As most kids do, my twin brother and I had a pretty standard morning routine we would execute every morning before going to school. We would wake up, one of us would shower while the other ate, then we would switch, and finally check our backpacks and get things signed (because it was elementary school and it always seemed like something had to get signed) before we hopped in the car. But, most crucially, before getting in the car, Sam and I would always watch the SportsCenter Top 10. We could not consider ourselves ready for the day, and would probably throw a tantrum which our mom could attest to, if we did not get to a TV at 6:50 to watch the previous day’s best dunks, web gems, and maybe even a dad golf highlight.
(Why is he talking about this? -my readers, probably)
I mention this because I’d be remiss to leave any sort of experience without determining a list of takeaways for said experience. For those morning drives to school, the takeaways were the sports highlights we could talk with our friends about. For me, today, on my last day of my second semester of grad school, the takeaways are about my favorite moments and insights from sixteen weeks of building an interactive museum exhibit, developing experiences with new technologies, learning more about leadership, and finding the best donuts in Pittsburgh.
So with said, as John Anderson used to always say…
Number 10. Fred. No, really, it’s Fred. You can’t make this stuff up. Well, John Anderson did, but that’s not the point. The point is that I learned an awful lot from Fred Rogers over the course of the semester. From watching his shows and reading his work, it’s hard for your emotional intelligence, inclination to be kind, and whistling abilities to not grow. In addition to learning from Fred, I learned a lot from a number of Fred’s friends that came into our project to help along the way. All of this further reinforced that there are lots of people smarter than me and reaching out to them for help can only make my work better.
She’s a beauty that Number 9. *whispers* I actually kinda missed code. For bits of my last elective project, I was part of the programming team that set up a pretty extensive sensor-driven escape room-like experience. I was happy to shut MatLab at this point last year to forget about control systems, but I genuinely enjoyed dusting off my coding toolbox and building this experience from the technology end and, I think just maybe, I’m going to start doing more of it in the future.
Number 8. Feedback can be bad. Bad is probably the wrong word, but not all feedback is created equal. Depending on who it comes from, when it comes about, and all of the other surrounding circumstances, you have to decide what advice is worth taking and what is worth throwing out based on the design decisions you’ve made (and should, in theory, be defending/standing up for).
Number 7. Feedback can be good. Sometimes the advice you hear from others is definitely worth taking and can vastly improve your work. So I guess this takeaway is the same as the one from number 8: take the time to reflect and give appropriate weight to what people have to say about your work as to make your own executive decision about next steps.
Number 6. Breaks are really good for perspective. As is likely the case in every line of work, when you spend so long staring at one thing, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees. Whether it’s being unable to see what a solution to a problem is or struggling to remember why you’re trying to solve it in the first place, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds (side bar: why are all of these metaphors related to plants?). Thankfully, I got a few doses of reality, perspective and inspiration from trips to Phoenix, Florida, and Disneyland throughout the semester.
BANG! Number 5. “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” A unified vision matters. Thanks, Chuck.
Number 4. See the Fred Rogers quote in my blog from January 23rd. Fred talked about the successful people he knows love doing what they love in front of people. I now know more about how that feels. Partly because of how much we prioritized play testing and partly because of some of the visitors I had this semester, I had the chance to show off the number of projects I have been a part of to lots of people. It’s a pretty rewarding feeling to watch your friends’ expressions change when they finally see why you had to bail on them to work on a project or to have your dad tell you “hey, this is pretty cool”. So as long as people keep reading, listening, watching, playing or whatever else is asked of them, I’ll keep creating because that is what it is all about.
Number 3. Speaking of other people, other people are super important in the design process; however, as mentioned earlier, some may be a little more important to listen to than others. Throughout the semester, one of our big struggles came from truly identifying and conveying our target audience for our project. We explained it as “fans of Fred and their families” and we got into this tough space of trying to make it kid-friendly and accessible, but not making it feel like it is explicit for children. It was a tough balance to strike and we tried to do it through making the interactions easy for all ages, but focusing the true emotional content on a larger, more abstract concept that is more suited for adults or for adults to explain to their children. We took part of that inspiration for Fred, and I think a lot of it came through in the final design; however, we always could have narrowed our demographics down better and earlier and gotten more of their feedback.
Number 2. Teamwork makes the dream work. Randy Pausch said in his book that “if at first you don’t succeed… try, try a cliche”. (Another point in the blog where I say that if you haven’t read The Last Lecture, you should stop reading this right now and go pick that up instead. I promise I won’t be offended.) Cliches come from a modicum of truth and I found the reason for the original cliche in this takeaway this semester. We would not have been able to accomplish any of the things we have this semester without each and every member of our team. Each person Brough their own unique skills to the table and once we figured out where everyone’s talents lied, we were able to work together to become more than the sum of our parts. As a basketball player, I’ve always embraced the idea of five people playing as one and this semester proved that that philosophy for success extends beyond the hardwood.
He could go all the way… to Number 1. There is no better feeling in a project than taking one last look at your creation before packing up the truck to head home. To finally say “it’s all yours, we’re done” to a client or investor or friend or whoever it is is extremely rewarding and worth every bit of blood, sweat and tears that were lost along the way.
Well, congrats, you made it through the whole Top 10. There are so many things I learned this semester that it was hard to narrow it down for this list, but that’s the beauty of it. Better to learn too much then enough, probably. I have no doubt that these lessons will continue to pop up in my work this summer at Cortina Productions (give me a shout if you’re ever in Washington DC!), back at the ETC in the fall for another 16 weeks of projects and electives and general craziness, and wherever life takes me.
So, with that, you don’t gotta go home, but you gotta get the heck up out of here.