After spending an entire week disconnected from Lima--any sort of technology and more specifically my computer--I have to admit it was a challenge to come back to reality:
My final POL presentation is in 3 days.
Yes, I have THREE DAYS to pull it together, to finish generating a purposeful keynote, to make sure my ideas build on each other and personally most importantly for me: to be confident of my personal and take advantage of the audience effect once I'm in the little theatre facing the audience.
Nevertheless, as much as we, as an academy, like to challenge ourselves, we've obviously had more time than thee days to complete our presentations. I have a detailed outline, and a rough presentation, enriching media, a vision and a common theme that pulls it all together:
Nevertheless, as much as we, as an academy, like to challenge ourselves, we've obviously had more time than thee days to complete our presentations. I have a detailed outline, and a rough presentation, enriching media, a vision and a common theme that pulls it all together:
Most importantly, I have people who give me feedback, facilitators in this trail, people who care and will help me identify the key bits that need tweaking, transforming the dirty pallet I currently have into hopefully, if I give it my all: a work of art. Because two heads think better than one some times, this was exactly the step we had time for completing this monday morning: feedback. To say the truth, before arriving to school I was freaking out given that I knew that I would have to present what I had; How was I possibly going to speak for 30 minutes if my ideas where still floating in the air? Thankfully, after sitting down through Augusto and Domenico's presentation I got the hang of the dynamics of the feedback session, and realised that being afraid of turning something in was entirely ABSURD. I think a week away from the Innovation Academy made me forget and confuse our purpose of creating beautiful work. Project based learning is not about submitting an assignment for an immediate grade, it's about reiterating through each step to take it to the next level. |
Overall, I got incredible feedback, and with incredible I don't mean a bunch of positive adulations, but instead I got to listen to all my weaknesses from various point of views. This allowed me to know all the areas of my product that could be strengthened, areas that will become my focus in this following two days in order to maximise my productivity.
Closed minds are afraid of hearing what they are doing wrong, but being afraid of change gets you nowhere. So, the number one thing I've learned after today is that:
* * it's okay to pivot and shift directionS * *
Changing from one idea to another is OKAY. Accepting that your presentation is too long and that you have to cut out parts in order to make it concise, is OKAY. Changing the effects to make it a cleaner presentation even if you took hours building that animation, is also OKAY. In fact, It's not only "ok" but exponentially beneficial--it's what boosts creative minds to end with incredible products.
I can't stress it enough: iterating is the only way to create true value. We can't let our ego consume us; we're not perfect. If the greatest geniuses in innovation thought like that we'd probably still had the first cube MAC and I wouldn't be able to be typing this in my laptop. Changing, or PIVOTING from my first product isn't a matter of failing the class or getting a low mark because I didn't hit the target at the first try, but a matter of making thursday a whole new and renovated experience than my first draft POL. |