Raitis Linde

From http://www.creativeuncut.com

I remember early days of my childhood, when I was able to appreciate the power of stories. Fairy tales took a large part of my free time and the tower of books was growing more and more reaching the critical height, threatening to make a big bang by falling on the ground. This was time full of reading stories that kept my attention for hours, gently leading me through an imagination path and involving me in the magical world of kings and queens.

Well, I am glad to discover that stories haven’t disappeared even in academic and professional life. Not only they have remained, they are so useful in communicating ideas. The greatest example are my inspiring teachers at Syddansk university where in each lecture examples from professional and academic fields are being actively involved in form of stories of their professional experience. I am sure that the power that non-linear information that for instance Wikipedia gives is invaluable. However, I would like to argue that good (inspiring, catching) stories is a good way in efficiently (and effectively) leading listeners into the topic. How much do you remember from your all-time most favorite teacher/hero/movie, and how much do you remember the content of the last encyclopedia you read recently?

Communicating ideas in a design team

I have experienced that it is not enough to have really great solution and idea when working in team. Actually there is not much sense of having one if I can’t communicate it in a way that other people can understand it and add to it (or argue against it). Badly communicated idea is being listened (by patient audience), then accompanied with blank eye-winks and  forgotten immediately leaving a feel of emptiness and disappointment. On the other side, telling your ideas as a fairy tale, with a lot of imagination, examples, in expressive and coherent manner can really attract people attention and share your point with them.

Jacob is explaining us a Video Card game

In a field of design, communicating ideas is an essential part of teamwork. There are a lot of ideas flying around, and there is a significant need to share these ideas so that everybody understands and can evaluate them. In hard sciences there is often one common truth (like laws of physics) and involved people understand that. While in design ideas are arguable, both designs could make a sense, but which is better?

Is storytelling just about talent?

Some people seems to have natural grasp on communicating ideas clearly, convincingly and often inspiring the audience. That includes my fellow mates at university (Smaranda among them), friends and of course – professional speakers like Robin Sharma (whose books I am reading with a great enthusiasm), powerful Gary Vaynerchuk – the wine expert, amazing/incredible/unbelievable Steve Jobs and many more.

Such people I call  good storytellers. Passioned about their topic, courageous,  imaginative, to some extent – talkative. Are you born with such skills?

Well, as some people seems to be more communicative and imaginative as other, I think it could be learned (by doing). In a high school I could die when I had to communicate my work or other ideas in public. And many people have fear of that, even a special term has been introduced to describe that. So in that time I thought that good public speech is just about losing your fear and using your natural improvisation skills. As this is true to same extent (even the best have a little bit of anxiety), there is something more. A time invested.

Good storytellers and presenters respect the audience. They have prepared their story (or know topic very well, or if not – then have reaaaly great imagination skills) and they are passioned about sharing it with audience. They are proud of their story and seems that they are seeing a story in their mind visually making their speech a reflection of that cognitive movie. They are keen on seeing audience inspired.

I wish everyone, including me, to develop such passion of sharing good ideas to others in an attractive manner. A good way to start is to watch people who are good at it. And then try it by ourselves.

Sounds scientifically, isn’t it? It was my topic for the portfolio exam, my viewpoint of how I understood our work so far in the semester. Basically it is about how i saw people sharing their tacit (non-articulated) knowledge when we involved them by different design objects (game, video, business model, mock-up & scenario). We had to show what we have learned through all projects, explain from our own viewpoint (teamwork, provoking, leadership etc.) and ideally – let the examinors experience our learning process by themselves (by making them to do something), and this is not easy actually.

As I have done research on knowledge concept before (while studying computer science), this theme came naturally. I am still interested in how people perceive information and how they gain knowledge.

Tacit Knowledge Acquisition Through Provocation by Design Objects

To be honest, it was a little bit unusual portfolio presentation. I am in doubt if employers would be interested much in scientifical topics or what we have learned. However, this is university and this is great opportunity for us to experiment, to learn, to broaden our horizon.

Well, I got 10 (by Danish system) which is equal to B by ECTS grading scale (hell, why European countries can’t have united grading system in practice?). I suppose I was lacking more impressive involvement of examinors. But I have a feeling of good job done and I appreciate more feedback. That’s the thing I really like, after each grade we have well-considered and useful feedback. That enabled us to improve next time.

Well, of course, there is a lot more of experience and topics I gained through our work including better understanding of teamwork, not to mention our sketching, woodwork, foam, writing classes. Well the teamwork is one big topic I want to talk about seperately. It is bloody hard sometimes to work in a team, make concensus. You better have to learn to present and argument your ideas very well, as there are often a resistance against it. However, I feel that I am improving in team work project-by-project. Most impressive things on this world are made in teams, it is a great power that needs to be practiced. Knowledge from books about teamwork topic equals almost to zero when not tried in practice.