category/our-social-impact/video-stories/
- There are many global projects at this website, worth finding out more: http://enactus.org/what-we-do/project-stories/
- https://thescene.com/watch/wired/wxd-these-incredible-high-tech-exhibits-are-the-future-of-museums
Websites on Agile in education:
http://theagileschool.blogspot.com/
http://derekbruff.org/
http://citrenz.ac.nz/conferences/2003/papers/49.pdf
https://ritdml.rit.edu/bitstream/handle/1850/9853/TReichmlmayrConfProc-11-2003.pdf?sequence=1
http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/2015/02/02/reflections-on-is-this-the-online-learning-model-of-the-future-zarom/
Websites on Agile in business:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/04/29/scrum-is-a-major-management-discovery/
https://hbr.org/1994/07/competing-for-the-future/ar/1
http://leankit.com/kanban/why-use-kanban-boards/
Agile plus enterprise design, great article: http://firstround.com/review/dear-pms-its-time-to-rethink-agile-at-enterprise-startups/
Creativity, Science, and Technology, including STEM:
http://thelearnersway.net/ideas/2014/12/16/creativity-in-science-and-technology-crest
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-idea-2015-unexpected-path-tim-brown
Lists of Leaders with Inspiration and Advice
http://www.carolroth.com/blog/all-time-greatest-leaders/
Advisory Teams
http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2013/08/05/successful-leadership-requires-6-critical-resources/#6a1b61cb7962
Diversity and Reading
http://www.powells.com/post/lists/25-books-to-read-before-you-die-world-edition
http://www.powells.com/25-women-to-read-before-you-die
Moebius the Artist
I have gotten a bit hooked on an artist who goes by the name of Moebius. He is a French artist whose primary work is in graphic novels. I found him through a list of the top 100 graphic novels that I found in a bookstore -- a list which I have since not been able to find again. But I had noted a particular design aesthetic in one of the listing which I tracked down, and that was what led me to Moebius.
The work that I found was Incal, by Jodoworsky and Moebius. I am reading that graphic novel now, and enjoying both the story, although a crazy fantasy, as well as the art, which has a unique, lightly drawn style with dramatic coloration and enormous amounts of detail.
A bit of research let me to more information on Moebius and some understanding of his creative process. In this video, Moebius talks about his lifelong colleague Jean Claude Mezieres and their work on the artistic design of Luc Besson's film The Fifth Element. Although I was not a fan of that movie to be honest, I did love the design aspects (just not Bruce Willis so much).
In this video, you can see him in a Wacom conference, demonstrating a video tablet, and watch his distinctive art emerge electronically. From the other video I know he often uses brush and ink, so this was interesting with a different media.
There is a BBC documentary here which gives a terrific overview of his career.
With this one, I can see an influence from the Czech artist Alphonse Mucha. Of course there is also an influence from the Belgian artist Herge, but Moebius certainly goes into a realm with more sexuality and fantasy than Herge. Tintin is one of my favorites as well, so no surprise that I like Moebius.
World of Obscure Cities
In the spirit of Moebius, above, I also found this: https://www.altaplana.be/start . The artistic style is of a similar bent, and the ideas are equally, if not more surrealistic. The key artists involved are François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters.
World of the Future:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/07/21/were-heading-into-a-jobless-future-no-matter-what-the-government-does/
http://e145.stanford.edu/upload/handouts/Martin_and_Osberg_-_2014_-_Moving_the_World_Forward_The_Quest_for_a_New_Equi.pdf
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7244.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/01/14/why-the-consumer-electronics-show-is-dying/
Co-working:
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3041736/madison-wisconsin-is-investing-5-million-in-worker-cooperatives
Collaboration and Collective Work:
Quaker Dialogue: http://ht.ly/Fn9eE
Design methodologies
http://dschool.stanford.edu/use-our-methods/
Infographics etc.
http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/how-to-design-infographics-for-superfans-and-connoisseurs
http://sketchnotearmy.com/sketchnoters/
http://sachachua.com/blog/resources/
Creativity in the world
https://www.creativityatwork.com/2014/02/17/what-is-creativity/
Where ideas comes from: http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/299687/where-good-ideas-come-from-by-steven-johnson/
Our inability to estimate well creates scope and scale challenges:
http://news.discovery.com/earth/how-sahara-dust-sustains-the-amazon-rainforest-in-3-d-150226.htm
http://blog.longnow.org/02008/01/17/the-century-palm/
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/google_self_driving_car
http://innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com/2013/07/over-and-under-estimating-innovation.html
Leadership certification:
https://www.i-l-m.com/About-ILM/Why-choose-ILM
Prototyping information and examples:
http://daap.uc.edu/daapworks.html
Social Entrepreneurship:
http://www.aidworthy.com/projects
Influencers and Thought Leaders:
http://www.gdi.ch/en/Think-Tank/GDI-News/News-Detail/Thought-Leaders-2014-the-most-influential-thinkers
http://tompeters.com/blog/
Tom Friedman on the future of work: dupress.deloitte.com/dup-us-en/deloitte-review/issue-21/tom-friedman-interview-jobs-learning-future-of-work.html
Ah, Machiavelli:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2014/07/31/15-surprisingly-great-leadership-quotes-from-macchiavelli/#8525a2711575
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli
Literacy and children:
http://www.roomtoread.org/AboutUs
Food and Hunger issues, particularly around children:
https://www.gleaners.org/fight-to-end-hunger/
Creative inspiration:
Richard Silken on the Joy of Making: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/250300
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-intellectually-stimulating-websites-of-which-you-know gives quite a list of websites that have ideas and learning
Gaming and Math
http://nautil.us/issue/44/luck/how-designers-engineer-luck-into-video-games
http://nautil.us/issue/17/big-bangs/how-i-rewired-my-brain-to-become-fluent-in-math
Unlikely ideas that became reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwls25ooBmY --> and the result in full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLhJIFC8xkY
Broadsides:
http://www.thevolta.org/ewc29-kschlesinger-p1.html
http://www.deadfeminists.com/broadsides/
Progressive Web Apps:
Still learning about all of this, but wow, some good stuff to keep and check out:
http://www.soundslice.com Fantastic application of a musical interface and learning about playing music interactively.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app has a good list of other PWA sites.
For my LEA 320 class: yes, there is actually a doctoral dissertation on creativity, innovation, and cow reproduction, believe it or not:
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/219191