arinavidman

[arinavidman]

Movie poster "Challengers"

Unfortunately, I was unable to identify the artist or design studio behind this poster. However, I believe it may have been created by Gravillis Inc., the company that produced the main poster for the movie.

This work is interesting because it conveys the idea that the movie is not just about tennis, but also involves a love triangle. Even though the characters are in a complicated situation, they still fight like real opponents in a game.

The dominant color of the poster is green, which is reminiscent of the color of the tennis court and the balls. All the information on the poster is aligned towards the center, creating a symmetrical design that is pleasing to the eye.

[arinavidman]

Contrast (worksheet #2)

The series of pictures shows the way of using contrast in design. Two main colors of work are contrasting - red and white.

The first picture demonstrates how the additional object may highlight another and differentiate it from the whole line.

[arinavidman]

Street poster “Sound off”, Dublin

I found this poster accidentally while walking on the street and it immediately attracted my attention. It conveys the power of the connection between a parent and child. The man is fully immersed in hugs and nothing can distract him from this only value in his life. The intensity of feelings drowns out the sounds of the surroundings, even in the busy city center.

Design elements that are used in this poster: colour (only 2 - pink and white), contrast (the dark element of "sound" on the light image), image that is filtered.

[arinavidman]

4 "visual pieces" of triangles (worksheet #1)

In this work different Photoshop tools were used to get used to creating basic elements and thinking creatively about design.

All 4 pictures have a common color palette to link them into one work.

The first triangle is made from another shape that doe not even have angles.

On the second one a filter was used that blurred the top and bottom of the shape, leaving the central part clear.

The third picture depicts an abstract mosaic of lines that creates triangles as a whole.

The last one uses a brush (chalk) and the two main colors in the series.

[arinavidman]

Review on podcast #2, Bridging the Gaps

“Learning How to Learn”: Techniques to Help You Learn with Dr Barbra Oakley

Key questions of discussion

The way how learning occurs in the brain. There is interaction of neurons in the base of learning, when you learn something new, you create new connections between neurons. When you practice, these connections become stronger.

There are 2 fundamental parts of memory – working memory (what are you conscious about at the moment), long-term memory (when you remember something, you are connecting the links that you have previously built). Working memory is really small, it can’t hold a lot.

The whole challenge of learning is to transfer your knowledge from working memory to long-term memory.

Tips for learning:

practice the material;

use metaphors for learning (use something you know as a bridge to learn something new, even if it doesn’t look close to each other as metaphors are sets of connections in brain that have already been created);

use effectively 2 modes of thinking (the first mode is when a person is focused on something, the second is a “default mode network”, so connections happen when person is not focused - that is time when ideas come to you. You can’t be in 2 modes one time), when people are stuck on something and can’t find decision the best idea is to take a step away and take a break for it;

use pomodoro technique, specify time for learning and then take a break, so the brain can work unconsciously;

try to understand the basis, simple and key idea;

discuss with others what you have learnt (by talking to others we are helping to create neural chunks and we speak about what is really important there), speaking with others is a greatest enhancement for learning;

do challenging stuff, push yourself to do hard things;

interleave, try not to do things in the same way while learning;

It is also possible to learn by chunks (the word has different meanings), splitting information in sets. There would be sets of neural links that form one complex set.

The brain can be changed by what we learn. Students learn differently, those who do it slower and longer, probably learn something deeply and might be more persistent and flexible. Flexibility that comes from not finding things easy to learn is valuable for real creativity and learning.

Reasons of popularity of online course Learning How To Learn: foundations of neuroscience and a lot of metaphors that help people to understand things properly.

Future of online courses. Online learning will definitely grow and increase in importance as you can do it wherever you are and it is cheaper, but it can never replace the on-campus education. Only self-motivated learner can go through online-program.

There is addictive nature of online and social media which are designed to attract one’s attention, but people should be able to distract themselves from the impact of innovation. Nothing new is “ground-shaking”, social innovations may have minor effect, but we can change our brain and decide what is important.

Who is the researcher?

Dr Barbara Oakley:

a professor of Engineering at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan (Probability and statistics, Neuroscience, Bioengineering, Electrical circuits, Thermodynamics and electromagnetics);

educator, writer, engineer;

studied in the University of Washington, B.A. in Slavic Languages and Literature, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering;

served in the US Army;

worked as a Russian translator in the Bering Sea;

worked as the radio operator at the South Pole Station in Antarctic;

studied in the Oakland University, M.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering;

an inaugural “Innovation Instructor” at Coursera, where she co-taught one of the world’s most popular massive open online course “Learning How to Learn”.

