I just came home from the ever so slightly awesome Ekobit DevArena X conference. As I usually do, I’ll share my notes that I took in my notebook and a few pictures.

Start your engines

Well, you can’t start a day on an empty stomach, right?

This is how the accreditation looked like:

The accreditation had a handy list of all the presentations on the back side:

As you can see, there were 4 tracks between which you could choose (yes, you could go to any presentation in any of the tracks in a certain timeslot). Chalk n’ Talk presentations are actually a cool thing where they aren’t actual presentations rather something like a round table where the presenter(s) discuss their real life experiences (and the input from the crowd is also highly desirable).

Keynote

• Presenters: Ivan Kardum, Nenad Bakić, Domagoj Pavlešić and Saša Tomičić
• 10th in a row Ekobit DevArena
• A very interesting project called Croatian Makers by Nenad Bakić who was very inspiring and kudos for starting all this
  
• They donated robotical equipment to over 50 schools in Croatia
• Serwantes
• Fantom 3
• Lego Mindstorms – can’t wait to get this for my little girl! Yeah, I know it’s an excuse for me to play with it too 🙂
• He shared a quite intriguing image with us:
  

Modern web application development in Visual Studio 2015

• Presenter: Ivan Popek
• 
• 
• Bower and npm come preinstalled with Visual Studio 2015. I wrote a detailed tutorial for Digital Ocean about Bower if you want to take a look.
• Gulp and Grunt are task runners which offer tools like minification, concatenation, linting, etc…
• Personally, I like Gulp better because of it’s clearer syntax
• Gulp is faster because it uses streams
• Git and Node are also preinstalled by default on VS 2015
• The way you “add” packages for Bower is that you create a bower.json file in the Solution explorer and as soon as you hit Save it installs the listed dependencies. It creates the Dependencies folder and a bower_components folder
• bower install runns automatically after you open up the project
• To add Gulp create a package.json file in the Solution explorer and as soon as you hit Save npm will install it. You can add additional Gulp dependencies the same way.
• To start writing Gulp tasks, create a gulpfile.js and hack on 🙂
• Visual Studio 2015 has a nice TaskRunner explorer where you can run the tasks manually. However, it’s way better to set a “watch” task inside Gulp so that it runs the tasks automatically for you. For example, if you’re using SASS it will compile to CSS automatically on every change to the SASS files. You can set the watch tasks to run after you reoppen the project with Watch -> Bindings->Project open

Clean code is your friend

• Presenters: Bruno Brozović and Antonija Malenica
  
• Technical debt
• Writing code : Reading code = 1 : 10 in terms of time. It’s way better to invest time at the beginning to write “clean code” as it will pay of in the later stages of the project
  
• The boy scout rule – always leave the campground cleaner than you found it
• YAGNI (You ain’t gonna need it) – do not add functionality until deemed necessary
• KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) – Simplicity is better than complexity
• DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) – every piece of knowledge must have single, unambigious, authorative representation within system
• Principle of least surprise – do the least surprising thing
• SRP (Single Responsibility Principle) – a class should have only one reason to change
• Single level of abstraction
• Methods
  • names – detail and descriptive
  • short
  • number of arguments as small as possible (0, 1, 2)
  • SRP
• Comments – you should strive to write selfdocumenting code
• Classes
  • QualitatyClassName (25-30 characters)
  • SRP
  • smaller number of cohesive classes
  • Open Closed Principle – open for extension, closed for modification
• Learning test
• And now, a spectacle! In a room of about 100 people when the question “How many of you are using Unit testing?” was asked only 4 people raised their hands 

Lunch

We’re outsorcing products and services, not people!

