Week 13 (7th June)

3 P’s of presenting: Preparation, Prevents, Poor Performance

Presenting and public speaking is my absolute favourite. Communication is my dream, I weekly speak in front of large crowds of various ages and ethnicities and translators, I would consider myself a clear communicator but I would love to improve. I will definitely apply tips that John gave in my own communication. Such as the importance of preparation. Just because your a good speaker doesn’t make the session good, it is essential to also have good clear content.

We came up with various aspects of presenting that are needed to be effective, such as: eye contact, use of tones, body posture and gesture, effective visual illustrations, no crutch/repetitive words such as ah or um, volume, content, and audience appropriation.

I personally need to apply the audience appropriation tip, my audience I regularly speak with are children and teenagers. I have spoken infant of adult but have struggled speaking infant of young adults, maybe because of peer pressure or because of my struggle to make content relevant to them despite being a young adult myself.

 

Week 12 (31st May)

Today our class was a bit different. We had class in the afternoon compared to the usual morning and we went on a field trip to Art Space on K road.

Unfortunately I didn’t get many photos but I did really enjoy the day. I was very interesting to go to the art gallery to see some art but also see how the company actually runs and works. Art Space in particular is a publicly funded gallery with a small amount of staff, interns and a volunteer data base. It was very informative to hear the interns experiences and what they do in the gallery. Their internship exists for 12 months and they spend their time helping around the gallery and also providing part education for surrounding schools and institutes.

I was asked by other students in our class wether or not I would like to volunteer at an art gallery, my response was as the following, although I love art galleries and really do appreciate visiting and admiring the art work to work there would be something else. I wouldn’t like to be confined to one building or area. I did however like the idea of doing the education stuff because I think galleries are a distinct character of people and smaller crowd of influence compared to what I would like to do, I like to connect with people and personally am not a visual artist.

The day was also very good for connecting with other students and networking outside of the classroom. We went to Mercury Plaza for lunch and I felt that we all connected really well and had a lot of fun.

Week 11 (24th May)

 

Despite the delays in getting to Unitec today due to a break down on the harbour bridge todays class was very informative.

We had two guest speakers and Rowena was back from her trip. The first was Wheromena who is a second year BCE student who had recently been on an art trip to wellington for Maori and Pacifica student that that was fully funded. This sounds like a really cool opportunity but I doubt I would get the same opportunities based on my nationality.

This morning was a really good opportunity to ask a second year BCE student their thoughts on their first year and how different or how they are managing their second year.

We explored New Zealand Entrepreneurs including the Tamaki brother, and Te Awa mall along with other NZ Maori creative Entrepreneurs. The company Nga Aho (http://www.ngaaho.maori.nz/index.php?m=2) who supports Maori and Pacific Entrepreneurs to impact NZ communities.

I struggled with the first half of the class, feeling that I couldn’t participate in these activities because of my nationality on paper, despite the fact that I grew up in hamilton and my mother in Huntly not having written the date in english until she was in high school. I know my full mihi and have the Maori king as family friend yet I am still unable to participate in these activities.

The second speaker was Ngaire Molyneux who is a lecturer at Unitec of Strategic management and also a business advisor. She presented us with the Te Awa Maori entrepreneurs pathway within Unitec to help Maori students who wish to be business owners and make a global impact, such as business like Kiwa Media.

Week 10 (17th May)

‘Think outside the box.’

As we came into class today it was very dark and very cold, why? because the power in the 180 building area was out. A power cut. So we had our lesson old style, analog, no videos, no computer screens, no wifi and no lights. To be honest I found this quite difficult and come to the realisation of how much I expect technology to entertain and stimulate my learning.

Today we talked about innovation, how new ideas and products are created and designed. We started with a group activity writing down all the objects of innovation in our world today. We got off to a slow start but soon came to realise almost everything around us was a product of innovative design, we started naming everything in the room and normal household objects that we usually take for granted: fridge, phone, tv, radio and lots lots more.

We then engaged in class discussion on different innovations and where they originated from for example the radio was given as an example, John went on to explain that Sony productions were the first company to invent the portable radio. Portable radios were an expansion on the idea of the radio that was very large normally acted as a piece of furniture in a family home or business. When the rock and roll music era came in youth and young adults wanted to break away from listening to music as a family compared to individually, the portable radio was a way they could do this. But 50 years on we see how that innovation of a portable radio has evolved even more, into walkman cd player, then to iPods and MP3 player and our equivalent nowadays maybe be podcast on our phone or popular radio/music apps such as Spotify, iHeartradio and Pandora.

