Tag: creativity

A Year in Books from Good Reads

A Year in Books 2014

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A Year in Books from Good Reads

Looking back on what I read in 2014 was like flipping through a photo album of memories and mindsets. This year my books reflect the challenges I faced, creative outlets I embraced, my desire to lead well, and a totally new life stage.

Below are some notes of the ideas that resonated with me…

Challenges

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High & Getting to Yes: Negotiating an Agreement Without Giving In: Both of these helped me to design and initiate some crucial conversations,  view negotiations in a new (less frightening) light, and gain confidence in my ability to work through critical, high stress moments without burning bridges or getting “emotional”.

The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup:  Guide for navigating the tricky waters of startup negotiations and tough topics like equity, founder’s roles, and growth.

The Innovator’s Dilemma: Reminder that none of the big companies are bulletproof and sometimes you can fail precisely because you do everything “right”. There are times when you actually shouldn’t listen to the customer and times when you should pursue smaller markets over larger ones.

David & Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants: Don’t assume things are always what they appear. Challenge perceptions when things look like they are stacked against the underdog. Adversity can be an advantage.

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character:  The qualities that matter most in our children have less to do with test scores and IQ and more to do with soft skills such as: grit, curiosity, conscientiousness and optimism. Early trauma in childhood has lasting effects, but adversity can be overcome. Soft skills aren’t fluff–they matter.

Existing character education programs have no statistically relevant impact. Building soft skills and character are not t-shirt campaigns or assembly topics, they must be woven into the culture of the school and the community.

Parents want to protect, but children do need to experience and overcome adversity to develop grit.

Here is a discussion guide to go along with this book.

Creative Outlets

Creativity, Inc: The power of the “brain trust”, empowering employees, and creating a culture where creativity can flourish and we can be our best selves. Anyone in an organization should be able, and encouraged, to talk to anyone. Don’t get so busy trying to avoid errors that you don’t do anything. Managers should make others feel able to take risks. Look for the unseen before leading.

Sketchnote Workbook

The Sketchnote Workbook: I really discovered Sketchnoting this year and have integrated it into almost everything, from my to do list practices, to my meeting synopsis. I have always enjoyed drawing, but now my drawing has an everyday purpose.

Recently I have ventured into applying this concept in the digital workspace and working with students to express their thinking in this way. I even tried it out during a keynote. Looking forward to presenting on this topic at TCEA in February.

HTML & CSS: Design & Build Websites

JavaScript & JQuery: Interactive Front-End  Web Development Jon Duckett produces technical reference books that I actually want to read. Thank you. I am working my way back through these to make sure I understand how these programming building blocks all connect. Looking forward to continued growth in 2015 as I learn to do some front-end type programming in the future.

These are a nice companion to the Skillcrush Courses, Code Academy, and Udemy courses I have been working through.

Austin Kleon at Book People

Show Your Work: Meeting Austin Kleon was definitely a highlight of this year! His deceptively simple concepts have inspired me and become a part of the message I share with others. Finding your scenius. Embrace being an amateur. Share something small every day. Show people what is really going on behind the scenes. Do what you do best and link to the rest.

This little masterpiece is on my desk to remind me of all these bits of wisdom.

Maximize Your Potential: Grow Your Expertise, Take Bold Risks & Build an Incredible Career & Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, & Sharpen Your Creative Mind:  I think I started these two last year, but revisited this year. Lots of helpful hints on productivity, workflow, habit creation, creativity, goal setting, and career planning. I also love their size and design–wouldn’t expect anything less from 99u of course.

Leadership

The Year Without Pants: Unique perspective and lessons learned here on entrepreneurship, what work really looks like (especially at a tech company), building team culture, and communication. The enjoyable narrative and anecdotes made me feel like I was learning right alongside Scott.

Turn the Ship Around: One simple change David Marquet made on the USS Santa Fe that stuck with me was implementing the phrase “I intend to…” This would be another fantastic addition to school leadership’s reading list where a shift from leader follower to leader leader could spark some major cultural changes that are long overdue.