• Presenters: Luka Abrus (Five Minutes), Vedran Brničević (Ekobit)
  
• Ekobit started in 1992
  • ALM, BizDataX
• Five minutes needed 7 years to come to the point where 100% of the things they do is on the USA market
• Customer feedback by literally going live from door to door and ask
• Landing pages + AdWords + Sign me up
• Nobody buys enterprise software without a support
• Europe’s problem is language barriers from country to country
• Funny anecdote: when you say to an American that you’re from Croatia: “Oh, yes Dubrovnik – Game of Thrones!”. Also funny one was “oh, you’re just a Russian school of mathematics”. And thus, they believe we are good programmers; designers not so much.
• You need to be willing to hop the plane and go to a meeting at any time
• Five Minutes has currently 12 free spots
• NY Area software developer 150-200$ per hour (jaw-dropping!)
• Quality is everything!
• Put your code to GitHub, designs to Dribble, Behance
• The main problem that both of the presenters expressed was that there are just not enough (quality) developers

Where is this web going?

• Presenters: Domagoj Pavlešić, Ivan Popek, Renato Železnjak, Josip Klarić, Ratko Ćosić
• this was a round table like presentation
  
• Browser as an Operating System
• Microsoft is slowing down the Web standardization
• Too many JS frameworks (you don’t say 😉)
• NO for monolith framework
• Use linting
• Gridster, Selectize, Knockout
• Throw jQuery out
• TypeScript two thumbs up

Automated delivery in Visual Studio 2015

• Presenters: Ognjen Bajić and Ana Roje Ivančić
  
• Build vNext
• 2015 Intentional Extensibility – open source
• Custom build workflows
• Real time output
• Versioning
• Cross-platform build (Win, Mac, Linux)
• Build .NET, Java, Android, iOS
• Ant, CMake, Maven, Xcode Build, Android Build
• Agents, Pools, Queues
• Testing, web performance, load tests

Aurelia – new generation JavaScript framework

• Presenters: Ratko Ćosić and Mario Peroković
  
• AMD
  • modular programming
  • RequireJS
  • CommonJS
  • TypeScript
• SPA
  • chunking
  • templating
  • controllers
• Which framework should I choose?
  
• Durandal -> Aurelia
• JavaScript is a subset of TypeScript which is compiled in ES5. Microsoft is developing along with Anders Hejlsberg (C# creator)
• Angular2 uses TypeScript
•  Every view starts with <template>
• MVVM – model view view-model
• DI – dependency injection
• Parent view models
• Routing
• Screen activation lifecycle
• uses jspm
• jspm install aurelia-http-client
• <input type=”text” value.bind=”firstName” /> and then reference it like ${firstName}
• Debugging
  • compile-spy
  • view-spy

They had a nice additional prize draw for those who asked questions (you get a small paper which you toos in a drawing bowl). I got mine on the last presentation. However, no luck in winning something 🙁

However, as every year, they are giving prizes for the first few people who sign up for the conference. This year I signed up at 6th place, and because of that I got a nice 2 tickets at Terme Tuhelj, and also a nice hoodie with a number 6 🙂

Thanks and hope to see you next year!

If you write on the web, you must have come across the awesome Markdown:

a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).

You can learn more about it from the official documentation.

There are many editors that allow you to write in Markdown but, as I found, most of them require a license. Besides, wouldn’t it be great that your own editor would have a Markdown support? That’s why I love Sublime Text, it has a plugin for everything. Well, ok, it doesn’t have a plugin to throw out sandwiches from your computer, but I guess it will be able to in the not so distant future. 

Ok, jokes and wishes aside, let see how to set up live Markdown preview on Windows with Sublime Text and Markmon plugin.

Install Markmon:

npm install -g markmon

Install pandoc.

Install Markmon Sublime Text plugin through its Package Control (search for “Markmon”).

Make sure you have markmon and pandoc in your PATH variable.

Run markmon in the folder where is your .md file, like this:

markmon myMDfile.md

open up your browser at localhost:3000.

Write on! 

How to set up live #Markdown preview on #Windows with #Sublime Text and #Markmon http://t.co/ROZZxCbvGb

— Nikola Brežnjak (@HitmanHR) October 18, 2015

A month ago I started a Grammarly prize draw. I added all of the emails in the random.org and here are the top 5:

I’ve listed 5 in case someone will maybe not want it or would like to give it to someone else or would not get back to me in a decent period of time (I also sent a newsletter about this). I’m expecting the winner to contact me via my email address and also to comment below in this post.

