S.C.A.M.P.E.R

The following week, we were introduced to S.C.A.M.P.E.R which is a thinking tool. SCAMPER basically stands for; S-substitute

                             C-combine

                         A-adapt

                           M-modify

                                      P-put to other use

                            E-eliminate

                          R-reverse

We were given 3 items to which we should choose which one of the items we want to apply 'SCAMPER' to. The items were broom, scissors and a kettle and my group decided to go with the broom. We started out by listing down all the possible problems that  people might face with using a broom. We decided to add functions like the stick of the broom is able to bend itself so that it will be easier to reach for the corners and that the stick's height could be adjustable to short or tall. We also added a spring to our broom so that we don't have to bend our backs to reach down for low areas. Actually, even though our broom is convenient for everyone to use, our main targeted audience are those who are suffering with back problems, by using our broom, this group of people won't face any problems with their backs anymore while sweeping. Another function that we installed to our broom is that it has static magnets and silicon. We added the static magnets as it would be easier now to pick up those strands of hair that does not seem to stick to the brooms and there always seem to be hair left after you're done sweeping but with our broom, this issue of hair will never be mentioned again. The silicon function is added to make 'sweeping' water possible so that it won't be such a hassle to mop off the water first before sweeping, with our broom, everything can be done all at once. We also designed the stick of the broom like a spine to again, the main targeted audience for this broom are those with back problems. The reason why we added Japanese to our poster as we felt like this is like a possible product Japan would make and our product is actually called Hage broom in Japanese, which means bold broom, if you have not already noticed, our broom is not like the ordinary broom that has 'hair'.

The Silky Bucket Chair

My classmates and I were given topics such as 1. Nature vs Man-made 2. Hard vs Soft and in each of our own groups, we had to brainstorm and come up with an idea, which afterwards, we had to present it like a product. So my team mates and I decided to go for the topic Hard vs Soft. After we we brainstormed all the possible ideas we could think off, we decided to settled on the combination of a chair, which is the hard element, and the soft element being hair. To make our product more appealing we added things on the poster, saying things like how the chair can be customized- that you could dye it in any way that you want, in any colour that you want. Imagine, having a deep dyed hair and being able to decorate your chair by accessorizing it with all the different hair accessories or even styling it with braids! To make it look like a real poster, we decided to put a "Mid-Autumn Sale" with a 40% discount. We also thought that it'd be funny to describe our chair as silky, like the well-known shampoo brand Sunsilk that is able to make your hair soft and silky.

Tim Urban's; Inside the mind of a master of a procrastinator

Everyone has probably procrastinate atleast once in their lives which is why I feel that everyone could probably relate to this video. The way Tim Urban illustrates his ideas and the way he explains it was hilarious and it was easy to comprehend what he was trying to say. Firstly, he explains how inside a procrastinator's brain there are 3 characters and they are;

1. Instant Gratification Monkey and 2. Rational Decision-Maker

3. The Panic Monster

All these 3 characters were made so that it's easier to take a look and understand the inside of a procrastinator's brain. These 3 characters functions differently and this is how they work:

1. The Instant Gratification Monkey

- likes to live in the moment, does not think of the future and forgets about the past.

- it also likes to only care about the FUN and EASY things.

- likes to be at, what he calls it to be " The Dark Playground ', where leisure activities happened when it is not supposed to.

2. Rational Decision-Maker 

- able to visualize the future, sees the bigger picture, makes long-term plans and wants to take all this into account and do anything that makes sense to be doing.

3. The Panic Monster

- wakes up every time a deadline is near or when there is scary consequences

- this panic monster scares the monkey and is the reason to why the monkey starts to do work

*This whole process might not be pretty but it works at the end of the day, you'll get things done because there is a deadline and this contains the effects of procrastination to short terms.

However, there is another type of procrastinators and this are the kinds that has No Deadlines.

- If the procrastinator's mechanism is The Panic Monster, then there is a problem. With no deadlines, the Panic Monster won't ever show up because it has no reason to. This then extents the effects of procrastination to forever. 

- These type of procrastination is usually suffered privately and can be the source of unhappiness and regrets. The frustration is not when they cannot chase their goals, but when they cannot even START to chase after them.

*Tim Urban believes that non-procrastinators does not exist, it is just that some of us aren't a mess and has good relationship with deadlines. But the Instant Gratification Monkey is the sneakiest when there is no deadline. Hence, he ended off his talk by giving his audience a tip; to start thinking what we are really procrastinating about because everyone is surely procrastinating about something in their lives and we all have to stay aware of the Instant Gratification Monkey!!!!!

