Practice Profile: Jason Moriber

Each post in the Practice Profile series invites discussion about creative practice. This post features Jason Moriber, whose creative vitality is unmistakably present in his writing.  Jason’s interest in creativity is both personal and universal, and he is quick to champion the creative pursuits of others.

When asked how he would describe his personal creative practice, Jason explained,

“Don’t be afraid of the eraser,” is one life-long impactful lesson I learned from my undergraduate drawing professor Karen Saler. I would say that describes my personal creative practice. I like to add maybe too much stuff, then remove most of it, then add more stuff and then remove it. I do this with writing, with drawing, and with plaster. The eraser takes many forms.

Digital has made erasing both easier and harder. As example, I used to type on a manual antique typewriter and enjoyed covering over swaths of texts with white-out and then type over it (if not re-type the entire page and discover/make serendipitous changes). With digital you can cleanly erase, without history, both texts and images…this is “easier.” I use both, sometimes redundantly, to see if I get different results. I typically start with the physical and then shift into digital.”

Learning to edit extraneous elements is essential.  The iconic designer Charles Eames subscribed to a philosophy that asked two important questions: “What are the details that matter most?  That reveal the most?”. These two questions are central to any creative work.  Knowing which details do matter most separates master from novice. Learning not to be “afraid of the eraser” is a powerful lesson, and once this is internalized it becomes far easier (though not entirely easy!) to edit liberally.

Next I asked Jason to consider the ways he has observed this practice informing his professional practice.  To which he replied,

“I bring it directly into my pro work, but in my pro work there is a need for speed. The add/erase process is time intensive. I’ve developed a working technique, like exercise, so I am always practicing the form of adding and erasing, but not necessarily for my pro work. I believe the side effects of practicing the process allows me to develop ideas quicker when I’m called on to generate quick results.

One way to think of it, as a metaphor, is that I’m always working in my sketchbook, trying out ideas through add/erase. My client-work is a still-life photograph. I take the experience of my sketchbook and use it to influence how I will set-up the still-life. I do both, but the add/erase is an indirect practice.”

The comparison between working in the sketchbook and composing a still-life photograph describes two distinct but interrelated working styles.  Becoming fluent in this add-then-erase working style means that Eames’ two questions are ever-present.

Jason acknowledges that there is an important element to this process: a willingness to cultivate alternative perspectives. He demonstrates the benefit of exploring a new subject in the example given below.

“One key tenet of add/erase is to be open to change, to serendipity, no matter where it comes from. Ideally, through add/erase you’re generating “happy accidents.” If this becomes your mojo, a mantra, then ideas that seem unrelated can be adopted and modified to find a new solution.

As example, I was working on a client pitch presentation that was due in a few weeks’ time. During that time I attended a conference about organic farming. While listening to a presentation on organic dairy farming I had the serendipitous insight that the farming model could be the “story,” the foundation to my client presentation. My team thought it was a little “out there” but I convinced them to go with it. I erased a bit of the farming aspect, adding more about the client need until the presentation had a balance…ultimately we won the assignment.” 

 ________________________________________________

Jason Moriber has always been interested in dissonance, the beachhead where cultural and social behavior negotiate and balance the past with the future. It’s the place where new ideas evolve. Over the past 15 years, the evolution of social and cultural behaviors caused by dissonance has been radically accelerating, mainly due to the digital revolution.

Within dissonance, his professional career has been focused on “social communications,” the way people invent, adapt and communicate due to these changes. At start-ups through to agencies his roles have been a mix of researcher, architect, designer and futurist, all within “social.”   Catch Jason on Twitter or spend some time on his blog: http://jasonempire.com/

© 2013 Kira Campo

Inspired

I began a new series recently.  The concept was inspired by the Columbus Cube, one of many origami forms.  It’s been fun to sit down to paint each of these boxes with a few blank sheets of paper, some brushes and gouache.

Here’s a peek:

Distributed Cognition series

No doubt I’ll be setting aside more time to work in this favorite medium. What inspires you this spring?

