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Showing posts from August, 2012

What’s involved in creativity? Solo, or Group?

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Factors involved in Creativity Making an Effort : mental, physical, emotional and spiritual. Courage : to take risks. Stamina : not to give up, to revise and redraft many times. Perfect Imperfection : knowing when to stop. Mentors : to follow, and to rebel against. Style : it’s not just what you say but how you say it. Surprise : walking the unexpected, deviation from norms, serendipity Flow : an intense state of mind when you deliver peak performance Skills and Tools : to build and develop projects Confidence : to aspire and to avoid destructive thoughts and negative outlook Team work : ability and willingness to collaborate effectively and to respect others Solo or Group? It is often forgotten that creativity is not just individual, it can exist within a group or a community. Typically a small group will develop more ideas than a person working alone. That's why everyone is getting into co-creation now, from wiki, to games,

The 15-point Exam Self Examination

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   I hope that your exams have not been as traumatic as mine were at school. In this blog, I have taken a long hard look at exam success and failure. Obviously my research is based on real experiences, rather than irrelevant and dodgy theories. In my experience of 30 years of teaching in English, and in the Arts, in Schools, and in the University sector,  these are the most common reasons for poor results: 1.    Anxiety based on lack of confidence, poor planning and fear of the unknown 2.    Lack of familiarity with past exam questions 3.    Poor memory skills 4.    Failure to produce model answers in exam conditions 5.    Revision that does not edit and select key points 6.    Revision that does not tailor knowledge to the exam 7.    Answers which are too short, or too long. 8.    Poor awareness of what the examiners are looking for 9.    Not answering the question 10.    Not explaining your thinking processes 11.    Poor range of evidence 12.    We

The Nonprofit Twitter Guide - 25 Top Tips

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Classic Non-sense Poet - Edward Lear Even some of the more successful charities, NGOs and nonprofit groups have failed to adapt effectively to the new opportunities afforded by social media. Twitter has often been neglected as irrelevant and vain. As a useful social media tool, Twitter has often lagged behind Facebook. I suspect that's because the first impression of Twitter is that it is chiefly populated by celebrity gossips and ephemeral personal details that have no relevance to the goals of social transformation and ethical awareness. Having researched this topic I would like to offer 25 tips for nonprofits to make effective use of Twitter. 1. Tweets (comments posted on Twitter) need to be written with professional care and attention, just like any other form of writing. That means that Twitter will have an impact on your resources. But don't let it take over... 2. Avoid flippancy, rudeness, and excessive personalisation. By the same token, a dull corporate t