High tech - high touch

What is high tech - high touch?

Sense from:

High tech - high touch

John Naisbitt, Nana Naisbitt, Douglas Philips

Page 26

Broadway Books

ISBN: 0767903838

It is a human lens.

It is embracing technology that preserves our humanness and rejecting technology that intrudes upon it. It is recognizing that technology is an integral part of the evolution of culture, the creative product of our imaginations, our dreams and aspirations - and that the desire to create new technologies is fundamentally instinctive. But is also recognizing that art, story, play, religion, nature, and time are equal partners in the evolution of technology because they nourish the soul and fulfill its yearnings.

• It is expressing what it means to be human and employing technology fruitfully in that expression. It's appreciating life and accepting death.
  
• It is knowing when we should push back on technology, in our work and our lives, to affirm our humanity.
  
• It is understanding that technology zealots are as shortsighted as technology bashers.
  
• It is creating significant paths for our lives, without fear of new technology or fear of falling behind it.
  
• It is recognizing that at its best, technology supports and improves human life; at its worse, it alienates, isolates, distorts, and destroys.
  
• It is questioning what place technology should have in our lives and what place it should have in society.
  
• It is consciously choosing to employ technology when it adds value to human lives.
  
• It is learning how to live as human beings in a technologically dominated time.
  
• It is knowing when simulated experiences add value to human life.
  
• It is recognizing when to avoid the layers of distractions and distance technology affords us.
  
• It is recognizing when technology is not neutral.
  
• It is knowing when to unplug and when to plug in.
  
• It is appropriate human scale.
  

High tech - high touch is enjoying the fruits of technological advancements and having it truly sit well with our god, our church, or our spiritual beliefs. It is understanding technology through the human lens of play, time, religion, and art.

Big6

Source:

Designer's research manual

Jenn O'Grady & Ken O'Grady

Page 71

Rockport

ISBN: 1592532578

Chief Beer Officer

What happened?
Four Points Hotels ( part of the Starwood Hotel Group ) is looking for a Chief Beer Officer ( CBO ). The position's role is to:
Evangelize Best Brew program
Tour breweries
Attend beer fests
Sample beers
Select beers for hotel's bar menus
Host beer fests
Document beer related activities
Impart beer related knowledge to other staff through a blog

What do I think about this happening?
This is a interesting idea. Guest can enjoy better taste experience at Four Points Hotels. Four Points can brand themselves as the top of the mind brand for beer at hotels. Staff can learn all about beer from their CBO.

What do you think this happening will cause?
Will the hotel industry starts to value other non work expertise besides drinking?
Will copy cat hotels come out with other drink chief officers ( like wine )?
Will the hotel industry starts to have other expertise specialists?
Will the hotel industry capitalized on inter-organization knowledge sharing?

10 laws of simplicity

10 laws of simplicity

1. Reduce

The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.

2. Organize

Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.

3. Time

Savings in time feel like simplicity.

4. Learn

Knowledge makes everything simpler.

5. Differences

Simplicity and complexity need each other.

6. Context

What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.

7. Emotion

More emotions are better than less.

8. Trust

In simplicity we trust.

9. Failure

Some things can never be made simple.

10. The One

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

Source:

The laws of simplicity

John Maeda

Budget Airlines 3.0

On 26 Oct 2006 Oasis Hong Kong Airlines' first flight took off. It flew from Hong Kong to London. The travelling time was 14 hours and 20 minutes.

At the moment, budget airlines flew domestic ( Southwest Airlines ) or regional ( Tiger Airways ). Is this the beginning of Budget Airlines 2.0 where they start flying from from domestic and regional to global? The current airline industry is very competitive; will Budget Airlines 2.0 make it more competitive?

What happen if Southwest Airlines, Ryanair, Oasis Hong Kong Airlines, Tiger Airways and Virgin Blue form a global budget airlines alliance? This will be Budget Airlines 3.0. Will this make it even more competitive? How affordable will long distance air fares be? Will there be two distinct airline groups in the future - affordable and high cost?