Hazel pointed out something that really impacted me and my thinking. She explained that inventions and innovative ideas are a collection of old designs and become improvements of them. Hazel also encouraged us that the best inventions and ideas are simply obvious and practical more efficient ways of old mundane activities and design objects.

We had our own go at being innovative using a potato as our inspiration. We came up with many ideas as seen below.

We were asked to mash the ideas together to create one, I came up with biodegradable festival furniture. Seeming from the idea that many festival or events such as the olympics create furniture for the event then find it wasteful afterwards. Using potato skins and a paper mache technique you could create furniture or sculpture that then can be disposed of quickly and in an environmentally friendly way with very little waste.

Lastly, we had the challenge in our groups to be able to prevent an egg being smashed on the ground when dropped from a considerable height using only 7 pieces on white printer paper. Our team decided to create a cone to catch the egg whilst it was also wrapped light a present for extra cushioning.

As you can see in the 3rd phone we missed catching the egg and consequently the egg was smashed. The only team to succeed in this challenge was John and Hazel who had actually used a hard boiled eggs.

 

Finally, some wisdom from Thomas Edison quoted by John.

 

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Week 9 (10th May)

Today we learnt all about managing people and specifically managing or leading people in conflict.

John Started with this quote which I found a eye opening but obvious and relevant revelation:

“People don’t do things that don’t make sense to them.”

This meant that everyone is different: we may have different beliefs, culture and upbringings that makes up who they are, taking this into account we understand that in order to be a great leader we need to put our selves in other people’s shoes, use great communication skills and tailor our teamwork to different personalities and conflict reactions.

We had a lot of discussions today, topics including:

The difference between a manager and a leaders

Different leadership styles

The discussion was proposed to us ‘what type of leader are you?’ I believe I am a visionary, I am a big idea person, with the children’s program I run I choose to look at them as the 30 year old leaders they could be and lead them and teach them today how they can be those people in the future. I would love to get into future planning and long term goals for business’ ect.

We also discussed the drama triangle which is all about how people handle conflict. I remember learning this last year whilst learning counselling last year. I find this drama triangle very valuable in leading teams and even communicating with my family and friends. I can identify peoples personality and communicate with them effectively in conflict to resolve it.

Lastly, we watched a video about how people handle conflict and resolve effectively. They used a acronym that I found very useful and will defiantly use it with my teams and personal relationships.

S – Source – what is the source of the conflict, who is involved

T – time and place – when and where to discuss

A – amicable approach – start with the positive, positive attention

B – behaviour – be specific

E – emotion -“because of this behaviour I felt. . . .”

N – need – what do I need out of the conflict, what do you need to change.

Week 8: (19th April)

This class really started empowering me as I look to the future and what role I will play in society as a creative person. We discussed how occupations in society are changing all the time, may factory work and service and being ‘taken over’ or I would say are evolving by the technological movement in our society.

My group in particular agreed that the creative roles are leading the forefront of the new digital based work force, in contrast to the industrial revolution led by the engineers and factory workers.

I really enjoyed this class and I got lost dreaming of the job possibilities to come. John shared the website creativeskillset.org/job_roles and I spent hours after class reading of the different roles in the creative industry. I then went to actual job search websites to see what actual opportunities are out there for someone like me. This made me realise the importance to job experience, internships ect. I hope that comes up in our course later and how I can get connections with that.

Week 6 (5th April)

Today’s lesson started slightly different, it began with a team building exercise where 6 volunteers held 1 piece of wood by each person extending one finger. they then had to place it down on the ground. Simple ? well somehow the wood started going higher rather than lower. This was until the team started communicating, people stood up as leaders, taking the initiative and learning from other teams, 3 simple but highly effective skills in building a successful team.

We talked a bit about note taking which was helpful hearing other peoples tips, such as john audio recording ‘hit the pen of the table trick,’ summarising  and others. Below is also a very useful video on how to take great notes and why we should.

 

In the second part of the lesson we opened the topic about cultural awareness. I found this part of the lesson very interesting but challenging too.