Leaders Eat Last: When leaders are willing to “eat last” they are rewarded with extremely loyal employees who will rally behind their leader and make their vision a reality. The politics, self-interest, and drama of the typical workplace are a far cry from the circle of safety, as Sinek refers to it, which fosters trust and collaboration.

Sketchnotes The Power of Habit

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business:  Anyone who has tried to kick a bad habit knows, it isn’t as simple as it seems. However, once you know how habits work you can begin to control them. Duhigg explains the habit loop, a the three step process for how our brain deals with and forms habits, made up of cues, routines, and rewards.

Here are 10 Things I Learned From the Power of Habit

Danah Boyd at Book People talking about It's Complicated

It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens: I became a true book nerd this year. Not only did I attend Danah’s book talk during SXSW, but I also joined a Voxer group book study of It’s Complicated. The Voxer group was a powerful way to go through the book. My ideas were challenged and I could wrestle with the meat of this topic with smarties from a variety of diverse backgrounds.

I put this under leadership with the thought that educational leaders should really dive into this book, along with parents, teachers, and anyone who interacts with children and young adults today (so pretty much everyone). The title is very fitting.

The Girl’s Guide to Being Boss: Without Being a B****: This one grabbed me at Half Price Books. I fell for the cover and title…like click bait. I was curious, but didn’t have high expectations. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Filled with informative and sometimes amusing stories of female bosses and how to handle leadership with grace.  Finding the balance between pushover and dictator is tricky. Reminded me of some of Tina Fey’s lessons in Bossypants and Sheryl Sandberg’s movement to get rid of the word bossy.

The Advantage: A healthy workplace culture trumps everything. Makes sense. When I think about the stories I hear and the things I have experienced in different work settings, focusing on the organizational health (similar to the concepts in Leader’s Eat Last) will repay employers ten fold with productive, content, and empowered employees. Doesn’t this all start with soft skills?

I even read two fiction ones…

Atlas Shrugged: no comment…not sure why I read this. I guess I felt like I should.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter: intriguing mystery novel that I stumbled upon at a library sale.

New Life Stage

Restless | Babywise | The Happiest Baby on the Block | Secrets of The Baby Whisperer

(And a bunch of other ones I skimmed…)

I read a bunch of baby books in preparation for my first kiddo’s arrival this summer. While I am glad I had the information and a couple reference books, nothing could have prepared me for the realities of becoming a parent for the first time.

Spoiler alert–there is nothing like it!

Baby Brady

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play

Returning to Play

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Inspiration Quote

At one of those college fairs in high school I remember my mom talking to a recruiter from an art school. The standard parent might try to dissuade their children from going that route for fear of the starving artist fate. Instead, my mom went on about how I drew an elephant or something and it was the most incredible thing she had ever seen #thanksmom. At the time, the vision I had of my future self was anything but a starving artist. My pursuit of perfection and  “success” blinded me to the possibility that art, play, and creativity could be part of my work. There was even a time I thought I wanted to be a lawyer—enough said.

Cherryblossom painting in acrylicI can’t remember exactly when I started painting and drawing again, but I quickly classified these as weekend activities and put them (quite literally) in a box I would get out and store in rhythm with the weekend workweek flow. It was as if I thought work time had to be hard or taxing to count. Surely this fun and carefree Tracy couldn’t be “working”.

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.”

– François-René de Chateaubriand

We are guilty of the same misclassification in our schools, cutting out art, music,  and free play for fear students don’t have enough time to “learn”—when that is exactly what they are doing through play. What might our students learn when we give them time to play without specific structure and direction? What might we, as educators, learn and model to our students as we play and experiement ourselves?

