Thursday, February 7, 2008

React and Reflect on Live Blogging with Pink

Take some time to react and reflect about the live blogging we completed today with Daniel Pink.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought live blogging with Mr. Pink was a really interesting and effective learning experience. Since Mr. Pink wrote the book, he expanded his ideas and clarified a few things. It surprised me how he just fit into the conversation we were having and cared about what we had to say. He asked questions that challenged us to think beyond the text, while never making any of us feel below him. Thanks to Mr. Pink and my classmates, I now have a better understanding of empathy and the balance it requires.
However, as we discussed in class, I am going to do some research on the exercise of drawing the “Empathetic E” on our forehead. He did not cite the research or where he got this information, so I am going to check and make sure the experiment is supported by facts.
Overall, the conversation with Mr. Pink showed me how he truly thinks through everything with both hemispheres of his brain. He realizes and emphasizes the importance of utilizing a whole mind, the left brain (common sense of knowing how much Empathy is enough) and the right brain (leaders aren’t successful without Empathy). I am very excited for the opportunity to speak with him more in depth during the video conference.

kristinah said...

Over all I think that the blogging with Pink went really well. But there were a couple things that didn't go well.
1) the blogging had so many people on it that only a select few got their questions answered.

2) Sharing the computer made it even harder to stay up with the blog comments because your partner would see something that want to type and you would have to rush and not get your whole comment accross.

3) The inner circle was so crammed that even if you did want to drop in you had to squeeze in to a really tight uncomfortable spot.

4) There were still a select few people who really monopolized the conversation. This really needs to stop because not everyone is equally assertive and we need to give everyone a chance.

5) I feel that everyone needs to have a better feeling for when the topic has been discussed enough to where we can move on and noone should be sad about that because you can put you comment on the blog and hope that it gets added on to.

6) I have a idea for the blog, we could put questions into caps so that people can find them easier.

I think that is all but I really enjoyed having period two and especially Daniel Pink and having different perspectives on everything. It was really great being able to talk to so many people all at once. That is all for now, I might add something else later:-)

kristinah said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
kristinah said...

Oh, also I think that the empathetic E depends on which hand you write with because my mom and I are both very emathetic and both left handed are we both drew our e to the right (nonempathetic side) Let me know what you all got.

hannahl said...

I think that both groups need to work on the inner circle, the monopolizers AND the quiet one. Monopolizers need to tone it down a bit, but the quiet ones need to find their voice, because it is hard to just stop talking when the quiet person isn't being assertive. It is a two-way thing that needs to be resolved on both sides.

ParkerH said...

I read the comments of the people before me, and I thought that those were very good. I agree with what Hannah said about the inner circle. That is a good way to fix it. What Kristina and Whitney said about the conversation was good too. The only problem I really have is with the whole "E" exercise. Personally, I hated it. I know that some other people did too. Any time that you take one small example of something, and say, "Because of this, they are empathetic," or anything like that, it doesn't work well. Like the empathy test in the book. There were huge numbers, and then incredibly low numbers. To me, they are not that far apart in real life. I just think that one test that some guy created cannot define an entire being with a few words or numbers. I detest that thinking. Sorry if I offended anyone, but that is the way I think.
As for the actual conversation, it was good, but had some faults. Some of these were addressed earlier, but I want to throw in my two cents worth.

1. The conversations stayed on the same topic a bit too long.
2. We could not get enough points across with the limited time and computers.
3. When people on the blog tried to move the conversation along, it was bypassed in the mad rush of comments.

It was a great conversation, and it will be really good to do the video conference with Daniel Pink later on. I hope that we can hammer out the small problems, and have even greater conversations after this.

jordanh said...

hannah- I agree. I find it hard to get a word in edgewise, so i am going to speak up more often, but that will also mean that "monopolizers" have to chill out too. I thought that having Mr. Pink present was a great experience because it shows me that an author of a book cares about what I had to say. It was such an honor to have Mr. Pink on the blog, and to hear him talk to US was so cool.
Thanks, Dan.

Caitlin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Caitlin said...

Blogging with Dan Pink today was a unique experience. Mr. Pink has alot to say, and he posed some thoughtful questions that I enjoyed answering. I thik it was great that he just fit into the conversation, and he wanted to jump into the inner circle, to ask a couple questions himself. I also feel priveleged that out of all the schools that are reading "A Whole New Mind", he agreed to blog with us.
Just like Whitney said, I think that when Mr. Pink was talking about the E excercise, some light bulbs went off in my head, and I think I too am going to do some research on that.
Reading AWNM and communicating with the author himself has truly made me more assertive of some of the things that he has talked about. It has also made me think using both sides of my brain, and has helped me to remain open minded about the things that I come across in my life.

DawnielleN said...

Empathy was a really key chapter for me and I was really glad that PInk picked this one specifically to talk with about with us.

1. I know I'm a "talker" and I'll tone it down a lot when it comes to monopolizing the conversations, but I also agree with Hannah. I think that learning how to make sure that your voice is heard is an important skill and it needs to be learned. If someone in the group is talking too often I think it is up to us, as students to say something or be a little more aggressive. But, again I do understand that it’s also important for people to give someone else a chance once in a while.