She has won numerous teaching awards, including Oakland University's top award for tenured faculty. She is a winner of the McGraw Prize--the colloquial "Nobel Prize for Education".

Her work focuses on the complex relationship between neuroscience and social behavior. Some of her works were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

She has written many books including “Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens”, “Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential”. Her book A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra), (Penguin, 2014) is a New York Times best-selling science book.

Links used:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbaraoakley/

https://www.oakland.edu/secs/directory/oakley/

https://barbaraoakley.com/about-me/

https://www.coursera.org/instructor/barboakley

What do I think about this topic?

My interest in the topic of learning began when I was pursuing my B.A. in Marketing. I had to do my final graduation qualification work which took a significant amount of time not only writing, but also reflecting and analyzing my past four years. The key insight I gained was that the process of getting higher education is primarily about learning how to learn, rather than acquiring knowledge. University lecturers can provide students with various materials in any format how we approach and process this information ultimately depends on our choice and individual learning style.

When I was doing assignments or projects, I often tried to speed up the process by using “hacks” of learning. For instance, I would remove any distractions, repeat everything I read out loud and schedule specific times for studying and relaxing. After several exam periods I realized that these hacks were very helpful and I began to experiment with different ways of learning each time I prepared for an exam or worked on a project. Over the course of my four years as a bachelor's student, I “invented” my own formula of studying that is still relevant for me as a student. Now when I see any information about learning, I read it and compare with my own experience.

Regarding the content of podcast, I was not surprised by Dr Oakley words as the information was not new for me. However, I really enjoyed listening to her as all mentioned ideas appeared in my mind unconsciously during studying, and now she helped me clarify and better understand how my brain works during the learning process.

I support all the tips for learning that she mentions, such as the Pomodoro technique, practicing what you’ve learned, repeating information to your friends and etc. I would also like to comment on the question about the future of online learning. I totally agree with the fact that on-campus education will never be replaced by online courses. From my perspective, learning on-campus may even enhance the chances of becoming a specialist in one’s field of studying. The key is that people need to socialize and interact face-to-face, as this is what helps them to grow mentally and become more intelligent.

The full discussion can be found on this link:

[arinavidman]

Review on podcast #1, Bridging the Gaps

Asking Better Questions for Creative Problem Solving, Innovation and Effective Leadership with Hal Gregersen

Key questions of discussion

Background of Hal Gregersen. During studying for 30 years in leadership he found that leadership is about acquisitiveness, curiosity and the core questioning.

Evolution of leadership landscape and common threats that are still there. Example of Mary Parker Follett, she was creating Dynamic interchange between 2 people, where they could engage in a constructive conflict and formulate questions and insights to make they way through one of the most significant transformation – industrial revolution. All her actions are the same with things that people do now.

Leaders create a psychological-safe space where inquiry leads to insights. Insight leads to positive.

The concept of catalytic questions. A catalytic question is the answer in the end. Example of Marc Benioff, he was creating conditions that cause to ask different questions and finally came to catalytic question which was absolutely insane for those years (What if we sell enterprise software like amazon sell books on the Internet?). Challenge has the energy to do something with the question. Challenge occurs when you have to respond to the catalytic question.

Example of Jeffrey Wilke (the ex-CEO of Amazon), “If you never ask questions, and you never experience something new, your mental model becomes still”. The starting point is to have accurate grasp of what out mental model work. People should have the courage to be wrong and ignorant, to have to ask more question – than they create the more “complete” model.

Artificial world enables humans to ask good questions. People use and have all sorts of data from AI-machines about what might be going on, but they need to ask bigger questions like what is their intent, what is the bigger deal.

Good questions are recursive. – idea of Edwin Catmull, co-founder of Pixar. Recursive questions are worthy of repeating over and over in order to build conversations that move things forward. Example of such question of a huge company “Why are we doing this?” – it helps to create new stuff that would be perfect and modify the existing products.

How can we learn to ask better questions?

Do a question biography, starting a good question is knowing what’s my history, what are my relationships with question. If we have a history that supports questioning, that influences the ability to be a good questioner;

Question audits;

Create conditions where questions can grow. Being challenged and uncomfortable, and being reflectively quite or quite reflective (taking time to think);

Doing a question burst. When a team is stuck, they can start asking questions for 15 minutes – only questions. It leads to reframing the problem and many new ideas.

