Friday, 2 March 2012
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
What fun will you have this year?
Alright folks a brand new year is upon us and what I really want to know is what fun, creative project are you going to come up with this year?
There are so many wonderful ideas out there with everything from micro-loans to surprise visits to kindness days/weeks all the way to helping pay off someone's Christmas purchases anonymously (Layaway Santas)
So again I ask of you what fun project will you come up with?
I am asking this because I am declaring this the year of fun, mischief, and excitement for myself and Creativision. We want to do more fun projects, encourage people's imagination like we never have before, give away more gifts, and generally have one of the most fun years we have had yet. So if you have an idea and want a bit of help please do let me know.
I really want to be inspired and I really want to make a difference, a small difference but a difference none-the-less.
pssstt...lots of fun ideas on the ifoundmoneytoday.wordpress.com blog and here is one of my favourites (http://ifoundmoneytoday.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/get-this-guy-a-gallon-of-gas/)
Please leave some fun and inspirational ideas down below in the comment section-lets get CREATIVE :D
Here is to 2012!
There are so many wonderful ideas out there with everything from micro-loans to surprise visits to kindness days/weeks all the way to helping pay off someone's Christmas purchases anonymously (Layaway Santas)
So again I ask of you what fun project will you come up with?
I am asking this because I am declaring this the year of fun, mischief, and excitement for myself and Creativision. We want to do more fun projects, encourage people's imagination like we never have before, give away more gifts, and generally have one of the most fun years we have had yet. So if you have an idea and want a bit of help please do let me know.
I really want to be inspired and I really want to make a difference, a small difference but a difference none-the-less.
pssstt...lots of fun ideas on the ifoundmoneytoday.wordpress.com blog and here is one of my favourites (http://ifoundmoneytoday.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/get-this-guy-a-gallon-of-gas/)
Please leave some fun and inspirational ideas down below in the comment section-lets get CREATIVE :D
Here is to 2012!
Friday, 2 December 2011
Another Innovative Car
So I just saw this today but obviously this has been around for a bit. I'm curious to know what other people think? Is driving on air a good idea? Is it sustainable? Better than we have now? Better in the long run?
What does your innovative idea for transportation look like? Is it solar powered? Is it battery? Is it air? Water? Beer (I sure hope not)?
I'm just generally curious so I really want to here some opinions in the comment section for this one.
What does your sustainable transportation look like? Does it run on air? water? the sun? beer? (I sure hope not)
Draw a picture, make a video, write it out, I'm just curious to know so I can pass on the good ideas to those who do know all about sustainable transportation.
What does your innovative idea for transportation look like? Is it solar powered? Is it battery? Is it air? Water? Beer (I sure hope not)?
I'm just generally curious so I really want to here some opinions in the comment section for this one.
What does your sustainable transportation look like? Does it run on air? water? the sun? beer? (I sure hope not)
Draw a picture, make a video, write it out, I'm just curious to know so I can pass on the good ideas to those who do know all about sustainable transportation.
Friday, 18 November 2011
Young Social Entrepreneurs
The other night I was asked to be a judge at the Corporate and Community Social Responsibility (CCSR) conference for a youth social enterprise competition hosted by Child and Youth Friendly Ottawa. It was an interesting experience for me for two reasons: 1. the ideas pitched by young people and 2. the conversations I got to have with the judges.
Let's tackle the first part of this interesting experience: The Ideas Pitched By Youth
I have to say that overall the courage that these young people had to stand up there and talk about their ideas was quite wonderful. Some of these young presenters were as young as 12 years old. Imagine yourself at 12 years old standing in front of a room filled with adults as you talk about this amazing idea you have, heck think about yourself at whatever age you are now, could you stand up in front of a room filled with adults judging your ideas and your opinions?
Although these young competitors were wonderful I did have a few criticisms and a few concerns. The judging criteria that was handed to us were based on A) Societal Impact B) Innovation and C) Sustainability. Three great areas for judging a social enterprise contest. I didn't feel that almost any of the competitors ever once really addressed what their societal impact to a larger community would be, some skimmed over it but none stopped and really examined it and told us the whole story. Then there were the other two categories: Innovation and Sustainability.
