Archive for January 21st, 2012

News: U.S. Drafts Abdul-Jabbar as a Cultural Ambassador

Saturday, January 21st, 2012

Interesting news story recently. Here is an excerpt from the NY Times article on it…

“Abdul-Jabbar was named a United States cultural ambassador Wednesday, with a mission of promoting education, racial tolerance and cultural understanding among young people around the world.”

This appears to me to be another interesting avenue in which youth around the world can get engaged in an age-appropriate context. Similar in motive to the YCISL, but a different approach. I hope it doesn’t get over-commercialized or politicized.

Reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/sports/basketball/nba-basketball-roundup.html

Life Lessons from Going Through a Car Purchase Decision-making Experience

Saturday, January 21st, 2012

I am thinking about a car purchase again – it’s one of those life phases that one goes in and out at fairly regular intervals. There’s a life lesson in there – about making decisions, compromising, prioritizing, and moving ahead. For cars, I rate Safety as #1. Comfort and reliability are the next most important criteria for me. There’s utility, convenience and road visibility as well that I would call priorities. Then, cost-to-own, fuel efficiency, looks and power are towards the tail end – something has to be at the bottom of the list!

It’s tough enough to prioritize these factors, but there are complications/tough challenges still:

(1) How do you match these priorities with the car? Just about every auto manufacturer does not make Safety their #1 priority [they have a list too]. It’s probably somewhere around #5 or so. How do you make a decision when priorities are not in-synch?

(2) If the purchase involves two decision-makers, how do you proceed with a purchase where the priority list does not EXACTLY match?

For the YCISL, we could focus on computers or digital cameras – or anything the participants would care to suggest. There are decision-making lessons in this exercise, but there are various other skills and attitudes to be assessed.

Basic Thinking Question: What are _____ going to look like in x years?

Saturday, January 21st, 2012

One of the basic questions one could pose to stimulate brainstorming and critical thinking is…

“What is [name your product/thing] join to look like in x years?” The answer could be in terms of form or function or both.

This question is related to another that I would like workshop participants to ask themselves…

“Where do you see yourself in x years?”

For the purpose of sharing insight in the workshop setting, the “product/thing” question would likely be more fun and participants may be more open to sharing thoughts.

So, for example, one could open conversation by asking “What are the streets in your city going to look like in 10 years?” I thought of this question because of the several instances that I am familiar where dirt roads have become busy thoroughfares. For those who experience “dirt roads” presently, I am wondering whether they can imagine traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, street lights, good drainage, no pot holes, cat eye reflectors, handicap accessible curb ramps (including those bumpy pads) pedestrian walk/don’t walk lights, walk chirping sounds, and so on (there are so many amazing things about cutting edge streets these days). Even the transformation to LED traffic lights has been quite amazing. Even if the participant lives in an area where the streets already have these features, what else could be done?

For the YCISL workshop, the question I would ask would have the students think about it for 24 hours, perhaps make it part of the photo blog exercise and look around the Stanford campus or elsewhere.

Perhaps, it could something simple like “staircases” (and they could look around various buildings on campus) or “windows.” On the personal product side, we could do digital cameras or personal computers.