Thanks all for participating, I’m hoping that I’ll have a next one soon, and this time I was thinking it would be great if the prize would be a Sublime Text 3 license – what do you think?

Ionic publically announced Ionic Market on their blog.

On the market (http://market.ionic.io/) you can buy (and even sell):

• project starters (Firebase, Parse, Heroku, etc…)
• plugins (swipable cards, timepickers, maps, etc…)
• themes (material design, tumblr alike, etc…)

There are even some free ones available at the moment, so you may want to check that out.

Since other markets emerged and you could have found similar items on sites like themeforrest, it comes as a nice and warm surprise that the Ionic team basically said they approve that:

We also want to help the markets that have popped up naturally, rather than compete with them.

Additionally, a statement that reimburses that is:

In addition to being able to sell your wares directly on the Ionic Market site, you can also link externally to your existing marketplace, where users can purchase your add-on on the site where you’re already selling it. This effectively makes the Ionic Market just another way to help developers find your add-on.

I bet this announcement made the authors very happy. Even more so, when they realize that Ionic Market takes no commission:

Because we wanted to encourage the creation of a vibrant ecosystem of Ionic add-ons that will mature over time, we’re not taking a cut on any sales. You can sell your add-ons directly on the Ionic Market through Stripe, so the only fees are the taxes and fees Stripe collects. Connect your Stripe account to the Market, and all funds after taxes and credit card processing fees go directly to you!

This, my dear friends, is just getting better and better with every new announcement they make!

TL; DR

This is my 200th post on this blog. I wrote some additional ones for other “high roller” sites, which you can see below along with my other most popular posts. Consistency is the sole driving force that lead to this point.

The beginnings

As I noted in my 100th post overview, it all started with the post Carcassonne scoring board application which I decided to post after reading James Clear’s post on why we should be makers instead of just consumers.

My approach

I just want to help people by bridging this seemingly invisible gap between the awesome programmers and not-so-awesome programmers how would use a bit of step by step help, by making my tutorials straight to the point with each step, without skipping the ever so slightly “obvious” parts.

This “obvious” part, as our math professor used to joke, usually tends to “take just a bit of additional calculations” – and before you know it, just after 45 minutes of additional 2-3 pages of derivations, you’re done…

I too tend to go over the tutorials when I’m learning something  new, and I feel frustrated when the steps they outline are not complete, and then I have to spend a day figuring it out (sorry, no mister Sherlock Holmes here). I don’t do this in my tutorials, instead I try to give you the exact step by step that I myself used when solving a particular issue. Also, I tend to welcome you to share your problems, you may have encountered, in the comments.

As someone smart said (paraphrased, as I couldn’t find the exact author – if you happen to know, ping me in the comments):

You learn the best when you have to teach someone something.

And this has been my guide idea. Because, I realized that if I can’t put my explanation on the paper/screen in order to explain my train of thought, then I probably don’t understand the core basics behind it at all. Albert Einstein said it best:

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

Homerun posts

The posts for which I’m most proud are the MEAN stack series posts, which I wrote for HackHands (and which had almost 500000 [yes, that’s half a million] views combined):

• How to get started on the MEAN stack
• Delving into Node.js and Express web framework
• MongoDB CRUD the MVC way with Passport Authentication
• Finishing Angular TODO application and deploying to production
• MEAN.io VS MEAN.js and deploying the latter on DigitalOcean

And, the blog2book that I’ve self-published from these posts: Getting MEAN with MEMEs – Deploying MEAN TODO application to production.

I posted the 100th post on December 28, 2014. That means it took me 8 moths to write the additional 100 posts (12 posts per month on average (not including the HackHands post which are large, mildly said (last one is 8k+ words))). Anyways, not bragging or anything (this is sort of my reference point), just hope I’ll manage to keep up with this pace in the future too and that I’ll be able to check back to this reference point with a yet even better “score” give the number/quality ratio.