Initiative

Each year Buckminster Fuller receives and answers many hundreds of unsolicited letters from youth anxious to know what the little individual can do. One such letter from a young man named Michael – who is ten years old – asks whether I am a “doer or a thinker.” Although I never “tell” anyone what to do, I feel it quite relevant at this point to quote my letter to him explaining what I have been trying to do in the years since my adoption of my 1927 - inaugurated self-disciplinary resolves. The letter, dated February 16, 1970, reads:

Dear Michael

Thank you very much for your recent letter concerning “thinkers and doers.”

The things to do are the things that need doing that you see need to be done and that no one else seems need to be done. Then you will conceive your own way of doing that which needs to be done that no one else has told you to do or how to do it. This will bring out the real you that often get buried inside a character that has acquired a superficial array of behaviours induced or imposed by others on the individual.

Try making experiments of anything you conceive and are intensely interested in. Don’t be disappointed if something doesn’t work. That is what you want to know – the truth about everything and the truth about combinations of things. Some combinations have such logic and integrity that they can work coherently despite non-working elements embraced by their systems.

Whenever you come to a word with which you are not familiar, find it in the dictionary and write a sentence which uses that new word. Words are tools and once you have learned how to use a tool you will never forget it. Just looking for the meaning of the word is not enough. If your vocabulary is comprehensive, you can comprehend both fine and large patterns of experience.

You have what is most important in life – initiative. Because of it, you wrote to me. I am answering to the best of my capability. You will find the world responding to your earnest initiative.

Sincerely yours,

Buckminster Fuller

Source:

Critical Path

Buckminster Fuller

Page xxxviii

St. Martin's Press

ISBN: 0312174888

Buckminster Fuller leadership principles

Buckminster Fuller leadership principles

1. Think comprehensively.
   
2. Anticipate the future.
   
3. Respect gestation rates.
   
4. Envision the best possible future.
   
5. Be a trim tab - an individual who can initiate big changes.
   
6. Take individual initiative.
   
7. Ask the obvious and naïve questions.
   
8. Do more with less.
   
9. Seek to reform the environment, not man.
   
10. Solve problems through action.
    

Source:

The anticipatory leader

Medard Gabel & Jim Walker

Futurist 2006 Sep

Service-Learning

What is service-learning?
 

Picking up trash on a riverbank is service.
Studying water samples under a microscope is learning.

When science students collect and analyze water samples, document their results and present findings to a local pollution control agency... that is service-learning.

Service-learning is a teaching method that enriches learning by engaging students in meaningful service to their schools and communities. Young people apply academic skills to solving real-world issues, linking established learning objectives with genuine needs. They lead the process with adults as partners, applying critical thinking and problem-solving skills to concerns such as hunger, pollution, and diversity.

Source:
National Youth Leadership Council

Never panic, life is never easy

Never panic. We all experience a crisis at some time or other, either in our personal lives, professional activities or in my case, often on a mountain or in the jungle. The greatest piece of advice I can give is
Don't panic.
Try to avoid reacting immediately.
First of all work out all possible options or alternatives.

There is usually a way out or at least an opportunity to deal with the problem, no matter what it is. Often the problem itself can be the making of you and give you another chance to take another direction.

( By the way, it's interesting to note that the derivation of the word 'panic' arises from the sight of Pan; the primal fear of meeting this half-man creature. ) Sometimes you don't have so much time, but if possible, sleeping on a problem, waiting 24 hours, is all that is necessary to see things in a different and more acceptable perspective.

Maxim for the millennium 
Life is never easy, even for those that seem to have more than most. I always remember Sylvester Stallone saying in one of his interviews that if he'd understood at the beginning that the downside of fame was going to be as it really is, he wouldn't have taken that rocky road. Perhaps then he would have muscled in on another profession! Always keep your mind open and above all learn from your mistakes.

The philosophical tenet I would offer is:
He who learns but does not think, is dead. He who thinks but does not learn, is in great danger.

Source:
Seize the Day
3 Jan
Tips by Neville Shulman OBE
Edited by Nicholas Albery & Stephanie Wienrich
Chatto & Windus
ISBN: 1-5573-8290-5

Scout Values

What are Scout values?

