MSc/MA/MInnov Innovation, Creativity and Leadership Online Q and A Transcript

Transcription

1 03 June 2014 City participants included: Dr Sara Jones: MICL course director and module leader Dr Amanda Brown: MICL course officer Mary Ann Kernan: MICL faculty and module leader Prof Neil Maiden: MICL faculty and module leader Current MICL students: Eduardo Zanelato and Mila Kayukala MICL Alumni: Sue Whittle and Sarah Cox Amanda Brown MICL Course Officer: Welcome to the online chat for our Masters in Innovation, Creativity and Leadership. Today we have staff, students and alumni online to answer any queries you may have about the course (we have MICL after our names). Please do introduce yourself to the room. Neil Henson: Hi, my name is Neil Henson, I live outside London and I have applied to do the course as a part time student. Neil Maiden, Academic teaching on the Hello Neil, do you have to travel far? Neil Henson: No, Maidenhead. Neil Maiden, Academic teaching on the That's funny, given my name - you're a blast Neil Henson: Do you live near Hendon! Neil Maiden, Academic teaching on the Close - Finchley - Chortle Amanda Brown MICL Course Officer: have you got a question for us? Neil Maiden, Academic teaching on the Hi. Everyone - Sue is an Alumnus from the MICL. You can ask her about the course and what it did for her. Christoffer Olsen: Hi! My name is Christoffer Olsen and I come from Norway, where I currently live. I have applied for the full-time course. Eduardo Zanelato: Hi everybody! I'm Eduardo, current MICL student (just finished the taught modules, starting my dissertation), please feel free to ask anything related to our student life and undertaking the Masters. Sara Jones MICL Course Director: are there any questions we can answer for you today? Neil Maiden, Academic teaching on the - Hi, welcome to the chat room Neil Henson: I have a question. I run a training company and my work fluctuates throughout the year. There will be quiet times. Would it be possible to have a number of modules running from year two?

2 Neil Henson: I mean, can I start some of year 2 modules as well as doing year one. Mila MICL: Hi, I'm Mila - current MICL full timer:) Sara Jones MICL Course Director: unfortunately you really need to follow either the part time or full time timetable - unless you have exceptional 'extenuating circumstances'. Sue W Alumni: Hi all Sue Whittle here - I was in cohort 1 when the course first started so a while ago now but even a couple of years on I still use a lot of what I learnt. Neil Henson: Thank you, makes sense. GabriellaFontanella: Hi, My name is Gabriella and I'm from Brazil. I work with trends identification. I think Innovation, creativity and leadership are the next step after identifying a trend. I would be interested to know if the staffs of the course think this is a concept I could explore in the course? Robin Mahadeo: Hi everyone, I will be starting the MICL in September and I would like to understand what the challenges are ahead with balancing work/life/study during the MICL. What should I look out for? Sue W Alumni: Gabriella sounds like the start of a dissertation or essay topic to me! GabriellaFontanella: Thanks Sue! Neil Maiden, Academic teaching on the Brazil - an exciting place to be at this time. I think that there is a clearly a role for creativity and creative thinking in trends identification. I frame creativity as a search problem, and this is very relevant to trends discovery. The leadership role is essential for delivering this trend information to business and society. Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic Staff: Hi everybody - this is Mary Ann, I lead the module on Creativity and the Creative Industries, one of the final MICL modules - and work with Phil O Shea, who leads the Creative Writing module. Any questions I can help with? Sue W Alumni: Robin warn all your close family that sometimes you will be in quite intense work periods on this it is fun and great learning but definitely a balancing act specially if you are working too and especially at the end (dissertation) or when you are doing group work but that may be a lot about me as I was aiming for a distinction!!! Christoffer Olsen: What is the average age of the students admitted to the course? This year and historically? Neil Henson: Would I be right, that the leadership element, is someone who oversees, or guides others to promote creativity in their organisation. Eduardo I just finished the modules and I'd say that you will face a 10- week period of light work (and a fair amount of readings), and after that we have about a month dedicated to our courseworks. I think my key advice here is: start related readings throughout the modules so you can get the most of it. In practical terms, I'd say you will be able to balance social life + work during these 10-week period, but will have to put some extra effort when dedicating to the courseworks.