Of the other high roller sites, I wrote a post for DigitalOcean (which I recommend wholeheartedly) titled “How to manage front-end dependencies with Bower on Ubuntu 14.04“, which is also currently in review phase and will post the link once it goes live.

How did I do it?

Above all, as James Clear says (he’s cool btw, make sure you check him out if you want to build better habits), the most important thing is consistency. And, the key point about making consistency “easy” is doing something that doesn’t exert too much effort from you in order to start it in the first place.

Start small, increase gradually, but stay consistent with a minimum number. So, to be concise, I write 300 words every day minimally. Every day. Some days it may be more, but I just need to make sure it’s not less.

This tends to be a small number, but consider you write consistently for 33 days? You’ll have roughly 10k words, which is easily 10 posts with 1k words. Extrapolate this to a year and you’ll have over 100 posts with 1k words each, which in itself is pretty great if you ask me. Ok, true, not high roller pro style, but hey, we’re in it for the fun and education, right? – all the extras are welcome but not mandatory.

What’s next for me?

Well, lately, as you may know, I’m really into Ionic framework, and I’m writing tutorials about it, along as I learn the ins and out of the framework. Also, just recently I became a technical reviewer for PacktPub for the book Learning Ionic and I was a technical reviewer for the video Rapid Ionic from PacktPub. I’ll update the links to both books once they’ll be published.

Some of my most viewed Ionic framework posts:

• Adding AdMob to Ionic framework application step by step
• Check network information change with Ionic framework
• Posting data from Ionic app to PHP server
• Handling Ionic CORS issue
• How to redirect users if there is no Internet connection in Ionic framework?
• Ionic announces Ionic Lab – a GUI tool replacement for Ionic CLI
• Use Ionic or Cordova?
• Create icons and splash screen automatically with ionic resources

Also, I’m writing tutorials on the subject of Ionic for HackHands. The first one in the series is titled: How to get started with Ionic framework on Mac and Windows (I’ll update the link once the post gets published, since it’s currently in the review phase). Since these arranges prevent me from posting them on my site too, I’ll make excerpts and just link to them from my blog on a monthly basis (same as with my newsletter; since I don’t want to be bothering you guys too much with too much email – we all hate email ;)).

If you happen to like my style of presenting the “tough” subjects, please share with me in the comments what topics would you like to see covered next?

Cool, but your theme sucks

I kind of agree on this one. Since I’m not a designer and I don’t quite know what I want exactly (shocking, I know; yeah, I bet designers get this line a lot from their employers). So, I’m looking into making a better theme for my blog – do you happen to have a favorite one, or do you want to feature the one you made – share it in the comments. I actually may give it a try on Freelancer to find my new theme, the same way I got my new logo designed:

I’ll blog about how this process was refreshingly positive (and not expensive) in my experience, and will link it here – so, stay tuned because more awesome content is coming!

See you at 300

That’s all folks, see ya at 300!

edit: The prize draw is over and the winner was announced here.

TL;DR

• Grammarly is awesome, you should check it out
• It has a free version you can try with no credit card (or similar mumbo jumbo) needed
• Subscribe to my blog to enter the prize draw

Prize time

I’ve partnered with Grammarly and I will be giving a free one month of Grammarly Premium (worth $29.95) to a random subscriber of my blog.

To enter the draw:

• subscribe to my blog (if you don’t see where – mail me) if you still haven’t (I promise that I don’t spam or any crazy mumbo jumbo like that – I only send a monthly roundup of the best posts I wrote).
• subscribe to Grammarly

I’ll be running this promotion for the next week (ending on 21.08.2015), so chop chop.

Story time – I love stories

So, yeah, you’ve seen the nice little advertisement I have showing on the right-hand side of the blog (first up, straight into your face ):

Along with a “catchy” heading of Best $$$ I spent in a while. And it even has a free version!

I’m a developer, and we all know how we tend to hate advertisements and how they just feel wrong. Some of us, more technically inclined people, may even tend to use AdBlocker$™ and therefore not even see this advertisement .

