This morning on the way to work I was listening to NPR’s Morning Edition and I had the good fortune to hear their occasional feature Open Mic. Today’s version was a conversation between three Broadway composers and it was fascinating.
The story was fascinating on at least two levels. I have no idea how lyricists and composers work so I was interested in hearing how they take their thoughts for music and then write pieces. The idea that their fingers have a life of their own was intriguing. I imagine it’s like that for many people who express themselves in a physical medium–the hands do what’s in the mind.
The second part of the story that I was thrilled to hear was how collaboration is such a big deal for them. At least one of the composers talked about his relationship with a lyricist and how the two would talk about the characters in a musical until they felt like they really understood them. The lyricist would start writing the words and from those first lines of a song the composer could build a musical theme.
The idea of collaboration is not a new one certainly but I am thrilled when I hear how important it is to others in fields very different from mine. I’m about to start working on an elearning course and while there are parts to that process that are quite solitary, the “meat” of the development of an online course is collaboration. There needs to be discussion around the look and feel of a course as well as what sorts of interactions will work best.
This course is an introduction to a new way of doing business and so it’s easy to think of it as just a blast of information and you hope that it’s received once broadcast. I’d like to make it more than that and so the conversation and collaboration will begin later this week. I hope we can create something that will be king of the hill, top of the heap.
Last night my husband and I went on a date and actually went to the movies. I think it had been two years since we saw a movie in the theater. We went to the newest theater for the area and that meant that we drove home from the city a different way than we would normally. We were also in separate cars last night and so I’m not sure that he had a similar experience on the way home.
Driving home I saw that some people were playing baseball at the Parker Field Annex. It was a familiar scene as people have been playing ball there since I was a kid. As I drove home through North Side, I decided to connect with I-295 by driving down 360 and went around a big SUV at the Chickahominy Bluffs so I could see the Chickahominy swamp laid out before me.
Now that may not sound like a wonderful sight but it’s one that is even more familiar than late night baseball games. I had the windows down and the roof open (while running the defrost to keep the windshield clean) and inhaled deeply. The smell of the swamp was a comfort too.
While I sometimes chafe at the fact that the husband and I are so rooted here, it’s evening drives like last night that remind me it’s not so bad living where you grew up.
In honor of going to the movies, I present the Hothouse Flowers (the video is weak, but the song is great):
I had a meeting yesterday to talk about returning to school for a doctorate. As my professor said, this decision will take some “perk” time. One idea that came out of our conversation is this–sounds right up my alley.
In honor of having to find my way, I present Jimmy Eat World’s Middle for the Friday video:
We have a fast-track course that has to be presented online. We have most of the content scattered about and I’ll be gathering it together to chunk it into modules. The course is one of those political courses that stakeholders are excited about and so the execution of it must be nearly flawless. This course is the foundation that will lay the groundwork for changing the way our clients think about their business. You could say we’re kicking off the process of a culture change. At least that’s what my work plan says.
Of course one online course isn’t going to change a culture that’s as deeply ingrained as the one within Virginia’s social services. I am thinking now’s the time to add a little bit of what I’ve learned in the adult learning program. If we’re going with the idea of changing a culture then I’m starting with adding ideas outside of the social services realm–if I sneak HRD principles into courses at the appropriate time then I will be happy and I know the learners will benefit as well. We just don’t need to tell them that the principles come from outside the social services world.
I’m going to start by bringing in Roger Schwarz’s Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook tomorrow to flip through for ideas on facilitation. I think this is an excellent place to start since the subject of the course is how social workers can facilitate meetings between families, social services and community partners.
I don’t have a fully formed post in my head, but in order to keep this blog from becoming nothing but video links I need to post something that involves typing in actual words.
I just heard from a former classmate that he’s reading Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. There are two things about that previous sentence that are odd–that I can now say former classmate and that he’s reading The Tipping Point. I’m reading it too. Not a planned reading assignment and yet we both chose to read a book we touched on in one of our last classes. I like the symmetry of that.
I have been reading The Tipping Point in fits and starts mostly on the plane to and from Chicago and it’s quite intriguing. I’ve been tossing the idea of connectors, mavens and salesmen around in my head and I wonder what the rest of us are called–I hope it’s not sheep.
The idea of stickiness isn’t necessarily new to me as I’m in the training field and we tend to look for ways to make learning stick. The idea of context is becoming more interesting to me as I continue to read about systems. Gladwell uses the story of cracking down on graffiti and fare-jumping on the NY subway system as an example of context. Change the small things to make a dent in crime. I know that a small pebble in a pond makes far-reaching waves and the idea of cleaning up subway cars as a way to change people’s perceptions of how to behave is an interesting theory. It seems to have worked but the criticism I have with this particular story is what else was going on that may have contributed to this success? Perhaps that will be covered in the next chapter and I need to keep reading.
I missed posting a video last Friday. I realized it about 9:30 that night but we were in Chicago and, frankly, as hard as it is to believe, I had better things to do.
Last night we went to the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge to hear one of our favorite jazz singers perform. I can’t believe our luck that we were in town at the same time she was (although the Green Mill is her “home” performance space) and the show was outstanding. We stayed through 2 sets and then caught the train back to the hotel. Even Chicago is a little deserted at 1am.
To make up for missing last Friday, here’s a Patricia Barber video:
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