Coming into this session I had no idea what we were going to be learning and discussing. I found the session interesting Transient workers count too is a nonprofit organization that helps low wage migrant workers in Singapore.

The talk was interesting and they talked about all the possible scenarios that they encounter and things they tell the migrant workers.

 

• Some key points were:

Being bold and natural. 

 

Deborah Emmanuel is a Singaporean poet, performer, and TEDx speaker. Deborah talked about her experiences growing up and feeling out of place. She discussed her culture and how she didn’t feel right to be categorized as ‘I’ in CMI (Chinese, Malay, Indian) because she was never connected to her culture. She then performed her poems, in particular, I enjoyed her poem ‘I love you’. Her poem ‘I love you’ was truly inspiring, her poem had great flow and emotion. But what made her ‘I love you’ poem really amazing was that she implemented singing in the middle of the poem. I found it to be really cool and special. During the QandA session, somebody asked the question: “What was your inspiration to start writing poems?” and Deborah said, “Nothing, I just started writing naturally”. I found her answer really fascinating and how sometimes you don’t need inspiration or planning but just to write naturally. Deborah was really interesting to listen to and was fun.

 

Telling a story through pictures.

Robyne Hayes is a trained researcher but currently is a social justice photographer. She has worked for the International Center for Research on Women, and as a research consultant for CARE International. Robyne talked about her passion which is work/research in child-marriage. Robyne talked about her work in trying to stop child-marriage in places like Bangladesh and Ethiopia. She has also helped girls and tried to help them reach their goals etc. Though everything was going well, she felt that she couldn’t spread change. She then decided to implement photography into her work. Through photography, she then could get more people interested in her work and eventually spread more change. After this success, she then wanted to conduct more research but wondered how she could do it.

Robyne then decided to do a project where she gave the Ethiopian girls cameras (making Robyne one of the few people to do a project like this). The girls would then record their daily life (Robyne taught them how to use a camera). After the project, Robyne had looked through the pictures and found interesting things. But when Robyne reflected with the girls on the pictures, she then founded out more depth in the pictures. She didn’t just find interesting pictures but change. Robyne continues to this day making a change in this world with a simple camera.

Chetan Bhagat is the author of nine blockbuster novels, four of which have been adapted into successful Bollywood films. Chetan Bhagat and critics believe that he is not the best author but the BEST SELLING author. 

“Authorprenuer”

FILTERED FOUR: 

   During Chetan Bhagat’s talk, he mentioned that his current goal is to make change in India.

But first, we must know what the definition of Literature is. Literature might be having change through written work however that was 20 years ago.  Current day Literature is on the phone. Chetan Bhagat uses Twitter to spread his change because it can reach more people. Chetan wants to reach the maximum number of Indians via entertainment (scaling up from books to films).  Not only does Chetan spread his message through Twitter and entertainment but through talks at schools. Chetan plans to have an influence towards a progressive society.

 Chetan Bhagat has come a long way.

Chetan Bhagat is a former accountant and used to work at Goldman Sachs then Deutsche Bank. Though the journey is long but with perseverance, Chetan has written nine novels, four of which has become Bollywood movies. From an average accountant to the best selling author, Chetan Bhagat is truly inspiring.

 

 What is the definition of success?

Chetan Bhagat’s rules were that Indian writers = literary novels (5000 copies – bestseller) = UK prizes. But all of that might not matter. One of the most important things that Chetan said was “success has different definitions”. But in life there are short effort goals and long effort goals which are both quite self-explanatory. Although with long effort goals, you should never give up, never forget about what you are passionate about and always have faith.

 

 General tips from Chetan:

• Winners who do it better than others are people who change the game. Chetan has clearly changed the game, he is one of the few Indian authors who write stories for Indians.
• Impossible goals = big achievements.
• Achieving big things:

1. Setting a clear goal.
2. Understand your reasons behind the goal.
3. Finding the group and people who will help/motivate you.
4. Detained action plan. Understand how you will achieve this.
5. Setback dealing mechanism. Be prepared to overcome hurdles.
6. Last but not least, have faith. Believing is the big key to achieving things.

• Success tips:

1. Under promise and over deliver.
2. Reinvent. Do it over and over again till it is refined.
3. Passion in intent shows. Put in the effort and the outcome will be good.
4. Patience. Success doesn’t come overnight, be hungry and humble.
5. Partnerships. Find people who will support you.
6. Humility. ‘If you want the rainbow then you must have the rain’. Failure is going to happen but forget about it and move on to the next thing.

 

Reflection:

Coming into this session I thought the book industry was quite simple and all that happened was: write a book then publish. After the talk, I understand it is a lot more depth and the journey to becoming the best selling author is not easy.

 

 

What challenges did you face in creating this video?

I think a challenge was drawing very smoothly under the camera. Another challenge was learning and coordinating this entire video.

How did you overcome them? 

Me and my partner were very systematic and took on different roles.

How did this process impact your learning? 

It slowed it down a bit but that’s ok as I took my time to cover everything.

What is the difference between this process and learning from the teacher/completing worksheets? Which method do you prefer? Why? If you could do this again, what changes would you make for next time?

This method makes us work with people (which refines our collaboration skill). It requires more communication.

I prefer working like this as sometimes hearing a long talk might make me bored and lose attention. If I could do this again, I would not make any changes as I was quite efficient.

Steve Dawson gives EXTRAORDINARY techniques on how to be a good interviewer.

5 tips that will be important during an interview:

1. Ask open-ended questions.

When you ask your question make it a good one because you only get one chance.  Try to make the interviewee think (make it a challenge for him/her).  A yes or no answer isn’t good because you cant do anything with it.

2. Set the answer free.

Don’t set unnecessary parameters.

Questions that start with “What” or “How does it feel” are good starters. It will make the interviewee give a more in-depth answer.

3. Don’t interrupt

  Larry King always interrupted his guests because he felt that his show needed to be focused on him. But that is not the case, don’t interrupt your interviewees. Your interviewees are your guests and you should listen to them.

4. Be a single shoot.

Don’t ask double-barrelled questions.

If you ask a question like: “What was the crowd yelling at you? How do you feel you played?”

80% of the time the first question will be forgotten. If the question is important, make sure to ask concise and key questions.

5. Listen to the answer.

Even if you recorded the answer or you have multiple people talking at once, try to focus on the interviewee.

If you asked Kevin Durant how it felt to play against Lebron James and he said:

“It felt great to play here in the finals, playing against my idol Lebron is amazing. He is probably my second favorite player of all time”.

After recording and hearing it, you then realize the key part “my SECOND favorite”. It is important to listen to the answer and ask follow up questions. In this case, the follow up would be “Who is your first?”

Reflection:

I was expecting that Steve Dawson was going to talk about his experiences with sports. But he told us something even more valuable which was helpful. It was interesting to hear his interview experiences with different athletes. Now I understand that doing an interview is more than just talking to a person. And that several things are going on behind the line.

SAND: To do an interview takes a lot of skills.

SHORELINE: Steve Dawson’s journey to now is truly fascinating. Not only were the skills that he talked about valuable but his story was valuable, ‘the process is more important the ending’. He has traveled around the world for events and has talked to many athletes which is pretty cool.

SHIP: I understand that the journey to do something you love might be long but it will be worth it. An interview tip that is valuable: Be a professional, don’t be a fanboy.