Anyways, part of the reason why I made this post is to indeed truly express my deepest joy with using Grammarly. Indeed, they have a freaking free version you can try indefinitely without a credit card or any other mumbo jumbo that you may come to on the Internetz these days. The best thing in my opinion is that in addition to normal grammar checking, they also check for context and alert you if they think you have some contextual error. Also, in a paid version they offer plagiarism checks, which is awesome for hunting down those bloody suckers that copy your content…

To try it out for yourself, go to their landing page, and click on the Get Grammarly button:

Thankfully, NO credit card is needed to set up an account:

On the next step you can choose the free version with which you would get the following features:

• 100 points of grammar checking
• Contextual Spellchecker
• Punctuation checks
• Works anywhere on the web

At any later stage, if you wish, you can opt in to try the Premium version that has the following features:

• advanced error checking for complete confidence in your writing
• 250+ points of grammar
• Style checks
• Vocabulary enhancement
• Plagiarism detection
• Document type checker (business, academic, etc.)
• Microsoft® Office™ add-in

Anyways, when you open up the free version you’ll be greeted with the Tutorial on how to use the Editor:

What’s especially awesome is that you can install a Chrome browser extension (they also have one for Safari, and the one for Firefox is coming soon) and with this you would get the Grammar checker and all the other awesome free features directly in programs like Gmail, Facebook, WordPress, LinkedIn, etc…

Even if you don’t use Chrome, you can use their online editor (which works in any browser):

As you type in aforementioned applications (Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn, etc.) Grammarly will check what you type in real-time and it will immediately notify you if you made some grammar or logical mistake, and you can apply the suggested changes simply by clicking on the suggestion.

Why did I buy a premium version?

Because in addition to normal grammar checking, they also check for context and alert you if they think you have some contextual error. Also, the plagiarism checker is awesome for hunting down those bloody suckers that copy your content…

All in all, it’s free, so check it out without commitment, and make you subscribe to the blog to enter the draw.

I will be announcing the winner in a new blog post (to which I’ll link from here once it’s up), one week (at the latest) after the end of the promotion.

Good luck!

Proper disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click the link and make a purchase this I will receive a small commission. Thank you in advance!

From the official blog post, Ionic just announced a new shiny tool called Ionic Lab; which is a GUI tool that tends to be a replacement for the well know Ionic CLI for those who don’t quite like the CLIs.

Hmm, anyone like that reading this blog? I personally like using CLIs better, in general, but that’s just me I guess. <3 Terminal. However, I just might do an exception with this tool.

Currently, they only have a version for Mac (with a Windows version supposedly coming soon. Edit: windows version has been announced today (16.09.2015), and you can learn more about it on their blog) and you can download it from the official download page. Once you download the IonicLab.dmg file, just run it and drag the icon in the Applications folder, as instructed by the installer:

If you try to run the app via Spotlight, you may get an error “Ionic Lab can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer” like shown on the image below:

If you’re quite new to the Mac world (as I am), you can resolve this issue by opening up your Applications folder, locating Ionic Lab icon and right clicking the icon and selecting Open.

Now a similar popup will appear, but this time  with the Open option:

Select the Open option and you should get the initial Ionic Lab screen:

I tested this by dropping my IonicAdMob (link to Github project) application to it, and this is what happened:

At this point, even though I like CLIs more (as I noted in the introduction) I must say this is pretty awesome. Additionally, if you click on the PLUGINS tab you will see:

Here you can literally install the plugins by simply clicking on the checkboxes.

What’s even more exciting is that they announced that in the future they’re looking to improve it in terms of:

• including a one-click system setup
• adding Cordova plugin search
• adding Ionic resources generation for icons and splash screens
• adding Ionic Platform integration for push notifications
• adding Ionic Creator integration
• and quite some more things, which you can learn more from their blog post

All this, I must say, is pretty damn awesome and I’m really rooting for them so that they make all their plans into reality.

