Don't expect your audience to be beta testers

I get it. Every new product or topic or whatever has to be presented for the first time. And as someone who has spent many, many hours as both a presenter and audience member, I get that things go wrong. No matter how hard you try to prepare, stuff will happen. And most audiences will be forgiving of glitches. They will stick with you through some bumps. They really want you to succeed because if they are there (unless they have to be for some reason) they want their time to be spent well and they want to learn or be inspired or entertained or whatever.

But, never, ever, ever, should your audience be beta testers, even if they are the first audience to hear the presentation. What do I mean but that? For starters, know who they are, respect who they are, and make sure that what you are presenting focuses on benefitting them. Secondly, double-check everything that is in your control. As discussed above, stuff happens, but you have control over the content you put forward, so make sure it is correct.

Why am I ranty about this today? Well, I had an hour of my time wasted by a bad presentation this morning.

Pain point #1 - Be clear about your intention

The least offensive point for me was that it was basically a paid advertisement. It wasn't really made clear in the session description that that is what it would be but the company presenting was a sponsor of the event so it wasn't entirely surprising that the price of admission to a free event was a sales pitch. I would have listened to it if they had be more transparent up front but there were a number of people in the chat making it clear that they felt a bit duped.

Pain point #2 - Be clear about who your audience is

It wasn't until well into the questions that it was announced that the product would only be available in the US. What? You knew ahead of time that you had a global audience tuning in. At least make it clear up front that this product is going into limited release with other countries to come. This way, you had some people getting interested and then you poked a giant pin in their bubble. One even wrote: "You just lost my interest."

Pain point #3 - Be clear about the benefit

I am sure that there is lots of great content available as part of the product they were announcing but it wasn't really clear how that would benefit the organizations they were pitching to. Question rolled in about case studies, what industries had seen benefits, and the like. Only then did it really come out that this was really a new product and they did have some examples, but you would have to email them and they would send them to you. OK, I get you don't want to give away all the trade secrets, but, hey, throw us a bone. A crumb. Show me why I should care.

Pain point #4 - Be sure the email address works

Yep, you read that right. They were announcing the kickoff of a great new service and if you wanted a free 30-day trial you could email the address on the slide. Well, people started emailing during the session and one announced quickly in the chat that their message returned undeliverable. Wow, talk about all of the air getting sucked out of the virtual room. Huh? The email doesn't work? You didn't test it? How am I supposed to have any confidence about your service?

OK, enough pain. Phew, I feel better now. So, please don't let my suffering be in vain. Learn from the mistakes I lived through and please don't ever inflict them on your audience. Don't give your audience beta, give them better.

Five for Friday - edition no. 3

So, I'm back again. I was traveling and had limited time where my fingers could be on an electronic device long enough to pen anything beyond a quick text or note. That's an important lesson though in our hyper-connected lives. Sometimes you have to just go live and have experiences worth coming back and talking about. So I've been storing up adventures like a squirrel preparing for a long winter. This week I'll tell you a little bit about:

1. Why I don't care if The Martian is scientifically accurate
2. Pffft, your generation would have done it too
3. Big love for Big Magic
4. Looking in my magic 8 ball about gamification
5. Speaking of permission slips

1. Why I don't care if The Martian is scientifically accurate

Full disclosure: Ridley Scott directed one of my all-time favorite movies, Blade Runner, so there was a better than average chance I would like The Martian. I also come from the movie critique camp that judges a movie based on what is in the four corners of the screen. It is the director's choice what we see. I don't slam a movie if it doesn't follow the book exactly or makes decisions about how to tell the story as long as it works within the story that the movie is telling. So, while I am a science lover, I don't care if all of the science in The Martian was accurate. I care that it had several cool lessons.

Mark Watney: In the face of overwhelming odds, I'm left with only one option, I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this.

First, it's about trying things, solving problems, and keeping at it. You won't always get the right answer, but you can learn a lot along the way. It's important to look for the questions, not just the solutions. If you don't keep asking, and pushing, and probing, you will never know what is really possible. Hey, what are you gonna "science the shit" out of?

Mark Watney: None of this matters at all if I can't find a way to make contact with NASA.

Second, each individual can do amazing things. OK, we may not colonize a planet, but we can all leave a mark. However, there is always the need for collaboration. Matt Damon's character never once assume he would get off of Mars alone. He needed to do what he had to do to survive until help could get there. As Clay Shirky wrote in Cognitive Surplus: "Humans are fundamentally individual, but we are also fundamentally social."