3 Eduardo I also think it will also depends on how demanding your work is. I'm studying as my main activity, but also doing some freelance writing for Brazilian magazines - and my routine is fine, I can easily balance everything. Sue W and Eduardo also see if you can do things relating to the course that are directly relevant to your job then you all benefit and it means a bit of work time can legitimately be used on it. Mila MICL: for all full timers: bear in mind a super diversity of modules, tasks and group mates, studying at the same time in 5 different schools and doing individual studies and several group works - all together an excellent bunch of challenges!!!! That s it in short. Eduardo I'm also from Brazil - any questions regarding adapting to London life, feel free to ask. Neil Maiden, Academic teaching on the See, in simple terms. However, I and many of the academics believe that leading creative practices necessitates the ability to deliver some of these creative practices. The leadership element then reviews both strategies for, as well as the constraints on social creativity in teams, organisations and the like. Ultimately, though, there is a need to deliver creativity in others Sara Jones MICL Course Director: we've had a really wide range of ages on the course from mid 20's to mid 60's. We don't accept anyone with less than 3 years' work experience, but apart from that, there are no constraints. Overall, the average age of students has come down a little in the past year, due to our lovely full time students, many of whom come earlier in their careers. Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic I suspect all of the MICLers would say that you get as much as you put into the programme - which is definitely designed to stretch everyone at some stage or another. Amanda Brown MICL Course Officer:@Robin you've been to a number of the events from our Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice how have you found these useful? Would you recommend them? Neil Thank you, my background is problem solving (including creativity) doing it, training others and encourage it to be mainstreamed. I was seeing if your course follows the same pattern. Robin Mahadeo: Thank you everyone for the advice. Neil Maiden, Academic teaching on the It is less about the training, more about enabling and facilitating over longer periods, including the importance of culture and organisational change to facilitate and enable creativity in individuals and teams. Thank you! It's always nice to know I can have some advice from somebody from the some country! I'm actually living in London at the moment but I do worry about doing a Masters degree in English. Even though I have the IELTS requirement... I think is going to be very how did you find being an international student in this course? Neil Neil, thank you, I am really looking forward to exploring the difference. Thought most people think they can problem solve, (based on their own experience) and yet most don't think they are creative!

4 Sue W Alumni: Neil H is that sixthsense training? Eduardo Zanelato (MICL): Building on said about the variety of backgrounds, I'd say this is one of the most interesting assets of the MICL. Working with people from such different areas (advertising, health system, accountants...) was really insightful. And as we learn, diversity is key when it comes to innovation and creativity. Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic Staff: A lot of our students have English as a second or third language, Gabriella - it's your call whether reading in and writing in English would be a challenge for you? Neil yes it is. Sue W Alumni: Neil H, Andy s main message in teaching the Problem Solving section is that everyone is creative it s just a case of how we are creative... Robin and everyone, yes I have attended a number of the evening events and the annual conference at the Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice; I have to say that these are enlightening. The topics of discussion are varied and have helped me think differently at tackling problems at work and seeing challenges in the different light. I highly recommend them. Eduardo Zanelato I'd say that in the beginning it was a little bit challenging to make myself clear about my point of views - but we are a quite international group (especially among full timers), so the environment is quite supportive in this sense. The only thing I struggled with was the Creative Writing module - but after the first exercises everything went well. And if you reach the IELTS/Toefl requirements, you will be ok! No worries :-) Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic am pondering this question from my perspective too - in my experience exploring creative approaches has encouraged the MICLers to connect with their individual processes - so a single process isn't possible? Amanda Brown MICL Course have you any questions about what it's like to do the MICL to our students in the room? Neil Ann. Even though I talk about a Problem Solving Process, it is really a series of topics of good practice that if followed will increase your success. I think people operate at all the stages, and way off the line. The process is like a checklist. GabriellaFontanella: Thank Ann Neil Maiden, Academic teaching on the - Hi - any updates on what many of your cohort, which Alumni several years ago - are doing now? Robin Mahadeo: Have any of the MICL students changed career during the course? What lead to that decision if you did and how was the "leap of faith"? Christoffer Olsen: I am looking for a future career within business development. Which of the modules should I look forward to?

