Finding Your Third Space: The Importance of Hobbies and Getting Out and About

Years ago, after returning from Japan, and settling into my first week of grad school, a mentor told me that I had to find my third space.

She reminded me that the third space had to be somewhere that “was not home but also not work”. In her case, a local yoga studio helped her to press reset at the end of a hard day. It was a space where she could drop the responsibilities and obligations and take on another identity.

As this summer is starting to wind down, I have started to think more about creating other third spaces. The fine line between working at home and on campus was often blurred for me, and there were times where I easily spent 16-18 hour days on campus. While fun, I found that the space between my “work and home circles” was not as robust as I wanted. Over the past 2 years, volunteering and meeting other local professionals during book clubs, meetups, and workshops has helped me to define another space that wasn’t just work or home. Not only that, they provided spaces for me to build new skills and learn from a variety of people from diverse backgrounds.

Japanese cooking and container gardening have turned into great hobbies for me this summer, along with my usual tech meetups!

Japanese cooking and container gardening have turned into great hobbies for me this summer, along with my usual tech meetups!

If you feel as though you are stuck in a cycle of work and home, consider exploring local volunteer options around you. These third spaces do not always have to be career-work focused or involve meeting up with people in person. Taking classes in a new craft, or attending online webinars hosted by other professional organizations can also foster your creativity and enthusiasm I would often tell my students and mentees that they needed to have a holistic education. Classwork work is not enough!

Here are some other spaces to consider if you feel stuck:

  • Meetups and online webinars are often hosted by different technologists or professional associations in your area. Look up information networking opportunities online if you are shy about attending on your own!

  • Most cities have a local Arts Council or studios which offer courses for a wide range of practices. This also includes exploring courses offered by local community colleges or univer, both in person and online, to build skills in digital art, programming and project management!

  • Explore online message forums and subreddits; many have communities which host their own Discord, YouTube or Twitch channels where you can interact with other people.

Have fun exploring a new space as summer ends, and think about the types of learning you can bring to your coworkers and learners, that will help them have a holistic education too!

Favorite Plan Friday: Lessons from the Fyre Fest Pitch Deck

Also a good time to review the importance of point of view and biases with students!

Also a good time to review the importance of point of view and biases with students!

As a part of my boardgame themed rhetoric and composition course, I asked my college first years to build a business pitch deck as a part of their deliverable over the semester.

Here’s a quick breakdown for anyone interested in a similar assignment for their students! This discussion be part of a general conversation about business writing or presenting.

Preparations:

My learners were already in groups and had completed the following assignments

  • Working familiarity with the rhetorical triangle and “DOCS”

  • Approved board game game proposals with feedback from me and peers

  • Drafted general prototype ideas and reflections for their game components

  • Discussion of visual analysis and semiotics

  • Familiarity with design thinking and review techniques

  • Review of IGDA pitch submission requirements; here’s a great link to guidelines that I used to develop my rubric: IGDA Game Submission Guidelines

  • Feedback on game design documents

  • group consultations and meeting with Design Lab and Makerspace experts

  • Ask students to review posted articles about Fyre Fest (or watch 1 of 2 documentaries before class)

Lesson plan objectives for the day (for a 75 min lesson):

  • Students will be able to compare and critique presentation styles for different contexts and persuasive situations

  • Students will be able to identify specific design decisions that will affect their pitch deck building plan

  • Students will be able to compose and plan their own pitches (outlines and scripts) in groups

Lesson plan flow:

  • Opening Writing Activity on the Free-Write Forums:
    -Describe the best (or worst) best presentation you have seen; what went wrong? What good characteristics would you want to emulate and why? If you have a link to the presentation or presenter, include the URL in your post. Have students share their posts as an opening activity, and note specific similarities and differences.