© 2013 Kira Campo

Practice Profile: Jessica Ivins

Last year I began the Practice Profile series, motivated by a nagging desire to instigate more dialogue about the subject of creative practice. My curiosity about the nature of creativity leads to countless informal discussions about the influence of creative thinking in our daily lives. Often those conversations broaden or augment my perspective in some way. Likewise, each Practice Profile offers readers a similar opportunity to consider creativity from the perspective of another.

This month I am excited to feature Jessica Ivins, a talented User Experience (UX) designer. Jessica is based in Philadelphia, where she seems right at home amid a city that is teeming with other talented and intelligent professionals. User Experience (UX) design is a field that relies heavily on creative thinking, a subject with which Jessica is already well versed. It was her childhood interest in drawing, coupled with academic training in Fine Art and Art Education, that ultimately taught Jessica the importance of stepping beyond the comfort zone in order to shed creative limitations.

When asked about her current creative practice, Jess replied,

“For a variety of reasons, I decided to take a drawing class at a local arts center last year. The instructor, Maggie Mills, brought me back down art school memory lane; we started each class with quick sketches called croquis. She would say things like “don’t be afraid to scribble… try holding the medium at different angles to get a feel for what values and textures you can create… get your blood flowing and get your arms moving.” It had been so long since my last art class. Generating raw ideas and practicing raw drawing skills in this way set a great tone for me. It allowed me to explore new territory unhindered. I realized it was okay to mess up, and that taking risks and failing made me a better artist in the long term. I was proud of all the work I produced in that class.

Unfortunately, I don’t make much time for art these days. My interests have shifted to reading, exercising, cooking, and devoting time to my career, user experience (UX). But my job does demand creative thinking skills. As a user experience (UX) designer, my role is to make websites useful, usable, and desirable for the people who need to use them. But my job is also to satisfy the needs of my client or colleagues. Businesses have goals that must be met, and users have needs they want a website to satisfy. Sometimes the needs of the business and the users conflict, so reconciling all of this can be challenging. The Web is also a medium that’s constantly in flux and evolving. Thus creative thinking and problem solving skills are indispensable necessities for any UX designer.”

Jessica’s vivid description illuminates why the habits of mind learned through the making of art are not easily forgotten.  The most profound lessons that take place through arts learning—that is, learning to take risks, learning to explore multiple angles, learning to explore new territory unhindered—are accessible long after the direct experience of making art is finished. In a complex and dynamic field like UX design, the territory changes frequently. Developing skills to navigate new terrain is paramount. Fortunately, once internalized, the habits of mind learned in the art room become useful in other contexts. Creative thinking begets creative thinking, and learning through the arts cultivates qualitative reasoning skills that are needed to thrive in any profession.

When asked how her creative practice informs her professional practice, Jessica gave the following (fascinating!) reply,

“Before any sketching or designing begins, I always begin a project by obtaining a full understanding of the problem. What are our users trying to do? Is it the same as what we think they’re trying to do? What are the needs of my fellow team members or my client? Do I understand all goals and limitations? Once everything’s on the table, I can put any creative exercises into perspective. I can find the right exercise or approach to fit the problem I need to solve.

I realized some time ago that my traditional way of working was inefficient and limited. I was generating my own ideas, working in a silo to produce fully realized documentation, then asking for feedback after pouring my heart and soul into a finished deliverable. It wasn’t a fruitful way of making quality designs. Ironically, I had always appreciated the creative approaches I learned about in art school, though I never put similar approaches to use in my work. The Exquisite Corpse game created by Surrealist artists comes to mind. This game involves the collective assembly of words or images, usually the body of a person. The results are entertaining and humorous, but more importantly, they spark new ideas. I had also never thought to look outside my own industry for new ideas. But in an art school drawing class, we watched a film called Decasia: The State of Decay. It is an assortment of very old silent films that are decaying with age. The film is set to music, and the decayed artifacts render distorted imagery that is stunning to watch. We watched the film in its entirety, and then used stills to inspire charcoal drawings. Both the Exquisite Corpse exercise and the film helped me find new ideas as an artist. I remember them both so clearly because they had such an impact upon my creative approach.

