Goals Implant sense of why prototyping is valuable, what we mean by rapid. Avoid people competing over whose model is prettier or more attractive. Avoid people not wanting to externalize idea because of medium shyness.

CONCEPT: MEDIA SHYNESS. Everyone is "bad" at one of the ways we express ideas - singing, dancing, drawing, acting, speaking before a crowd, writing poetry, building something with wood, cutting and gluing paper, writing an outline, coding a web page. Many of us have particular sensitivity around these things - we have been told since our childhood that we can't draw or we can't sing - and so if we think that our work in a group is going to involve us having to do one of these things and show the product to others, we freeze up. "Anything, but don't make me draw!" we might be thinking. In these exercises we want to simultaneously help people get beyond this reaction and prevent this reaction from getting in the way of creative thinking.

What are some of the techniques we can use?

  • Create an atmosphere in which anything goes.
  • Don't use perfect architectural models as your exemplars.
  • Make yourself demonstrate a prototype in the medium you are least comfortable in.
  • Ask team members to rank five or six techniques in terms of their skill and comfort levels and then assign everyone to their worst medium.

Exercise 1. Something simple that provides experience of value of prototyping without any craft and art talent anxiety. Example: pre-cut model of the room in which workshop is taking place with furniture and asking folks to re-arrange for some purpose (like how we will do something in second phase of workshop when we brainstorm together or something like that). Variation: some groups have 2D model, some have 3D model.

Exercise 2. A process problem - goal will be to get people to act out some protocol rather than just writing it down or talking about it. How to re-organize retail checkout situation? Bus queue? MORE TO COME.