The Pink PortfolioIdeas stolen from

Daniel H. Pink

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A Daniel Pink Exercise

Channel Your Annoyance

“To be a designer is to be an agent of change” – CHAD’s Barbara C. Allen

“Design is a high-concept aptitude that is difficult to outsource or automate” – Daniel Pink

Design

1. Choose a household item that annoys you in some way.

2. In a group of 2 or 3, decide which item is most annoying

3. For duration of a class period, outline what’s annoying about it, and how you’d change it

Activity

2-3 sentences explaining what task(s) the product was intended to be used to complete

3-5 sentences explaining your particular problem with the product

4-6 sentences of how the product you’ve re-designed is better than the existing product

Writing

A (set of) drawing(s) of your new product

Additional additions

A “Karimanifesto”

Pick a profession that you’re interested in joining as an adult

Find one or two members of the community in that profession, and ask them:

What are 5 things that someone who’sinterested in becoming a(n) _____________should begin to do on daily, weekly, andmonthly bases to work their way into your

field?

Basics

Compile list of pieces of advice

Organize by Daily, Weekly, Monthly Pieces

Then organize in order of perceived (by you) importance

You should have 15 total (5 for each time frame)

How it becomes a manifesto

Put It on the Table

Find an object that matters a lot to you or holds some special meaning AND find one that doesn’t matter a whole lot

Put the item that matters on your desk and explore the following questions:

Set-up

1. When you look at or use this object, what does it make you think of?

a. The skill you need to use it? The person who made it?

2. How does this object affect each of your five senses?

3. How do you connect the sensory clues you get from the object to your thoughts about it? What connections have you made?

Stuff to think about

Now complete the same task with the item that does not matter

BIG QUESTION:

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?!?!?!

Again

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Mini-sagas

A mini-saga is an extremely short story

Yours should be exactly 50 words. 50. No more. No fewer.

It should still have a beginning, middle, and end

Simply write three (3)

Tape Recorded Story

Find a relative, friend, teacher or other person you come in regular contact with

Turn on a video or tape recorder and ask a series of questions

Interview should be around 30-45 minutes

The Basics

Ask 10 questions5 from http://tinyurl.com/scquests

5 of your own writing

Make sure video captures both your question and their answers

Requirements

Opening Lines

Go back through what you’ve read in the past year

If you’ve owned the books, find the marked sentences that you want(ed) to remember

Compile a list of “great” sentences from the literature that you’ve read

Put a star by one, and write one on an index card

What to do

Choose one of the sentences that you’ve listed and base a story on it

Story should run a page or two typed

Your story should bare as little resemblance as possible to story it was taken from

What else to do

You’ll write three stories:One based on the sentence you chose from your listOne based on the sentence you drew from the boxOne based on the sentence you picked from my list

Don’t stress over length; stress over content

Don’t worry about perfection; you’ll never get there anyway

You’ll only put ONE into your final portfolio

In the end

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Beethoven’s 9th

Mozart’s No. 35Haydn’s No. 94 in G Major

Listen to how everything works together

Listening to a Symphony

Self-portraitPortrait of a neighborPortrait of the field

You only get 5 lines

5-line Drawing

Type a (school-appropriate) word that you find interesting into a search engine

Choose one of the first five websites to click

Skim over the material on the initial link to learn about your topic

Select a link from that site, and a link from that site, and so on until you’ve clicked SIX links, making sure to read information on all of the pages

Follow the Links

Write a paragraph (6-8 sentences) summarizing the information that you learned about your initial topics

Consider:What you encountered doing this that you

wouldn’t have encountered otherwiseIf any patterns or themes emergedWhat unusual connections (if any) you might

have encountered

Follow the Links

Like “Follow the Links,” but in a dictionary

Look up any noun, and continue looking up words from definitions until you have 6 words

Record the train of words, and write a 1-page story using those words

Underline the words from your list in the story

Follow the Words

Choose a problem from the list

In a group of 5 people, do the following to brainstorm solutions

One person in your group should be a scribe and the other a director

Brainstorming

1. Go for quantity1. Set a numerical goal (~30 would be great)

2. Encourage wild ideas1. The more outlandish, the better

3. Be visual1. Spend 5 minutes on a search engine looking up

pictures on your topic4. Defer Judgment

1. No idea is a bad idea, but there are such things as better ideas. Go creative, then get critical.

5. One conversation at a time

Rules

from:Pink, Daniel. A Whole New Mind. New York:

Riverhead,2005.

