The new cohort began this week and we got into action from day 01. The cohort members started their planning by detailing their daily workout or challenges in their domain. They also started fleshing out the finer details of a project that can be completed in 2-3 weeks and one that has an outcome at the end.
One of the members was interested in ‘Graphic Designing’ and as part of his daily workout he chose to study iconic logos and create his version if he owned these brands.
At the end of day 01, during reflection, he shared very dejectedly that while he was able to recreate the logos he faced a major creative block when it came to innovating them.
We all heard him out patiently and prompt came the response from one of the cohort buddies who has been deep diving into designing for a longer period of time. She said and I quote ‘Observation is key to imagination. Why don’t you observe many many more logos, understand the story behind how they were created in the first place, all the drafts that were rejected before the final version was accepted’. And they went on to discuss some more details.
There were some striking inferences that came out of this incident –
- Just by being virtue of being in a cohort, one is exposed to so many perspectives which truly enriches the process for any learner
- As cohort buddies, they co-facilitate each other ‘s journey often helping the learner transition out of their blocked phases
- Creativity or innovation isn’t something we stumble upon out of nowhere. It can only be cultivated with sustained efforts and deeper explorations where the learner keeps making incremental progress
- Power of the cumulative – just by rigorously committing to a daily challenge one can really accumulate a lot of learning easily over the course of time