Team PBP and challenge

This was an insightful assignment.  It was the first project I got to work with my group members on and luckily we get along and work well together.  I wasn't sure that this random selection of group members would work out, but now after this project I think it was a nice change from the norm and having a diverse group helped us complete various parts of the project.  For example, some of us were better at drawing, some better at the writing part, etc.  I myself did not realize that I could be that creative, I just perceived myself as an average person who wasn't that creative.  When I came up with using morse code to create a pattern out of the letters on the team challenge it was an eye opener.  I realized if I tried I could be creative, and that I shouldn't doubt myself.

Ends Lecture 2/5

Richard Scruggs was our guest speaker on thinking entrepreneurly.  He was a really interesting person, it was neat to actually meet someone who was successful and to see that you don't have to be a crazy genius to be an entrepreneur.  He was a good speaker and I really liked what he had to say, especially at the end of his lecture when he said we are not all entrepreneurs because I believe that to be true, I could probably do it if I tried, but I would rather not.  His life story was really interesting, all the companies he was involved with, then his story of how everything went south after 9-11, but he moved on and is starting again.  

Ends Lecture 2/3

We spoke about creative thinking and how you use your mind.  We looked at a bunch of optical illusions and they were so cool.  It is weird how you can know that the lines are the same length, but when you look at it you get a different answer.  The best was trying to figure out if the people were ascending or descending the stairs in the castle picture.  The one with the picture that could be the beautiful woman or the witch was really entertaining, I always wonder how the artist came up with that.

Ends Lecture 1/29

We talked about social entrepreneurship today.  Social entrepreneurs are pioneers in finding solutions for huge problems in developing countries, and they are the people who are the ones revolutionizing their field, not just some guy selling stuff off the internet I guess but the person who thought of Ebay.  Dr. Vanegas defined an entrepreneur as a visionary who achieves large scale sustainable social change from an invention, or a different approach.  I think this is a tall order and anybody who can do this is pretty awesome.  My favorite example of social entrepreneurship was the heifer program.  I love cows and people in the U.S never fully realize how important they are in third world countries.  They can provide more than collections of a 10 cents a day can and it is the gift that keeps giving.  Also it does away with just giving away welfare which I think tends to be corruptive.

ends Lecture 1/27

We had a guest speaker today, Darrell Kuhn, speaking about patents.  I thought it was interesting that so many people invented the weirdest stuff.  Like the invention of putting a tube down the toilet to get the air during a fire, seriously.  It was a shock finding out how expensive it was to get a patent, I would think it would discourage some of those weird ideas, but it doesn't seem to have worked.  

Ends Lecture 1/22

Dr. Vanegas explained to us what intuition flow was and how important it is to thinking creatively.  I had never heard of "flow" before but I had always wondered what they called it when you are just in that sort of zone of thinking.  I found it interesting that finding flow is unique to every person, and they way some people find flow was really weird. 

Soft innovations

I am excited I thought this would be the most difficult assignment but it is actually turning out to be my favorite.  I started thinking about little innovations when Dr. Vanegas reminded us in class to start working on them.  So far I have 9 and I am so excited I think I might actually try to make one of them, what I mean is not just design it in theory.  

So far I have gotten the ideas for my innovations eating at chili's, driving, and biking to class.  

Assignment No. I-3

I have to find a solution to a problem related to campus life/ or university attendance.  I first list problems and peeves that I and my friends have related to campus life.  I came up with the buses being slow, long walk getting from the bus to some buildings, not many places on campus to air up your bike tire if you get a flat, if you just want to hang out on campus for a while it is hard to find seats, laptop batteries run out in class, the room between seats in lecture halls it not sufficient, some classes are ridiculously large, bikers and pedestrians crash, attention span in class, hard carrying books to class if you have a lot, not enough on campus housing.  Then I took these problems and asked my friends which ones bugged them the most and crossed out the problems that weren't very common.  Then I brainstormed ideas for each problem and narrowed them down by picking my favorite ideas.  I had three top ideas which I elaborated on and considered using.  One was to designate certain sidewalks for pedestrians and some for bikes, then have the sidewalks for bikes split it to two way traffic for safety purposes.  I also liked the idea of splitting a professor's class into smaller rooms broadcasting the lecture via video to smaller classrooms with a T.A overseeing the class.  This would help with attendance and create a more friendly smaller class size.  The idea I ended up using was to place lockers all over campus and rent them to students.

Ends lecture 3/5

I am always worried that I am not doing my projects right, but today Dr. Vanegas cleared the air a bit.  Basically if I read the objective of the assignment and try to reach it with my project I should be fine.  I of course have to comply with the rules, like saving the project under the right name, and make sure that I do all the parts required.  

The actual lecture was a continuation from the tuesday class about managing the creative process.  We looked at a bunch of different ways to help come up with ideas and solutions.  You can do activity analysis where you list everything you do.  Later go through that list and find ways to prioritize what you did, and if there was anything you could do make those tasks easier.  There is also anthropometric analysis, weird name huh, which is using human population measurement data to check the coverage and suitability of the design solution for the target group.  This will help you find a group that represents who will be utilizing your product.  Character profiles is observing real people and picking a small subset of the population to focus on and help, basically specializing your service.  You use stereotypes in a positive way here to help you find a group such as planning parties for the extremely rich or something along those lines.  It is also useful to do long range forecasts where you imagine possible scenarios and try to figure out ways you could provide a service or solve the problem.  I tend to do this frequently, where I imagine various scenarios and think about what I will do if one of them actually happens.  The other method I liked was the five whys where you ask a person why five times and you will find the truth out really quick.  