Overall I thought the 2 youngest presenters were amazing just for getting on stage and in fact they may have done the best jobs in terms of showing their true feelings and exhibiting their passion for what they were talking about. That said I have to say I was particularly underwhelmed with the 13-18 and 19-24 age range. When I think of youth I think of wildly imaginative young people and to be honest what we saw on stage was simply a young version of smaller executives. Their minds had already been molded, they knew what was accepted as the norm for a competition and they executed that quite well. I guess my expectations were a bit too high perhaps. I was expecting someone to get up there and wow the crowd with their most innovative ideas about how we can be better serving the world and we just didn't get that. We had ideas that all had been done before with a small personal twist on them or for some projects just another version of an already played out idea in a different part of the city. Not only were most of the ideas not really innovative but I definitely found that many of the ideas had not really focused on the sustainability aspect. Most of the ideas were looking at just being grant based and if they hadn't thought about being grant based then they had not really thought about how they were going to sustain themselves for a longer period of time (this is a rant for a whole other post coming up next).
So I guess my question is this are we sucking the creativity and the imagination from youth all to soon? I believe that wildly imaginative ideas still exist in their heads and in their guts. Do we, as adults model behaviour that does not allow these youth to break the mold? I'm not sure what the answer was for this particular competition but I plead to youth do not ever model what you think a "business" person should be or how you think a "business" person should act. Instead think about who you are, where you come from, the energy and creativity you have, give us, the judges an the audience an experience. I guess that last part is what I was looking for, I wanted to experience passion and excitement and a sense of wonder from the presenters. Show me how passionate you are, forget that you are being judged, live your dream on stage.
Now if I can switch gears for a minute I just wanted to note that I also had some wonderful and insightful conversations with some other members of the judging panel that gave me a whole other flurry of thoughts. I was going to post those thoughts in this article but I think I will hold off and if you read the next blog post you will find my thoughts in there. The next post will be around Not-for-profits and For-profit business models, what are the differences and what did we discuss about each of these. So if you're interested look out for the next post as I dig a little deeper into the profit and non-profit world.
Let's tackle the first part of this interesting experience: The Ideas Pitched By Youth
I have to say that overall the courage that these young people had to stand up there and talk about their ideas was quite wonderful. Some of these young presenters were as young as 12 years old. Imagine yourself at 12 years old standing in front of a room filled with adults as you talk about this amazing idea you have, heck think about yourself at whatever age you are now, could you stand up in front of a room filled with adults judging your ideas and your opinions?
Although these young competitors were wonderful I did have a few criticisms and a few concerns. The judging criteria that was handed to us were based on A) Societal Impact B) Innovation and C) Sustainability. Three great areas for judging a social enterprise contest. I didn't feel that almost any of the competitors ever once really addressed what their societal impact to a larger community would be, some skimmed over it but none stopped and really examined it and told us the whole story. Then there were the other two categories: Innovation and Sustainability.
Overall I thought the 2 youngest presenters were amazing just for getting on stage and in fact they may have done the best jobs in terms of showing their true feelings and exhibiting their passion for what they were talking about. That said I have to say I was particularly underwhelmed with the 13-18 and 19-24 age range. When I think of youth I think of wildly imaginative young people and to be honest what we saw on stage was simply a young version of smaller executives. Their minds had already been molded, they knew what was accepted as the norm for a competition and they executed that quite well. I guess my expectations were a bit too high perhaps. I was expecting someone to get up there and wow the crowd with their most innovative ideas about how we can be better serving the world and we just didn't get that. We had ideas that all had been done before with a small personal twist on them or for some projects just another version of an already played out idea in a different part of the city. Not only were most of the ideas not really innovative but I definitely found that many of the ideas had not really focused on the sustainability aspect. Most of the ideas were looking at just being grant based and if they hadn't thought about being grant based then they had not really thought about how they were going to sustain themselves for a longer period of time (this is a rant for a whole other post coming up next).