Teddy Sanders: Every time something goes wrong, the world forgets why we fly.

And finally, although there could be a host of other lessons I could talk about, there was the harsh reality that even when you do it all right, you follow the rules, you try really hard, it may still not work out. But we have to keep moving forward. We can't forget why we fly.

2. Pffft, your generation would have done it too

Hey, let's go back to Clay Shirky's book for a minute. Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connect Age is about five years old now, but still a solid read. I returned to it this week because I recalled it had some ideas that were reignited in my head after seeing the story of the young women who were made fun of for taking selfies at the baseball game. Aside from the fact that they had been encouraged to do so because they were participating in a contest intended to spur fan engagement, they were exploring an opportunity made available by the connected age. Opportunity is the key work here. As Shirky points out: 

Generations do differ, but less because people differ than because opportunities do. Human nature changes slowly by includes an incredible range of mechanisms for adapting to our surroundings.

I have no doubt that young people of my generation would have selfied the heck out of everything if we had had the opportunity to do so. So before you say, kids these days, think about the human motivations they are acting out. 

Behavior is motivation that has been filtered through opportunity.

Are they really so different that kids those days? 

The people surprised at our new behaviors assume that behavior is a stable category, but it isn’t. Human motivations change little over the years, but opportunity can change a little or a lot, depending on the social environment. In a world where opportunity changes little, behavior will change little, but when opportunity changes a lot, behavior will as well, so long as the opportunities appeal to real human motivations.

There's a whole lot of other discussion possible here about making more opportunities available to more people. But one final reminder from the book is about how poorly we can predict how new technological opportunities will play out.

Study after study in the 1990s asked potential users what they would do with the internet if they got access to it, and the commonest answers always clustered around “I’ll use it to find information,” “I’ll use it to help me with my schoolwork,” and so on. Whenever a poll asked people already online what they actually did, the answers were quite different. “Keeping up with friends and family,” “sharing photos with others,” “talking with people who share my interests,” and the like appeared near the top of every list. Because we’re so lousy at predicting what we will do with new communications tools before we try them, this particular revolution, like the print revolution, is being driven by overlapping experiments whose ramifications are never clear at first.

3. Big love for Big Magic

I loved this book start to finish. Elizabeth Gilbert talks to readers like we are adults, like we are her girlfriends having coffee together, and like that tough sports coach or Gibbs from NCIS that has to smack you on the back of the head to wake you up figuratively, emotionally, and creatively. To pick out my favorite parts of the book was like asking me to pick out my favorite piece of pepperoni on a pizza. I couldn't do it. But in the spirit of not over-indulging, I included five short, but sweet quotes in the hopes that you will go and read more.

when I refer to “creative living,” I am speaking more broadly. I’m talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.

Basically, your fear is like a mall cop who thinks he’s a Navy SEAL: He hasn’t slept in days, he’s all hopped up on Red Bull, and he’s liable to shoot at his own shadow in an absurd effort to keep everyone “safe.”

Or if you do worry that you need a permission slip—THERE, I just gave it to you. I just wrote it on the back of an old shopping list. Consider yourself fully accredited. Now go make something.

Even if you have only fifteen minutes a day in a stairwell alone with your creativity, take it. Go hide in that stairwell and make out with your art!

Guys, please don’t mistake your creative work for a human child, okay?

4. Looking in my magic 8 ball about gamification

(photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ursonate/)

I was asked for some thoughts on gamification in learning as part of an upcoming ebook (details to come) and one of the questions was about the most plausible future of gamification. The following was my response.

I hope that the future is for there to be more collaboration across areas of expertise. Game designers don't know how to create learning. Instructional designers don't design games. Gamification designers and researchers are drawing from even other areas of expertise in behavioral economics, psychology, marketing, and more. We all have pieces of the puzzle and I think some organizations are doing a really good job of combining those skills. Not every venture into gamification will be successful but I think there are enough success stories that it is here to stay in some form. The novelty has worn off and now we can start to see some really creative, innovative, and effective approaches.

Much of the success of gamification is tied to the power of social. I think that as we create more and better gamification options in learning we will move away from the elements like external rewards and leaderboards (which still give it a bad name) and will focus more on the affordances for collaboration and personal development. Its integration into learning events seems a natural companion to the increase in social media and mobile applications for learning. Gamification is so fused with informal and social learning that I hope we will be able to stop talking about it like it is a whole separate creature and realize that it is all part of the blending of tools and techniques. Just as better UX design has helped learning technology get out of the way of learning by focusing on the people using the technology, I think gameful learning can create ever better designs because it is learner-centric and focuses not only on what learners want and need to know but why and how they want to experience the learning.