 

Scout values are in the Scout Law. The Scout Law is:

A Scout is to be trusted.

A Scout is loyal.

A Scout is friendly and considerate.

A Scout belongs to the worldwide family of Scouts.

A Scout has courage in all difficulties.

A Scout makes good use of time and is careful of possessions and property.

A Scout has self-respect and respect for others.

 

Source:

Scout Law

Scout Association

Values

What are values?
The word "value" comes from the French verb valoir, meaning "to be worth." Gradually it evolved an association with valor and worthiness. Values describe how we intend to operate, on a day-to-day basis, as we pursue our vision.

A set of governing values might include: how we want to behave with each other; how we expect to regard our customers, community, and vendors; and the lines which we will and will not cross.

Source:
Society for Organizational Learning

Edison Notebooks

Edison relentlessly recorded and illustrated every step of his voyage to discovery in his 3500 notebooks that were discovered after his death in 1931. Keeping a written record of his work was a significant key to his genius. His notebooks got him into the following habits:

They enabled him to cross-fertilize ideas, techniques and conceptual models by transferring them from one problem to the next.

For example, when it became clear in 1900 that an iron-ore mining venture in which Edison was financially committed was failing and on the brink of bankruptcy, he spent a weekend poring over his notebooks and came up with a detailed plan to redirect the company's efforts toward the manufacture of Portland cement, which could capitalize on the same model as the iron-ore company.

Whenever he succeeded with a new idea, would review his notebooks to rethink ideas and inventions he'd abandoned in the past in the light of what he'd recently learned. If he were mentally blocked working on a new idea, he would review his notebooks to see if there was some thought or insight that could trigger a new approach.

For example, Edison took his unsuccessful work to develop an undersea telegraph cable and incorporated it into the design of a telephone transmitter that adapted to the changing sound waves of the caller's voice. This technique instantly became the industry standard.
 
Edison would often jot down his observations of the natural world, failed patents and research papers written by other inventors, and ideas others had come up with in other fields. He would also routinely comb a wide variety of diverse publications for novel ideas that sparked his interest and record them in his notebooks. He made it a habit to look out for novel and interesting ideas that others had used successfully on other problems in other fields. To Edison, an idea needed to be original only in its adaptation to the problem he was working on.

Edison also studied his notebooks of past inventions and ideas to use as springboards for other inventions and ideas in their own right. To Edison his diagrams and notes on the telephone ( sounds transmitted ) suggested the phonograph ( sounds recorded ), which in turn suggested motion pictures ( image recorded ).
 
Source:
Cracking Creativity
Pg. 105
Michael Michalko
Ten Speed Press
ISBN: 0-8981-5913-X

Ernest Shackleton leadership qualities

Who is Ernest Shackleton?
He is an Antarctic explorer.

Why do I choose to learn from an Antarctic explorer?
Today we face more unknown challenges than before. We do not know how to manage the unknown. No proven records to learn from. No schools to learn from. An explorer who sets out to discover the unknown territories is in a similar situation and thus a good example to learn from.

What are the leadership qualities that we must learn from him?

1. Be optimistic
2. Obtain feedbacks to improve
3. Be flexible
4. Lead by example
5. Boost morale

Source:
Shackleton's Way
John Hoult
Fast Company 2000 Dec

Pay attention to what you are noticing

Pay attention to what you're noticing. That's to say, when you find yourself noticing something, look at it again. If something takes your interest, even if you can't understand why it's important and even if no one else thinks it is, don't dismiss it. Trust yourself as an antenna.

 

This idea came into sharp focus for me when reading a book about Chicago detectives. One of the particularly successful ones was asked how he'd developed such an accurate nose for trouble. He said: "If you find yourself doing a double take, do a triple take." So don't say "Ah... it's probably nothing important" and rationalise yourself out of looking at it. Say instead "If I noticed it, it must be important. Now in which way is it?"

 

Isn't this where all the best science comes from - someone deciding to take seriously something that millions of other people could also have noticed but didn't?

