Fairy Tale endings

For the class activity- fairy tale endings with a twist we successfully reinvented Cinderella's fairy tale. I suggested the following two stories for the play:

1. The shoes fits Cinderella, they kiss and turn into frogs. (reverse juxtaposition)
2. The shoe fits two damsels, and it turns out Cinderella had a twin sister. The evil step mother has separated them when they were kids. They thank the prince to help them reunite and they start their own business where they custom make glass slippers! The business makes them very rich.

We decided to go with the version 2 since it tried to creatively introduce a new function of the glass slippers- reunite sisters! We had some interesting props and also came up with some last minute on stage improvisations. It was a fun exercise, we got to leave class early and I was able to witness the fairy tale sunset as I made my way back home.

There sure is a pot of gold hidden somewhere in the sky above. Sometimes the winter sunset gives it away..and against the silhouette of the leafless trees you can catch all the radiance of the shinning doubloons!

Vision to Reality

The project inception can be traced to Eileen's idea to start a summer internship program for University student. It was easy for us to collectively envision the solution that she wanted to create for students to search for a meaningful internship since we had personally encountered similar limitations.

We started with a free flow brainstorming session, where we tried to identify all the components of the problem in hand. We enlisted all the causes and then tried to address each of the components. the following is a snapshot of our brainstorming exercise.

We crystallized our ideas from brainstorming to the following specific objectives.These three objectives us to better divide work and collaborate together to put the final project report and presentation together.

Specific objective(s)

●     Background Research to better understand the landscape:

·        Existing programs and resources at the University of Illinois and other campuses that are related to our project

·        Identify what type of positions students would be interested in

·        Begin communication with potential partner organizations (including what type of interns they would want, logistical requirements, etc.)

●     Create a web-based resource for students that would include:

·        A link to specific internship opportunities (posted on Simplicity)

·        Guided instructions on how to approach an organization and secure an internship

·        Information about the following:

§ Campus career services

§ Skill development resources

§ Strength Finder or similar program

·        Example internships students might hold over the summer

·        Timeline outlining how and when to get a summer internship

●     Promotional Plan

·        We will explore the following options to promote the Summer Internship Initiative across campus- information sessions, flyers, speaking at lectures, booth on quad, etc.  We will also use existing networking events and career fairs to promote this project. 

Identifying these key objectives helped us to better work on our Vision to Reality final project report and presentation.

The Best of You Teach Us

Calligraphy Lesson.

I nominated Haggit's You Teach Us session on creativity as the best of the class. This gave me a chance to participate in the activity twice.
Literally calligraphy translates to beautiful handwriting. It is a skill that one learns through practice and patience. Calligraphy encompasses technique, discipline, focus and a touch of creativity as well.
In some ways holding the felt-tip pen in my hand and drawing the alphabets on the practice sheet was like revisiting the writing lessons from early childhood. I couldn't believe how ugly my letters turned out in the first attempt even after all these years of writing!
Or perhaps it was all these years of experience that was coming in the way. Haggit taught us how we need to  hold the pen at a certain angle, control our movement to give the desired thickness and curve to the characters. I realized something more about calligraphy- it requires the practitioner to be versatile to quickly learn and unlearn new styles. She also showed us how the practitioner could create a serif of his own by developing a new style. I liked the balance of  fluidity and discipline that she highlighted in the exercise. She choose to call it the yin and the yang.

 It was interesting how she improvised her presentation the second time for the bigger group. She showed a small video clip from Steve Job's commencement speech at Stanford where he talks about how the Calligraphy lessons he took in college came to good use later in the user interface design- (fonts, typeface)  for Mac.  I had read about it before as well but it looked like a bigger revelation today.

Its interesting how all our motivations, actions, successes and failures can be interpreted in terms of one lesson in our life which we have truly internalized. Sitting in the class I felt I better understood his
relentless pursuit of perfection. He wowed us with his showmanship in each of  Apple's product launch presentation but behind the scenes he would practice and rehearse to get the act just right. (Just as perfecting a calligraphic serif).
Some life events or learning's become the dynamo that sustain and influence our life's choices and decisions in a much bigger way. Therefore it is a good idea to explore and learn about things that genuinely interest us.
We might not have the foresight to see how we might end up using these skills some day but perhaps it is the best investment that we can make.

City Post Card- Sao Paulo,Brazil

From the city sunbathing, relaxing and basking in all of nature's glory to the world's third largest city boasting of high rises, non-stop traffic, the biggest names and the riches. We were in Sao Paulo and already nostalgic about the beaches in Rio!

