#smartquestioning

Being an honours student has completely thrown me out of sync with the rest of the university. Our schedules work differently, our terms work differently... It's just so different to undergrad.

I therefore have no idea how far into the final weeks we are. If I take an educated guess however, I would say that the end is near. The library is always full and I always see people in a rush to get back to studying. I therefore want to focus this week on lectures and academics.

So this week I shall let you get back to studying and keep it short.

image: varsitybreakout.com

Here is this week’s Mission:

What processing regarding academics are you frustrated about? Look at how technology has changed the lecturing process. Is there anything that you would want handled better?

an example question could be: "What if students could ask questions anonymously in class?." How would this work?

Good luck :D

Ignition:

For this mission, you could do a Smart Questioning Ignition. Many great change-agents through history have needed to lift their gaze to see beyond the world around them and picture a different scenario with different norms and changed rules. It allows you to practice thinking the unthinkable and to exercise your ability to form credible scenarios for unseen circumstances and to envision different potential futures. 

After asking a smart question, explore a potential relevant, realistic and sensible scenario analysis. A possible answer to a Smart Question must aim to discover the unseen and have the potential to lead to innovation.

You could also try a Questioning Lens Ignition. The Questioning Lens will help you look at the situation more critically, with a view to practicing the identification of inefficiencies and thinking of solutions. Imagine you are wearing a massive pair of glasses, called the Questioning Lens, through which you view the situation.

image: designspirationsk.com

I followed a recipe the other day and I though about the amount of effort that goes into preparing a meal. There are so many bits and pieces of different foods that go into making one dish... and I have to go to the store and buy them all. So I posed a "Smart Question" and analysed it for this weeks Mission.

What if all food were sold in pre-packaged 'recipes'?

This question imagines a world where food is not entirely sold separate. Food is packaged and classified in terms of popular recipes. The offering of grouping would have changed throughout the years with the most popular groupings staying on offer and least popular ones being taken away. Food will still have to be sold individually for the event that your required recipe is not on offer anymore.

image: foodfamilyfinds.com

Considerations:

Selling food in this manner will minimise the amount of wasted ingredients. Food will be less likely to go off as you would only buy what you need to prepare meals.

The variety of dishes in the world makes this manner of packaging impossible.

If this method is localised it could work in areas where certain dishes are popular.

Advertising and marketing will have to change completely as now products will not be sold individually. The adverts would have to aim at selling 'recipes' or 'dishes'.

The price of food would have to be intricately recalculated as certain recipes only require small amounts of ingredients (e.g. pinch of salt). How much would a pinch of salt contribute to the package price?

image: myhomecooking.net

It seems that this manner of packaging food would certainly be interesting.

I submitted this as a Smart Questioning Ignition. Ignitions regarding food was a bit more difficult than I expected. Let's hope next week is a bit better.

enjoy

ridhojeftha

image: johnsonferrywomen.com

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Reminder of the week's Mission:

Throughout your day stop for a moment and really think about FOOD. 

Observe the product, packaging, distribution or display thereof.

Ignition:

This type of ignition is known as a Smart Questioning Ignition. Many great change-agents through history have needed to lift their gaze to see beyond the world around them and picture a different scenario with different norms and changed rules. It allows you to practice thinking the unthinkable and to exercise your ability to form credible scenarios for unseen circumstances and to envision different potential futures. 

There came a time during the last "all-nighter" when I lost all interest in what I was doing and started to ponder the meaning of life and such. I was adamant to not to get sucked in by my Procrastination Station which is my laptop. I therefore lazily dragged myself to the kitchen to make some coffee.

And then it hit me.

FOOD... more importantly, the packaging thereof.

Everything we eat comes packaged in nice little boxes or tin cans or packets. Some are practical and some are creative. It is amazing what we, as humans, have come up with in order to store and distribute food... or maybe this was just me being amazed and appreciative of anything in the early hours of the morning.

Here is this week’s Mission:

Throughout your day stop for a moment and really think about FOOD. 

Observe the product, packaging, distribution or display thereof.

http://instagram.com/p/bQmCLykPvO/

I'm sure that it wont be too difficult as we eat (and post pictures of what we eat on Instagram) every day!

Then ask "Smart Questions". Try to picture a different scenario with different norms and changed rules. These questions can be very ambitious or simply practical. The idea is to develop an ability to ask questions that stretch your boundaries and thinking.

--- As a simple example: my uncle, a cabinet-maker, applied this by asking the more practical Smart Question "What if we could use the wood cut-offs, that just go waste, to make small products that we can sell."

One of the products that came out of this was a self-balancing wine bottle stand (display) similar to the one seen below.

Image: distinguishedimports.com

Have fun :D

Ignition:

This type of ignition is known as a Smart Questioning Ignition. Many great change-agents through history have needed to lift their gaze to see beyond the world around them and picture a different scenario with different norms and changed rules. It allows you to practice thinking the unthinkable and to exercise your ability to form credible scenarios for unseen circumstances and to envision different potential futures.