5 Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic am I right that several of the modules review innovation processes from both management and design perspectives? Agreed that as thinking tools and business analysis processes they can be invaluable! Neil Maiden, Academic teaching on the Well, I think that all of the modules are relevant to business - clearly the ones delivered by the business school, by teaching creative design thinking applied to services, organisational psychology to understand barriers to creativity and to change, arts and performance in order to deliver change in different ways... Eduardo Zanelato I'm in the process of changing my career (hopefully!). I'm still working as a freelance journalist but I'll try to move towards innovation and service design consultancies when I go back to Brazil. My 'life changing' modules were Neil's Leading Creative Design and Andy Wilkins' Creative Problem Solving & Leadership, and Delivering Innovation. Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic Staff: - I think the fun about a rich learning experience is that it's full of surprises, so you may well get most out of the modules you least expect to be 'your kind of thing'. In my final assignments, at the end of the MICL, many of the students clearly see it as a journey Sue W M I think pretty much all of us are doing something different now than we were at the start of the course, me included - many of us gained the courage I think during the course to follow a different path and quite a few of us left corporate style careers to follow self employed, consultancy, freelance type of career paths myself included - I do a mixture of all now and dictate my own working hours and I believe that the very different aspects of the MICL help you understand your own motivations. Sara Jones MICL Course Director: yes, not all students but a significant proportion - maybe a third? - do change direction during or shortly after taking the course. I guess this is partly as a result of having the opportunity to explore different options as part of the programme, both through the teaching from different disciplinary backgrounds and through conversation with other students from very different backgrounds. Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic Staff: It's fair to say that the MICL tends to attract people who are looking for a programme that's innovative in itself - so outcomes will by definition be less predictable? Mila Mary Ann, I totally agree - is hard to predict what career path you may choose after the course as it's a kind of 'life changing' and this is exactly why I have chosen it. Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic Staff: One really great aspect of the MICL is the way the community has firmly established itself for both the students and the teaching team - unusually rich/active in a higher education context! Robin @Eduardo it is one of my motivations for doing the MICL but also the self discovery aspect is what is exciting me the most. Christoffer Olsen: Thank you for your answers. I have another question as well. I am a young Norwegian with only a few years of working experience. What do you think going to be my biggest challenge? Robin thanks for your honesty.

6 Amanda Brown MICL Course M Ann you all set up this course and have been integral to its development, can you tell us some of your highlights? Mila Christoffer, I think it will be similar to my current challenge - what type of job to apply for as MICL opened eyes to various options. Sue W what led to a decision to change - lots of things but I can tell you that two sections of the course, Creative Problem Solving (which I've made a career out of ever since and never knew had a proper process and language before the MICL) and Creative Writing affected me most - when we did a values exercise and I realised mine no longer fitted what I was working as and another where we wrote rapid short stories and also kept a daily journal, I started to look at everything differently. Neil Maiden, Academic teaching on the MICL: To Amanda's question - delivering a service redesign of the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme, by MICL students to senior management in Transport for London. Sara Jones MICL Course I've been really moved by some of the experiences students have shared as part of our 'lived experience' group reflections, about how they are taking and using what they have learnt on the MICL in both their work and personal lives. Eduardo Zanelato I think it depends really on what are your interests, your background. I started the Masters thinking the Creative Writing would be the easier for me - and it turned to be the one I most struggled with... Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic Staff: - folk have come into the MICL from all kinds of roles and backgrounds. We define programme 'values' in the Induction session on Day 1, and one of those is willingness to engage, another tolerance of diversity - sharing what you bring and understand, for example, and respecting what others bring and understand, are both really important for all MICLers. Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic I'm sure we've all had our highlights. I've so enjoyed meeting people at Open Evenings or Induction sessions and seeing how their plans and definitions of their careers (and lives, sometimes) have changed through their time on the programme, and been informed by what they've learned. To see people learn important things about themselves which makes a big difference to them is SO exciting! Amanda Brown MICL Course Officer: I do hope that everyone has seen the details of our MICL scholarship competition, again sponsored by the Design Council: Submissions by 13th June! Amanda Brown MICL can you tell us about your favourite piece of work during the course? As everyone knows we don't have exams on the MICL but we do have lots of different assessment challenges. Sarah MICL Alumni: Hi everyone, apologies for lateness! I'm Sarah, Alumni from the first MICL cohort Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic Staff: Hi Sarah!