So I guess my question is this are we sucking the creativity and the imagination from youth all to soon? I believe that wildly imaginative ideas still exist in their heads and in their guts. Do we, as adults model behaviour that does not allow these youth to break the mold? I'm not sure what the answer was for this particular competition but I plead to youth do not ever model what you think a "business" person should be or how you think a "business" person should act. Instead think about who you are, where you come from, the energy and creativity you have, give us, the judges an the audience an experience. I guess that last part is what I was looking for, I wanted to experience passion and excitement and a sense of wonder from the presenters. Show me how passionate you are, forget that you are being judged, live your dream on stage.
Now if I can switch gears for a minute I just wanted to note that I also had some wonderful and insightful conversations with some other members of the judging panel that gave me a whole other flurry of thoughts. I was going to post those thoughts in this article but I think I will hold off and if you read the next blog post you will find my thoughts in there. The next post will be around Not-for-profits and For-profit business models, what are the differences and what did we discuss about each of these. So if you're interested look out for the next post as I dig a little deeper into the profit and non-profit world.
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Redesigning the Report Card: A Commentary on the GOOD.is Challenge
I had been following GOOD.is on their challenge to redesign the school report card. On the 25th of this month they announced their winner.
I was looking at this and although it is a good concept I am not sure that redesigning the school report card is the right thing to be challenging people to do. I would love to see them put a challenge forward that challenges people to propose new ways to challenge how we currently test children.
After having delivered many years worth of alternative education programs I believe we have found a really nice balance of allowing students to test themselves while still maintaining their self-confidence. In the report card that I would produce students would have to report on how many times they reached their personal goals. In my classes (often outdoors in a park) students were required to set 3 different goals each week that they would work towards. Students, at the beginning of every week were to set a personal goal, a social goal, and a physical goal. This allowed students to focus on not just one aspect of their entire being. For example when Johnny is asked to go to the blackboard and write the letter "B" on the board at that moment his entire self-worth, his entire being is wrapped up in whether or not he knows how to do that task. If he doesn't know what the letter "B" looks like at that very moment then most likely some other kids will laugh at him, they might even call him stupid, and worst of all the teacher might scoff at him and say something like, "oh Johnny haven't you been studying this?" At that moment it does not matter that Johnny is the fastest kid in the class, or that he tells some of the funniest jokes you will ever hear. At that moment all he will know is that he is simply not "smart" enough.
We need to change this. So many people have talked about multiple intelligences and so few schools are praising this or talking about ways to encourage this type of learning/grading.
Now am I not arguing that we shouldn't challenge each other and that there should be no test, absolutely not. But I believe reminding kids, especially at a young age that there are so many things they are good at while they learn to love learning is crucial.
I remember in our very first baseball program that taught kids to read one kid at the very beginning saying he HATED learning and school was stupid. I mean this kid was only 6 years old. He had already learned that school was not for him and that he was just not going to participate. I told him "look around, we are in a park, we have baseballs, and you are in control, does this look like a regular "school" to you?" It took some time but he eventually caught on that setting your own goals, embracing all of who you are at every moment in life, and working hard can actually be a lot of fun and really productive. Over the next few months this kid along with many more have learned to love learning and that exploration can be so much fun.
So what should our report cards look like? My opinion is that they should have multiple areas of excellence on them and not just grades. Grades are definitely a way to measure but I wish that the grades on these reports cards would only reflect and be focused on showing us how we are doing in comparison to ourselves more then they currently do.
So for each week that students were asked to set their own goals I would want the report card to report on how many times we were successful at hitting our own targets. There also would be a small notes section to this goal setting section to allow for student and teacher to write in their comments on why or why not a student reached their own pre-determined goal that week. I should mention at this junction that at the beginning of every week while the students did set their own goals that they were also challenged and given the task of convincing the teacher (me and my colleagues) that their goals were satisfactory for that week. They didn't always set their bar high enough but this is where the real fun began, the art of negotiation. Student and teacher decided together each week what their goals could and should be.
