Creativity Boost Bookshelf
At last week’s ATD 2017 conference, I had the pleasure of presenting a concurrent session on nurturing creativity. Over the last few months, I’ve been working to identify a short list of things I (we) can do to increase creative capacity – interesting stuff, and quite fun to research, I must say. I investigated stories of highly applauded creators and …
The people part
At last week’s Learning Ecosystems conference in Orlando, we had the pleasure of hearing animation legend Glen Keane talk about how to embrace technological change to enhance creativity. It was a fascinating talk culminating with a demonstration of virtual reality animation that was gorgeous and mind-blowing (see this video at 2:39 for a taste of what we saw). It got …
When Google lets you down
This post was originally published in the InSync Training blog (September 13, 2016). Consider this scenario. You’ve been hearing some buzz among colleagues in the L&D field about what is referred to as a “learning ecosystem.” While you might guess what that’s about, you decide you want to learn a bit more. So you Google it, of course. In the …
Revisiting Creativity, Inc.
A few years ago, I posted a reflection on Ed Catmull’s book, Creativity, Inc. (with Amy Wallace). I’ve recently been working on a project to design workshops on creativity, so I decided to revisit the book and the post. My copy of the book is full of highlighted sections and scribbled margin notes, and it has been interesting to review …
Lessons from the real Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton is a man after my own heart. His life story not only makes for a great musical, it is also an object lesson in being a successful autodidact. I can totally relate to his approach to making sense of the world – which was through extensive reading and long-form writing. Despite his personal flaws and the ways I …
Confessions and lessons from a Hamilton obsession
I confess to a minor (?) and highly improbable obsession with the blockbuster musical Hamilton. I don’t typically enjoy freestyle/rap music, so it’s not an obvious choice for me. (My lame attempt at a line of freestyle in the title of this post is the one and only of my lifetime.) But given that Hamilton’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, has won …
Next Generation Learning Environments
This past week the subject in my emerging technologies course was Next Generation Digital Learning Environments. That term is likely to be more familiar to you if you work in a higher education environment than in a corporate one. In corporate L&D, you are probably discussing similar ideas and calling the concept learning and performance ecosystems. Both conversations are focused …
Lessons from an afternoon at the ballet
A friend and I have season tickets for the Pennsylvania Ballet, an extravagance that we dearly enjoy. We’ve also been attending the “Prelude” program, where a member of the company gives a brief talk and Q&A just prior to the performance. This past Sunday, we were thrilled that our speaker was Matthew Neenan, the Pennsylvania Ballet’s choreographer-in-residence, whose new piece, …
False Science
One of John Oliver’s comedic reports is making the rounds in my Twitter feed this week. In the Last Week Tonight video, Scientific Studies*, Oliver calls out the absurdity of headlines driven by narrow research results – and worse – by complete misinterpretations (or misreporting) of research results. It’s both funny and scary at the same time, even more so …
Sharing our expertise
There has been a lot of talk lately about how academics can use social media to share their emerging research and make more direct recommendations to the practitioners who might benefit from knowing their results.* Too much important research is buried in academic journals that practitioners cannot access (and written in language that isn’t relatable), so it’s quite useful for …