7 Mila MICL: it's not easy to single out my favourite piece of assignment as there were all of completely different tastes and colours. I've got numerous insights from each of them, even from IP law essays. Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic Staff: A rich Eduardo Zanelato (MICL): Yep, my favourite were: LCD project (which involved redesigning Royal Parks catering service) and TCI project (deep involvement with a technology tool/service to enhance creativity); my individual artefact for Creativity & Creative Industries (which involved some crafting skills) and, especially because of my dissertation topic, the final essay for Delivering Innovation module helped me with some first readings for my research. Sara Jones MICL Course Director: Just to fill in a bit more information about the backgrounds of current and previous MICL students: we've had people from backgrounds of psychology, PR, graphic design, tourism, product design, marketing, higher education, the health service, charity fundraising, IT, computer games, advertising, children's nurse, librarianship, journalism, pharmaceuticals, tax office, people running their own businesses, people working for local authorities...hope I haven't missed too many people? Amanda Brown MICL Course we have ten minutes left in the room today, does anyone have any questions for us? Mila MICL: anyone still in doubts about MICL - just go for it, it's a unique experience on all the levels from individual to organisational. Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic Staff: Sarah - could you tell our forum a bit about your MICL journey and any lasting impacts on your career eg following your dissertation? Robin Mahadeo: I'm looking forward to embracing the change. Sue W Alumni: Amanda (and the no exams bit was a major plus for me by the way) - don t laugh Neil but my favourite essay was the one on benign structures in organisations - yes really - as a psychologist I m still fascinated by such stuff, I loved creating the artefact, in fact I stayed up all night to get it right, I really enjoyed writing and seeing peoples short stories and commenting on them on Moodle and I loved the assignment we did in Creative Problem Solving where we met lots of Chief Execs and fed back to them on their innovation process and oh yes the performance even though I had to dress up as one of the 4 Ps. Eduardo Zanelato the MICL will be really helpful in the process! Sarah MICL Alumni: Yes of course, I'm based in the arts and have found many applications for all the modules, my personal favourite was designing the artefact, however my dissertation subject focused on new tech within the arts has provided some real insights into tech adoption, esp social media - many uses within my role. Sara Jones MICL Course If you would like to know more, and/or come to the University to speak with some of us in person, please come and join us at our next open evening on 25th June - sign up at Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic Staff: Glad it has proved useful long-term, Sarah - it was a great project to supervise :-) Mila MICL: till the next time, everyone :)

8 Neil Henson: Thank you for today's event, very informative. GabriellaFontanella: Thank you every one. I'm really excited about applying to the MICL! Robin thank you once again for your honest insight into life on the MICL. I'm looking forward to joining you in September Christoffer Olsen: thank you all for the input! Amanda Brown MICL Course Officer: Thank you for joining the chat today and we d be happy to answer any further questions that you may have. Please contact us on creativitymasters@city.ac.uk Follow us on and join our LinkedIn group the Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice at City University London. The MICL is the key educational course from the Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice. You can find out more about us, our work and our events on our Centre s website Sara Jones MICL Course Director: Thanks all - looking forward to seeing you too! Mary Ann Kernan MICL Academic Staff: Great to 'meet' you all - and hope to do so at City University London in September. Eduardo Zanelato (MICL): Great to chat with you. Good luck for those joining the MICL community in Sept. Neil Maiden, Academic teaching on the MICL: Goodbye everyone - very informative. Hope to see you in September. Sarah MICL Alumni: Bye everyone!