For years I had never thought to apply collaborative activities like the Exquisite Corpse to my own practice as a UX designer, nor did I think to look outside of my industry for inspiration. But thanks to the many collaborative exercises outlined in Dave Gray’s Gamestorming, as well as Kevin Hoffman’s mentorship and work on running effective, collaborative meetings, I’ve come to build creativity into my work as a UX designer. I’ve learned to involve a diverse range of stakeholders in the creative process so that various perspectives are considered, rather than relying solely on the perspective of myself or other designers. At the most basic level, crowdsourcing colleagues allows me to accomplish more than simply working alone. But it also brings more ideas into the equation than I could ever generate on my own. Sketching and affinity diagramming are two of many techniques I’ve learned to employ with groups of stakeholders or clients.”

Finally, I asked Jessica to share a memorable example that speaks to the relationship between her creative and professional pursuits.  She explained,

“While at Happy Cog, I was tasked with creating a site map for a client project. A site map is essentially a diagram of all pages on a website. The diagram accounts for all pages but also establishes the hierarchy and organization of those pages, forming a comprehensive website structure. I had traditionally created site maps on my own. However, I decided to create this one collaboratively with the help of several colleagues working on this project. Together we successfully produced all possible types of content, categorized them on the wall, and adjusted the categories for content that didn’t have a natural place to go. The result was a site map structure that everyone on the team was happy with.”

 ________________________________________________

Jess is a Philadelphia-based User Experience (UX) designer and researcher who enjoys making websites useful, easy to use, and enjoyable. She speaks, writes, and volunteers for many things UX. She’s spoken internationally at conferences such as SXSW, Midwest UX, IA Summit, and UX Camp Ottawa. She’s the main organizer for UX Book Club Philly and served as an officer for PhillyCHI, Philadelphia’s UX community. Previously a senior experience designer at Happy Cog, she is now senior UX specialist at AWeber.

Jess is passionate about making everything she touches easy and enjoyable to use. A strong advocate for universal usability, she’s admittedly befuddled by a lack of clarity in everything from road signage to food packaging. She especially likes to drive her family nuts by complaining about the plastic film on food containers that can’t be removed without a knife.

In her spare time, Jess busies herself with reading, cooking, and enjoying a fine glass of wine or craft beer. She’s also mildly obsessed with the TV show Forensic Files.

© 2013 Kira Campo

Painting a Poem

This is one of four paintings from the series, Noticing.
The series, which began with the design of a single notecard, includes postmarked stamps collected from letters and postcards mailed by friends over a period of ten years. The line of text chosen for the card is from the poem, April, below.

 April 
We sat,
enveloped by the green,
which had burst suddenly,
overhead, underfoot.

The firefly darted
in the still-light, still-blue sky
for less than an hour.

I forgot, briefly,
but you remembered to tell me,
“Everything is basically good.”

© 2013 Kira Campo

Practice Profile: C. Todd Lombardo

Since creativity can be manifested in countless ways, discussions of creativity can run both deep and wide. One goal of the Practice Profile series is to reveal, over time, the richness in those discussions by highlighting individuals’ personal practice. Every Profile is unique, as no two individuals share the same creative habits. This month I am excited to feature C. Todd Lombardo, whose creative habits happen to be rooted in visual thinking. The more familiar I become with visual thinking, design thinking, studio thinking and handmade thinking, the more clearly I understand the benefits of each.

Recently, C. Todd shared with me his thoughts on the value of visual thinking:

“I am a sketchnoter, which is a fancy word for notetaking doodler. I like to visualize things as I hear or think about them. This could be in a meeting, at a lecture or a conference or even when I am just thinking about something. At its simplest, it’s boxes and arrows. It is not about being a great artist, nor being “good at drawing,” rather establishing relationships with concepts in a visual manner. I sketchnote for myself, but I have found that other people find value in them, so I post most of them to Flickr. This doesn’t change my practice. In fact, because it is for myself I give myself permission to really screw up (read fail!). If I was doing this for others I’d feel more pressure to elevate the level of quality, which wouldn’t allow me to discover what many like to call “happy accidents.” This is helpful because some are really amazing. I think “wow, I did that,” while others are pretty terrible.”