 

Sense from:

Seize the Day

15 May

Tip from Brian Eno

Edited by Nicholas Albery & Stephanie Wienrich

Chatto & Windus

ISBN: 1557382905

Blake Ross next big thing

What single philosophy does Blake Ross ( co-creator of Firefox ) swear by in life?

The next big thing is whatever makes the last big thing usable.

When Firefox began, the browser market was "dead," client software was "outdated," and many entrepreneurs were working on podcasting tools for goldfish and other "next big things." We focus on the everyday problems that nag at everyday people. There are more than enough to go around without imagining new ones.

Source:

My Golden Rule

Michael Copeland

Business 2.0 2005 Dec

Karim Rashid home recommendations

Karim Rashid 30 home recommendations

1. Create large white spaces with accents of strong positive colors.
2. Knock down walls that are not structural and open up spaces as much as possible.
3. No visible books, magazines, CDs, or clutter. No bookshelves.
4. Have less but better furniture. Try to substitute two or three pieces with one.
5. Flat surfaces accumulate things, so have a small side table near the entrance for keys, mp3 players, mobile phones, etc.
6. Put all your chargers in one place – with one surge protector – and always make sure everything is fully charged.
7. Try to consolidate all your technology so that your computer, TV and stereo are all of a piece.
8. Have a plasma screen or watch a projection TV.
9. Use warm, soft but high­ performance materials.
10. Embrace ( don’t fear ) technology.
11. All kitchen products should be hidden. The kitchen should be bare and beautiful. Only the most sensual and artistic designs should be on display. All other gadgets need to be hidden.
12. Improve order. Line everything up perfectly: vases, objects, books, stereo equipment. Order inspires. Order is Zen. Order is relaxing.
13. Don’t be a pack rat: recycle newspaper and magazines as soon as you’re done reading them. Better yet, read them online.
14. Avoid curtains. They are dirt and dust collectors and make spaces look smaller with added bulk and weight. Use seamless mesh blinds instead.
15. Use materials that are easy to clean and that age well. Plastic floors ( laminates, vinyl sheeting, or artificial rubber ) are lightweight and inexpensive materials that wear well and are more resistant to scratches and staining.
16. Colored glass looks great in bathrooms; it plays with the changing light.
17. Use dimmer switches throughout the house and incandescent light over fluorescent. Halogen bulbs are also nice. Put everything on timers and sensors.
18. Use color to express yourself. Don’t be afraid of that bright orange chair. Paint your wall lime green. Be brave when it comes to carpets, countertops and tables. Color is beautiful and it’s all about self-expression. Be yourself.
19. Do not buy useless, kitschy souvenirs. Do you really need a sombrero from ? If you bring something into your home, make sure it has meaning.
20. Wallpaper is wonderful. It lasts longer than paint and is easy to clean and replace.
21. Wall-to-wall carpeting is warm, easy to maintain, pleasurable, soft and friendly.
22. Use biodegradable and natural cleaning products.
23. Anytime you buy something for your home, get rid of something else. Seek balance. People tend to accumulate far more than they need. Buy a vase; get rid of a vase.
24. If you’re moving to a new place, look for lots of light. Daylight is essential to positive thinking and your well-being. If you’re not moving, look for ways to maximize the light you have: skylights, enlarged windows and so on.
25. Make do with less. And make sure you really want what you’re buying. I’m not anti-consumption per se but I think it’s essential to consume with awareness. Buy only what you need.
26. Avoid sharp edges. Let your space flow.
27. Addition by subtraction. This is one of my pet theories and it’s really very simple. You get rid of things you don’t want and your life becomes fuller. Less becomes more; the things you do keep become more valuable.
28. Make your space reconfigurable.
29. You don’t need storage space. If something is stashed away, you’re not using it. Get rid of it.
30. Be sure the next thing you buy has more than one use.