I would say its unfair to compare the two cities because they represent two different social, cultural and business dimensions. In all developing countries if you look closely at the cities you can sense their aspiration to grow into the 'Chicago's' and 'Beijing's of the world! And many a times in their pursuit to grow big, they become immensely chaotic. Sao Paulo was big but it looked sublime and beautiful as the roots still looked intact. The occasional regal Portuguese building reminded of the history, the ancient clock towers, the graffiti on the walls conspicuous and uninhibited, the local shops and shopping complex. It wasn't a sold out city copying the west, it held its own.

I would say unless you take a public transport and go around the city by your own, you haven't really experienced the city. By this parameter I'll marginally make the cut, as I took the subway once. Raising the bar higher, I would say unless you get lost and have to ask around to find your way back you haven't really seen the city. Unfortunately I cannot get past this caveat, and so I can make an honest admission that I don't feel I experienced the city to its fullest.

We went around a little in the business circles in Sao Paulo, did the customary visit to the stock exchange(MBA students!), went for a tree planting exercise at IPE (forest-wildlife research center). Had social events every single night of our stay there, which is again a good way to get to know people in an informal setting. So we visited the most fancy bar, and sat there dry mouthed after the first few wows! The last night bar-crawl was crazy fun. Sitting in my hometown nestled in the hills, I would have never imagined myself to walk in that crowd but then there I was. Somehow the idea of enjoying life is slightly restricted in our Indian society when compared to western society. I am sure this statement is bound to raise eyebrows, but you have to experience the intoxication of 'the freedom to do things as you want'- to sing, to dance, to talk, to laugh without caring of any judgement. Its 'another side of happiness'. Temporal happiness is not immoral- there has to be a good vibe to it! 'Good vibe' is essential, trees need that even more than the technical skill of planting- we learnt this lesson while planting trees in the reserve. Nature wired us in such a way that we can unmistakably perceive the good old vibe!

Time for a little detour and from Sao Paulo, we visited the city of Belo Horizonte for our client presentation. It was wonderful to have a dialogue instead of a formal presentation. We were sitting and talking, I absolutely loved the frank openness and the hospitality. The city again had its own flavor, it could transfigure to host the business circles, it had hills and waters to lure the free spirited adventure lovers, it had beautiful old style buildings for history lovers and it was poised to host the biggest sporting extravaganza come 2014!

There was the soccer museum in Sao Paulo, the Havaianas shopping, the Arabica bean coffee, a lot of things that I remember and love about the city. But then its time to move again and as I wheeled along my stroller for baggage check in, a funny thought came to my mind. I thought of the one thing that has been a constant in my life, traveled continents with me and has been with me so far..yes its my black stroller!
Cheers to all the journey's so far and to the journey's ahead :)

City Post Card- Rio,Brazil

A country is like a big canvass with different colors sometimes splashed pompously on the foreground or playing gently in the background. Its an intricate gossamer of people, traditions, food, language, religion, culture. A traveler catches fleetingly the different hues to paint a picture of his own. Or rather in the digital world, aim his camera to shoot the moment and with a satisfied grin admire his 'good shot'- a picture of his own. Each picture is an individual version of images captured, experiences and anecdotes, traditions and customs observed. We humans are masters of generalizations and we try to distill the observations, pick out the similarities and come up with a ‘general perception’, a ‘general character’! Whether these general perceptions reflect the true ‘identity’ in someway is debatable. I bring with me different impressions of Brazil after spending a week there, and here I have my own story of Brazil- the one i saw, i heard, i experienced! Not a general impression of the cities I visited but a personal account of them :)

The strongest impression will have to be Brazil's striking resemblance with India. As we drove in from Rio De Janeiro airport to our Hotel, the sights, the roads, the houses, the small shops, the two wheelers, the 4 wheelers shared a kinship with sights in Indian cities. One of my fellow Indian friends could see striking similarities with Vizag. I haven't been to Vizag, but then I myself was misty eyed when we hovered over the hills of Rio before landing, they reminded me of the hills of my hometown. The city had its own way to establish a familiarity, yet again it had its own distinct flavor. The hotel was just 5 minutes walk from Ipanema beach and as I stepped down from the bus, I flinched at the strong smell of the ocean and fishes. Surprisingly it was just these first five minutes, for the remaining three days that we were in the city, I wasn't conscious of it at all. I had succumbed to the city, the sights, the smell. I wasn't an alien there for long. Food was next on the agenda and I knew this was going to be tough, given my vegetarianism. I had to make my peace with salad and margarita cheese pizza for the rest of the stay. Fortunately there were beans without meat at some places. My non-veggie friends were in for a treat for a week, relishing all the delicacies. I am pretty sure some of my friends back in India would have happily traded places with me for nothing else but to experience the food!