9. We change organizations with changing the leader. Innovative leaders are exceptional in asking catalytic questions. The starting point is the internal challenge of the CEO or the leader of the company. Those people should find challenges in themselves.  

10. A book “The innovators’ DNA: Mastering the five skills of disruptive innovators”, 5 skills of innovators: observing, questioning, experimenting, networking and associating. All of them are matter, but the most essential are questioning and associating.  

11. Sustainable creativity is impossible without long-term vision approach. Those who are really good in being sustainable creative, have a list of ten or 25-year vision for the future of the company.

12. People are confronting a lot of challenges in hybrid environment, but they can engage in the hybrid world. Humans can figure out working in hybrid world because of their capability.

13. Skills that should be acquired to be ready to meet future challenges can be divided into 2 key sets:

Technical (understanding AI, data analytics);

Questioning, creativity and problem solving (human skills).

14. Project-centered learning is the core of creating next generation that would be creative and able to ask more better questions.

15. Leadership is never about me, it is about other people. The biggest first challenge for leaders is learning how to get things done through somebody else. The second challenge is when you get something done by somebody else be more excited about their success rather than yours. Things that we learn and read about leadership become intuitive.

Who is the researcher?

Hal Gregersen:

a senior lecturer in leadership and innovation at MIT Sloan School of Management;

a former executive director of the MIT Leadership Center and a cofounder of the Innovator’s DNA consulting group;

worked as a teacher at INSEAD, London Business School, and Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business;

a prolific author and a motivational speaker, who has helped leaders around the world to create cultures of fearless inquiry and to transform their organizations into innovative powerhouses;

one of the authors of “The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators” a book cited by managers, creative problem-solvers and leaders around the world as a highly recommended read for anyone interested in innovation;

Hal Gregersen is ranked as one of the world’s 20 most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50, and winner of the 2017 Distinguished Achievement Award for leadership Ranked as one of the world’s 20 most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50, and winner of the 2017 Distinguished Achievement Award for leadership.

He created a repeatable three-step methodology, the Question Burst, by which companies can begin to build better problem solvers and enhance creative impact at all levels, from senior executives to entry-level employees.

Links used:

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/directory/hal-gregersen

https://halgregersen.com/mit-leadership-center/

https://www.bridgingthegaps.ie/2022/02/asking-better-questions-for-creative-problem-solving-innovation-and-effective-leadership-with-hal-gregersen/

What do I think about this topic?

The period of life when you are a student can completely transform your world as this is a time for experiencing new things and taking advantage of opportunities offered by your age and education. For more than 4 years, the topic of leadership has haunted me, as I studied marketing and management at university, learning how to lead teams and manage companies. Despite this, I was the Head of Student Councill for 2 years and organized many events where I worked as a team manager. My experience as a leader was gained through mistakes, communication, observation, questioning and courage. I believe that in this world no one truly likes leaders until they realize how much their lives have been changed by them. That's why this topic is relevant to me as an active leader in the past and as a potential manager or even CEO in the future. 

Aspects covered in this podcast were not only profound and interesting, but also useful, practical and future-oriented. I appreciated the fact that the main topic of questioning was fully revealed not only by providing information on asked questions but also giving some real examples of the best leaders throughout the history.

Ideas that resonated with me were the following: good questions are recursive and starting a good question is knowing what’s my history, what are my relationships with that question. The former is a real tool that can help even individuals (not just companies) broaden their horizons and set new goals for their lives. The latter is more about our mindset and how we can change it through analysis of the past. Looking back on our own history can help us form better questions for the future.

To sum everything up, I found it beneficial that all the information provided is applicable not only to company leaders but also to individuals with leadership skills. However, in my opinion, some of the points could have been explained in a simpler way.

The full discussion can be found on this link:

[arinavidman]

Announcement of the LADO National Folk Dance Ensemble of Croatia Annual Concert with the theme of Croatian intangible cultural heritage.

I chose these posters because of the way the space of the poster is used, it's balanced, colorful and reflects the main message (information).

Posters combine several design elements that are balanced. We can see typography - grotesque and handwritten fonts, collage - black&white pieces of photos, and ethnically colorful patchwork here.

The work reflects all the necessary associations that should arise while looking at it - ethnicity and main information about concerts' dates and places.

I like this piece of design for the way the space of the poster is used. Although it could be abundant because of the use of such colorful ethnic elements, it doesn't look so due to balance.

Link: https://bruketa-zinic.com/2013/11/04/lado-mosaic/