Ira Glass Part 3 & 4

Here are a couple of ideas I took from these videos –

Constantly generate work – We always want to create amazing work from the beginning but it takes practice and a lot of crappy projects to get there. Ira’s advice is that keep making work till you get where you want to reach.

Two pitfalls of new creatives

  1. When people adopt other people’s personalities and try to recreate them in their own work. Ira’s advice is to be genuine and let your own personality out in your work.
  2. Have enough characters to create tension and drama. Don’t make your story about one person or one thing. Make the story interesting, and think from multiple perspectives.

Ira Glass Part 1 & 2

These short videos were very interesting and gave me a lot of ideas of how I should write a story for my final video. Following were a couple of ideas I picked up from the videos:

  1. Ask questions – a good storyline is constantly asking questions to keep them engaged with the content.
  2. Anecdote – Have a storyline where things transition from one step to another.
  3. Moment of reflection – boring stories have no revelation, no new meaning, no new idea.
  4. Ruthless cropping – Eliminate parts that you don’t need to tell the story. Don’t fill you story with crap just to fill the gaps.
  5. Failure is a part of success – Be prepared to scrap your idea or fail. Best learning come from failure, and they teach you how to be better the next time.

Response to “The Five Obstructions”

This was was and interesting documentary mainly because adding some constraints can completely change the movie. Leth struggled through each scenario but I think Trier had a vision for his obstructions. It’s never easy to tear down a movie and reimagine it especially when you have already seen the original version. However, Leth’s imagination actually made it possible for him to push through and pass 4 out of 5 obstructions.

I was a little confused as to what was the purpose of watching this documentary? Was it so see how constraints can change an original document? or to see various aspects of movie development? or something else? I will probably get to know more about this through the class discussion.

Rose Mansion

Last week I visited the Rose Mansion museum in NYC. The museum contains of several rooms with various art installations and you are served different wines with each room. In each room you get to learn about some history and science behind each wine.

Overall, the concept was interesting and the set up was really beautiful. It felt like an Instagram palooza, as everyone was more interested in taking picture than learn about wine history. GULTY! I did the same!

Annotated Bibliography

Sal Khan

Khan, Salman. “Sal Khan: Let’s Teach for Mastery — Not Test Scores | TED Talk | 2015.” Khan Academy, Khan Academy, http://www.khanacademy.org/talks-and-interviews/conversations-with-sal/v/lets-teach-for-mastery-not-test-scores-sal-khan.

In this TED talk Salman Khan goes over the concept of how the pressure to perform on tests leads to gaps in knowledge. He explains how exams test your knowledge based on scores but there is no follow through on the gaps. He further elaborates on how building at higher level on these classes discourages students to learn due to the lack of fundamentals. His solution to this problem is by creating a platform for student to learn at their own pace giving them mastery of these subjects.

Steve Jobs

Kuang, Cliff. “The 6 Pillars Of Steve Jobs’s Design Philosophy.” Fast Company, Fast Company, 10 July 2018, http://www.fastcompany.com/1665375/the-6-pillars-of-steve-jobss-design-philosophy.

This article talks about the 6 pillars of Steve Jobs’ design philosophy. His philosophies were – craft above all, empathy, focus, impute, friendliness and simplicity. One of his philosophy, which most technologies find hard to implement is “friendliness”. Users shouldn’t be overwhelmed by technology, instead it should be so intuitively know how to use it as soon as they look at it.

Richard Branson

Branson, Richard. “How I Started a Business for £500.” Virgin, 21 Aug. 2018, http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/how-i-started-business-ps500.

This a blog post written by Richard Branson on how you don’t really need a lot of money to start a business. Branson gets approached every week by new entrepreneurs asking for “x amount fo money” to start their business. In the blog, he explains how he started his first company at the age of 16 with only £100 that his mom received from selling a missing necklace. Today those £100, have amounted to a huge empire with many Virgin companies around the world. He further explains that with current exposure to technology, most entrepreneurs can start a business from their kitchen table with no initial investment.

 

3 Artist Research

Sal Khan

Sal Khan is an educator who founded Khan Academy. Khan Academy is a free online education platform that goes over wide variety of academic subjects. I truly can say that Khan Academy has helped a lot through college and high school. Their teaching methodology gave me the space to learn subjects at my own pace, learn in as much depth as I need to and also ask questions without the pressure of being in a class. I’m a a big advocate of learning and I really do believe that every child should have the opportunity to learn without spending thousands of dollars to get a degree.

 

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was a tech entrepreneur, well known to be the co-founder of Apple. He is widely known for pioneering microcomputer revolution. He had a very controversial life from personal relationships to stealing technology from other companies. But what drives me the most towards him was his passion towards every project. Yes, he was brutal on employees but he drove them towards innovation and sold every product like his life depended on it!

 

Richard Branson

Richard Branson is an investor, entrepreneur, famously known as the founder of Virgin Group. He started running his own business venture at 16 with a magazine called Student. He opened a chain record store called Virgin Record which eventually expanded into a huge music label and also fetched him an airline company. He definetly is one of my role models and my work ethic is drive by his quote “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!”.

Image result for richard branson

Facebook UX Research Team

This week I attended the Facebook UX research panel at the New York headquarters. It was a really interesting event and there were different researchers from different teams. I think one of the key learnings I took from the event was the difference between qualitative and quantitative user research. I was a UX Designer at JCPenney for over a year, and we only did qualitative research with usability studies and research. But a company like Facebook is extremely data driven and heavily on quantitative research.

The panel at the went over all the tools they use and how they interpret data to help designers. The problem solving approach at Facebook was very different and technical compared to JCPenney. This event made me see user research in a whole new way, and there is a lot I still need to learn about research.

Written Response – Everything is a Remix

The concept discussed in this video is a double edged sword. The reason to have public domain was to do greater good, and let everyone have shared knowledge. A lot of times as creators, we are slowed down because we can’t legally use a lot of the material and have to regenerate or pay a lot of money to further develop ideas. I do agree that we should be allowed to be inspired and develop on existing work. However, I also believe that people should be credited or compensated for their work in some form.

Given the new wave of technology and immediate global problems the copyright rules need to be rewritten in order to promote creativity but at the same time not end the source of income especially for smaller artists and creators.

 

Reading Response – Steal Like an Artist

Some ideas out of this reading that stood out to me –

Nothing is original

I found this concept hilarious and painfully true. Nothing is completely original and we all are inspired by something we have seen before. I particularly liked when Kloen talks about being “fill(ed) with hope” by the idea that “nothing is new under the sun”. Often as artists or designers we struggle with being “original” or “innovative”, which prevents us from being inspired and building on existing work. At some point we just have to accept that “everything that needs to be said has been said” and be inspired by each others ideas.

Save your thefts for later

I really appreciated this technique, and it is something I do implement in my own life. I did discuss in my personal inventory video of how I keep a notebook and a pen with me all the time. Mostly, I don’t use those ideas but in the most unexpected times, I find the best inspiration through those notes.