Wow. It's been a long time since I was the first person to post . . . but then you don't get to comment on anybody else's thoughts . . .

Anyway, I found Randy's talk to be really inspirational. The work they're doing at the ETC is fun and a breath of fresh air. I liked his comparisons to theme park designs and how he makes sure they study those because of their group experience focus. It's also good to see that one of his group's main goals is to make sure his students can work in groups--it's a basic life skill, but one I see very lacking all the time in all the places I work. It's a sign of a good department if they're not only giving you technical/creative skills, but social/team management skills as well.

I'd also love to see us have a pseudo-permanent installation in Norris Cinema Theatre before the Friday night DKA screenings. Randy's examples of the laser-pointer paintings and other experiences could be fun to play with . . . but just a thought.

I needed some time to really soak up the ideas that Randy presented and to decide what to say. I wasn't in the greatest of moods before he gave his talk, but the fog lifted so to speak so I was feeling much better by the end.

Randy definitely was a top notch speaker. His ideas were clear, concise and very well presented. I appreciate his public speaking skills and find that more often than not his approach is much more engaging.

First off, I was intrigued at the program setup at CM. I was very happy to see improvisational theater work at the top of the first semester list. "Play" and "community" are two very key elements when establishing group relations and I feel that any type of theatrical acting element allows for a group dynamic to be established where even the greatest of differing opinions can reach a mutual understanding. It is also a good time to loosen up and free the mind, clearing the head so to speak in order to focus on the more important design issues and tasks.

My next main point was that I felt that the program, even in it's first year, allows for students to create a variety of interesting projects. I think that the most important aspect of getting students involved and making sure they are aware of their masters program is to force them, in the best way of course, to produce works at an early stage so they understand the scope of a group collaborative piece. This keeps them happy so they have something to show while allowing them to make mistakes on their own and learn from them.

I was curious to see what would happen if the students were given 3 weeks to do a project, or 4 weeks instead of just 2. Would they still be churning out the same type of things (Virtual Worlds), just more polished? Or would they be
presenting works that are more dynamic in scope and incorporate more variety in tech and platform?

Someone brought up the idea and notion of students not being able to do a variety of things in the program and where forced to go in one direction (coding, art, etc.). All of my prior education and even the attitude that I have now is still much more about diversity and breadth of knowledge. Knowing one thing very well is great, but having an idea of how things function in all processes does allow for more multi-dimensional workers. I think the stage should be set for a program that does the following with regards to the depth of the individual...1st year is specified for each individual in order to produce a variety of works, the second year forces those individuals to switch gears in what they excel at and give them the ability to learn new skill sets and utilize them. The third year is a full turn back to the original year and allows the student to polish the individual skill they like/are good at. All during this time the group projects and community building is still implemented, forcing individuals to learn to play well together as a team, even with people they don't like.

Above all, I think that it was very good to see the inner workings of another educational group. This will only help to strengthen the fiber of our program and build new routes to the same degree that encompasses a broader range of people.

It was interesting to see CMU's methods for their program, as well as some of Randy Pausch's earler work.

A lot of the immersive worlds that I've seen from the class seem to take on a lot of characteristics of an amusement park ride, in terms of experience and interaction...things like the river rafting, the "ctrl alt del" cute world...I'm also remembering back to the old newsreel type "Virtual Reality Future" project I saw before.

The mirroring, real-time video alteration work also looked interesting, as well as the common challenges of designing a work meant for a room full of people you have never met. This, too, seems to follow an "amusement park" idea...the way the work was thought out addressed those sorts of concerns. Taking the stance of "I'm building a game" or "I'm building an art piece" might produce a similar product, but the path would be different.

I suppose this is only tangentially related to the lecture, but it's a common issue with interactive and immersive work: Most pieces I've heard about have been second or third hand...I'm curious, for instance, how the CMU virtual worlds worked with the HMD. Trying to study or evaluate, or even experience such pieces by watching a film clip can be like giving a movie review you've only heard about, or reading a textual description of a painting. How many interactive pieces are designed so that they're really meant to look good for an non-interacting audience, and how many are really only meant to be meaningful for the user who interacts with them?

