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A Crash Course on Creativity

Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

1rst Assignment - October,23rd 2012 - Made by Frédérique Delage

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted It all started with that impersonal - but useful ! - list...

Our unique common point by that time : we were classmates in the same team, all interested in creativity.

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1. First Introduction

Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

1.1. Emailing the others individually using Venture Lab Mailbox

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

1.2. Common email sent to private mailboxes

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

1.3. 2nd emailing to those who hadn't answered yet

● With the answers we got, at that point we acknowledged that our team would consist in 3 active members, Frédérique, Aditya and Demian.

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

1.4. Social Networks to superficially know each other

● As Demian wrote in our email exchanges, "When you don't know somebody, social networks are a quick, useful and efficient way to know him /her. But it is superficial. "

● This superficiality is the main limit of social networks : the news they contain are only the ones that their users want the others to know.

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2. Getting to know each other better

Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

2.1. Brief individual ''homework'' in 3 points

● With a team consisting of three people from different countries (USA, Argentina, France), continents and time zones, the most efficient way to get time was to consider 3 basic lists individually and gather results to find out common points.

A. Things that we can have in common (in a group)

B. Things that we all have in common (as a human being)

C. 10 Things that we guess that we have in common (now that we got acquainted thanks to social networks and short email presentations)

● The 3 next slides gather the points we chose to show because they represent the best of that step.

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

2.2. A. Things that we can have in common (results)● Age

● Nationality / Current city

● School / Studies

● Values

● Ideas

● Religion

● Political convictions

● Feelings

● Historical / Past events

● Events we attended, lived live or on TV

● Goals

● Knowledge

● Family / Relatives / Friends

● Interests

● Passions

● Work / Colleagues

● Ways of life

● Material / Tools

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

2.2. B. Things that we all have in common (results)● Life / Death

● Capability to create, think, feel, believe, vote and act

● Life Ups & Downs

● Social life : family, friends, virtual life

● Earth & the environment

● World Human Patromony and what they evoke to us (Pyramids, Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Machu Picchu...)

● Communication tools : The Internet, phones, letters

● Aspirations, dreams

● Access to culture : museums, music, movies, books...

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

2.2. C. 10 Things that we guess that we have in common (results)● We are from the Generation Y (in our 20's).

● We traveled & studied abroad (and still have friends there).

● We were young on 9/11 and it changed our vision of the world too.

● We grew up with computers and cellphones in our hands.

● English is our common language.

● We follow the US Presidential Elections.

● We have postcards in our flats from at least 10 different cities.

● We have already faced death of relatives or friends.

● We have the same cultural, generational references. ''What else ?" is linked to coffee, Dever is the name of a US city AND a green dinosaur, we know where trains go in platform 9 3/4.

● We regularly eat French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Mexican, US food.

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3. Going further...

What we really have in common

Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

3.1. We grew up with...● We played

● Our dream life melted...

● We wanted as dog, Beethoven, an orqua ,Willy and a dinosaur, Denver.

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

3.2. We know...

● Who they are - whether we like them or not -

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

3.2. We know...

● Where it is...

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

3.3. Inspiration...

● We like

Technology, life, travels, seashores, blue sky, smiles

● We believe in

Innovation, creation, out-of-the-box, peace, open-mindness, respect

● We "stay hungry, stay foolish"

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

3.4. Daily life

● We regularly eat and drink

Chinese nems, French bread, Indian lassi, Italian pizza, Japanese sushi, Hamburgers and tropical fruits.

● We all have & use everyday

Cellphones, laptop, bus, pens, mugs, wallet, FB, bottle of water

● We know those brands

Coca Cola, Evian, McDonalds, Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Apple, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Disney, L'Oreal, BBC, Visa, Bic, Lipton, Abercombie&Fitch, H&M, Ikea.

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

3.5. Culture

● We've watched them

● We know those paintings

● We already did...

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Team 11914 : 5 days to get acquainted

To sum up...

● Being part of such an international team, we learnt that we have more in common than we had expected : values, ways of life, cultural references, goals.

● It was challenging to think that we would know people who were strangers 5 days ago. Different time zones, personal motivation & schedules required us to be creative regarding the team organization.

● No matter where we live, come from, study, work or what we believe; open-mindness, will, reactivity, patience and mutual-understanding allow people to achieve goals and find creative ways to solve problems.

PS : We don't own the copyrights of the pictures which were used in that presentation, they were chosen to highlight without words what we have in common.

* Presentation by Frédérique Delage