Daniel Leviton's: How to stay calm when you know you will be stressed

This video was at the recommendation list of videos that I should watch on Youtube and what made me clicked on it was the tittle. The tittle is- how to stay calm when you know you will be stressed, I can definitely relate to the tittle because it is something that I have and will go through, which is stress. So I thought that this video could help me learn a few tips and actually be a beneficial video. These are some of the things that I've learnt from this video;

• How our brain performs under stress; under stress, our brains releases cortisol that raises our heart rate, modulates adrenaline levels and it clouds our thinking.

Perspective Hindsight: ( pre-mortem)

- is to look ahead and try to figure out all the things that could go wrong, and then try to figure out what can be done to prevent such things from happening, or to minimize the damage.

Things we could do in form of pre-mortem:

• Designate a place for things that are easily lost in your house area. The reason so is that our brain has this thing called the hippocampus that keeps track of the locations of important things. So if you are the kind of person that tends to be more forgetful and clumsy, this could hep.
• Have to recognize that under stress, you are not going to be at your best and should put systems in place.

When your brain releases cortisol, a whole bunch of systems shuts down. This is because, when faced to face with predators, digestive system, or your libido, immune system is not needed as your body is expanding metabolism on those things and you don't react quickly, you'll get attacked and none of those things matter. Unfortunately, one of the things that goes missing is rational, logical thinking.Hence, we need to train ourselves to think ahead in this kinds of situations.

* Important point here is to recognize that we are flawed. We are all going to fail now and then. The idea is to think ahead to what those failures might be, to put systems in place that will help to prevent them from happening. 

What is Empathy?

This is a video of a group of kids, ranging from the age of probably 6 to 17, talk about what empathy is to them and these are some of their answers:

• It is how you feel about somebody
• When you put yourself in their shoes
• When someone is having a bad day, you help them because you know what they are feeling
• A girl shared her story about how she befriended a girl who everyone is calling a 'tomboy' and had no friends
• A boy said that it made him feel proud to know that he was able to make someone feel better
• It is important to have someone look out for you
• You could tell how someone is feeling through their faces, their eyes and their body language
• When someone is struggling you should help them move forward and not let them get stuck in the same place

It was very heart-warming to see how empathetic these kids are at such an age, they notice things and understand them.

Video Review: The happy secret to better work

Summary of Shawn Achors's: The happy secret to better work

Shawn Achor talked about positive psychology and how normal is merely average. Positive psychology posits that if we study what is merely average, we will remain merely average.

He used this graph as an example, to show that what some of us do is we want to get rid of those who are not the average. Instead of removing these outliers, why not study them? Instead of moving these people to average, we should move the entire average up in our companies and schools worldwide.

He also mentioned that what we are finding is not necessarily the reality that shapes us, but the lens through which our brain views the world that shapes our reality. If we can CHANGE the lens, not only can we change happiness but we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.

We think that our external world is the prediction of our happiness levels but 90% of our long-term happiness is predicted by how our brain processes the world. If we can change our formula for happiness and success, we can change the way that we can then affect reality.

Reversing the formula for happiness and success: ( absence of disease is not health)

• The norm way of thinking would be: work harder = more successful

                                                                 more successful = happier

• Problem is, it is scientifically broken and backwards. Every time our brain has success, we change the goalpost of what success looks like. For e.g, "good grades -> better grades" "good school -> better schools"
• Even if happiness is on the opposite side of success; your brain will never get there. We have socially pushed happiness over the cognitive horizon because we thought that we have to be successful first then happiness comes afterwards. But this is not how our brain works, in works in the opposite order.
• If we are able to reverse the formula, becoming more positive in the present and work more intelligently, we can start to see what our brains are capable of. As dopamine floods into our system when we are positive, it turns on all learning centers in our brain; allowing us to adapt to the world in a different way.

Happiness Advantage:

• Can only occur if we can raise somebody's level of positivity into the present.
• It is proven that our brain is 31% more productive at positive platforms than at neutral or stressed.

Ways to create lasting positive changes:

• 3 gratitudes
• Journaling
• Exercise
• Meditation
• Random acts of kindness

What is Lateral Thinking?

Edward de Bono - Lateral Thinking

Creating is important but where does it come from?

• Sometimes we think that it is a natural talent, that some people are born with it
• But creating is actually a skill which everyone can learn
• It is true however that some people might have better creativity than others

Lateral Thinking

• The brain forms patterns, routines, ways of doing and looking at things.
• When you move across the tracks, hindsight, it is perfectly logical, based on the understanding of the brain as a pattern making system which makes asymmetrical patterns.