Posting sketchnotes to Flickr makes his creativity accessible for others to observe. The images, drawn by hand, become an opportunity to learn about the ideas or concepts depicted in the drawings. Topics range from Glen Kelman’s presentation “Where do Ideas Come From?” at the Harvard Innovation Lab to “Human Centered Design, Methods for 21^st Century Challenges”. Each pictorial rendering is dense with information, with only the most essential details communicated.

When asked how sketchnoting informs his professional practice, C. Todd explained: 

“This practice of visualizing helps me think about anything, and gives structure to my thought process. The story below shows a great example of how it helps with communicating in my professional life. I also think that there’s a kinesthetic value actually doing something with my hands and creating helps solidify concept in my brain so that I can recall them at a later date or even better, when I refer back to the image I can tell the story just as vividly as when I first heard the concept. I also find that it pulls out things that others may not have noticed or thought about. For example, I took notes at a talk given by Hacker Chick (Abby Fitchner) and she mentioned something about “leap and a net will appear” which she dismissed as something unimportant, but when she saw the notes she realized that it was quite integral to her talk and was surprised that picked up on it.” 

Finally, I asked for a memorable example that would speak to the relationship between his creative and professional pursuits.  His reply:

“A few months ago, I had a phone call with Eli Stefanski from BIF. As we chatted I started drawing out our conversation on the whiteboard and circled areas I wanted to circle back on and dive deeper into. I took a photo and sent it to her as a record of our conversation. Last week we were on a phone call with a few others and she was explaining something to the group. I repeated back to her what I understood the concept was and her reply was something to the effect of:  ”Yes, that’s exactly correct, can you send me the picture you’re drawing that explains that? I’ve been trying to distill this for a while.” I chuckled because indeed I had drawn it and she rightly called me out.” 

C. Todd’s stories about sketchnoting speak to the value of visual thinking, with the examples posted to Flickr demonstrating that value further. With the promise of deeper comprehension and better retention (not to mention the possibility of the occasional happy accident!) I am certain to be putting pen to paper more often.

______________________________

C. Todd Lombardo, often known as “CTodd,” has over 15 years of experience creating change in the corporate world and is very comfortable navigating ambiguity. When it comes to creativity he believes the power of three simple skills: convergence, divergence and withholding of judgment. He can be found working on a variety of project types such as user experience (UX), communication, design and strategy. In addition, he serves on the adjunct faculty at Madrid’s top-ranked IE Business School where he teach courses in design thinking, innovation and communication. His sketchnotes are often found online, and he believes chocolate chip cookies are one of the secrets to creativity.

© 2013 Kira Campo

Steal Like an Artist

Every idea has an antecedent.  Last February, when Austin Kleon’s book Steal Like An Artist was published it offered readers a close up view of the people and things that shape his work. Kleon’s first book, Newspaper Blackout, was a nominee for the 2010 Goodreads Choice Award in the Poetry category, and became a Poetry Foundation 2010 Best Seller. Recently, I asked the author to participate in a brief Q&A, to highlight a few concepts mentioned in Steal Like An Artist.

You speak about keeping a ‘swipe file’ and the importance of collecting good ideas.  What are some of the more unlikely or memorable source materials that have made it into your file through the years?

AK: Oh, most of what I collect is pretty mundane: newspaper clippings, pages from old books, magazine photos, etc.  

You indicate that you have gained inspiration from the poems that  others share on your Newspaper Blackout website.  How would you describe the creative community that has grown from this reciprocal exchange of ideas?

AK: It’s a funny community, because I don’t know any of the members personally or any of their biographical details, really — we’re all just working in solitude but then sharing that work publicly. The exchange of ideas just comes naturally out of the sharing, not necessarily any back and forth dialogue. 

Keeping a calendar and logbook ensures that structure is built directly into your process. What are some of the measures you have built into your process to ensure sufficient experimentation and exploration? 

AK: For experimentation, I try to structure my work time so that there are no expectations about the results of the work — it’s more like play, like a kid with building blocks or something. As Bob Ross used to say, there are no mistakes, only happy accidents.

For exploration, I find that sticking to a day-to-day routine means that when you break that routine, the strangeness of the upset and the unfamiliar things you experience work on you even more. It makes the travel and the moments of serendipity in the stacks that much more effective.

You have a number of ‘Deleted Scenes’ near the end of the book. Please select one and elaborate. 

