2007 Adobe Design Achievement Awards

Both of my submissions made the ADAA Semi-Finals Round:the Ann Hamilton Guest Lecture Series poster and the Take Action Interactive CD-Rom.

WVU: Take the Idea Challenge

Part of the celebration of National Entrepreneurship Week at WVU was the Idea Challenge competition - two minutes for students to pitch a great idea for a new product or service. I and two other design graduate students participated. Amber and Emily presented ideas developed in Jack Moffett's Design for Change class. I pitched my idea for my thesis project, and was one of the five winners. After the competition, one of the judges inquired about our class and the design program. She was very impressed with our presentations and our ideas. It was great to be able to prove our value in innovation and business.

Click here for more information and the press release.

Back to Blogging

Finally, I am motivated to truly begin blogging. My interests right now are in researching current social networks, so if you have any thoughts, likes, dislikes, please let me know.

On another note: my newest web site is fellow graduate student Jeremy Entwistle. Take a look at his site and give design criticism and feedback as you see needed.

My latest book of interest is A Whole New Mind, Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future by Daniel H. Pink. It is definately a must read for content and creative ideas. His blog is also a great read: danpink.com.

Defining the Issues Surrounding Guest Artist Lectures.

After interviewing 12 individuals and attending my first guest lecture event of the year, I feel as though I'm just now only beginning to see the big picture of Guest Artist Lectures. I've taken this information and answered the question, "What makes a good guest lecture?"

A few points are:
• A lecturer with great public speaking ability
• An active question and answer session
• Interaction with something tangible or hands-on
• People attending by their own accord
• Relevant Topics: cultural and/or universal ideas or experiences that can be shared by a broad range of individuals.

Next, I made a running list of all the "issues" or "problems" I've defined thus far. They are sorted into 7 categories:

• Issues at the lecture
• The marketing and promotion
• Follow-up
• Organization at faculty, administration, and committee level
• Logistics
• Cultural (Students, Faculty, and Community)
• Technical

The Issues are sorted below (some have multiple categories)

• Issues at the lecture:
1. Quality of public speaking ability.
2. Not always a good Q&A Session.
3. Artists do not always seem excited about being here.
4. Topics do not seem relevant to a large amount of students.
5. Many students disappointed in first guest lecture
6. The artist introductions are not necessarily strong.
7. There is not always structure to a guest lecturer’s presentation.
8. Technical difficulties- there is not an expert there or available to fix these issues.

• The marketing and promotion
1. Faculty, students and the community are not aware of guest lecture events in a timely manner
2. Many students feel as though the lectures are not important
3. Information such as artist work and backgrount is not shared with faculty, students, or the community
4. There is no mention of guest lectures on the College or Art Web Site.

• Follow-up
1. Very few individuals watch the movie if they miss the guest lecture

• Organization at faculty, administration, and committee level
1. Funding to bring in artists
2. Faculty feels embarrassed, foolish, and perceived badly when things go wrong or fall through.

• Logistics
1. Bad Timing
2. Very few individuals watch the movie if they miss the guest lecture

• Cultural (Students, Faculty, and Community)
1. Artists do not always seem excited about being here.
2. Students mature and start to see the relevance of guest lectures later in their college career, but by this time often a sour taste has already accumulated because of bad experiences and forced participation.

• Technical
1. Very few individuals watch the movie if they miss the guest lecture
2. There is no mention of guest lectures on the College or Art Web Site and very few interviewed students said they looked at these web sites.
3. Technical difficulties- there is not an expert there or available to fix these issues.