All ideas stolen

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EmpathyPlay

Meaning

Tests used to measure empathy and related qualities

To serve as an introduction to thinking about your own empathy level

Males tend to systematically go about their lives, whereas women tend to empathetically go about their lives

Test Yourself

“Male” vs. “Female” brainsFrom Simon Baron-Cohen, 60-question

instruments to determine the “gender” of your brainEmpathy Quotient (girls)

http://tinyurl.com/dbsd8Systemizing Quotient (boys)

http://tinyurl.com/7taj8“Spot the Fake Smile”

Ten-minute, 20-question test to see how good you are at differentiating between fake and real smiles

http://tinyurl.com/2u7sh

Test Yourself cont’d.

Pick a place to sit and listen to others’ conversationse.g. Starbucks, Target, the library, your

classroom, the lunch roomListen carefully, but don’t intrude on the

conversationImagine yourself as one of the participants,

and consider:What are you (meaning him or her) thinking

and feeling at that moment?What emotions, if any, are coursing through

your body?How did you get at this spot at this particular

time?

Eavesdropping

Write date, time frame, and location in your Spirally

Note your considerations in your Spirally

Write 4-6 sentences about your experience

In addition to your considerations about the person:What did this experience teach you?How many conversations did you have to listen to

before finding the one you wrote about?What if someone were doing this to you?

Eavesdropping cont’d.

Whose Life?

Pair up with another classmate that you DON’T KNOW very well

Ask them about their lives and how they got to Honors World Literature at West Hall High School in whatever grade they are

Listen to and take notes on story, be ready to tell story to the class

Pick one of your teachers and ask them the same

How Did I Get Here?

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Choose two or three of the cartoons from the set

Write a humorous caption about what’s going on in the cartoon

According to the Cartoon Editor at The New Yorker, captions take “rhythm, brevity, and surprise,” and that:“Most cartoons or funny ideas have this weird

combining aspect. It is a conceptual blending and overlapping of categories that the conscious mind resists, but that is absolutely necessary to create new ideas” (Pink 210).

Cartoon Captions

Write a (school-appropriate) joke in your Spirally

Partner up with someone you don’t know well, and tell them the joke

Your partner should then analyze the joke to discern why it’s funny

Answer in 1-2 sentences:What makes this joke funny?? What could make it funnier?

Dissect a Joke

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Meaning

Think of someone at West Hall who has been kind, generous, or helpful in a significant wayStudent, teacher, support staff, librarian, etc.

In your Spirally, brainstorm some of the ways that person support you

At your computer, type a one-page letter to that person explaining how grateful you are

Be specific about what you’re thankful for

The Gratitude Visit

In your Spirally, draw a T-Chart

Head one side “Wanted Life Changes” and the other side “Obstacles to Change”

At the bottom of the chart, connect the two sides with a comma and the word “but”

But Out

“Exchanging and for but can move you out of excuse-making mode and into problem-solving mode. It’s grammar’s way of saying ‘deal with this’” (Pink 238).

Pink also writes that if the technique fails, “you can always say ‘I wanted to make changes in my life, but that exercise in Pink’s book didn’t help me enough’” (238).

On the next sheet in your Spirally, go back to each item and replace the word “but” with the word “and”

But Out cont’d.

Sabbath: a time of rest (m-w.com)

Select one day a week and remove yourself from the average busyness

Like the “This I Believe” essay, this does not need to be religious, on Sunday, etc.

Try this for two weeksWrite a paragraph or two about your

experience the day after each sabbath taken

Take a Sabbath

The mini-sabbath

Choose one common act that you commit every dayWalking into 5th period, going to lunch, waking

up, etc.

Take a “Sabbath pause” and “simply stop, take three mindful breaths, and then go about the activity”

Try for a week or so when doing the same thing

Sabbath alternative

In your Spirally, make a list of what is most important to youThink about people, activities, values, etc.

Narrow the list to about 5 items

Trace 2 weeks from the Unit 5 calendar (or some other) into your Spirally

Write into your traced calendar the days and times that you spent on these items

Check Your Time

Once you’ve moved your priorities from the list to the calendars, CONSIDER:How many hours can you assign to each of the

life priorities?Where have you successfully aligned your

values with your time?Where do you find gaps between wants and

actions?

Always be honest about your assessment, as that will help the most

Check Your Time cont’d.

Choose someone that matters a lot to you

Decide what kind of work they would want you to do, accomplish

Begin to think of your work as a gift

In 3-4 sentences, write who you’re planning to dedicate this portfolio to, and why.

Dedicate Your Work

“Live life now as if you’re living for the second time and

had acted wrongly the first time” (Pink, 244).

Think of yourself as being 90 years old, and consider:What does your life look like from this point of view?What have you accomplished in your life?What have you contributed to the world in which

you’ve lived?Do you have any regrets?

Picture Yourself at Ninety