AK: Let’s just take “mutations” — sometimes the process of transforming your influences into something new is a matter of the imperfections in your copying. For instance, human memory is a very imperfect device — sometimes our faulty memories of a thing means when we try to replicate it was come up with something new. The voice actor Billy West put it this way: “A bad impression of somebody is a voice no one’s ever heard before!”

Steal Like an Artist will be the focus of the next #creativereads Twitter chat on Tuesday, January 22nd at 8pm ET.  Join us!

________________________________________________________________________

Austin Kleon is a writer who draws. He’s the author of two best-selling books: Steal Like An Artist (2012) is an illustrated manifesto for creativity in the digital age, and Newspaper Blackout (2010) is a collection of poetry made by redacting words from newspaper articles with a permanent marker.

His work has been featured on 20×200.com, NPR’s Morning Edition, PBSNewshour, and in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. New York Magazine called his work “brilliant,” The Atlantic called him “positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet,” and The New Yorker said his poems “resurrect the newspaper when everybody else is declaring it dead.”

He grew up in the cornfields of Ohio, but now he lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Meghan, his son, Owen, and his dog, Milo.

© 2013 Kira Campo

Practice Profile: David Timony

Last year marked the start of the Practice Profile series.  Each post in the series captured a glimpse of what we can learn of creativity.
I’m delighted to be starting 2013 with a feature of David Timony. Both a musician and an educator, his commitment to learning was immediately evident to me when we met several years ago. His blog is often insightful, and his Twitter stream often humorous. Among the things I have learned to expect from the Philadelphia native: candor.

About his personal creative practice, David remarks,

“I’m restless. Learning new things is pretty much a constant activity for me. It is not always purposive learning, sometimes it is just a matter of mental diet. I many ways I treat my mind the way a competition athlete may treat their body.”

Curiosity and the drive to learn are essential to creative output.
Without the benefit of diverse input, from which thoughts and ideas are gathered, the likelihood of seeing a familiar topic anew is slim. Fortunately, there are myriad ways to expand our experiences, so that novel input can be explored.

In the examples that follow, David describes ways he has sought novelty in his creative work:

“It’s all about the process and how that process influences the rest of my life. I’m my own coach and devils advocate–I don’t trust my tacit mind. If I love or hate something, I want to know why and how I could change that if only for a while. I started learning Romanian and Italian just to see what it would be like to be in that situation. I’m strongly considering a Scandinavian language because it is unlike anything I know. If I’m not actively learning new things I get out of shape and dull. I guess I can get really annoying really fast. 

This is a parallel to how I approach everything. A composition professor told me years ago, ‘you’re not going to write intervals or chords that have never been heard before.’  The next thing I did was go out and see how I could change that. I pulled the frets off of my main guitar. The luthier said, ‘you’ll hardly ever use that, it’s impossible.’  Well, that became my main guitar and still is.”

Like many others who thrive creatively, David understands the value of stepping outside the lines of certainty and beyond the comfort of the known. He explains,

“Being a learner requires some basic rules for living. There is no sanctity or superstition in my work. I’m willing to be uncomfortable. I’m willing to be wrong. However I may seem on the outside I’m terribly sensitive to others and hold no defense or pride to my method. I do, though, want to be sure and thorough. Some people have told me that they are not comfortable with my willingness to be uncomfortable. 

It’s been said that while Shoenberg was the primary architect of serialism, it was Berg and Webern who did it best. I’m alright being out front and setting stages for others. Sure, pioneers get slaughtered but hey, we all have our roles.” 

One of the greatest (and most damaging?) myths about creativity perpetuates the common misperception that discipline is somehow at odds with creativity. Significant creative outcomes require discipline.
David regards his training this way,

“I am familiar with the intensity of focus and practice required to learn. It has made me very honest about the work I am willing to invest to achieve in a domain. My calibration and tolerances are very finite. I love Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I’m willing to improve slowly knowing that I cannot dedicate the practice necessary to improve at a quicker pace. In other areas, there are differing amounts of those resources.” 

When asked about the ways in which his creative practice influences his work as an educator:

“I can’t think of one. It’s all just living for me. I really don’t see my life in compartments like that. Everything that I do has a reciprocal influence–it’s a performance, a rehearsal, a critique, and a classroom. Life is pretty surreal sometimes.”