I appreciate that Randy came and shared his experience with interactive design and education. He was a energetic speaker, and the presentation and ensuing discussion was lively. However, I'm upset that no one, including myself, challenged his notion that collaborative work on interactive projects is always the best, because in retrospect, I would have liked to hear his response. It's probably true that the types of collaborations espoused almost religiously by CMU work the best for tackling commerical, demo-friendly type applications -- i.e. how fast can I build this experience and have it ready for our end of the year show. But I would venture to say, especially after talking with Perry and Michael yesterday, that collaborative work results in a certain end product, and individual work results in another. The very nature of the consensus loop inherent to collaborative work on a fundamental level changes the way that those pieces are produced. Individual works, on the other hand, seem to be more friendly to strange and bizarre ideas that probably most of the time die in the collaborative cycle. I'm partly playing devil's advocate here, because I think that learning how to work in groups is a vastly important skill. But it seems a little off to me to assert that one is necessarily better than the other: they are different beasts.

The other issue that came up for me during the talk was the idea of output. Pedagogically, I think that output is important -- it can be a great learning experience just throwing yourself into the fire, finishing something quickly, throwing it away, and moving on. However, there is also something to be said about forming a more complete idea. Clearly, there isn't time to do this is a 2, 3 week project, and I'm positive project-depth is part of ETC's second year curriculum. I would like to see some things that have been output from this longer, deeper process of development, though, as I think the virtual worlds projects, while interesting, didn't do anything for me as seemed very homogeneous on levels of a) design, b) experience, and c) interactvity. This is clearly the trade-off between quick, playful, experience-building projects and longer, more researched, pieces -- which tend to be more innovative, but also tend to eat up a lot of time.

Again, I'm not trying to say that one approach is better than the other, but it's certainly a ripe area of discussion. I appreciate Randy for taking the time to come in and bring to light some of these issues, and I look forward to tracking some of the other projects coming out of the ETC>

I found Randy’s speech to be inspiring and thought provoking. Like Randy, Imagineering taught me “the right mix of creative/smart/talented people can do great things as a team.” Seeing how Randy and Don have applied this philosophy, to CMU’s interactive program, was impressive. However, the students’ projects were the most tangible evidence of the success of their approach. I’m sure Scott would agree that USC-CNTV could greatly benefit from adopting many of CMU-ETC’s processes, philosophies, and sprit.

I was overwhelmed by Randy Pausch's speak. He talked about a lot of things which I have never pay much attention to before but they are really inspiring. The three steps of the media evolution is such a common sense. But most interactive media designers are still simulating and transplanting the other media missing the point to the new Media. We are in the film school which does not mean we have to make film in the interactive media. To think about the new concept is our task.

Randy has a good attitude and method to keep him creative.How do we keep ourselves creative? Putting different people from different background makes creative. ETC has its focused enrollment policy so they can have groups of students really work together. We have a good students combination in our department. But did we really work together as a team? So far that only happened once in our writing class. I'm expecting more collaboration between the students the next semester.

The students works showed on the class are great, two weeks is a good limitation to push the students. I've done an 3D animation in 2 weeks before, and I find the results are really outstanding. I'll try to limit some of my projects on two weeks and see what can I bring to the world.

Randy Pausch’s talk was a really nice end of the semester treat. Like many of the others have mentioned, he was a great speaker both in his delivery and what he had to say. There has been an interesting theme running through many of the talks we have had this semester, and it was again reinforced during this one…collaboration versus individual work. Having worked in both situations, I cannot say which one is the ultimate way to work. Each has its plusses and minuses, but I have to say that the collaborative aspects of the CMU program were inspiring. Collaboration can either lead to a great feeling of community and support, or the exact opposite. From the images that we saw, it seemed that the former was the case, but I am sure that there were problems as well. The way in which the groups were chosen made sense and the fact that the members of the groups switched after a short period of time seemed ideal.

The only thing that was a bit of a concern to me and that was also mentioned either during the lecture or after class was the pigeonholing of a student’s specific skill. Understandably people go into a program with specific skills that are stronger than others, but the fact that the stronger skills are the only ones that are being focused on seems to be a little confining. I came to school to expand on my skill base and try and hone other skills, not only use the skill that I came in with.

I really enjoyed Randy’s enthusiasm for what drives creativity. I feel that the focus on play and the idea that there is no right or wrong answer would lead to a very comfortable and stimulating environment. Environments that are too stuffy and closed tend to stifle creativity and lead to less than average projects.