Bye bye, I’m going to play with my new shiny tool now for a while…

Update: Before I got rid of the Lenovo laptop, it looked like this:

TL;DR: Stickers can be seen here on StickerMule. If you happen to signup up via this link, you’ll get 10$ off of your next purchase. Thank me later… 

Ok, ok, so before you start jumping about the title for thinking how did I not know about Apple buying Lenovo, and start calling your wallstreet woolf to get you a deal on some Apple stocks before they skyrocket again, let me calm you down by saying it’s just the stickers, it’s just the stickers 😉

So, as you may know I’m pretty much into Ionic framework lately and I stumbled upon some Ionic stickers on StickerMule and added them to cart immediately.

Then, I browsed through the site and as it seemed they offer you to upload your own stickers. So, I contacted their support team, and boy can I tell you their response time was fast. Like, super fast. They told me the details about the sizes and image quality in order for it to look good when printed.

Since I very much like MEAN stack and there were no stickers for it available yet, I made my own and you can take a look at them here on StickerMule.

I also ordered the sample pack for just 1$. The shipping price via air mail to Croatia was about 6$, but I have to say the shipping was indeed fast (less than a week, which to our country is, trust me I’m lying, fast).

The quality of the stickers is very good, and I like the personal touch where the person who packaged the stickers signed it by hand (see the image below).

Here are some pictures of the arrived lot:

Here’s the signature of the person who packaged it – thanks Wendy!

Here’s how my laptop now looks from the inside :). Yes, keep calm folks, I use R.A.T 7 and drink too much coffee too.

And here’s how it looks from the outside. Before I only had the Apple logo in the middle (yeah, I happen to like Apple products, sue me  – erm, so why Lenovo then? Ah, that’s another story, ping me on mail or comments if you’re really intrigued). The blank space on the right hand side is left for a new sticker that’s coming soon 🙂

Anyways, StickerMule has my recommendation for being awesome when it comes to stickers!

I just finished a free course on Coursera called Cracking the creativity code and here are my notes from these very good lectures. The course is based on the book Cracking the creativity code by Arie Ruttenberg and Shlomo Maital.

[toc]

Course introduction

Creativity is an acquired skill – one that can improve with practice!

First part is discovery. Second is delivery – implementing ideas.

Zoom in, zoom out, zoom in –ZiZoZi method

Keneth Robinson: “Creativity is finding what you love to do when you’re playing, and then use that to make your work and become your living”

Discovery – generating novel and useful ideas that satisfy unmet needs

Delivery – implementing creative ideas in a sustained manner for the benefit of the largest number of people possible

book: Cracking the creativity code : ZoZ – Shlomo Maital, Arie

7challenges: Create a new kind of restaurant. Find a way to bring the Internet to 4.5 bilion people who currently lack it. Indoor cooking fire life saving. 1.3 bililion people without electricity. Babies forgotten in hot cars who die. New beverage that’s not in plastic. Forster creativity in elementary and secondary schools while improving basic skills and knowledge in math, reading and science. How to recycle food to feed hungry.

Week 1 – Session #1 Definition of creativity

Creativity – widening the range of choice.

Break the change of habit!

Out of our minds book by Sir

Norman Doidge – brain that changes itself

Week 1- Session #2 A first encounter with the ZiZoZi method

Why and for whom vs what can I invent.

Creativity is not IQ.

Creativity starts with WHY?

8 Da Vinci questions:

• when am I most myself?
• what is the ONE thing I could do, or stop doing that would most improve the quality of my life?
• what is my greatest talent?
• how can I get paid for what I love doing?
• who are my role models?
• what is my deepest passion?
• what will be my life’s legacy?

Week 1- Session #3 Test your creativity: Torrance Creativity Test

Week 1- Session #4 Self-test your ‘discovery’ and ‘delivery’ skills

Week 1- Session #5 The Imagination Elevator – a story you won’t believe

Gather all the wild ideas and “bring them to earth” in a shopping cart. Opposite way doesn’t work so well (to make a possible idea and then juice it up a bit). Go to the 989th floor in the imagination elevator.

The essence of discovery: embrace the mindset that all problems have a solution, we just need to discover them!