5. Speaking of permissions slips

Yes, this week is a lot about stuff I've been reading and writing, but it's good stuff. Important stuff. And my final piece of wisdom for the week comes from Seth Godin whose book What to Do When its Your Turn (and its Always Your Turn) was a perfect companion read to Big Magic. Didn't like Gilbert's permission slip? Left it at home? Dog ate it? Well, here's a second one. Godin's book is a call to action and a call to share, which he made really easy since he sent extra copies of the book I purchased for the sole purpose of sharing the ideas. So, it's your turn. What are you going to do with your turn? Leave me a comment and I'll put all responders' names in a hat, or bowl, or some suitable vessel and pick one to receive a free copy of the book.

Five for Friday - edition no. 2

Phew, narrowing the field this week was tough, I still had some things from the previous weeks. Eventually I'll catch up ... maybe ... but for now, here are five more cool things.

#1 Make progress and achievements visible
#2 How my self-directed learning habits helped save a bird
#3 Visit before you visit the Willowwood Arboretum
#4 Making time for making
#5 A musical interlude

#1 Make progress and achievements visible

I have spent a lot of time the past few years writing and speaking about gamification. I've taken on the grumpy cats who claim it isn't suitable for learning or the workplace or wherever. Usually their arguments stem from fear of the unknown and/or bad experiences or examples of bad design. And I'll write more about all of this other times, but the key thing today, as I tell people who come to my sessions is that whether or not you gamify anything, we can all benefit from some of the key concepts. One of my key takeaways is always "Make progress and achievements visible." Showing people where they are, where they are going, and the giving them mileposts does magical things to their motivation. It's not about badges, it is about the meaning that the learner can attach to that badge. It is a symbol of success and success breeds success.

Here's my personal example of the week. I just completed one full year of using my Fitbit activity tracker. I have mine set with a goal of 5 miles of walking each day, which for me comes close to 12,000 steps, a bit more than the suggested 10,000 steps. Every day for the last 365 days I have met that goal. How do I know? Because I can see it on the Fitbit dashboard on my phone or computer. I have gotten badges and stars and other nice-to-haves, but it is the visibility of my daily progress that keeps me hooked. But, hey, it is pretty cool to know that I have walked the equivalent of transversing India (1,997 miles). And it's not just me. In the coming weeks my mother, who is 83 years young, who uses a walker, will complete one full year of meeting her daily goal of 2 miles (which is a more modest, but equally impressive for her capabilities). She knows she needs to exercise to keep up her stamina and strength so that she can continue to live independently but it is easy for any of us to take a day off, which leads to a couple of days, and then .... But making the progress visible has helped her to stay the course. As of today, she has walked 1.7 million steps over the past 50 weeks. Trust me gamification, but whatever name, works.

#2 How my self-directed learning habits helped save a bird

A couple of weeks ago, late in the evening, my husband and I were out for a walk and found a wounded bird standing on one foot in the middle of the street. It appeared to have bands on both ankles and was a pigeon, but clearly not an urban-poop-on-park-statues variety. Not wanting it to become roadkill or a midnight snack for one of the neighborhood cats, we scooped into a big plastic bin and took it home ... with absolutely no idea what to do with it. And oh, did I mention it was a holiday weekend? But being resourceful I decided we could figure it out. Life forms need water, I already knew that, although I also knew that scared animals don't always want to eat or drink, so we put some water in the bin, covered the top to keep it dark and decided that if it survived the night, we would do what we could.

The next morning I crept into garage and peeked in the box and guess who was peeking back up at me. Phew, still alive ... but also still on one foot. I started thinking about who I knew that knew about birds. See it is always good to build a network of people who know about a lot of different stuff. I also headed to the Internet. It wasn't hard to find out the basics of what they eat and figure out that while I didn't have wild bird seed I did have rice (uncooked) and popcorn. OK, we could put a dish of food in the bin with the water until we could get to a store for seed. Oh, and I learned that I should splash my finger around in the water so the bird would hear the sound and know there was water.