  • Review Unit 2 progression and sprint layout

  • Describe requirements for the next project (the business pitch) and introduce the rubric and requirements

  • Solicit in groups examples of business writing genres and scenarios that students have encountered; this is a great moment to draw on information from student profiles or have students volunteer the types of business environments they have been a part of (as workers, interns etc). Be sure to have them consider the context-specific elements that made writing work so well, you can even draw back on the examples from the opening free-write!

  • Visual analysis with DOCs and the Fyre Fest Pitch Deck: students had 15-20 mins to analyze the pitch deck (this is after introducing the context etc.).

  • Visual analysis with samples from the University of Dayton Business Plan Competition; students then review at least 2 pitches (you may want to have them bring headphones or share to reduce the noise). This an also be an activity that is done as a part of homework before the class starts.

    Review and remind students of our rhetorical context:

    -Business pitch: “What will your game do, (and how will it make money?)”
    -Audience: publishers, press, platforms, and players
    -Similar relationship between text and visuals as in advertising; difficulty in pitching something you haven’t finished yet

  • Brainstorming session: Students are free to review and analyze sample pitches from previous years, as well as the provided templates and tools and begin the brainstorming worksheet for their groups. They can complete the planning sheet for homework in order to to plan their next sprint.

What I Read this Week (WIRTW): Cyberpunk + Data Science Bias

* A E S T H E T I C * V I B E S *

* A E S T H E T I C * V I B E S *

I am a 90s kid, and as such, I grew up during a period of time when the internet was still full of potential. I’m amazed to see the rise of 90s fashion, music and other artistic aesthetics making a comeback (and I can’t help but feel a little proud to have seen it the first time around).

The blend of pastels, clash of graphics and sythpop fuels my recent musical interests and is slowly making its way into the color palettes for my current web projects and digital art.

I was reminded of one of my favorite lesson plans from my Popular Genres course while catching up on my reading this week. In that course, I created a unit- discussion around the types of “punk” to emerge from the 70s and the different philosophical and socio-cultural outlooks held by each wave. My learners then explored these concepts through fun follow-up activities such as making their own online quizzes, social media profiles for historical figures, or even created interactive Twine stories to capture the spirit of their favorite genre of punk. In addition, they also spent time envisioning what the next wave of punk would look like. I really enjoyed the unit and my learners expressed interest in understanding the impact that punk made on their own popular culture conception.

Here is what I read this week:

Fiction and Graphic Novels:

  • Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

  • Ghost in the Shell by Mamoru Oshii

  • Snowpiercer: The Escape and Snowpiercer: The Explorers by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette (translated)

Design Thinking and Data Science:

  • Don’t Make Me Think (Revisited) by Steve Krug

  • Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez

What I Read this Week (WIRTW): Around the Web + Self Care

After the rush of diving back into my tomes, it has been rewarding to check out a few quick reads. Even though online web articles sometimes get a bit of a bad wrap, I found that short articles became a great way to kick off discussions both inside and outside of the classroom.

Here are a few articles to get you going this week:
Manipulation and Dark Design Patterns:

The Power of a General Skill Set:

Content Strategy and Composition:

If you are in need of some positive vibes:

What I Read this Week (WIRTW): Playful UX Design + Dystopian Fiction

Seems like this is a mandatory dystopian uniform

Seems like this is a mandatory dystopian uniform

It is HOT here. Really hot. The 70% and above humidity does not help, and I have found myself seeking shelter in the cool breeze of my AC from the hours of 10am to 4pm.

Not only have I had the chance to catch up on my reading, I am also working my way through several classic videogames.

I love stories (some say that my degree is in storytelling) and the levels of interaction that video games and the software that power them provide to players has always fascinated me.





To this end, the books I read this week that blend game design, UX and learning experiences in creative ways. Enjoy!

UX and Game Interaction Design:

  • Playful Design: Creating Game Experiences in Everyday Interfaces by John Ferrara

Dystopian Fiction (my favorite):

  • Kindred by Octavia Butler

  • On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee

Video game theory:

  • The Medium of the Video Game by Mark J. P. Wolf

What I Made this Week: Working on Brush Control

This is one of my favorite videos due to the simplicity of the activity and how well he explains the underlying concept

If you have met me in person, you might have heard me talk about the importance of art. While I do like stories, visual art (and even audio) have always played an crucial part in my understanding of the world.