Week 1- Session #6 Widening the range of choices – the Zoom in/Zoom out/Zoom in framework

1. zoom in – understand the problem

2. zoom out – generate ideas (if people laugh at your idea, it means you’re on a right track since they haven’t seen this kind of thinking yet)

3. zoom back in an implement – so make the idea into practical solution

Week 1- Session #7 ZiZoZi in action: Stories to inspire & aspire

Human creativity has no limits, except for those that we place upon ourselves. Carl Young.

If you make something that exists already, make sure you make it at least 10 times better.

Week 1- Session #8 More ZiZoZi stories

Blackout restaurant, Curious case of Benjamin Button,.

One way of new ideas would be to take a look at history and those ideas that failed – make them better by using today’s technology.

Cool tie:

Week 1- Session #9 How to build your creativity ‘muscles’

1. Act, don’t just gripe
2. Break the rules (intelligently) – first learn the rules
3. Change your habits – go out of your comfort zone
4. Develop resilience, embrace failure
5. Explore dark corners, experiment everywhere
6. Learn to focus
7. Grow your persistence
8. Hear, listen, teach
9. Individualize: it’s always personal – if there’s something YOU need, make that
10. Become who you are (join yourself)
11. Have a microscope attached to telescope

Week 1- Session #10 Summary of Week One; Preview of Week Two

Master old knowledge and combine with creativity to create something new.

Mobley’s principles for greater creativity:

1. Traditional teaching methods are worse than useless
2. Becoming creative requires unlearning
3. You can’t learn to be creative, you become creative by action. Fastest way to become creative is to socialize with creative people
4. Creativity is highly correlated with self-knowledge and self-awareness
5. Give your self a permission to be wrong

You can’t solve the problem with the same level of thinking that created the problem. Einstein.

Week 1 assessment 10/10!

Week 2- Session #1 ZiZoZi Framework Reviewed and viewed in action

Advertising agencies have a Creativity department

Week 2- Session #2 Case Study: How Thomas Edison lit up the world

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”. T. A. Edison

Edison invented phonograph. Create a platform not just a single product.

Week 2- Session #3 Zoom out: Collecting wild ideas

If you know exactly what you’re going to do, what is the point of doing it? ~ Pablo Picasso

Would you create an opera Carmen, for whom you would be criticised during your lifetime but admired when you die?

Week 2- Session #4 Zoom out: Benchmarking as a key tool

Best Practice Benchmarking. Benchmarking is a mindset. Observe everything and try to see where the world is going to be, not as it is today.

Week 2- Session #5 Is it innovative to borrow and adapt?

Story about M&M’s. Mars is also the chocolate bar from this man that went to war in Spain and figured out there how to bring chocolate to the battle field without melting (cover with hard candy).

Week 2- Session #6 How to challenge basic assumptions?

Ask the questions no one asks. Focus on the things that you usually take for granted and see how they could be impacted by a change in thinking that they are wrong.

If you fail, get the fuck up and try again.

Week 2- Session #7 Zoom in: Choosing the best of many ideas

Get out of your office to the place where the work is done by people using your product.

Week 2- Session #8 Managing the tradeoff between delivery and discovery

8 types of work ordered by my own preferences to solve business problems:

• Application of technology (tech and engineering)
• Counseling and mentoring (help others)
• Managing people
• Influence Through Language and Ideas (use of persuasion)
• Enterprise Control
• Creative production (generate new innovative business ideas)
• Quantitative Analysis (math and financial analysis)
• Theory Development and Conceptual Thinking (academic, conceptual approach)

Week 2- Session #9 Creativity everywhere: All the time, everyone, everything

Try to improve every aspect of your work from the ground up.

Week 2- Session #10 Case studies

If you find a good solution to your own need, you may find it to resonate with a lot of other people.

Week 2 assessment 9/10. The question “The famous NASA example of the Mars exploratory vehicle shows creative thinking IN the box because” is still puzzling…

Week 3- Session #1 The ZiZoZi method: continued. Zoom in: The role of accidental discovery and serendipity

Brilliant Blunder – Mario Livio

The greatest risk lies in never taking any risk in our thinking process.