As 2013 begins, I see many opportunities to integrate creative practice and professional practice.  I look forward to sharing some of that work here.  And, as always, I look forward to the learning!

______________________________

David D. Timony holds a PhD in Educational Psychology and is a teacher, speaker, and researcher with more than 20 years experience in the classroom. He is a regular presenter at local, national, and online conferences and seminars. David draws upon his life as an artist and musician to bring creativity to his educational work and has been recognized for his approach in creating and developing tailored programs for individuals, groups, and institutions. When not at his desk, he spends his time with his family and chairs the Board of Directors at Miro Dance Theatre.

David’s research focuses on the demonstration and development of teacher expertise, student perceptions of teacher expertise, and the effect that the interaction of these constructs has on the outcomes for teachers and students.

A regular invitee to national and international conferences, his research has been presented at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Temple University’s Department of Psychological Studies in Education, NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and Phi Delta Kappa International’s Summit on Teacher Quality and Retention.

© 2013 Kira Campo

Practice Profile: Len Kendall

Each Practice Profile in the series highlights the personal creative practice of an individual, in order to demonstrate one of the most reliable and inspiring elements of creative expression: variety.  In an increasingly complex world, the outlets for creative expression, and the tangible forms of such expression, are both exciting and staggering!

The nature of creative practice defies narrow definition.
There is consistency within practice, but practice is often mercurial. There are some common elements between individuals, but personal practice is also highly idiosyncratic.  Fortunately, the many benefits of maintaining a practice are far easier to describe.

Len Kendall describes his personal practice this way:

“In a word, accidental. My creative practice is generally spurred by discovering interesting new ideas, projects, and people online. My output usually comes in the form of writing, sketching, and “non-technical hacking” which involves using digital tools in unexpected ways. When I come across something that excites me or challenges me, I block off time in the future to tinker with it or write about it. The majority of the time, my creative practice has little output, but the process of sifting leads me to new creative avenues. Once in a while, I land a real gem.”

Len’s emphasis on the inherent value of process renders output, temporarily, to a secondary concern.  What Len refers to as “new creative avenues” are a necessary part of the process which ultimately lead to new creative territory.  Although this craggy territory may be harder to explore than territory which is already known, the input we receive from such exploration is key to creative output.  To explore is to be willing to investigate new avenues without knowing the terrain, or exactly where the road, on or off the macadam, might lead.  Reserving time  to investigate a topic that excites or challenges, as Len mentions, truly embodies the spirit of exploration that is needed to “land a gem”.

Much has been written about the importance of flexible thinking in the 21^st century, and adaptability as a significant life skill.  On the topic of flexible thinking, John Dewey once wrote, “Only because the artist operates experimentally does he open new fields of experience and disclose new aspects and qualities in familiar scenes and objects.”   Although it is true of the artistic process, this openness to new fields of experience, described by Dewey, is a necessary part of exploration in every domain.

Len acknowledges the role of experimentation:

“With my new venture CentUp, I’m building a product that requires a behavior change in a large group of people. Taking on creative projects requires a person to learn something new, try something different, or simply be uncomfortable. Ultimately, there are hurdles that need to be overcome and I’ve been studying the specific issues that have prevented me, and others, from wanting to pursue a creative idea. The same process takes place with a new digital product.”

Although Len chose the word accidental to describe his practice, it is also clear that there are some important moments he isn’t willing to leave to chance.  Here he describes the resourcefulness that characterized a recent milestone:

“When I proposed to my now fiancé via something I called Operation SayYesKatie, I had to build a viral campaign extremely quickly and leverage the power of a large media partner and my friends.”

The examples in this Practice Profile speak to a personal creative practice that prizes the process, and also demonstrates where the avenues of such a process might lead.  Other examples of his handiwork found on the internet demonstrate where else the process might lead!
So what has all this exploring and experimentation taught Len about the nature of creativity?