I kept reading, and learning, and after another day and night of rest for our pigeon guest we decided to freak him out again, as we had when we rescued him from the street (wow, that sounds dramatic), and try and get a better look at the ankle bands. I had already found information on how to read the bands, assuming by this point that it was a homing and/or racing pigeon. So hubby held the bird, I wrote down the info, and figured out which federation he belonged to. From their website I found the group his owner belonged to and got contact info. Hubby made some calls and we eventually got connected to the owner who lived about 40 miles away. Long story short, we ended up housing our new friend for a couple of weeks while he recouped (so to speak).

One day, he was suddenly in a window sill, and then up on a shelf, clearly improving and trying to get to higher and higher ground as he prepared to return to the skies. Or so we hoped. The owner wasn't in a hurry to come get him. This wasn't a pet per se and I guess it is sort of a occupational hazard of raising racing pigeons that, like soldiers, some don't make it back. We went through being worried that the bird would be killed if it didn't heal up all the way and wondering if we were going to end up keeping the bird. But in the end the owner made arrangements to pick up the bird and confirmed that the bird's leg was fine and he just needed a few more days rest and that the bird was supposed to be in a big race this month and that the new power lines they have built in our area have been causing the birds some problems.

I didn't get to meet the owner but I did get to see him because he told my husband that he was on a TV show about the pigeon races. Sure enough, I few more Google searches and I found videos from the show on the Animal Planet. It was called Taking on Tyson. Yep, Mike Tyson is a pigeon enthusiast and you could tell watching him with the birds that they bring a calmness to him while still fulfilling his competitive spirit. The videos were fascinating. I soon learned what the band on the other leg was for. The one leg had the identification tag with visual information, the other was a race tracking chip, like marathon runners have in their bibs. They scan the birds when they enter a race and then can get a clock speed on them when they return.

Aside from being a cool story with a happy ending, it is also a story of how important it is to be comfortable learning on the fly. I can't tell you how many people have heard about this story and said: "Gee, I wouldn't have had any idea what to do" or "how did you figure that out." Those of us who are lifelong learners sometimes take for granted what a special skillset we have.

#3 Visit before you visit the Willowwood Arboretum

Hey, did you ever consider that you don't have to be at a garden or museum or wherever that has a phone audio tour to enjoy it? I do it all the time for an number of reasons. Maybe I am with friends and don't want to hold up the group or be anti-social by stopping and dialing into the tour at each stop of the tour. Maybe I want to focus on taking pictures and juggling my phone and camera and everything is a recipe for a clumsy technology moment. I make note of the phone number and the numbers that you have to press to retrieve the various messages and then call in later. Or, even better, as Willowwood Arboretum suggested, call in ahead of time and use the audio tour to help plan your visit. Brilliant. They give you all the info right on the website and suggest you plan ahead. Even better still, they provide a printed version of the transcript. And here's a few of the shots from our visit.

#4 Making time for making

I got a chance to go to the Maker Faire this week but I haven't had a chance to review and process all of the cool stuff from there and since I'm traveling much of the next two weeks, it will probably have to wait a bit. But that doesn't mean that I am not living the maker lifestyle. I have been literally making things. Hey, check out some of the cool buttons I'm making for friends who are traveling to NOLA soon.

But I'm also making plans. I'll write more about this in the coming weeks, but by writing here I'm firmly committing to writing more about it in the coming weeks. I have had an idea dancing around in my head for a long time now and it keeps tapping me on the shoulder and clearing its throat and staring at me with a slightly disgusting yet mom-you-didn't-clean-your-room kind of look. So when I return from NOLA I'm going to outline everything.

The gist of it is that we are all presenting 24 x7 whether it is a formal presentation for work or school, a meeting, an interview, a date, a community event ... whatever. And we all have been on the giving and receiving end of presentations and we all are surrounded by pop culture, are all adjusting to the ocean of information we swim in daily, and we struggle to focus our attention and garner the attention of others. The upcoming project will be part book, part workbook, part do-it-yourself learning adventure, and hopefully part community of people who all want to improve their presentation skills and help others to improve theirs because frankly we are all really tired of boring presentations. Amirite?

#5 A musical interlude

For our final spot on this week's countdown, how about a little musical interlude. I will be showing a number of friends around my hometown of New Orleans in the coming days. To get everyone in the mood, I started putting together, among other things, a playlist of musicians and musical acts who have ties to New Orleans. It is by no means all-encompassing but it is an eclectic mix of genres. I'll keep adding to it, but for now, enjoy!