I want to avoid using the word, 'strong' as I have already used it twice in the above paragraph but I am afraid anything else would just sound weak, when I am talking about the 'joie de vivre' of Brazilian people. Right from the hospitality of the person serving your table to the person surf boarding on the rough waters, there is an energy that is hard to miss. You can establish an instant comradeship because you can sense a frank openness and a certain warmth. I feel such a comradeship comes only when there is an underlying feeling of trust and equality. I am afraid i'm contradicting my own rant against 'generalizations' but every country has a perceptible culture of its own. In US i have sensed a culture of professionalism and personal integrity, in Brazil it was a comfortable informality in the society and an energetic vibrancy in people. The people looked so comfortable on the beaches playing, relaxing, swimming, surfboarding. One glance around and you could understand 'comfortable informality' & 'energetic vibrancy', the rough Atlantic waters provide the perfect backdrop to put things into perspective. 

We did the touristy things of visiting the 'Christ the redeemer' and the 'Sugar Loaf mountain'. It was good to feel the green mountains around. They work as charm for me, and feeling them around makes me strong and connected. We visited the Favela's ( slums in Brazil). A city always lives with its contrasts and the Favela's represent the alternative reality of Brazil. Meandering through the narrow lanes of the Favela an Indian and a Pakistani can find a common topic to talk . But then a 'favela' is just an incidental similarity when there is so much else that is common culturally. 

One of the social activity was to visit a very famous bar in Rio, it was a magical world all together. A small place from outside which was huge inside, with three floors filled with people, music, food, drinks,dancing, random bric-a-brak. There was a vibe around which was distinctly 'Rio' relaxed and comfortable soaking in life with all the music and dancing around, & some drunk dancing too! 

The fun things now would take a back seat for a while as we go about the business circles, with presentations and lectures. The business atmosphere in Rio also had the same relaxed informality and we in our business suits stood apart as jarring outsiders. This was a financial services company that we visited and they had their own company songs for morale boosting. The offices were small with people sitting together in close proximity, perhaps that's how things work there people really enjoy working in close company :) (reminded me of certain awkward sitting arrangements back in Deloitte). They had there own team songs as well!!! (again recalling- pyar baat te chalo). This incidentally means that I have experienced certain amount of Brazil in the people around me even before coming to this country :)

I will have to talk about Sao Paulo in the next blog. Its a different city with a different feel to it. For now its-

I love Rio!

You teach us-Organizing Creativity

I branched off from the idea of ‘Where is your pencil’ chapter in Twyla Tharp’s where she talks about always having a pencil handy to record your thoughts ideas inspiration. This repository is the place which you can later dig into to create new compositions.

Having the bulk of ideas to play around is the first thing but there has to be a method to madness.

Thus the learning objective of the YTU was: Creativity needs as unlikely ally-‘Organization’.

I introduced the group to Evernote, a software application that one can use to organize their thoughts, ideas from different touch points. This application helps you create a note. A "note" can be

—  Typing

—  Handwriting

—  Spoken word

—  Snap a picture

—  Drawings

—  Clip a portion of a web page

—  Clip an entire web page

Thus it provides the flexibility to catalog and organize your ideas irrespective of the medium in one centralized location. I gave a demo of few applications, and then talked about how I intend to use the tool (very new to its use)

—  To collect all the pieces of information

—  Create a system of tags-'book', 'note', 'idea'

—  Allow for easy search- folders, tags, search

—  Create a kind of wiki of everything I learn and crosslink ideas

 The main theme of the presentation was: 'Creativity needs an unlikely ally-Organization to deal with different ideas and realize projects'.

You teach us-People & Cultures

 I was sitting in a bar and the Korean song, Gangnam style started playing. People immediately started dancing and copying the dance move of South Korean pop artist PSY. It made me think of how a video going viral brings an entire nation into greater focus. There is so much more about the world that we can understand if we try to understand people from different cultures. Be more involved than just ‘Gangnam’ style.

When I filled out my application for the MBA program, I wrote how an international class would be a cultural learning for me.  I am not entirely sure how much effort I have invested to really learn about the different countries, cultures and people I take my classes with.

So I thought of doing my presentation on Brazil, a country I visited in spring and believe to have experienced it in a slightly deeper way. I looked up some interesting facts about Brazil and I was glad to know that I could speak about them with some authority or understand some of the underlying reasons. I have attached the slide deck for quick reference.

At the end of the presentation, I tried to get the group to talk about their cultural experiences. We tried to look at the similarities and the differences of the cultures that we come from.  I feel this dialogue is important for us not just to be aware of global events but even to understand the world and the people around us in a better way. Every culture has something new and enriching to offer and we need to be curious to learn and creative in applying it.

Learning Objectives: 

1. How can we make an attempt to learn about people and cultures?

2. Why is it important to learn about different cultures?

3. How does cultural learning enhance our creativity?

Being receptive, observant and appreciative people and cultures can enrich our lives in a unique ways. Be open and accepting!