Yes, I'm alive. Sorry for the lack of updates. I got to the hotel at 2:30 am Monday, and taught six hours of class later that day and again today, with a 90 minute bus ride on each end (I'm staying at the downtown Radisson--for a month). As usual, I'm thrilled to be here.
A little background as to what's going on: Months ago I was invited to teach two courses at Woxsen School of Business in Hyderabad, Design Thinking and Communications, to two groups of students. After three failed application attempts, I finally landed a one-year, multiple entry employment visa. Which probably means I'm coming back.
This week and next is Design Thinking, which takes me back to my ziba days. It's nice to get out of being the presentation guy and get some recognition for the other things I do, which, as usual, begs the question, "And what is that again?"
Design Thinking is both a process and a philosophy. The standard research/frame/concept/prototype/test/refine/implement phases apply, which is always fun to teach--except the frame part, which drives students nuts as it's a somewhat counterintuitive way of thinking until one gets it. But it's the philosophy behind it that's the magic. Some have described it as user-first, or as empathetic. I've always considered good Design an act of compassion.
So where does that leave us? On the bus!
These are my two-year students, all 33 of them. I've got one-years, too, but they only number 11. We're on the bus because you can't do real research on Wikipedia; you gotta get your hands dirty.
The Woxsen campus is a short drive from the roadside village of Kamkole, one example of the extremes of this country. The assignment: within a subcategory of health--sanitation, hygiene, food safety, etc.--find a perspective on a problem that can be expressed within a generative framework. If you had to read that sentence twice, you can imagine how many times I needed to explain it. Indian students, even at the graduate level, are rarely asked to tackle problems that don't have a single, definitive solution, so this is kind of like asking the rats to design the maze while saying nothing about the cheese.
Anyway, throw 'em into the deep end, I say.
This is the deep end. And it's got a lot of depth:
Motorcycle and cow:
Old woman with chickens:
Those yellow fields are corn drying on tarps. Women turn their toddlers loose to run around on it, thereby threshing it and keeping it from rotting:
Set Coordinator, I need an old woman, two oxen, and a calf! Stat!
So we let the students run around, cajoling the villagers, wheedling their way into their homes by posing as NGOs, taking pictures, and being a general nuisance. We did this twice to Kamkole today. There's another village up the road in the opposite direction that we'll bother when we do prototype testing.
Meanwhile, Joe the Marketing Prof, Pradeep the Dean, and I sat on a shady villa and drank the weirdly delicious and unique Hyderabadi tea. I like this job.
A little background as to what's going on: Months ago I was invited to teach two courses at Woxsen School of Business in Hyderabad, Design Thinking and Communications, to two groups of students. After three failed application attempts, I finally landed a one-year, multiple entry employment visa. Which probably means I'm coming back.
This week and next is Design Thinking, which takes me back to my ziba days. It's nice to get out of being the presentation guy and get some recognition for the other things I do, which, as usual, begs the question, "And what is that again?"
Design Thinking is both a process and a philosophy. The standard research/frame/concept/prototype/test/refine/implement phases apply, which is always fun to teach--except the frame part, which drives students nuts as it's a somewhat counterintuitive way of thinking until one gets it. But it's the philosophy behind it that's the magic. Some have described it as user-first, or as empathetic. I've always considered good Design an act of compassion.
So where does that leave us? On the bus!
These are my two-year students, all 33 of them. I've got one-years, too, but they only number 11. We're on the bus because you can't do real research on Wikipedia; you gotta get your hands dirty.
The Woxsen campus is a short drive from the roadside village of Kamkole, one example of the extremes of this country. The assignment: within a subcategory of health--sanitation, hygiene, food safety, etc.--find a perspective on a problem that can be expressed within a generative framework. If you had to read that sentence twice, you can imagine how many times I needed to explain it. Indian students, even at the graduate level, are rarely asked to tackle problems that don't have a single, definitive solution, so this is kind of like asking the rats to design the maze while saying nothing about the cheese.
Anyway, throw 'em into the deep end, I say.
This is the deep end. And it's got a lot of depth:
Motorcycle and cow:
Old woman with chickens:
Those yellow fields are corn drying on tarps. Women turn their toddlers loose to run around on it, thereby threshing it and keeping it from rotting:
Set Coordinator, I need an old woman, two oxen, and a calf! Stat!
So we let the students run around, cajoling the villagers, wheedling their way into their homes by posing as NGOs, taking pictures, and being a general nuisance. We did this twice to Kamkole today. There's another village up the road in the opposite direction that we'll bother when we do prototype testing.
Meanwhile, Joe the Marketing Prof, Pradeep the Dean, and I sat on a shady villa and drank the weirdly delicious and unique Hyderabadi tea. I like this job.
1 comment:
What an awesome-sounding gig. All the best!
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