So why this post? Well for one because I have a real interest in how we educate ourselves and each other. Another reason is because I believe that even as adults we have our own hidden report cards. This grading and comparing gets so ingrained into our heads that we let it feed into all kinds of aspects our lives. It can be healthy to push ourselves with these grades and these accomplishments but only to a certain point. This grading, as we have seen many times, also has the ability to be completely destructive.
What does your perfect report card look like?
I was looking at this and although it is a good concept I am not sure that redesigning the school report card is the right thing to be challenging people to do. I would love to see them put a challenge forward that challenges people to propose new ways to challenge how we currently test children.
After having delivered many years worth of alternative education programs I believe we have found a really nice balance of allowing students to test themselves while still maintaining their self-confidence. In the report card that I would produce students would have to report on how many times they reached their personal goals. In my classes (often outdoors in a park) students were required to set 3 different goals each week that they would work towards. Students, at the beginning of every week were to set a personal goal, a social goal, and a physical goal. This allowed students to focus on not just one aspect of their entire being. For example when Johnny is asked to go to the blackboard and write the letter "B" on the board at that moment his entire self-worth, his entire being is wrapped up in whether or not he knows how to do that task. If he doesn't know what the letter "B" looks like at that very moment then most likely some other kids will laugh at him, they might even call him stupid, and worst of all the teacher might scoff at him and say something like, "oh Johnny haven't you been studying this?" At that moment it does not matter that Johnny is the fastest kid in the class, or that he tells some of the funniest jokes you will ever hear. At that moment all he will know is that he is simply not "smart" enough.
We need to change this. So many people have talked about multiple intelligences and so few schools are praising this or talking about ways to encourage this type of learning/grading.
Now am I not arguing that we shouldn't challenge each other and that there should be no test, absolutely not. But I believe reminding kids, especially at a young age that there are so many things they are good at while they learn to love learning is crucial.
I remember in our very first baseball program that taught kids to read one kid at the very beginning saying he HATED learning and school was stupid. I mean this kid was only 6 years old. He had already learned that school was not for him and that he was just not going to participate. I told him "look around, we are in a park, we have baseballs, and you are in control, does this look like a regular "school" to you?" It took some time but he eventually caught on that setting your own goals, embracing all of who you are at every moment in life, and working hard can actually be a lot of fun and really productive. Over the next few months this kid along with many more have learned to love learning and that exploration can be so much fun.
So what should our report cards look like? My opinion is that they should have multiple areas of excellence on them and not just grades. Grades are definitely a way to measure but I wish that the grades on these reports cards would only reflect and be focused on showing us how we are doing in comparison to ourselves more then they currently do.
So for each week that students were asked to set their own goals I would want the report card to report on how many times we were successful at hitting our own targets. There also would be a small notes section to this goal setting section to allow for student and teacher to write in their comments on why or why not a student reached their own pre-determined goal that week. I should mention at this junction that at the beginning of every week while the students did set their own goals that they were also challenged and given the task of convincing the teacher (me and my colleagues) that their goals were satisfactory for that week. They didn't always set their bar high enough but this is where the real fun began, the art of negotiation. Student and teacher decided together each week what their goals could and should be.
So why this post? Well for one because I have a real interest in how we educate ourselves and each other. Another reason is because I believe that even as adults we have our own hidden report cards. This grading and comparing gets so ingrained into our heads that we let it feed into all kinds of aspects our lives. It can be healthy to push ourselves with these grades and these accomplishments but only to a certain point. This grading, as we have seen many times, also has the ability to be completely destructive.
What does your perfect report card look like?
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Fear of Failure vs Celebrating Success
This morning I got up and read Seth Godin's blog post, which I usually do, and which usually gets my brain stimulated. This morning was no different but this morning I found myself disagreeing with Seth.
Seth wrote this piece on his blog today:
Seth wrote this piece on his blog today:
The paradox of expectations
Low expectations are often a self-fulfilling prophecy. We insulate
ourselves from failure, don't try as hard, brace for the worst and
often get it.
High expectations, on the other hand, will inevitably lead to disappointment. Keep raising what you expect and sooner or later (probably sooner) it's not going to happen. And we know that a good outcome that's less than the great one we hoped for actually feels like failure.