I credit attending a middle school and high school school which specialized in the arts as fostering my creativity and demonstrating that there is no such thing as an “odd” combination of disciplines.

“How can I make a clay model of literary heroes…but as action figures? What would Hamlet sound like if it were re-written in a pirate dialect? How can I wire a dollhouse with working electrical outlets?” and other questions provided me with some of the most fun lesson plans I have experienced in ages. In my own course design, I emphasize this blend not just for creative purposes, but because it welcomes so many types of learners to express what they have learned according to their own strengths.

Off to a decent start with blending!

Off to a decent start with blending!

While I can’t pick up my clarinet (I assume my neighbors wouldn’t care to hear that), I dove into working on brushing up on my digital art skills. With some work on my brush control and new digital art hardware, I hope to make some fun assets to explore and storyboard some of my game ideas. Who knows, by September, I’m hoping to combine my sewing and 3D printing skills into something fun and tactile.

SMART GOALS and Summer Productivity!

Productivity!

I am still learning that this term encompasses so many different ideas, which makes it such a great example of a “glittering generality”. Productivity can mean any and EVERYTHING to a wide audience. It doesn’t matter if you are in the middle of the tenure track rush or if you are embedded in corporate life. We are all fighting against the limitations imposed on us by that term, and it can be especially frustrating when those limitations are self-inflicted.

When I worked at a collegiate level, I used to fear that I wasn’t productive enough — not enough grading done, the assessment methods weren’t thorough enough, the learning objectives weren’t clear enough or that my own research projects weren’t receiving “enough” attention. This type of negative thinking is exhausting, and while I did have the chance to go the “extra mile”, I had to accept that I shouldn’t have to use this fear of enough as the gasoline for my motor.

Bullet journal (bujo) are also great for visual learners

Bullet journal (bujo) are also great for visual learners

While it was not a quick fix, a few years ago, I was introduced to the concept of setting SMART goals as a way to make the ambiguity around productivity clearer. After the end of my last semester, I decided to continue to set my plan for each day or week using the same SMART goal methods. Each evening or first thing in the morning, I like to make some coffee and then update my google spreadsheets to track my main goals and set priorities for the day. In some ways, my spreadsheets have turned into mini-journals and reflect the “work adjacent work” that helps me set my own definition of productivity.

This is a great technique not just for tracking your own work, but could also be adapted to help your learners track their own skills or career goals over time or to track their own measures of productivity for various projects. You can even color-code the tasks and use data-validation methods to make it even easier to find a workflow that works best for you!

Changing Directions: Another Lesson in Content Strategy

The strategy wasn’t quite this intense, thankfully!

The strategy wasn’t quite this intense, thankfully!

Hello hello!

So I have decided to change directions for this blog. 

While I don’t consider myself a perfectionist, I was forced to come to terms with the fact that my need to every aspect of my own content strategy for this blog planned, meant that I falling behind.

It is hard to put a plan into action, when one doesn’t sit down to write the actual content (who could have guessed).

Behind the scenes, I initially created a blogging plan that was highly regimented (*ahem* I planned out each post waaaaay ahead of time). After a few weeks of feeling as though I was spinning in circles, I realized that I was going against the spirit of what a blog should entail.  Even my mentor noted that while the content and ideas expressed in my plan and content models and drafts were great, I was still missing a major part of the picture. Planning is a crucial part of project management. However, being “Stuck” in the planning stage can quickly turn into action paralysis.

My planned content and drafts received great feedback from my trusted editors, but everyone returned one similar point of feedback. The content copy was missing part of what makes a blog work so well-- the insight that comes from the spontaneity from the author.  