Tools that can be taught :

1. Challenge - where we challenge the existing concept/idea
2. Concept extraction - where we find a concept and find new ways out of it
3. Provocation - we set a provocation and move forward from that to a new idea
4. Random entry - where we enter a different point

These are all logically based on the behaviour of asymmetrical patterns.

*It is not a matter of sitting around and waiting for new ideas to happen, we can take steps just like math.

*Lateral Thinking can be used and applied deliberately, the more you practice, the better you get. It is not a complex matter.

*Learning lateral thinking goes way beyond traditional brainstorming which is a weak process, not wrong as it is in the right direction, but just by suspending judgement, it is not enough. We should treat the idea of creativity, the ability to produce ideas, as a formal skill, which can be learned, used and practice deliberately. It is completely different from just sitting and hopping that someone, somewhere, has an idea which is not the case, you have to sit down and really generate those ideas.

Video Review: Fashion and Creativity

Summary of Isaac Mizrahi's: Fashion and Creativity

In this video, Isaac talked about a number of things and they are:

• As a fashion designer, Isaac finds clothes that looks slightly mistaken as interesting. He would go around following people because they are wearing something nice.
• He loves movies and is is often from movies that he gets his inspiration from. For example, if he had to design something from the 80's, he would watch movies and notice things like how the lights make the colours almost impossible to create and how women are portrayed in these movies.
• He also mention how he won't consider himself as someone who does things well but instead, as someone who just does a lot of things.
• "Style makes you fee great because it takes your mind off the fact that you're going to die", is a quote by Isaac Mizrahi.
• Another fact about Isaac is that he loves to cook and he would sometimes look at clothes the same way he would look at food.

Video Review: The first secret of design is, noticing

Summary of Tony Fadell's: The first secret of design is, noticing

Tony Fadell discussed how human beings get used to everyday things really fast. He also discussed how humans have very limited brain power which is why we turn everyday things into habits, so that we free new space to learn new things.

Habituation 

• Is a basic way of how we humans learn
• It is not always a bad thing. For example, driving for the first time is always very stressful as we need to fully concentrate but it gets easier with time because we get used to it.
• If we don't habituate things, we would notice every little detail, every single time and it will be exhausting.
• However, if habituation stops us from noticing the problems around us and is stopping us from fixing it, then it is bad.

As a product designer himself, he, and every other designer, has to try to see the world as it really is and NOT the way we think it is. This is because it is easy to solve a problem that everyone sees but harder to solve a problem that no one sees.

- To see things differently is not a natural talent, it is not what people are born with, it is something that has to be worked on.

Seeing the invisible problem and not just the obvious one that is important.

Tips; ( to fight habituation )

1.  Look broader
2.  Look closer
3.  Think younger

What is Analogical Thinking?

What is Analogical Thinking? and How is it beneficial?

      1.Allows us to experience the interconnectedness of ideas

      2.Great way to learn difficult concepts more effectively
      - we as learners, cannot just learn isolated facts the way they're presented to us and be expected to learn or use that BUT we have to construct our own learning by making association to other things, by relating things that is important to us, bridging and restructuring in our heads.
 
      3. A skill- get better with practice

      4. Enhances creative output
     - we use analogies, relate a subject matter to other things that we are familiar with because it motivates us as it is something that we are interested about.

Video Review: Where good ideas come from

Summary of Steven Johnson's: Where good ideas come from

Steven Johnson was on a quest, he wanted to investigate what kinds of environment leads to innovation/creativity. So he went on at looked at coffee houses, biological environments and to labs. He went and observe these places and this was what he found out.

Coffee Houses

• He actually started off the talk by showing a picture of a coffee house because he wanted to discuss about how coffee houses played a big role in enlightenment not only because of what people drink BUT because of the architectural of the space.
• It is a place where people, regardless of who or what they are, get together and converse.

The Liquid Network

• A place where people gather
• A lot of different eyes,ideas.backgrounds jostling with one another.

He also talked about how metaphors or language,rich vocabularies to describe moments of inspiration, steers us away from certain concepts of idea creation. How these vocabularies gives us the basic assumption that an idea is a single thing; something that happens in a wonderful illuminating moment. These are some of the examples of vocabularies:

• Flash
• Stroke
• Epiphany
• Eureka
• Lightbulb

 Idea is a Network

An idea is not something that happens only in a single moment but in truth, we actually get ideas from other people and we stitch them together to create something new.

The Slow Hunch

Ideas have very long incubation period, ideas linger around sometimes for decades in the back of our minds.

To conclude, he ended off the talk with a reminder that we should all spend as much time or in fact, more time connecting ideas than just protecting them.