He explains:

“The biggest lesson I learned is that people are more inclined to help you with creative projects if there is a large component of good involved. With my proposal that component was helping a guy profess his love, with my new professional pursuit, it’s raising money for charity. So much creative talent today is leveraged to sell commodity products. My practice with creativity in the past has taught me that if you want lots of collaboration in your creative pursuits, you need to be building something that makes people’s hearts feel good.” 

What has your creative practice taught you?

 ________________________________________________

Len Kendall lives in Chicago, Illinois.
Expert at nothing. A Social Entrepreneur.
He is the founder of http://centup.org and former Digital Director @GolinHarris.
The internet is his box of LEGOs.

© 2012 Kira Campo

In Contrast

While in DC last spring I paid a visit to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, to see The Art of Video Games, one of the first exhibits to document the forty-year history of home video games.  The sophisticated aesthetics that we have grown to expect of games speaks volumes about the marriage between artistry and technology.  For example, the beauty and fluidity embodied in games such as Flower and Journey would not be possible without advancements in technology. Although attention was paid to the talent that contributes to on-screen artistry, overall there was little emphasis placed on the artistic elements that contribute to video game graphics.  However, there were a number of interviews with media scholars, video game designers, and producers, most of which offered insightful glimpses into another form of artistry: that of the gamer.

Storytelling and emotional connection through gaming were dominant themes in the interviews.  One of the best articles I have read about the exhibit includes a quote from Chris Melissinos, curator of the exhibit.  Melissinos notes that one of the things about the exhibit that has been most rewarding is “helping to elevate the argument about what video games can mean to society at large”.

More recently I was in NY and paid a visit to the MoMA to see Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900-2000, an exhibition that demonstrated, among other things, some of the major influences upon learning throughout the 20^th century.  Among the early influencers were individuals such as Freidrich Froebel, Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner.  The exhibit was an invaluable opportunity to see how learning and artifacts of play have changed over time.  For example, while I was aware of Froebel’s influence on early childhood education, the exhibit enabled me to learn more about his methods.  The exhibit featured Froebel’s “Gifts”, a series of twenty-one playthings he designed with the intention of fostering curiosity and creativity in children.

Among the many things that struck me was the history of playgrounds in the United States, which developed in concert with the Arts and Craft movement in Chicago.  John Dewey’s contributions in the realm of education also added momentum to what was then only a nascent concept of playground, as Chicago was the location of his Laboratory School.

Overall, the thing I found to be the most though-provoking was the method of rapid chalk sketching Rudolf Steiner relied upon for mark-making, in order to communicate “his sense of thought as living, creative energy” and of the individual as part of a larger whole.  As I considered Steiner’s methods I realized that part of the appeal was the sense of vitality those methods exuded.  The sense of immediacy found in Steiner’s markings reminded me of an experience I had last summer when I participated in my first Gamestorming session.  More recently, I experienced a similar vitality, while helping to build a temporary playground in one of Philadelphia’s most famed neighborhoods, Rittenhouse Square.  A mere two hours of building reminded me of the intrinsic value of playgrounds, not to mention the significance of the individual as part of a larger whole.

Reflecting on these two exhibits, along with my recent experiences engaging in various forms of analog play, the experiential differences between digital and analog stand in contrast.  In a recent online discussion about Gamestorming, there were various remarks made about the benefits of working in analog.

One of the most compelling arguments I have encountered about analog play comes from Katie Salen, DePaul University, the Executive Director of the Institute of Play, in this remarkable seven minute video.
To quote Ms. Salen:
“Play creates in people a reason for them to want to engage.”

As the influence of digital and virtual are increasingly blended into our lives, we face many new questions and new realities in our analog space.  Games such as Minecraft seem to have myriad applications with respect to learning.  And, as I write this post, in the wake of the most destructive storms I have ever experienced, I am acutely aware of the way technology helps to connect us, and, in doing so, elevates our human experience.

My hope is that the dialogue that Mr. Melissinos refers to regarding video games will continue.  Books such as Jane McGonigal’s, Reality is Broken: How Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, certainly make a very compelling case for why the dialogue ought to continue.

As we endeavor to enrich our communities, I hope we will also choose to take full advantage of games and modes of discovery that are purely analog in nature.  Why?
Because these experiences will also make us better and will help to change the world.