Chance favors the prepared mind. ~ Pasteur

Week 3- Session #2 Sharpening observation skills

Observe people in what they do and make a program that will help them to do it more efficiently. Compare your program with the best alternative that’s already in the market.

If you need something, help yourself – it may be someone else will find it useful!

Week 3- Session #3 Empathic Discovery (Leonard & Rayport, “Spark Innovation Through Empathic Design” HBR Nov-Dec 1997

empathy vs sympathy. – Try to “feel” as you were the other person and have his problems.

Quicken story – people were using their check writing software for managing their small businesses.

Week 3- Session #4 The Role of Failure In Achieving Success

Centrino processor idea to actually lower the MHz and increase the battery life.

There is no failure, failure is just a next step (though, true, sometimes painful).

Week 3- Session #5 Zoom Out: Collecting data through direct observation

5 key types of information:

1. Triggers of use
2. Interaction with user’s environment
3. User customization
4. Intangible attributes
5. Unarticulated user needs

Story about how chewing gum was invented.

Week 3- Session #6 The IDEO approach

Few key points, but one of the main is – don’t dismiss an idea just yet no matter how “weird” it may seem at that point.

Week 3- Session #7 Zoom In: Taming Wild Ideas

Tumor dissolving gun.

Week 3- Session #8 How to sell your ideas

Key questions:

• The need
• The difference (10x better)
• The future
• Cost and price

Week 3- Session #9 How to be creative In large organizations (Intrapreneurship)

Intrapreneurship, Gifford Pinchot

1. Come to work willing to be fired
2. Circumvent orders that prevent your dream
3. Do any job needed
4. Find people to help you and choose the best
5. Work underground as long as you can
6. Control your destiny
7. It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission
8. Be true to your goals but realistic in their achievement
9. Honor your sponsors

Week 3- Session #10 What is YOUR story? Building powerful narratives. Case Studies

PCM – personal creativity machine: I stumble upon something that I have to do repeatedly on a daily basis and that bothers me and then I think about how to actually automatize that. I sit down and I build it (namely it’s usually software). The way I validate it is that I give it to someone and see how they use it, gather their info and try to make it better. If I see no practical use in this, I don’t tend to pursue it forward, I just leave it be. Excellent example of this is my free website for score tracking (http://carcassonne-scoring-board.com/).

Elon Musk is a superman: PayPal, Solar City, Tesla, PayPal

Week 4- Session #1 Creativity Exercises: Are You Working Out?

Norman Doidge – The brain that changes it self: “Brain changed its very structure with each different activity that it performed.” The more you work on discovering ideas, the more your brain gets at it.

Do a “What if” exercise.

Week 4- Session #2 What Scholars Know about Creativity: Research you can use

At the age of:

• 5 nearly all children are geniuses by Torrance test
• 10 their creativity level drops to 32%
• 15 to 10%
• 30 to 2%

Week 4- Session #3 On Being Walter Mitty. Is creativity fun, or painful?

It’s fine to dream, but you need to implement them also!

Week 4- Session #4 Life take two: On reinventing yourself and your career

The method of “adjacent possible”.

Interesting idea: come up with an idea, work on it hard and then set it aside and come to it a while (even maybe months) later. The fun fact is that the mind will be subconsciously working on it.

Week 4- Session #5 Secrets of Einstein, da Vinci and Edison

Best implementation wins, not the best idea.

Week 4- Session #6 Humble masterpieces: Stories of creative breakthroughs

Safety pin, Lipstick.

Week 4- Session #7 More Masterpieces: Creativity in Action

Barcode, Frisbee

Week 4- Session #8 Ideas proposed by students for the 7 Challenges

Week 4- Session #9 Torrance Test for Creative Thinking: Have you improved?

Week 4- Session #10 Course summary: What have you learned? What have you implemented? How have you changed?

Week 4 assessment 9/10.

A new cool project by Kilim Choi that lets you make a pull request with your engineering blog, that got quite a few stars on Github (4k+ currently).

And, that’s how my name got the be next to The Great Ones 

Make your pull request too!