I found it challenging because I have grown up as a new Zealander and am very proud of my beautiful country. I have loved by upbringing in NZ and believe that everyone should be able to have the experience that I did growing up, with freedom to dream, safety to explore, good education, family, accepting environment. Therefore It makes me somewhat sad and compassionate when others don’t have the same reflection of happiness of their childhood.

I love different cultures and love our diverse class, It was so interesting hearing about one particular classmates tradition’s in Thailand including a water festival.

I believe each culture holds something special, gift, knowledge or skill that if they were all collaborated would make the perfect team.

Did you know 40% of people living in Auckland were born in a different country to New Zealand? I found that really interesting, talk about a multi cultural city.

However, I believe culture and ethnicity is different. Your ethnicity cannot be chosen by you, however I believe culture is more of a choice, a choice to believe a particular set of vales, uphold particular visions and have a like mindless with ideals and respect of people.(just as we looked at googles ‘culture’ in previous lesson.) A successful team can be made up of many different ethnicities, each bringing a different gift or talent, but one mind in culture, in values, in goals, in vision. Do you agree ?

Week 4 (22nd March)

“Vision without action is a daydream, Action without vision is a nightmare.”

Our class today started with this quote, this challenged me, what am I doing? how am I achieving my goals? What steps am I taking today that is going to help me toward my goals tomorrow.

I am not naturally an organised person but over the last little while I have found I am easily stressed out therefore I have adapted my behaviour to being more organised, and I think goal setting using the SMART approach will really help me achieve my goals within a time limit.

S pecific

M easurable

A actionable

R elevant

T ime bound

After creating Smart goals, it is key to regularly check your progress, and to share your goal with people that will help you stay accountable and mentor you through your journey of success.

Also in today’s class i really enjoyed reviewing the 7 habits of highly effective people, which reminds me again on how much I need to read this book summarised in the video below.

 

1.Be Proactive

“responsibility, the ability to choose your response.”

2. Begin with the end in mind

3. Put first things first

a key for me in this chapter was “what is urgent, and what is important?”

4.Think win, win

“success is not achieved at the exclusion or expense of someone else.”

5. Seek first to understand then to be understood.

“Learn to listen”

6. Synergize (cooperation)

“The sum is more than the individual parts” (1+1=3)

7. Sharpen the saw

In all aspects of life: physically, mentally, spiritually ect.

Lately in today’s class we did a behaviour test, this shows us not the right and wrongs of ourselves but how we can better equip to different circumstances and challenges.

I found that I was introverted, which mean I gain energy from being alone, however I believe I have learnt to be out going and extroverted when needed especially with my work with children and youth programs. I gather information using an intuition mindset, meaning I am a bit of a big picture, visionary, dreamer, rather than researching through facts and figures.

I am both a thinking and feeling person, and in the outer world I need more structure that flexibility as the judging personality does so. This is only a recent discoverers as I have discovered new organisation techniques to help with stress.

Week 3 (15th March)

Does everyone have a moral compass ? Ethics is the word for this right?

“A persons particular set of beliefs an values that determines their behaviour.”

Today in professional practices we opened the class with a discussion on the meaning and personal examples people may have about ethics or unethical situations. The lecturer brought up Donald Trump and his unethical statements made through his campaign rally’s for the role U.S President. I firmly believed that Trump is making stupid, racist and very dangerous statements through his rally for power, however, I was surprised to see different reactions and perspectives on his campaign. One thing I love about our class is that it is so demographically diverse; each person representing different skills, beliefs, cultures and calls, but the discussion today leads me to question that my truth is different to another truth (which is ok) but when it comes to ethics and conflict management how will people react? I will be true to me but I will expect the same of you.

The statement I have concluded is that ‘It is unrealistic to expect people to agree on 1 set of ethical beliefs.’

The second part of the lecture was filled with discussion of a code of conduct within our project teams. Although we are still in early stages of this assignment I believe we will be a great team.

Last year studying at Elim leadership college I feel I have learnt a lot of these ethical and leadership principles such as vision, conflict management ect, but I alway want to grow in my leadership skills and coming into a new team and a new year Im ready for new challenges, new learning environments and different personal perspectives. Through working with other people and exploring their ideals I hope to take away gems to apply to my own life.