Five for Friday

As a way to wrap up this week, I thought I would share five resources that I explored this week that I really liked. They run the gamut of different media and topics, from business-y to fun and food. Hopefully this will introduce you to some cool new stuff. Or maybe you already knew about some of these and want to tell me about your experience with them. And hey, if you like this sort of thing and would like to see me do one of these each week, give me a holler.

1. @matteoc teaches us how to use story structure to wow our audience
2. #headspaceonlearning is a niche I discovered in the larger Headspace ... um, space
3. Tagboard has made its way back into my go to list of apps
4. Alphabear makes me irrationally happy with its little square bears
5. 4-ingredient, tasty and quick dish

#1 The magic play book by @matteoc

I had the pleasure of watching the recording of Matteo Cassese's presentation that is part of this year's Outstanding Presentations Workshop series. I'm really sorry that I couldn't participate in the live session but my day job's network policies blocked the platform that it was being broadcast through. Sad face. I'm sharing out the slide deck below because I want to help share the magic that Matteo is creating. As good as the deck is on its own, if you ever have the chance to hear him present, DO IT!

All eight steps are important, but in the interest of time and space here I am going to just mention a couple of my favorite moments. Like a rock star, Matteo shows you how to end on a high note. Your presentation has to have that climactic peak moment. And although that is the point that marks the beginning of the end of your presentation, it doesn't mean things should go downhill from there. He has a great way of describing the summary that follows the peak as a fly over of the landscape that has been covered. And then, rather than saving the Q&As for the very end, do them before your last step. Too often the Q&As can start out energetic and then kind of end when the questions dry up and everyone is sort of leaving the room (literally or virtually or metaphorically). By saving the last step or giving them an action item to go off with to do on their own, you end on a much higher energy moment.

Playbook for a Successful Presentation: The 8 Basic Components of Every Great Speech from Matteo Cassese

#2 I'm finding some Headspace

Almost two weeks ago I started the free 10 day trial of Headspace, which has the tagline "the gym membership for your mind." I try a lot of apps ... and keep using very few. This is an exception. Not only did I finish the 10 days but I subscribed. I have some specific goals (which I will write about another time) that I am trying to focus on. But I was finding, with a very chaotic schedule these days that focus was hard to come by, which was why I originally thought I'd give Headspace a try.

This week I also discovered some great stuff on their blog. They have been focusing on learning this month which really got my ears perked up. While there are tons of great articles and podcasts, the one I'm highlighting today was from Radio Headspace entitled #36 - Introduction Headspace On Learning. The piece interviews a number of people who are lifelong learners exploring new skills in a way that I truly loved. They are doing skill swaps. So one lady who has a specific goal of wanting "to learn to make chicken juicy" because, she points out, she already knows how to make it dry, can teach someone who cooks well how to start learning how to write a story. Another man takes the group through an exercise to get them to explore drawing. The concept is great. I kept thinking, why aren't more people doing this sort of thing. I think they probably are and I am going to take a look around and report back what I find.

#3 Tag you're it

I mentioned above that I try a lot of apps and that many slip away. But sometimes, one doesn't go too far. That would be the category in which I put Tagboard. While there is a lot more to Tagboard than I will be covering here, I use it in targeted ways, even if not all the time. Actually it is inaccurate to refer to it as an app, as the website says, Tagboard is "The social and search display platform."

So, what does that mean to you? Well, it means that you can take any hashtag and get a quick search across a number of social media platforms. That's what I did after reading the Headspace blog mentioned above, for instance. I suspected, from the content I read on the blog that people would be using various social media sites to post images, comments, and other digital artifacts using the hashtag from the blog #headspaceonlearning. By typing that hashtag into the search box on Tagboard I could easily see Twitter tweets and Instagram pics and Vine videos and Facebook posts on the topic. I also use this frequently when I participate in MOOCs where the participants frequently self-organize into collaborative groups using a platform of their choice. If you want to get an overview of what is going on across different spaces around a single topic, Tagboard can be helpful. Cool, huh?

#4 Love my square bears

Those of you who have been hanging out with me for some time know that one of my areas of focus is gamification. And one of the ways I do research ... yes, it isn't all just fun and games ... is to play games and see what works and doesn't and how that can be applied to other types of experiences, mainly for learning and business communications. Anyway, one of the new games I happened upon lately is Alphabear and it was sort of love at first sight. When game designers Spry Fox tag their brand with "making happiness" they mean it. This little scrabblesque word game with its adorably costumed little bears simply makes me happy to play.