Perhaps it's worth considering no expectations. Intense effort followed by an acceptance of what you get in return. It doesn't make good TV, but it's a discipline that can turn you into a professional.
High expectations, on the other hand, will inevitably lead to disappointment. Keep raising what you expect and sooner or later (probably sooner) it's not going to happen. And we know that a good outcome that's less than the great one we hoped for actually feels like failure.
Perhaps it's worth considering no expectations. Intense effort followed by an acceptance of what you get in return. It doesn't make good TV, but it's a discipline that can turn you into a professional.
I'm not sure I agree with Seth on this one. I believe that in order to succeed as individuals and as a society we must continue to push our limits. I think that setting no expectations at all is a bit cowardly in fact. I see why people would do this though and why people would embrace this notion of NOT setting expectations. Our whole lives we are taught to fear failure and that failure is a bad thing. So isn't it easier to just not set any expectations and embrace the outcome, of course it is, but I'm calling BULLSHIT on this one.
If we want to get ahead we need to embrace failure, learn from failure and we need to get a whole lot better at celebrating our successes. They don't have to be big successes but we need to realize that positive reactions to any success can build up and in fact be as strong a motivator as our fear of failure. I think we need to set high expectations for ourselves or we risk settling. I think without expectations and pushing the bar higher we may find ourselves being alright with mediocrity and the status quo. Simply putting in intense effort is just not enough, we need to shoot for something and we need to learn to push beyond our self-imposed and often self-perceived limits.
I mean our entire world right now teaches us that failure is not ok ("oh Billy you got another D, what will we do with you?"), that being status quo is alright ("Jenny you got 2% higher then the class average that is great"), well that just can't be alright? Can it? Shouldn't we strive to improve? And strive to move beyond our perceived limits? Should we not push ourselves and each other?
So although I might agree a tiny bit that we do need to get better at accepting outcomes, whether they be good or bad I still really believe that in order to strive for betterment that we need to continue setting expectations, high expectations, but yes realistic expectations. Humans are capable of incredible things and it is shown time and time again that when we are backed into a corner we can do amazing things, so I ask you this why do we have to wait until we are backed into a corner? Let's get out there set expectations high and reach, reach, reach for them. Then when we fail once, twice, or maybe even three times we get up and yell "do over!" We pick ourselves up and we persevere until we achieve.
So in the end I truly believe that this is an exercise in learning to deal with failure better and also really acknowledging and actually celebrating our successes way better than we currently do.
What do you think? Set expectations or just leave expectations out of the game?
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
What is Creativity?
"What is Creativity?" is one of the questions I get asked the most. My answer is always simple: it is thinking without boundaries. Yes, I know there are a lot more precise, eloquent, and more correct answers out there but I never said or pretend to be anything but simple.
For me creativity is about letting loose. Everyone does this in their own way. Everyone sees the world differently, hears the space around us a bit different, tastes things that no one else can taste, feels the earth spin in their own unique way, and describes their environments in their own terms.
At least the above descriptions hold true until we get to a certain age; A certain age where we have to "behave". At some point in all of our lives we have been "shhhed" or given the glance that tells us that is not appropriate. For some of us unlucky ones perhaps we even got a gentle kick in the shin or a slight pinch on the arm when we have asked to many questions, or have spoken to loudly, or maybe even out of turn.
So we grow up and somewhere along the way after all of this squashing of our enthusiasm and our vigor to learn and ask questions we stop asking. We conform, we begin to wait our turn, we begin to say things we think others want us to say.
Creativity for me is about every once in awhile letting loose in whatever you feel comfortable doing it. Creativity does not have to be an amazing ART piece, or some aww inspiring design that you have concocted. It can be the way you tie your shoes, it can be wearing sandals until the snow hits, it can be about how you say good morning. Creativity is about finding a few things in you that you do just for yourself and that you do that some might even think is a little bit different. I mean imagine one day if you just decided to only write with a pack of crayons that you bought the night before and that you wouldn't stop writing with that pack of crayons until they were all used up? Would it be the end of the world? What if instead of making the same chicken meal you make every night you decided to go to the grocery store and buy everything and anything you have never ate in your life and tried making a dinner out of that?