© 2012 Kira Campo

Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers

Since its publication in 2010, Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers, has received a great deal of high praise.  The authors, Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo, have written an informative and engaging read.  But, as the title indicates, the book was written with a more specific purpose; it was written to catalyze action.  And so it has.

Over the last two years, the principles and strategies featured in Gamestorming have enjoyed steady momentum with an ever-widening audience.  It’s hard to imagine finishing the book without becoming partial to the dynamism of gamestorming methods versus traditional brainstorming methods.  At a recent event in Philadelphia, I learned about the genesis of Gamestorming in greater detail.

(Many thanks to Tactile Design Group for hosting the event and also to Jessica Ivins for facilitating!)

Dave Gray explained (via Skype) that many of the practices he, and others, had been employing for some time are now codified in the book.  Listening to Dave describe those practices that evening, many other questions came to mind.  Below you will find some of those questions, as well as Dave’s responses.

1. How does your training as an artist inform your work with organizations?

DG: “Art training differs from many kinds of professional training in that it tends to be very experiential.  In art school we learn by doing.  This means most theoretical learning is informed by practice.  And as everyone eventually learns, just because something works in theory does not mean it works in practice.  I do think that the experience of going to art school has made me more skeptical of ideas that cannot be tested in the crucible of experience.  My bias is to try and test new ideas before accepting or discounting them.  A good idea applied is better than a great idea that remains a theory.”

2. How has your use of visual thinking strategies within organizations evolved over time?  More recently, how has your own work as a practitioner been influenced by the writing of Gamestorming?

DG: “Certainly the work of putting the Gamestorming ideas into a book forced me and my co-authors to make sure there were no gaps in our experience and understanding.  Only exercises that we had thoroughly tested ourselves were allowed into the book.  In addition, after we released Gamestorming into the world, people have embraced it and amplified it in ways we could never have anticipated.  I might add here that open-sourcing all the material at http://gogamestorm.com has involved many, many people in building up a library or pattern language of activities and exercises that could not have been easily compiled any other way.”

3. You have described PRACTICE as essential. What benefits or results have you observed in individuals who commit to the practice of Gamestorming?

DG: “This probably goes back to my art training.  Facilitation is a skill, and it takes an investment of time and energy to develop a skill.  The best facilitators I know take it seriously as a discipline and work hard at it.  The good news about Gamestorming is that in a game-like structure, the burden of facilitation is distributed among a group of people, so you don’t bear that entire burden alone.  And with only a little bit of effort you can get good enough to get positive feedback from your team, which gives you the energy to learn and try more things.

It doesn’t take too much effort to set a positive feedback loop in motion in your organization.”

4. In your experience, which aspects of Gamestorming are organizations or individuals often resistant to, unsure of, or slow to embrace?

DG: “It depends on the organization, but some people have a harder time with physical activities like role-playing, improvisation, bodystorming and so on.  There’s a lot of personal risk there.  People are reluctant to do anything that would make them look foolish in front of a group.  So I like to lead up to that slowly by having people do simple things first, like working with sticky notes, or exercises they can do individually on a table-top, like making simple sketches.  If you let people ease into things they build up their confidence and are often ready for more. 

That said, I do think the physical activities can be great for keeping a group’s energy high and provoking stimulating, breakthrough ideas.  The whole idea of Gamestorming is to get people out of their habitual thought patterns and spark new kinds of thinking.  So I do try to get there.  But like anything big, it helps to start small.”

Among other things, Gamestorming outlines the benefits of utilizing visual thinking strategies.  These methods are a springboard to critical and creative thinking.  In fact, the book concludes with a compelling case study that beautifully illustrates the impact these methods can have on problem finding and problem solving.  But don’t take my word for it…check it out and share YOUR thoughts about Gamestorming!

Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers, will be the focus of the next #creativereads Twitter chat on Tuesday, October 23^st at 8pm ET. 
Join us!

________________________________________________________________________

Dave Gray, SVP Strategy, Dachis Group, is a management consultant, focused on innovation and change. He works with companies to spark breakthrough thinking, to find and clarify their greatest challenges and opportunities, and to design their way into the future. His previous book, Gamestorming, has sold more than 50,000 copies and has been translated into 16 languages.

© 2012 Kira Campo