#5 Tomato and pesto chicken

I was busy this week finding all this other cool stuff and boy did I get hungry. Then I spotted this really easy ... I mean, even if you have never cooked before easy ... even if you normally burn water easy ... recipe. The video recipe can be found here. And here's a pic of my work in progress. I used a bit more pesto than in the video and I added more cheese after I snapped this but I wanted you to be able to see the ingredients better before I blanketed them with cheesy goodness. Yum!

Gotta keep my strength up for a fun day this weekend at the Maker Faire. Stay tuned!

Why pretending to be a super hero could lead to super ideas

It's not too late to sign up for this round of the Practice Creativity Challenge. I won't be able to be an active participant this time but, as I have been shouting from my social media rooftops, it's a GREAT EXPERIENCE AND EVERYONE SHOULD GO SIGN UP!" Phew, sorry for the yelling, but there are some wonderful people doing great stuff and building a community of cool and talented people. They were even nice enough to let me share some thoughts in their Creative Leaders Series.

But even if I can't be in the thick of things this time I thought I'd take today, the first day of the new challenge to share a few resources that I was inspired to check out after participating last time. They are listed in no particular order as follows, but you can assume by my including them, that there was stuff in each that I found helpful, or I wouldn't be passing them along.

The Creativity Challenge by Tanner Christensen, 2015

While the title is coincidentally similar to the Practice Creativity Challenge mentioned above, this book is not connected to it, except in concept. The book contains a wealth of challenges for you to undertake centered around five modes of creative thinking.

1. Convergent - combining things
2. Divergent - taking things apart
3. Lateral - logical progression
4. Aesthetic - how something appears
5. Emegent - sudden aha moments

While I read it cover-to-cover, it is best considered a companion that you can consult when you want to get the creative juices flowing. Or you could create a structured challenge for yourself like choosing to do a challenge a day for a week or two or more.

Creativity for everybody by Kathryn P. Haydon and Jane Harvey, 2015

Don't let the small size of the book fool you, big things come in small packages. It is an engaging romp through the science of creativity and makes a compelling argument for why we should all be exercising our creative muscles. The design of the book is whimsical and innovative. I liked the flipbook-style messages along the outer margins of the pages and loved the idea of discovering your own creative constellation. 

Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul by Stuart Brown, M.D. and Christopher Vaughan, 2009

I've heard a number of people over the years cite this book's quote from Brian Sutton-Smith that "The opposite of play is not work, it is depression" but I only recently read Stuart Brown's book. Brown, backed by thousands of case studies and years of studying the field of play makes a compelling argument for the essential nature of play to all human (and other animals) lives. Of course Brown is not the first to posit that play was an important part of human interactions. Plato said: "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." Speaking of time, if you don't have time to read the book, you may want to check out Stuart Brown's 2008 TED Talk Play is more than just fun.

The Book of Doing and Being: Rediscovering creativity to life, love, and work by Barnet Bain, 2015

As I was reading this book and doing my usual idea scribbling I wrote three words in the corner of the first page of notes: elegant, mindful, and spiritual. They sum up the tone and feeling of this book which is definitely a labor of love. Bain, an award-winning filmmaker provides a collection of rituals and practices that any of us can follow to nurture and develop our creativity and bring about positive change in our lives. Many of the ideas took me back to acting classes I took decades ago that help you get in touch with your feelings but I have always liked exercises that encourage people to look at things from different perspectives and to engage all of the senses. One of my favorite portions of the book dealt with how to work with The Muses which he says are: "Like the forces of nature, they can be called on to grow the garden of our ideas, thought, and feelings."

Unstuck: 52 Ways to Get (and Keep) Your Creativity Flowing at Home, at Work & in Your Studio by Noah Scalin, 2011

Like The Creativity Challenge this book is about giving you springboards to jump off of. In this case, rather than focusing on different creativity modes, the book takes you through options that last less than a minute to ones that last multiple hours. Of course, that is true of any creative projects. We can get caught up in one that we thought would only take a few minutes and then, poof, hours have passed. This book, by the same author as 365: A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life!, is designed with bright colors and concepts that defy you not to create and includes a host of interviews with creative people doing cool things. I keep this one on my shelf even when I'm not stuck.

And just a few more links because I like you all and want you to have tons of fun exploring your creativity:

Seven Ways To Cultivate a Playful, Child-Like Mindset

Maybe following one of these each day for a week would be one of the best weeks you could spend improving your life. I love each and every one of these suggestions.