So, in the spirit of trying something new, and being willing to learn from my learners, I will keep things a bit more conversational and less “planned”. This blog is still a space to share ideas to inspire other instructors and former academics who are looking to try something new, but I have a new mantra.


Perfection is the enemy of the good, especially when it comes to producing good content!

You Have Got This! Interview Prep and Procrastination

So you finally hear back about the application you submitted.  As many people who are trained in research tend to do, I love to dive right into ways of preparing for interviews once I get that interview request email. The transition from the academic world to the corporate world is still a bit hazy to me, and I have decided to write about my experience job hunting this summer as a part of this blog. I’m used to “putting myself out there”, but job hunting, especially in industry, is a totally different set of norms for me to explore.

There’s a fine line between an interview and interrogation

There’s a fine line between an interview and interrogation

Sometimes, for academics, it can seem as though the job search out of the tower is fuzzy. Even the applications themselves seem to request so “little” but leave so much open to interpretation. When I started hunting this July, I was shocked. This application only requests a resume? A one page cover letter? That’s it? No roll of references, or fifteen statements about every form of teaching, working, living or personal philosophy under the sun?

I have agonized over my portfolios (and even this website) long before I ever considered that I might receive the a request for an interview. Don’t get me started on the hours I poured over design challenge approaches. While it is important to be prepared, make sure that your portfolio, interview prep, and other useful prep tools are not shifting from preparatory work into procrastination tools.

Consider this in your own job hunt process— what are your procrastination tools? Do you really need to chase the perfect portfolio, or can you go ahead an apply now? There’s nothing wrong with anticipating questions, but there’s no need to plan out an elaborate response for questions that haven’t even been asked of you yet.

Here are a few quick tips and pieces of advice that I am finding useful during my own job search I officially kicked off the first week this month:

  • Prepare for the general questions for your field, of course, but also consider how you will address behavioral questions. How do you handle conflict? Have you had to negotiate with peers or supervisors? Behavioral questions do not seem to arise much in conversations around academic interviews, but they are a crucial part of understanding not just yourself, but the environment in which you will enter.

  • Speaking of environment, one thing I would recommend is to drop the jargon.  Regardless of your discipline, academia as an institution has its own jargon that can be overwhelming or even worse, give the impression that we are distancing ourselves from our interviewers (or gives off an air of pretension). It can hard to avoid, and I find that the more nervous I am, the more quickly I retreat into the comfort of “verbal distance”. A quick example— at a workshop I described a product our team created as a “pet hydration system, focused on mobile water portability”…we created a water bottle for dogs. While I was able to catch myself and self-correct in the moment, focusing on avoiding those types of behaviors is a major plus!

  • Don’t be afraid to let some of your personality shine through.  It can be intimidating, but remember that interviews are the start of a conversation with your potential coworkers.  You should observe how they treat you— are they welcoming? Standoffish? Trust your gut and follow it. As someone who has been on both sides of the table, I believe it is important for everyone to feel heard and respected, and the ideal candidate will walk away from the interview thinking “wow, I really want to work with them”!

  • People are drawn to stories.  SAR is one popular framework, but remember that as Nicky says in Orange is the New Black , people are “story junkies” (…maybe don’t use that exact quote in an interview…maybe). Make sure you can get to the point and summarize your projects quickly and succinctly.

  • Prepare for the unexpected. You will sometimes have wild questions and scenarios thrown at you. You will survive and learn from each experience. Remember that you have had years worth of students and workshop attendees who made every day a new adventure.  You know your skill set and now you have to focus on selling it.

    　頑張って and Happy Interviewing!

“First meaning, then modeling”: Exploring Content Everywhere Chapters 1-2

“We don’t have to choose between structure and soul”
This week, I decided to revisit the crucial content strategy book Content Everywhere  by Sara Wachter-Boettcher.  I thought this book, highly recommended by my mentor,  would be a great way to start my summer reading and to refresh my skills now that I’m officially on the job market.   

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