Source:
Design your self
Karim Rashid
Page 52 – 55
Regan
ISBN: 0060839023

Ritz-Carlton service values

Ritz-Carlton service values

1. I build strong relationships and create Ritz-Carlton guests for life.
   
2. I am always responsive to the expressed and unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests.
   
3. I am empowered to create unique, memorable and personal experiences for our guests.
   
4. I understand my role in achieving the key success factors and creating the Ritz-Carlton Mystique.
   
5. I continuously seek opportunities to innovate and improve the Ritz-Carlton experience.
   
6. I own and immediately resolve guest problems.
   
7. I create a work environment of teamwork and lateral service so that the needs of our guests and each other are met.
   
8. I have the opportunity to continuously learn and grow.
   
9. I am involved in the planning of the work that affects me.
   
10. I am proud of my professional appearance, language and behavior.
    
11. I protect the privacy and security of our guests, my fellow employees and the company's confidential information and assets.
    
12. I am responsible for uncompromising levels of cleanliness and creating a safe and accident-free environment.
    

Source:

Ritz-Carlton Gold Standards

Motivations

What motivates us to act?

The desire to gain
To make money
To save time
To avoid effort
To achieve comfort
To have health
To be popular
To experience pleasure
To be clean
To be praised
To be in style
To gratify curiosity
To satisfy an appetite
To have beautiful possessions
To attract the opposite sex
To be an individual
To emulate others
To take advantage of opportunities

The desire to avoid loss
To avoid criticism
To avoid loss of possessions
To avoid physical pain
To avoid loss of reputation
To avoid loss of money
To avoid trouble

Source:
Successful direct marketing methods
Bob Stone
NTC

Do it anyway

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway.

Source:

Mother Teresa

Churning

What is churning?
It is a product development process which begins with the idea, move it through engineering and production, gets it to the consumer who generates feedback, modify the product, send it back to the consumer and repeat the cycle.
 
What are the principles of churning?

1. Plan for it.
2. Fail quickly but last long.
3. Use your own products.
4. Build in the means to fix your product.
5. Write the engineering specifications of your product so other folks can figure out how to extend and enhance your product.
6. Improve your product for people who are buying it, not people who aren’t.
7. Don’t try to hide your mistakes.

Source:
Rules of revolutionaries
Page 46 to 63
Guy Kawasaki
HarperCollins
ISBN: 0887309968

Walt Disney World guest service guidelines

Walt Disney World guest service guidelines

1. Make eye contact and smile!
Start and end every guest contact and communication with direct eye contact and a sincere smile.

2. Greet and welcome each and every guest
Extend the appropriate greeting to every guest with whom you come into contact.
“Good morning / afternoon / evening”
“Welcome!” / “Have a good day.”
“May I help you?”
Make guests feel welcome by providing a special differentiated greeting in each area.

3. Seek out guest contact
It is the responsibility of every cast member to seek out guests who need help or assistance.
Listen to guests’ needs
Answer questions
Offer assistance ( For example: Taking family photographs )

4. Provide immediate service recovery
It is the responsibility of all cast members to attempt, to the best of their abilities, to immediately resolve a guest service failure before it becomes a guest service problem.
Always find the answer for the guest and / or find another cast member who can help the guest.

5. Display appropriate body language at all times
It is the responsibility of every cast member to display approachable body language when on stage.
Attentive appearance
Good posture
Appropriate facial expression

6. Preserve the “magical” guest experience
Always focus on the positive, rather than the rules and regulations.
Talking about personal or job-related problems in front of our guests is unacceptable.

7. Thank each and every guest
Extend every guest a sincere thank-you at the conclusion of every transaction.
Extend every guest a thank-you or similar expression of appreciation as he / she leaves your area.

Source:
Be our guest
Disney Institute
Page 86
Disney Editions
ISBN: 0786853948

Sheeps, wolves, serpents and doves

I treat religious texts as texts of wisdom. They have taught me a great deal. I recently learn a verse from the Bible that helps me to deal with the world today.

Matthew 10:16

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the mist of wolves: be therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

I ask Lucy ( a Christian friend of mine ) what does this verse mean?

Her reply:

Matthew 10:16 were spoken by Jesus Christ to His twelve disciples whom He personally selected and was preparing to send them out to preach to the Jews who rejected Him. Jesus instructed His twelve apostles or disciples to watch out for the kind of people in each community. His instructions, advice, warnings and encouragements are still valid today!

