I came to this place thinking of myself as hopelessly, irrevocably lagged by inertia. I'd been in the same job for five years, lived in the same apartment, fiddled with the same silly hobbies.
I came to PSIH for an intervention, and I got it.
Our design thinking curriculum at first seemed like a way merely to organize our thoughts. If you've been reading this blog, you've seen images of colorful Post-It Notes with our own scattered thoughts splattered across the wall, as if someone was able to spill a box of Legos vertically: building blocks of potential available for rearrangement into a unified thought, and able to be disassembled and rearranged countless different ways.
But more than that, it was a mode of thinking. It was a way to give up your ego to the flow of the thought process. It was a reminder to have a bias toward action, even if that means you fail fast and often. It was a mode of listening to your target audience openly and genuinely, and distilling the information you collect into a few real, tangible needs you might—just might!—be able to serve. And it taught me that even I can change directions quickly and without fear.
One of the concepts that have come out of my design thinking exercises around my own venture is that my blog (http://sensiblenonsense.us) doesn't just have to be a blog.
OBSERVATION: people don't care to write formal essays for online consumption. OBSERVATION: I love interviewing people. INSIGHT: people like to talk about themselves, and that emotional ownership extends their favorite children's books NEED: an easier and more personal mode of participation. HOW MIGHT WE meet these needs in an equally portable and entertaining way?
What about a podcast?
We've also learned this week to ask for help. So I'm grateful to Eric, who helped me out by recording with me this prototype for the very first Sensible Nonsense Project podcast.
Certainly, this will be the first of many iterations. I forgot that I really wanted to close out by having my interviewee read a passage from his favorite children's book; the sound mixing is nothing to write home about; and in the editing process I found out that I definitely murmur "awesome" a tad more in conversation than I'd like to admit.
But I've got something. In a matter of days, I've not only changed how I perceive the path I can take with this project, but I have something real, tangible, and sharable, that I would never have had if I felt like I just needed to plan everything out before trying something different.
I really hope you enjoy it, and that in listening, you have even a fraction of the fun Eric and I had recording it.
Yours in change, Arielle