1.     Be willing to try and try again and laugh when you “fail.”2.     Believe you can do anything, and speak to yourself accordingly.
3.     Be willing to be seen as silly by others.
4.     Be your unique, amazing self. Don’t edit yourself.
5.     Shake it up. Don’t get caught in routines. Do things differently.
6.     Observe kids playing and join in whenever possible. They’re pros at playing.
7.     Learn a new, playful skill like hula hooping, square dancing or drawing.

How to Be More Productive and Creative at Work? Play More

The Importance of Play for Adults

IDEO: Big Innovation Lives Right on the Edge of Ridiculous Ideas

A Thousand and One Tutors

Like Scheherazade with her thousand and one stories, I have a number of stories to share that were inspired by my watching The Learner with a Thousand Tutors from the Self-Blended Learning Movement course. I added an extra one to my title of this post because I had the wonderful fortune to be born to a teacher. My mom taught me, from an early age, that there was something to be learned from anyone I encountered. And that there was never an excuse for not learning, even if I had a poor teacher. So I lucked out big time in the self-directed learning lottery.

I always carried that notion with me that I could learn from all types of people. I don't know if she had studied the theories of Lev Vygotsky when she was earning her master's in education but I later read about his concept of the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and I immediately recognized the way I have always learned in it. I have no problem saying I don't know and seeking out ways to find out. For those not familiar with the idea of the MKO, it is anyone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, particularly in regards to a specific task, concept or process. Traditionally the MKO is thought of as a teacher or an older adult; however, this it can be a peer, sibling, a younger person, or even a computer. The key to MKO is simply that they have more knowledge about the topic being learned than the learner does. And since no one can be an expert in everything, we all need many MKOs.

One of the very first emails I ever sent, back in the screeching-modem-connected-to-a-phone-line days was to a professor literally half way around the world. I was working on a writing project about trees and had found some vague references about a language that was spoken by aboriginal tribes in Malaysia only when they were out harvesting camphor. Yeah, it was a pretty obscure topic. But I had a specific question about whether the language was still in use or if this was a language that had faded into obscurity, much as I sort of expected my question to do. But I found a professor in Singapore and figured, what's the worst that can happen. He ignores me? So I sent him a message and then headed off to work. At the time I was working evenings as a proofreader, which was early morning for the professor. By the time I got home I had a reply. I was beyond shocked. He not only answered the question but gave me the name of another professor who might have even more knowledge of the subject. 

Of course, I'm not the only one to discover the amazing things that can happen when you click Send. Bernard Bull shares his own email moment. Results may vary but I have recently encountered others who had similar tales. In his book The Art of Self-Directed Learning, Blake Boles tells the story of a 15-year-old middle-school dropout with a love of chemistry. The young man emailed a professor and said: "Hi, my name is Jonah. I'm 15; I'm really interested in chemistry, and I'd like to sit in on your class. Would that be okay?" He not only got the chance to go to the class but got a letter of recommendation from the professor. Another is Leah K Stewart, whose site I learned of through Global Collaboration Day. I am just getting acquainted with her work, but in a video I watched she passionately proclaims the successes she has had by reaching out to others in her field and building mutually respectful mentoring friendships.
Once you have gotten the hang of making these learning connections, maybe it is time to move onto creating, as mentioned in the video, an advisory board. Oooh, that sounds formal, you say. Well, your learning and success is something that you should take seriously and approach with some degree of planning and purposefulness. Again, the video jogged my memory of other sources on the subject that perhaps some of you may find of use as well.

Career coach Joy Chudacoff's book What's Next: The 7 steps to discover your big idea and create a wildly successful business was one of the sources I recalled as I listened to the section on creating your own advisory board. She recommends a Board of Advisors who provide a fuel support system that will help you create your spark. These people will encourage and mentor, provide wisdom both of maturity and youth–in other words they will provide different perspectives. Have people from different areas of expertise and backgrounds, older and younger, those who have been there and done that and those who haven't. These are probably not people from your mutual admiration society like friends and family who may not be best situated to push you out or your (and their) comfort zone. It should be people with positive but honest opinions. It is not about creating an echo chamber. Another source you might want to check out about career enhancing advisory boards is this article by Chris Brogan.

Finally, one of my favorite articles on the topic of personal boards is from almost 2 decades ago. The title, Looking Out for Number One, may not imply the reciprocal relationship that Jim Collins goes on to describe, but it does support the notion of self-directedness, self-awareness, and self-actualization so crucial to anyone's success. Among the nuggets of wisdom in his piece are the following:

"Personal-board members from outside your profession or industry can help you overcome the limitations of conventional wisdom and remain true to your goals.