2. To me, a good flow of the conversation is a really important thing and I thought that today our flow was really good. Granted, we stayed on similar topics for a while but they were topics that needed to be addressed. Empathy in the business world, empathy in a leader, empathy in education, where empathy comes from , and empathy in our personal lives were all talked about in depth today and I think that some were too wrapped up on what we DIDN’T GET TO instead of what we did get to

3. I think it might be a good idea to have all of the PRESENTERS for a fishbowl write one question that they would really like to get to up on a board (so that everyone can see it) so that we have a better sense of how to balance our time between different key points.

Unknown said...

All --

Thanks for your time yesterday. Glad you enjoyed hearing about the "E" research.

Here's a link to an article with a decent summary:
http://www.livescience.com/health/070116_power_perspective.html

And here's a link to the researcher himself whose page has some other interesting info: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/bio/galinsky.htm

MollyS said...

I really enjoyed the live blogging as well. I agree with Kristina because I felt like when I had something to say in the inner circle that I really had to push in there to get it said. Literally and figuritivly. But that could really be helped by just getting some more tables... I think it was very exciting and a different experience to have Mr. Pink be able to talk to us, becuase usually the people who are joining us are just on the blog. One of my biggest complaints with the fishbowl was the fact that it wasn't really a 'discussion' on the blog, it was more of a question and answer session. I feel like we may have missed out on some good discussion topics due to this. Overall, it was the hightlight of my day!

beckyg said...

I really enjoyed blogging with Mr. Pink. I thought it was very interesting to see what he thought about out ideas and what he thought about what we were saying. I thought the "E" test was interesting, although I think he should have told us who this recent survey was done by. I thought it was a fascinating concept that the "E" could show how empathetic you are. I thought Mr. Pink brought up some good points. I can not wait until the live video conference with him later to hear even more of his intruiging ideas.

beckyg said...

Mr. Pink

I just saw that you put the research on the blog. Thank you very much for that and thank you for spending the time to blog with us.

Thanks Again,
Becky

lesliel said...

So the discussion on Thursday was fun! Too bad I had no voice... but that is ok, I had a good time anyways. I thought it was really cool how Daniel Pink actually wanted to talk outloud with us personally, it made me feel really special, and it gave me a feeling about how he felt when he wrote his book, or, it gave me a better sight of his point of view I should say. I hope we were not boring him too much at the end, because he did not look too enthuised. Deffinitely next time, we should move on to more subjects!

aaronw said...

I thought it was exciting.Even though it was kinda dumb how you couldn't hear the inner circle or get there too well... but it was different hearing someone talking during the fishbowl on a video... it was weird.

Louiseb said...

I thought that it was really exciting that we got to actually talk to Daniel Pink. You don't get to talk to an author everyday. I really liked how daniel pink got to talk outloud, it gave me a better insight into what was going through his head when he wrote A Whole New Mind. I do think that we got really off topic though. I didn't really see how Hitler was related to empathy, but there were a few good points that were brought up on that topic anyway.

Alyssa S. said...

Having the chance to live blog with Daniel Pink was a great oppurtunity and I think we made the best of it. One of the only problems I saw was that in the inner circle, we didn't really disscuss how empathy related to us in our education. We mostly dissucssed how empathy played a role in the rest of the world. And we mostly got stuck on that one subject for a long period of time. But besides that, it was exciting!

maddief said...

Thanks for blogging with us Daniel! It was a lot of fun hearing your opinion on our discussions.

I think that it was hard trying to cram the two periods together for the discussion. Having two or three people on a computer limited how many comments a person got to make. However, I think that the inner circle did a great job. Good work, guys!

morganw said...

The live blogging experience is fun, but with so many people you don't have time to really develop your responses and carry on a good conversasion with everybody. Blogs are not meant to be in real time and while it has seemed to be working for us at AHS, it really is not the best method mostly because you never have time to read everybody's responses and if you do, by the time you respond your point is 10 or 15 comments old. It gets in a flurry of activity where everybody has a hard time fully appreciating the points others have made. Unfortunatly, they only way I can think to do this is to have a new post for every new subject that comes up, that way when you post a comment you know you are posting where others who are on the same topic can find it easily. Maybe the presenters could meet together beforehand and come up with some questions to put on the blog. That way everybody already has a basis from which to start the conversasion and can develop their responses a bit beforehand. That might make it easier to follow. Just an idea though.

macm said...