In this verse, Jesus was encouraging his apostle to be meek and mild even in the presence of violent objectionable people ( as sheep in the mist of wolves ). He warned them to be cautious of the people who were against them but at the same time not to use violence against violence ( wise as serpent, harmless as doves ).

Inspiration from common events

I wish to live as to derive my inspiration from the commonest events, so that what my senses may perceive, my daily walk, the conversation with my neighbors may inspire me and I may dream of no heaven but that which lies about me.

Henry David Thoreau

Life like a box of chocolates

Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

Mrs. Gump in the movie - Forrest Gump

If we never know what we are going to get, does that means that we don’t try. No! Just try and try till we get the chocolate we want. Even if we have tried the whole box, go out and get another box.

Even if we can’t get the chocolate we want after several boxes, we know we have try and we have taste a lot of different kinds of chocolates. At least we know what different chocolates taste like.

Life Designer

David Perkins says:
The human mind is the design that designs itself and continually redesigns itself. Other mammals are designs but do little self-designing. We humans are so taken with design that we not only design and redesign everything around us but even ourselves. As a designer of yourself, you never know more than yourself.

Why I find it interesting?
Seeing oneself as a designer.
Seeing life as a piece of art.
Seeing myself as the most suitable designer for my piece of art - life.

Ian Schrager inspiration

How does Ian Schrager stay hip?

I read probably 40 to 50 magazines a week on absolutely anything - technology, news, fashion, travel and music. I might even look at a racy magazine to see how they're treating sex compared with 10 years ago. Magazines are the best way to find out what's in the air, what the social or cultural trends are. I tear out anything that grabs my interest.

Source:

At the desk of Ian Schrager, hip hotelier

Amy Goldwasser

Business 2.0 2002 May

Search

Source:

Understanding Internet search

Matt Leacock

Art Gallery

I view my portable hard disk as an art gallery, my documents as pieces of art and myself as the curator and guide.


 
Let me take you through my gallery. The first piece of art we are looking at is Customer Knowledge. It was the page 33 in the Aspect 2000 annual report. Design in 2001 by Cahan & Associates.


 
This piece of art is interesting as I see it as a good way to introduce customers to companies’ staff. The company is Aspect and the customer is Saks. The art includes:
A person ( maybe she is a staff of Saks )
What Aspect offers Saks?
What value Saks gain?
What does Saks do?

Let’s move along this way to the second piece. The second piece we are looking at is Employee Talents. It was the page 9 in the Informatica 2000 annual report. Design in 2001 by Cahan & Associates.


 
This piece of art show us a way to understand employee have talents that we fail to see and capitalized on. Please replace the word most responsive supplier with your employee. The art includes a person and what he is also? He is also an Internet millionaire and medical school drop out.

Perspectives

What are perspectives?

Sense from:

Zen Keys

Thich Nhat Hanh, Philip Kapleau

Page 10

Image

ISBN: 03854-75611

What is a tree?

• A philosopher might call it ultimate truth.
  
• A botanist, a living organism.
  
• A physicist, a mass of protons and neutrons swirling around a nucleus.
  
• An artist, a unique shape with distinctive colouring.
  
• A carpenter, a potential table.
  
• To a dog, however, it is nothing but a urinal.
  

All descriptions, explanations or analyses are but a looking from one side at that which has infinite dimensions. The true nature of the tree is more than anything that can be said about it.

Meaningfull Life

Did I live meaningfully?

Sense from:

Whistle while you work

Richard Leider, David Shapiro

Page 78

Berrett-Koehler

ISBN: 1-57675-103-1

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, arguably the world’s expert on people’s attitudes about death and dying, summarized a life of research in three simple questions. When people look back upon their lives, she found, they ask three questions that determine their sense of whether it was meaningful:

1. Did I give and receive love?
   
2. Did I become all I can be?
   
3. Did I leave the planet a little better?
   

Experiential Learning Cycle

How do we learn from experience?

Source:
Roles of volunteer in development
Peace Corps
Page 31 – 33

The process of learning is a process of acquiring knowledge, skills, and attitudes so that we can solve problems and make changes in our lives as we move toward fulfilling our needs and our goals. This learning process can be conceived as a four-step cycle.

