The role of transformative thinking and practice in a property entrepreneur's response to the funding crisis since 2008

This portfolio of exploration explores the role of transformative thinking and practice in a property entrepreneur’s response to the financial crisis which swept over Ireland from 2008. The complexity of this challenge and the mental capacity to meet its demands is at the core of the exploration. This inquiry emerged from the challenges the financial crisis presented to my values, beliefs, assumptions, and theories, i.e. the interpretive lens through which I make meaning of my experiences. Given the issue identified, this inquiry is grounded in aspects of theories of constructive developmental psychology, applied developmental science, and philosophy. Integrating and linking these elements to business practice is the applied element of the Portfolio. As the 2008 crisis unfolded I realised I was at the limits of my way of knowing. I came to understand that the underlying structure of a way of knowing is the ‘subject-object relationship’ i.e. what a way of knowing can reflect upon, look at, have perspective on, in other words, make object, as against what is it embedded in, attached to, identified within, or subject to. My goal became enhancing my awareness of how I made meaning and how new insights, which would transform a way of knowing, are created. The focus was on enhancing my practice. This Portfolio is structured into three essays. Essay One reported on my self-reflection and external evaluation out of which emerged my developmental goals. In Essay Two I undertake a reading for change programme in which different meaning making systems were confronted in order to challenge me as a meaning maker. Essay Three reported on my experiment which concerned the question whether it was possible for me as a property entrepreneur, and for others alike, to retain bank finance in the face of the overwhelming objective of the bank to deleverage their balance sheet of property loans. The output of my research can be grouped into General Developmental and Specific Business Implications. Firstly I address those who are interested in a transformational-based response to the challenges of operating in the property sector in Ireland during a crisis. I outline the apparatus of thought that I used to create insight, and thus transform how I thought, these are Awareness, Subject-object separation, Exploring other’s perspectives from the position of incompleteness, Dialectical thinking and Collingwood’s Questioning activity. Secondly I set out my learnings from the crisis and their impact on entrepreneurial behaviour and the business of property development. I identify ten key insights that have emerged from leading a property company through the crisis. Many of these are grounded in common sense, however, in my experience these were, to borrow Shakespeare’s words, “More honor'd in the breach than the observance” in pre Crisis Ireland. Finally I set out a four-step approach for forging a strategy. This requires my peer practitioners to identify (i) what they are subject to, (ii) Assess the Opportunity or challenge in a Systemic Context, (iii) Explore Multiple Perspectives on the opportunity or Challenge with an Orientation to change how you know and (iv) Using the Questioning Activity to create Knowledge. Based on my experience I conclude that transformative thinking and practice is a key enabler for a property entrepreneur, in responding to a major collapse of traditional (bank debt) funding.

Coffee Filters and Creativity: The Value of Multiple Filters in the Creative Process

Creativity is often defined as developing something novel or new, that fits its context, and has value. To achieve this, the creative process itself has gained increasing attention as organizational leaders seek competitive advantages through developing new products, services, process, or business models. In this paper, we explore the notion of the creative process as including a series of “filters” or ways to process information as being a critical component of the creative process. We use the metaphor of coffee making and filters because many of our examples come from Vietnam, which is one of the world’s top coffee exporters and which has created a coffee culture rivaling many other countries. We begin with a brief review of the creative process its connection to information processing, propose a tentative framework for integrating the two ideas, and provide examples of how it might work. We close with implications for further practical and theoretical directions for this idea.

Electronic Techtonics: Thinking at the Interface

This volume originated in HASTAC’s first international conference, “Electronic Techtonics: Thinking at the Interface,” held at Duke University during April 19-21, 2007. “Electronic Techtonics” was the site of truly unforgettable conversations and encounters that traversed domains, disciplines, and media – conversations that explored the fluidity of technology both as interface as well as at the interface. This hardcopy version of the conference proceedings is published in conjunction with its electronic counterpart (found at www.hastac.org). Both versions exist as records of the range and depth of conversations that took place at the conference. Some of the papers in this volume are almost exact records of talks given at the conference, while others are versions that were revised and reworked some time after the conference. These papers are drawn from a variety of fields and we have not made an effort to homogenize them in any way, but have instead retained the individual format and style of each author.

Autobiographical Memories for Very Negative Events: The Effects of Thinking about and Rating Memories.

In three related experiments, 250 participants rated properties of their autobiographical memory of a very negative event before and after writing about either their deepest thoughts and emotions of the event or a control topic. Levels of emotional intensity of the event, distress associated with the event, intrusive symptoms, and other phenomenological memory properties decreased over the course of the experiment, but did not differ by writing condition. We argue that the act of answering our extensive questions about a very negative event led to the decrease, thereby masking the effects of expressive writing. To show that the changes could not be explained by the mere passage of time, we replicated our findings in a fourth experiment in which all 208 participants nominated a very negative event, but only half the participants rated properties of their memory in the first session. Implications for reducing the effects of negative autobiographical memories are discussed.