I thought that live bloggin was fun, but here are the setbacks: 1)It was hard to have an ongoing conversation with somebody because you were sharing a computer. As soon as you finished saying something, your partner wanted to comment, so you had to wait until they wer done to serch through the mire of blogging to find the responses to your comment. 2) I felt as if we weren't really learning anything, just discussing the same topics that we always talk about. Usually I had this great revelation and I discovered something really fascinating, especially when we blogged with Mr. Stager. 3)He didn't really talk all that much! I wanted him to react to somebodies questionor comment to see what he thought, but all Mr. Pink did was ask vague questions. Don't get me wrong, it was a great experience, but I would have enjoyed it more had he gotten into the converstion like Mr. Maas did. 4)Sigh, most everyone followed him like a flock of sheep. I thought we were past this, but everyone decided to agree one-hundred percent. It was too bad. I hoped Morgan or somebody would try to disagree with him a bit, but nobody did. Oh well. (I'm still waiting for the Stager/Pink smack-down!) 5)Unfortunately, lots of people were so preoccupied with answering Mr. Pink's questions that some other interesting questions were overlooked. 6)Last, I did not like the E test. Just because you draw an E one way determines whether you are empathetic or not? I drew it more empathetically but not because I was seeing it from somebody else's perspective, but because to me it was the correct way to draw it if I was looking at myself. Also, where did this so called research come from? I scored a twenty on the empathy test, and yet I am empathetic? Huh? Anyways, I liked the blogging, but I would have enjoyed being on the inner circle. I thnk that this experiment would work better with less people. Okay, I'm done.

josed said...

To be honest, I really thought it was awesome that a major author was willing, no, GLAD to talk with us and blog with us. I really think that speaks volumes about how important people consider our learning.


HOWEVER, I WOULD LIKE TO REMIND EVERYONE THAT WE ARE BEING VIDEOTAPED AND RECORDED SO IT IS ESSENTIAL---AND I MEAN ESSENTIAL--- THAT WE BRING UP VALID AND SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE POINTS,FOR THAT IS A LIFE-LONG RECORD YOU ARE CREATING!

Thank you for tolerating my All-Caps rant, and I would like to say that I think we did a great job other than that.

chelseas said...

I really enjoyed blogging with Daniel Pink, but there were a few drawbacks. First off, the inner circle talked very quietly, and it was hard to hear in the outer circle. Also, there were many times when I wanted to jump in and discuss something in the inner circle, but it was too hard to get up there, or too crowded. Sharing a computer made it difficult, too. On the computer that my partner and I were using, the second internet, Mozilla Fire Fox, was down so we had to keep logging off users, as well as trading off with one anoter to comment. I really enjoyed being able to talk to an author of a book, though. This was a very rare opportunity that we received. Thank you Daniel Pink and Mrs. Smith!

Unknown said...

To be honest, I thought that this experience was actually pretty cool. I was in the inner circle myself, and I thought we did a pretty good job of talking things through. I liked how Mr. Pink was just dying to get in and talk to us. I thought that we handled his question pretty well despite the fact that he was the one who wrote the book. I also think that he was impressed that we had the objective to actually challenge some of the ideas in his book. I agree with Ms. Smith though, when he was talking, we all just kind of said, "Oh, yeah. I agree with that." But, when he wasn't talking with us, I think we did pretty good at challenging Pink's ideas.

mattw said...

parkerh- on the E exercise. I don't see what's so bad about it. IT's not "DEFINING YOUR ENTIRE BEING", it's just a small activity to show if you are generally more empathetic than otherwise. Besides - that thing was totally sub-conscious, and maybe you aren't empathetic, and you just like to think otherwise.

stephenf said...

A job well done by all but I think we need to watch out and really consider and take in what Ms. Smith brought up to day in the discusion. Though this may have already been adressed I do feel that for those people that are the "Monopolizers" should try to help incrperate those people who also have important topics to present. My hypothesis is: If you can control the group or have a strong enough voice to influence what goes on in the inner circle use it to help someone else. Does the group meke the leader of the leader make the group? Hmmm sounds familiar to me. US History maybe.

nilec said...

There were ups and downs about the blogging with Daniel Pink. I thought it was very interesting reading this book and then being able to actually talk to the man behind it all. It adds meaning to the reading. Daniel Pink had some great things to say about the inner circle discussion and about our two classes. A few things that bothered was that it was difficult to hear the inner circle discussion, The space was limited, and I think it would have added to the conversation if Daniel Pink could have spoken more. For the most part it was a great experience

maddisonm said...

I thought having Pink incorporated with our blogging and inner circle was a really neat experience. I think that Pink added to the conversation and helped clarify and expand on some very important aspects of Empathy. I was in the inner circle and I felt like we did a really good job of discussing, despite the few things we need to work on. We did an excellent job and kept calm and collected under what I would consider a nerve-racking environment. For me I felt like once we started going everything just went. I felt so entranced by the conversation and I loved hearing everyone’s different view points and ideas. I was a little disappointed that I did not get to share more of my ideas, but I guess that is something that I will need to work on. I did not, however think Pink’s “E” experiment was all that true. I personally think I am a pretty empathetic person, and according to Simon Baron-Cohen's Empathy Quotient I am “above average” in my empathy level. Nevertheless, according to the studies Pink talked about, I drew my “E” to the right, making me not an empathetic person, which I really do not think is true. Also, Pink said that left handed people just mess it all up. I am not sure what he meant by this but, it makes me think that this test may not be all that valid. One point that Pink brought up that I just really liked and clarified so much for me was when he talked about how you need to know when to have more Empathy, and when to have a little less. This really clarified for me that you need to have a whole minded approach to situations. Overall I really enjoyed the discussion and the presence that Pink brought.