1. We experience something.
2. We review the experience critically.
3. We draw a conclusion and / or infer useful insights ( lessons learned ).
4. We apply or try out our new insights or hypotheses in a new situation ( which leads to another experience and so on ).

This natural process is called “experiential learning” and we use it all the time although we may not be completely conscious of the four steps. In many structured adult learning situations, we try to design most of the activities to follow the experiential learning cycle. Here’s what the cycle looks like in a training context:


 
Experience
The “experience” that activates the experiential learning cycle may be an event from your past, an activity you conducting or a case study you read and analyze. In this step, you do something or remember something you did in the past. It usually involves uncovering new information that requires a response from you.

Reflection
Reflection is a way of exploring and sorting out what happened during the experience stage. What new information do you now have and what does it mean? What feelings has it provoked in you? How might you relate the experience to things you already know? If you are participating in a group activity, how is your learning experience similar to or different from that of others?

Drawing conclusions and lessons learned
After reflecting on the experience, we arrive at the critical stage of determining what lessons can be learned or what principles can be drawn from the experience. This is the “so what” stage. How does all of this fit together? What are the major themes or insights you can infer from your experience?

Planning and application
Planning and application is the stage where you relate the learning to your world and actually start using the information. It’s called the “now what” stage. What will you do differently now that you have learned these lessons? How will this new insight help you improve your technical ability, your interactions with the community, or your collaboration with your Counterparts? As you apply what you have learned, you generate new experiences and the “experiential learning cycle” starts all over again!

All four of these stages are important for a rich and complete learning experience. Sometimes, we jump too quickly from experience to experience and shortchange the other three steps in the learning cycle. It is important to be as conscious as possible of your own experiential learning processes and take the time to really reflect, draw conclusions, and apply lessons learned before moving to the next experience.

Starbucks customer journey

Source:

Experience design languages

John Rheinfrank and Shelley Evenson

Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

Happiness

What make us happy?

Money, good looks, intelligence or youth doesn’t bring us happiness. Narcissism and sense of humor do.

How to make us happy?

1. Develop good social skills
   
2. Volunteer
   
3. Get married or at least cohabitate
   
4. Purse meaningfull goals and take pleasure in the process
   
5. Enjoy little things
   

Sense from:

Pleasure Paradox

Psychology Today 2005 Jan

Kathleen McGowan

Pg 52 - 53

ISSN: 0033-3107

Interest Expedition

Question

How can I learn in the most effective way?

 

Possible Answer

Follow your interest

 

Sense from:

Information Anxiety 2

Richard Saul Wurman, Loring Leifer, David Sume

Que

Page 87

ISBN: 0-7897-2410-3

 

You can follow any interest on a path through all knowledge. Interest connections form the singular path to learning. It doesn’t matter what path you choose or where you begin your journey. A person can be interested in horses or the concept of time and can make connections to other bodies of information.

Someone who’s interested in cars could move into a fascination with the Porsche and the German Language or the physics of motion or the growth of cities and the pattern of movement and defense or the chemistry of fuels. Various cars are made by various countries that have different languages and histories. Studying Italian automotive design, you can gain entry into the study of roads, the Appian Way, the plan of and the history of transportation itself.

The idea that you can expand one interest into a variety of other interests makes your choices less threatening. You can jump into a subject at any level and not only can you follow the subject to greater levels of complexity but you can follow it to other subjects.

Chris Anderson's views on innovation

What are Chris Anderson's views on innovation?

1. Do not hire for fit. Hire misfit. Look for connections between fit and misfit.
2. Do not hire for deep knowledge, hire for broad knowledge.
3. Innovation and value are going to be found in the synthesizers - the people who draw together stuff from multiple fields and use that to create an understanding of what the company should do.
4. Businesses that don't offer meaning to their employees will not succeed in the long term.

Sense from:
Finding Ideas
Harvard Business Review 2002 Nov
Chris Anderson, Bronwyn Fryer
Page 18-19
ISSN: 00178012