End of Spring 2010 Course

This is the final post for the Spring 2010 HUM 246: Creating Thinking class.

Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind remained the core text for the course, and additional exercises from the book were added to the "Pink Portfolio" submitted at the semester's end; the lack of a Pink Portfolio is the single greatest contributor to the low grades seen in the statistics below.  This semester saw the inclusion of additional reading materials over last fall's pilot course, including Tim Brown's Design Thinking article from the Harvard Business Review, Dan Pink's The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need, and Jeff Jarvis' What Would Google Do.  Additional activities including a student-driven Improv Everywhere performance at WalMart, collaborative presentations, student-designed study guides, and the return of the Egg Protection Device added further variety to the class.  Discussions this semester, as in the pilot course, were at times spirited and engaging.  Moving forward, in the third iteration of this class I aim to add more hands-on activities, accelerate the readings, and return to the self-selected 20% projects from the inaugural course syllabus.  Projects from the semester remain linked to in the Online Course Materials at left.

If you have any questions about this course, you can reach me at bencapozzi at mac dot com.

~mrc

Statistics for the course:

24 students first week

21 students final week

8 As

1 B

3 Cs

6 Ds

2 Fs

and 1 Incomplete

Ouch, Again, Palm...

Via the Techcrunch blog:

Straight from the BS department: a recent surveyof 1500 women has found that men who own an iPhone are more attractive than those who do not. Women were particularly repulsed by men who own a Palm Pre, the study also found.

Ok, I made that second part up, but then again the first part was completely made up, too.

Read the whole article here if interested, but the best part was the dig at Palm above.

~mrc

The Future of Books?

What if more of your books worked like this?  Not just fiction, but textbooks?  SOMEone has to be paid to develop this sort of content; why not you?


~mrc

The Simple MBA Manifesto: Do We Really Need MBAs?

For those of you considering an MBA, first consider this; it's rough around the edges, and there's a sales pitch (one slide) towards the end, but I am sympathetic to much of the content.

~mrc

The Simple MBA Manifesto: Do We Really Need MBAs?

View more presentations from Pramit Singh.

Homework the Week of 4/13 - 4/15

Hola, estudiantes!

We continue this week to wrap up our discussion of the first 90 pages of WWGD.  For Thursday, please also read this article on Palm from Engadget.  You don't have to be a tech-junkie or a smartphone user to look at the recommendations and evaluate how many of them represent failures in creative thinking, or which can be fixed through creative thinking.  Please come to class ready to discuss which problems call for which solutions, and also if there's anything in WWGD so far that might also suggest a way forward.

~mrc

Game Changer & Class Change-Up

Students,

If you look in the Course Documents list to the left, you'll notice a small change.  I've decided to skip the Creativity Map SYMPHONY Project and replace it with the classic Egg Drop Challenge!  We'll discuss the teams and materials distribution in our next class, but just make a note: The Creativity Map is off.

And speaking of things that are off: I will be at VPI all day Tuesday and will not be able to make it back to South Boston in time for class.  I've tried to arrange for a substitute to discuss the Google book with you, but I'd honestly prefer to be there to introduce the book.  Therefore, Tuesday the 6th will be an open lab period.  Attendance is optional, so if you prefer to work from home or otherwise off-campus, that's fine with me.  I recommend you use the time wisely to work on the Course Documents list, and be ready to discuss the first 90 pages of What Would Google Do on Thursday!

~mrc

Homework the Week of 4/6 & 4/8

Estudiantes,

Since we won't be in the classroom this Thursday to touch base, I wanted to post with plenty of time your reading for the following week.  We dig into Jeff Jarvis' What Would Google Do in April and you'll need to have read the first 39 pages (up to New Publicness) by Tuesday, 4/6 and the next 50 (up to New Ethic, pg 90) by Thursday, 4/8.  Come to class prepared to discuss because this stuff is GOOD.

You should also immediately start working on the items for your Pink Portfolio (listed at left).  Some will take more time than others and require more than just writing an essay or responding to questions (for instance, recording an interview), and some will require some cooperation with teammates (the Creativity Map, for instance) so don't let the time get away from you!

~mrc