THE ART OF TRANSCRIBING FOR HARPSICHORD

A relatively unexplored area of the harpsichord repertoire is the group of transcriptions made by J.S. Bach (1685-1750), Jean Henry d'Anglebert (1629-1691), and Jean-Baptiste Forqueray (1699-1782). These transcriptions are valuable and worth exploring and performing. Studying them provides unique insights into their composer‘s musical thinking. By comparing transcriptions with their original sources, the transcriber's decisions and priorities can be observed. The performance component of this dissertation comprises three recitals. The first features works of Johann Sebastian Bach: two transcriptions of violin concerti by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), and two transcriptions of trio sonatas by Johann Adam Reinken (1643-1722). The most salient feature of Bach‘s transcriptions is his addition of musical material: ornamenting slow movements, adding diminutions and idiomatic keyboard figurations throughout, and recomposing and expanding fugal movements. The second recital features works of Jean Henry d'Anglebert and Jean-Baptiste Forqueray, two French composer/performers. From d'Anglebert‘s many transcriptions, I assembled two key-related suites: the first comprised of lute pieces by Ennemond Gaultier (c. 1575-1651), and the second comprised of movements from operas by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687). Forqueray's transcriptions are of suites for viola da gamba and continuo, composed by his father, Antoine Forqueray (1671-1745). Creative and varied ornamentation, along with the style brisé of arpeggiated chords, are the most important features of d‘Anglebert‘s transcriptions. Forqueray‘s transcriptions are highly virtuosic and often feature the tenor and bass range of the harpsichord. The third recital features my own transcriptions: the first suite for solo cello by J.S. Bach, excerpts from the opera La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704), and two violin pieces by Nicola Matteis (fl. c. 1670-c. 1698). In these transcriptions, I demonstrate what I have learned from studying and performing the works in the first two recitals. These recitals were performed in the Leah Smith Hall at the University of Maryland on May 4, 2010; May 11, 2010; and October 7, 2010. They were recorded on compact discs and are archived within the Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (DRUM).

MUSICAL IMPROVISATION AND THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Musical improvisation combines technical proficiency and musical intuition. Due to its interactive nature, improvisation provides an avenue of communication among all art forms. This dissertation project explores the collaborative aspects of improvisation involving a musician, visual artist, a small group of dancers, and videographer. Video footage from two separate recording sessions provided hours of visual materials which were studied and edited. The first session was a live performance recorded in front of a studio audience. The second session was a two-day collaboration between musician and dancers in a studio space. The process of editing and compiling images with audio-an important element in this project-presented many unforeseeable challenges and lessons. This recorded dissertation is comprised of seven music videos that demonstrate my ability as an artist in collaboration with visual artist-professor Richard Klank, dancers David Yates, Jamie Garcia, Raha Behnam, Rachel Wolfe and Adrian Galvin, and video artist Nguyen Nguyen. Each video represents an individual creative process involving musical performance, studio lighting, sound recording, and video editing.

"Thinking too much": A systematic review of a common idiom of distress.

Idioms of distress communicate suffering via reference to shared ethnopsychologies, and better understanding of idioms of distress can contribute to effective clinical and public health communication. This systematic review is a qualitative synthesis of "thinking too much" idioms globally, to determine their applicability and variability across cultures. We searched eight databases and retained publications if they included empirical quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods research regarding a "thinking too much" idiom and were in English. In total, 138 publications from 1979 to 2014 met inclusion criteria. We examined the descriptive epidemiology, phenomenology, etiology, and course of "thinking too much" idioms and compared them to psychiatric constructs. "Thinking too much" idioms typically reference ruminative, intrusive, and anxious thoughts and result in a range of perceived complications, physical and mental illnesses, or even death. These idioms appear to have variable overlap with common psychiatric constructs, including depression, anxiety, and PTSD. However, "thinking too much" idioms reflect aspects of experience, distress, and social positioning not captured by psychiatric diagnoses and often show wide within-cultural variation, in addition to between-cultural differences. Taken together, these findings suggest that "thinking too much" should not be interpreted as a gloss for psychiatric disorder nor assumed to be a unitary symptom or syndrome within a culture. We suggest five key ways in which engagement with "thinking too much" idioms can improve global mental health research and interventions: it (1) incorporates a key idiom of distress into measurement and screening to improve validity of efforts at identifying those in need of services and tracking treatment outcomes; (2) facilitates exploration of ethnopsychology in order to bolster cultural appropriateness of interventions; (3) strengthens public health communication to encourage engagement in treatment; (4) reduces stigma by enhancing understanding, promoting treatment-seeking, and avoiding unintentionally contributing to stigmatization; and (5) identifies a key locally salient treatment target.

Thinking Outside the Box: Treating Acute Heart Failure Outside the Hospital to Improve Care and Reduce Admissions.