Overall, I enjoyed the talk, but as Mike mentioned, it took a few days for the ideas and concepts to settle in. When I left the lecture I was really sold on the program, but after listening to the comments from others and thinking about it myself, I have to say that a hybrid would be the ideal.

In the middle of the lecture, I must admit, a wave of anxiety swept over me. Pausch's design philosophy/dogma was sold pretty hard over those two hours and for a moment I felt somewhat naked sitting in our "immersive" lab. I thought: "Damn, he's right! Where is our "plush?" Why doesn't our space reflect our individual personalities? Maybe we're doing this all wrong..."

But that moment passed as soon as the lecture was over. Randy Pausch is a great salesman. He could sell a tonic for any ailment, as long as the audience take the time to think about his product... So what is his product actually?

On reflection, I am very disappointed with the choice to show off projects designed and completed in 2 weeks, not because it's not an impressive accomplishment, but because it is such a narrow learning environment. (Plus the "interactivity" of the "immersive" environments for most of those projects are relatively weak.) Completing a 2 week project 5 times teaches... wait for it... skills to complete 2 week projects. Hmm. Can he claim otherwise? Perhaps. But team social dynamics emerge and evolve unpredictably over long development cycles. I have personally experienced this. Often the first 2 weeks of a project are euphoric but the middle gets grey and vague and presents the real challenges.

The other problem that I saw with his presentation was that he choked on the question of what roles students can truly inhabit over the semester. It seems that the reality for most students is that they are admitted based upon having one set of skills and that they are encouraged to hone those skills within a team. That's somewhat discouraging to those students that have broader visions, something that Randy seemed to want to squash: the role of the lead designer. Well guess what? That role does exist in the industry. And project members that never learn to craft an experience from beginning to end, imagining the whole product, cannot claim to have learned anything about the team leadership process.

As I thought more about Randy Pausch's presentation, I appreciated our program even more than I had before. We have a lot of lessons to learn and a lot of adjustments to make, but we cannot doubt that the experiences that we are encouraging students to develop here at USC will be vastly different from the ones that come out of ETC. Perhaps both will be great in their own way. But I'm quite happy hacking away here in with our crew. Besides, it's sunnier here in LA.

First off, thanks Randy for coming and giving such an inspirational and enthusiastic speech.

That said, I have to agree somewhat with Kurt, in that, at first I was intimidated by the volume of output produced by ETC. But this feeling was quickly dissolved by the reality as I see it. As I brought up during the talk, the success of the projects seem to be largely due to the fact that most argument and debate is avoided by the fact that:

1.Projects are so short that, if you debate or theorize too much, you won’t have time to get the projects done.

2.Choosing highly specialized people to play their role in a group pigeon holes people, and strangles their intellectual growth. All of this is great for churning out lots of stuff, not unlike a corporation.

We are working in a field that straddles the hemispheres of the brain, and that demands a sophisticated knowledge of various “multi” media. That said, I feel happier than ever that I’m in an interdisciplinary academic environment where I can develop my personal creative visions. If I wanted to continue to be pigeon holed in a short project based environment, I’d have skipped grad school and gotten a job. I see grad school, particularly one dealing with an artistic field, as a place to find your voice and to push hard on developing difficult ideas. It’s a place for debate and for distilling and arguing about what you believe in.

In defense of ETC, I felt extremely envious of their (apparent) sense of a community and the type of creative atmosphere that they encourage. I think that everyone here has noticed it, but rarely brings it up publicly, but, for whatever reason, we have largely failed at these tasks. I think we need to immediately think about ways that we can increase communication among students. We should have a group forum that people take seriously. While I know space is limited, we should continue to think about how we can get people working side by side each other. It doesn’t matter if you are or aren’t interested in each other’s work, or if you even like each other. The benefits of communication far outweigh its detriments, and can avoid an incredible amount of misunderstanding. Lack of communication has fostered misunderstandings between students and has resulted, in some cases, in our polarization as a group. Not to say that communication will solve this, or that polarization is unnatural. I’m simply arguing that we have missed opportunities for increasing communication, and that we should work together to increase it.

I’m being honest and vocal, and don’t expect everyone to agree with me. But, honestly, it’s something I think about on a regular basis (and I’d venture to guess a lot of other students think about), and a problem that I think we need to finally openly address.