My main argument for all of this is people (myself included) can sometimes be boring. So why don't you challenge yourself to just once colour outside of the lines and see what happens? Does the world fall apart?
Don't get stuck in life, be creative:
STORYTIME:
This post was inspired from a rather interesting situation I got to observe.
Imagine 7 in the morning standing in line at the grocery store in the middle of October. Yes that is right it is dark out, there is almost no one else in the store, and there is definitely not a whole lot of noise. When all of a sudden this beautiful voice belts out "Good Morning, you are here to check out and I am just the lady for you." This kind of singing certainly woke everyone up who was in the store and put a smile on everyones face.
Behind the cash one of the elderly ladies who was working said that she always sings her good mornings and sings her customers through the line because it is so early and that often she has been in the store for so many hours that she too needs to have a bit of fun.
It was amazing to see everyone in the store react so positively to this wonderful older lady who certainly was not afraid to let loose, be a little bit creative with her job, and inject a whole lot of fun for everyone around.
You know the old saying "sing like no one can hear you" well she did just that and she says that is what gets her through the late night shifts that last until the wee hours of the morning. This lady says she loves her job and she loves her job because the store manager allows her to be herself. Don't you wish more of us could be ourselves? Were allowed to be ourselves?
For me creativity is about letting loose. Everyone does this in their own way. Everyone sees the world differently, hears the space around us a bit different, tastes things that no one else can taste, feels the earth spin in their own unique way, and describes their environments in their own terms.
At least the above descriptions hold true until we get to a certain age; A certain age where we have to "behave". At some point in all of our lives we have been "shhhed" or given the glance that tells us that is not appropriate. For some of us unlucky ones perhaps we even got a gentle kick in the shin or a slight pinch on the arm when we have asked to many questions, or have spoken to loudly, or maybe even out of turn.
So we grow up and somewhere along the way after all of this squashing of our enthusiasm and our vigor to learn and ask questions we stop asking. We conform, we begin to wait our turn, we begin to say things we think others want us to say.
Creativity for me is about every once in awhile letting loose in whatever you feel comfortable doing it. Creativity does not have to be an amazing ART piece, or some aww inspiring design that you have concocted. It can be the way you tie your shoes, it can be wearing sandals until the snow hits, it can be about how you say good morning. Creativity is about finding a few things in you that you do just for yourself and that you do that some might even think is a little bit different. I mean imagine one day if you just decided to only write with a pack of crayons that you bought the night before and that you wouldn't stop writing with that pack of crayons until they were all used up? Would it be the end of the world? What if instead of making the same chicken meal you make every night you decided to go to the grocery store and buy everything and anything you have never ate in your life and tried making a dinner out of that?
My main argument for all of this is people (myself included) can sometimes be boring. So why don't you challenge yourself to just once colour outside of the lines and see what happens? Does the world fall apart?
Don't get stuck in life, be creative:
STORYTIME:
This post was inspired from a rather interesting situation I got to observe.
Imagine 7 in the morning standing in line at the grocery store in the middle of October. Yes that is right it is dark out, there is almost no one else in the store, and there is definitely not a whole lot of noise. When all of a sudden this beautiful voice belts out "Good Morning, you are here to check out and I am just the lady for you." This kind of singing certainly woke everyone up who was in the store and put a smile on everyones face.
Behind the cash one of the elderly ladies who was working said that she always sings her good mornings and sings her customers through the line because it is so early and that often she has been in the store for so many hours that she too needs to have a bit of fun.
It was amazing to see everyone in the store react so positively to this wonderful older lady who certainly was not afraid to let loose, be a little bit creative with her job, and inject a whole lot of fun for everyone around.
You know the old saying "sing like no one can hear you" well she did just that and she says that is what gets her through the late night shifts that last until the wee hours of the morning. This lady says she loves her job and she loves her job because the store manager allows her to be herself. Don't you wish more of us could be ourselves? Were allowed to be ourselves?
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