Sugata Mitra Sketchnotes

One of my own experiments started recently, when I began to play with sketchnotes, visual note taking, or whatever you want to call it—and bingo! It didn’t take long to figure out this was clearly compatible with the way my mind worked. I had really been doing a rudimentary form of it for a long time. I just didn’t know it had a name, gurus (@Braddo, @AustinKleon, @MikeRohde to name a few), books, and a whole movement of folks who also thought, created, and reflected in this way. Playing with this medium of reflection and making connections has not only had a positive impact on the work I’m doing, but even the spirit with which I approach work.

Amateur Austin Kleon Quote

Austin Kleon, in his stellar book, Show Your Work, defines the amateur as “the enthusiast who pursues her work in the spirit of love.”

When someone is talking about me and my work, I hope that can be said.

I hope to see educators approach teaching and students, learning, with a spirit of love: I believe a big part of that will come when we learn to play again. When we allow ourselves to be amateurs at something again. When we learn to experiment and create and provide time and space for our students to do the same.

So, as we gear up for a new school year… What will you experiment with that will encourage you to play?

Some ideas for play this school year:

  • Test driving new technology

  • Redesigning your learning space

  • Learning some basic coding skills

  • Implementing a new teaching technique

  • Connecting with educators across the globe

  • Updating your centers, activities, or a couple lessons

  • Giving students the freedom to work in new mediums

  • Scheduling “play dates” with a friend to try out new things

  • Drawing, doodling, playing with art or testing out sketchnotes

  • Taking an online course in something you’ve always wanted to learn

 

Art

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Last night at a hip, modern (I think) art show in Austin a guy walked over and asked me and a friend to share our thoughts on what art is to us. I immediately retreated, literally back-stepping, and said, “Umm..I am shy. Maybe later…” knowing full well I would hightail it out of there before he found me again.

Fast-forward to 5:30 this morning when I got up and finished this painting of Mount Kilimanjaro. It is for my Aunt–in honor of my cousin who passed away suddenly this year. Soon before his passing he realized his life long dream of climbing to the summit.

In honor of my cousin, Todd Miller.

In honor of my cousin, Todd Miller. I thought about why I was afraid to answer the man’s question…I thought about why I am often reluctant to share my thoughts concerning things I don’t feel “qualified” to have a say about. You see, the type of art last night was very “different” from the art I am used to–no less beautiful of course, just different, and the conversations surrounding much of it seemed so far from my reach (not to mention I was definitely the only one in bootcut jeans and a ponytail).So, although I can’t go back and buck up and let the dude video my response here it is..

To me (at least today), art fills in the gaps where words can’t go. It offers a reflection of a time, a memory, a person, an emotion that can’t be described with words. It’s as if it fills in the holes within the words or shades the space within the letters to weave an incredible something that couldn’t have been there before. It transforms a feeling or an emotion into something entirely new and connects across language, social status (sometimes) and division. It can be therapy, comfort, catharsis.

Even the art I “don’t get”, I want to get…or at least apply my own meaning to it and understand the perspective of others. I like the challenge of being faced with seemingly random mixed media postcards and trying to understand what the artist was thinking when he created them. Art is…whatever the heck people want it to be–that’s why it is awesome!

In the edtech world, art and creativity just take a different form. Infographics have been my media of choice recently and the same creativity that launched me towards taking what was a boring list for a district into an infographic/thinglink combination influenced by a variety of minds, blogs, learning, reading and conversation… is the same creativity that glides onto my canvas when inspiration strikes and I look at other paintings, pictures and combine colors and shade mountain crevices and think about an imaginary sun and how its beams would hit the mountain.

So today I’ll post this on my blog and “ship it” even thought I’d like to edit it a hundred more times.
And tonight I’ll give my Aunt art where I have no words and hope it can fill in the gaps.
In honor of my cousin, Todd Miller.

In honor of my cousin, Todd Miller. The original painting by James Zeger can be found at his incredible site jameszegerart.com Special thank you to James for responding to my request to show my much more amateur reflection of his original work of art! Your talent is breathtaking!