The management of acute heart failure is shifting toward treatment approaches outside of a traditional hospital setting. Many heart failure providers are now treating patients in less familiar health care settings, such as acute care clinics, emergency departments, and skilled nursing facilities. In this review we describe the current pressures driving change in the delivery of acute heart failure and summarize the evidence regarding treatments for acute heart failure outside of the inpatient setting. We also provide considerations for the design of future treatment strategies to be implemented in alternative care settings.

Constructive thinking

Discusses the House of Lords ruling in Cobbe v Yeoman's Row Management Ltd on whether the doctrine of constructive trust, as an alternative to proprietary estoppel, could be invoked by a property developer under the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 s.2(5) where an agreement for the acquisition of an interest in land failed to comply with s.2(1), but where the developer had incurred expenditure obtaining planning permission to develop the property. Reflects on whether there are circumstances in which the courts will find a constructive trust in order to avoid the effects of s.2(1).

The creative masses of digital Britain

The present recession has prompted scholarly and journalistic questioning of the contributions of the cultural industries to the economy. The talent-rich metropolitan clusters of London and New York are well-placed to ride out a thoroughgoing shakeup of the media markets if they manage their infrastructure, space and resources strategically, as Richard Florida has recently argued. This seems to be the assumption behind the recent Digital Britain interim report, and Gordon Brown's remarks that a digital revolution "lies at the heart" of Britain's economic recovery and that broadband and the media industry can play a leading role in pulling the UK out of the recession. Focusing on the Digital Britain report and consultation documents, this presentation seeks to unpack some of the fundamental assumptions behind this link between digital infrastructure, creativity and profitability. In particular the implicit notion of an engaged audience of users, generating "content" as well as shaping new media platforms calls into question long-held theoretical constructions of the mass audience of consumers as spectators; instead, the audience emerges as a potential economic powerhouse, an underused resource for tomorrow's cultural industries.

Thinking inside the box: the World Bank position on the private and public sector

An analysis of how the World Bank has maintained a position supportive of mutlinational strategies for privatisation of water. (Brief version).

Thinking inside the box: why the World Bank is not learning

An analysis of how the World Bank has maintained a position supportive of multinational strategies for privatisation of water.

Creative leadership & communities of practice

This Second Wave presentation focused on 'Creative Leadership and Communities of Practice', with particular reference to issues of trust affecting young people, unemployment and wider uncertainties in an economic recession when people were facing job cuts and in a social environment characterised by cynicism and a downturn in trust. Young people who join Second Wave are brought into a community of practice (CoP) (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1999) involving a dynamic, fluid process which is distinctive in its transformative power to change people's lives. The philosophy behind this involves Dewey's notion of the 'active self' (Dewey, 1916) and the theories of 'social constructivism' (Vygotsky, 1978). The process fosters trust, confidence and social learning (Bandura, 1977; Vygotsky, 1978) in which young people join in with a dialogue involving participation in the youth-centred creative space. The 'border zone' (Heath, 1994) in that creative space enables young people to connect with each other in the specialist field of youth arts. The youth-centred partnerships involved lead to greater confidence and development in a range of important artistic, social, cognitive and emotional skills and opportunities. Ultimately, the young person may become engaged in multi-agency working with Second Wave's external partners. Throughout all of these processes, young people are encouraged progressively to develop a more 'active self' to engage proactively with many different beneficial opportunities relating to the performing arts. In an era in which there has been a loss of trust in public life this is particularly important. If trust is defined in part as a belief in the honesty, competence and benevolence of others, it tends to act like 'social glue', cushioning difficult situations and enabling actions to take place easily that otherwise would not be permissible. The Edelman Trust Barometer for 2009 has recorded a marked diminution of trust in corporations, businesses and government, as a result of the credit crunch. While the US and parts of Europe were showing recovery from a generalised loss of trust by mid-year 2009, the UK had not. Social attitudes in Britain may be hardening - from being a nation of sceptics we may be becoming a nation of cynics: for example, only 13% of the population surveyed by Edelman trust politicians to tell the truth. In this situation, there is a need to promote positive measures to build trust. The presentation aims described key aspects of Second Wave's approach to identify and disseminate its model of good practice to make this more explicit and accessible to others. It is with awareness of the profoundly challenging circumstances facing young people, particularly but not exclusively in inner city urban areas such as Deptford, and the valuable contribution youth arts work can make to their well-being and development, that the presentation was carried out. In an era of generalised mistrust, the work done at Second Wave is crucial in empowering and supporting young people to find a positive and creative direction as part of the community.

Creative environments for art, craft & design teaching in the 21st century

This booklet has been designed for student teachers in particular and those in their early years as teachers of art, craft and design. It is suitable however for all teachers of art and design, and will be useful when considering the 2007 review of the Art and Design programme of study (POS) with its focus on creativity and ideas developments. The contents are intended as prompts or guides and ideas for initiating individual responses to themes or projects and a "way in" for the teacher when guiding pupils. It explains in detail how one might inspire all groups with appropriate and varied resources.