Look for board members who, while strong in their views, are nonjudgmental and compassionate. The best board members dispense wisdom like Socrates—by asking questions, drawing analogies, and making dispassionate observations.

The best payment is simply to emulate them by giving time and guidance to others, especially younger people who need mentors. Additionally, most personal-board members appreciate being kept informed of your progress. In fact, it's good discipline to write a letter once a year or so to your board. That personal "annual report" not only keeps your board informed but also helps you clarify your own thinking and take stock of how you're doing."

Before I conclude for today I will point you to two other examples of how being connected to others can bring about amazing results. I first wrote about these two people a few years ago when I was first becoming an advocate of self-directed learning as part of a graduate school project I called Learn, Rinse, Repeat: Where the learning never stops. The post was entitled "So does it work? Spoiler: Yes!" 

The first example was Thomas Jerome Baker who wrote Connectivism & Connected Knowledge: Participating in a MOOC. The reason I mention him again was that even when he wasn't actively communicating with others from the MOOC he was writing about he frequently used mock interviews to help himself talk through his learning journey. He also wrote letters that I said "could almost be considered love letters with the subject of admiration being both his correspondents and learning." Sometimes reflecting happens when we bounce ideas off of another person and sometimes when we practice speaking those ideas to ourselves in the mirror.

The other person that the Thousand Tutor video reminded me of was the following video entitled American Polyglot Practicing 20 Languages. Learning languages is a perfect example of a skill that requires other people. Sure you can use recordings and such but ultimately language is meant to be spoken (unless you do what I did in school and stick with taking lots of Latin, lol). The point is that, aside from the video showing a really amazing young man, he explains how he learned the various languages. Some from classes and books, but also movies, and an entire network of friends he amassed locally and globally that he can connect with via Skype.

Limit yourself and find more freedom of expression

The week is ending
What awaits me this weekend?
First one of the Fall

Autumn is coming
Pumpkin reigns supreme for now
Yum! That sure is gourd.

OK, maybe these aren't my best haiku to date but haiku is a constrained form of writing which is a cool way to explore creative options. There are many other forms of constrained writing you could give a go if you like. I was reminded of some of these while watching Vi Hart's Twelve Tones which I learned about from this list of 60 YouTube channels that will make you smarter.

Anyway, back to constraints. We all have them. Time, Resources. Rules. But that just means that sometimes we have to be more creative in how we do things. Life throws real roadblocks and obstacles at us every day, but if we practice dealing with constraints in creative ways, we will be better equipped to handle those bumps in the road.

So why not explore some type of constrained writing and let me know how it goes. Here are some suggested forms to try:

Six-Word Memoirs

Over a million stories have been shared at Six-Word Memoir®. What is the essence of your message. Can you say it in six?

Twiction

Twitter plus fiction = twiction. Need a few more words, or at least characters, maybe twiction is more your speed. Limited to 140 characters, cause Twitter. Can you tell a short, short story?

Haiku

One of my personal go to constraints. Who knows, maybe it will become one of yours too. Try some poetry instead of prose. Just a reminder, haiku is 3 lines containing 5-7-5 syllables, respectively. That's kind of an oversimplification; read more about it here.

Lipogram

Instead of being limited by length or structure, maybe you want to try ditching a particular letter of the alphabet. One of my favorite examples of this is Mark Dunn's book Ella Minnow Pea in which certain letters suddenly get bounced from use. A really good read.

Reverse-lipograms

Yep, it is just what it sounds like. Each word much contain a particular letter you select.

Anagrams

You might have been taught not to play with your food but no one said you shouldn't mix up your letters. Pick a word, phrase, or sentence; dump the letters into a pile and see what you can rearrange them into.

Chaterism (Snowball)

Wow, this is where art and science really play together. Each succeeding word in a poem must increase or decrease in a uniform way, such as one character at a time. It grows like a snowball rolling down a hill. So I might say

I

am
the
only
woman
trying
solving
snowball
chaterism
puzzlement

except I know that is not true. Also, for the techno-geeky among us you may also want to check out what Paul Thompson is doing with his computer code to generate snowballs. 

Don't feel like writing? No problem. Limit yourself to drawing with one color or using your non-dominant hand. Make up a new recipe with only three ingredients or go for a walk and don't step on any cracks. What did that feel like? Or use an app like Android's Creativity Cards Pro which offers up random creative challenges for you to write, design or draw.