Trying out the idea or product is important to see if it is worth it or not.  You can use the methods of role-playing, scenario testing, or scale modeling.

Ends lecture 3/3

We are finally going to get our grades!!! I'm excited because I want to find out if I need to change anything when I do my projects.  Anyway, in class we learned about managing the creative process.  The main thing I took away from this lecture was it is imperative to learn, look, ask, and try to be successful with an idea.

I am having difficulty with the I-3 assignment, not with the actual assignment, but as to what my report should look like.  I am not sure if what I have been doing in previous projects is right or not so hopefully when I get my grades back I will have a better idea.

Ends lecture 2/26

Dr. V reminded us about the 12 soft innovations assignment so I am going to start thinking of ideas for it.  I need to stop waiting till the last week its putting way too much pressure.  The lecture was about what innovation is and what we use it for.  He also mentioned numerous ways that innovations can be shot down so we can make sure to avoid them.

 Innovation is basically the commercial or industrial application of something new.  This seems so broad to me, it basically can be anything as long as you are applying something new.  This helps with my innovation project because I can innovate something that is of interest to me, which is easier then having a specific subject to work around.  

There are 10 innovation killers, I related to most of them and I am glad Dr. Vanegas gave us a solution to each one so we can try and do something about the problem when we face it.  The innovation killer I see the most is a job environment that doesn't support innovation.  The problem here is that people don't mention ideas that pop in their head because of fear.  The fear either comes from the co-workers or their superiors not supporting their ideas.  To deal with this fear has to be removed from the environment and ideas, no matter what they are, should be applauded.  The other killer which I myself experienced is not allocating resources to the process.  To deal with this looseness has to be built into the system to encourage people to explore new possibilities.  When I was in high school we always had to do a science fair project.  Most of the time the teacher just gave you the due date and the 3-fold poster board and then forgot about it.  The projects that came out of these classrooms were never novel or very interesting.  Then one year a teacher came and showed us how to brainstorm and helped us find project ideas that we would never have done on our own.  He did not shoot down ideas but just asked us to elaborate on them and try something new.  Then he didn't just leave us to do everything on our own, he helped us find materials and encouraged us to try something out of the ordinary and we knew if we had trouble he would help us.  Everybody had an amazing project.  This is an example that having a fear free and loose system can really make a difference. 

Ends lecture 2/24

Dr. Rodney Hill was our guest lecturer and he talked about personal space.  This was definitely on of the best lectures in this course, but I am not sure it can beat the humor & creativity one.  Anyway, he basically pointed out the weird social habits we have in society like how close we will allow strangers and friends to get to us without us getting uncomfortable and moving.  After class I was curious and on the elevator I stood close to the only other person there and they moved over and when they even looked and the floor counter thing just like Dr. Hill said it was hilarious.  

Ends lecture 2/19

The pictures of the trash art was amazing.  I would have never guessed that that pile of trash was projecting such a perfect shadow of a person.  Also the guy who painted images on the sidewalks that looked so real I would have stopped in the road thinking it was an actual object.  It made me realize that creativity is not just coming up with something new, but something that will surprise people like how those two artists surprised me.

I also never thought to distinguish entrepreneur and small business before this lecture.  Dr. Venegas did a good job of explaining it and I guess it can be summed up in three words Small vs. Big ideas, small vs. large profit, and low vs. high risk.  

Ends lecture 2/17

This was by far my favorite lecture in this class, I loved having a class I could laugh in.  I had never thought of connecting humor and creativity, but after this lecture it is hard to imagine why I did not think of that before.  My favorite video clips were the sponsor an executive, state employees, and the Tequila ad.  They were all hilarious of course but I liked how they took something that is serious and turned it upside down and it made their statement unforgettable and unique.  I really like the joke; Atheism is a non-prophet organization it is funny, ironic, and truthfull all at the same time.

Ends lecture 2/12

Blake Godkin came back again to finish his lecture and we got to get together and practice his techniques in groups again, Yaaa!  What I took away from this class was to first use what he called "divergent guidelines" and just throw ideas out with speed and without thinking about them in depth.  Then to use "convergent thinking", slow down and take the time to understand and evaluate ideas.  This is where I can trash the ideas that are not novel and examine what's left.  Then I can play with those ideas combining them, using them in different settings, etc.  It was fun using a real problem about transportation around campus.  It is funny what weird stuff we came up with when we weren't "judging" ideas.  By the way, today is my birthday 2/12 all the way!!!

Ends Lecture 2/10/09

We had a guest lecture given by Blake Godkin.  He was a engaging speaker and I really liked how he made the class interact with each other.  Getting into groups to practice how to work together and use a step by step process formulate ideas was fun.  I really liked his comment on not judging an idea, or solution right away.  I never realized that I did that and trying not to judge an idea right away was challenging.  He also told us to strive for quantity, and I tend to get to an idea I like then just stop brainstorming.  His idea to keep going and generate and many ideas as possible did help me open my mind to more options that were more unique and novel than anything I had previously come up with.  I will definitely take what he told us and use it in my future projects, especially on our next individual assignment where we enter in the Aggie Innovention contest.