Creativity & Genre

Time to pick a genre for the magazine we are going to make. As I have stated in previous blogs, we already decided on a topic for the magazines, animals. However, we were not sure on the specific topic on animals. 

We need to be creative and find ways to inspire creative ideas. So I turned to the words of Dr. Ron Beghetto and his idea on creative self-efficacy during an interview. He states that, "creative self-efficacy is developed by taking creative action, making progress, receiving honest and supportive (i.e., improvement focused) feedback and encouragement from trusted others, observing relatable people creatively perform on tasks...." He showed that to become more creative, you must make progress on the task at hand and work closely with other people and their ideas.

We knew that our magazine was going to be a special interest type of magazine. It was not a general interest magazine because we had a specific target audience, and it was not a professional magazine because it was meant to be consumed for entertainment rather than information. Our target audience is people who have pets and animal lovers. So, we based our creative discussion around our set target audience. 

Bailey and I discussed the many, MANY different types of topics we could dive into. We started thinking about doing a series where each issue would talk about a specific pet. At the time, we thought that she could do dogs and I could do beta fish. After all, she owned two adorable dogs and I owned my colorful beta fish. It was a topic that we could handle. However, after some consideration, we decided that doing a magazine on only one type of animal is too vague and too boring. So, we were back on square one. 

Despite this, I knew we had to keep communicating and coming up with new ideas for our magazines. Looking at 'The Theory of Creativity', a TED Talk by Duncan Wardle, he states a lot of valuable information about how creativity works and the best ways to ignite your creativity. I learned two things from that TED Talk: one, I need to keep a notebook near my bed because I get most of my bright ideas right before I go to sleep, and two, being in an argument is like being at work. Let me explain what I mean. During the presentation, Wardle describes a scene that we are all too familiar with. You get in a heated argument with someone, you walk away, and then after you have calmed down, you come up with the comeback that could have turned the tide of the argument. Of course, it's too late to use it because the argument ended a while ago. Now, Wardle says that this happens because being in an argument is like being at work. When you are at work, your mind isn't coming up with creative ideas just as much as when you are letting your emotions get to you. In order to get new ideas, I need to keep my cool and think of it as like a story I'm coming up with. If I think of it like a school assignment, then I am going to get nothing done.

So, I went home and tried to come up with ideas there. Then it hit me. Why don't we do magazine issues that are spotlighting the animals themselves. Rather than have just a magazine for fish and a magazine for dogs, why not go into the specifics of how pets, and other animals, have positively changed human lives. I came up with two magazine ideas, 'Pets to the Rescue' which would be focused on pets that are trained to help people with disabilities and 'Our Pet Heroes' which would be focused on how pets have helped people mentally. When I brought this idea to Bailey, she agreed that they were much better than having magazines that focused on one animal alone. 

We now have our target audience and our magazine ideas established. All that's left is to come up with articles, take pristine pictures, and put the magazine together. 

 

To Team or Not to Team

It is time for me to decide whether to team or not to team with someone for the big magazine project. Through research, I have found the best way to make an efficient team that will get the task done diligently. Though if you have already read my other blogs, you already know that I have decided to work with Bailey Saslow. So, instead of using this blog to go back and forward on why I should or should not team up, I will be using this blog to show how I came to the decision, why I chose this person specifically, and why we make a great team based on the evidence and expert opinion I came across during my research.

Let's start with a little bit about myself. In the past I found that working in groups was always a double edge sword for me. It was great for getting work done because it was easier to break up the tasks to individual people; however, I often have a hard time finding people who work well with me. There are many students who just don't feel like working. They think that because other people are working on the same project, they don't need to contribute any time or effort into it. If they do, it will always be the bare minimum. There are many people who are ok with working with these types of people because they are fine with doing all the work themselves. I am not one of those people. I get livid when someone isn't doing their "fair share" of work. 

Another thing that works both ways, for me, is that I have a leader type personality. A big part of working with a group is to keep in mind the different personalities that are coming to the table. According to "The effect of personality type on team performance" by John Bradley and Frederic Hebert, "Personality types have an essential role for the success of IS development team performance. Furthermore, there is a need to reflect on personality compositions of members to better understand not only themselves, but other members as well." I already know what type of personality I have and the different strengths and weaknesses that come with it. I am able to assess the different tasks of a project and designate people to specific tasks that they are proficient in. Despite my capabilities, my peers don't seem to take me seriously. Whenever I try to manage a group task, most teammates tend to ignore my suggestions and appoint someone else to be the group manager. Now, if the person in charge of the group is capable of leading them and getting the project done efficiently, I have no problem with following what they say. However, if this person thinks they can lead but do not have the capabilities of doing so, then I start to get vex because they put the project, and by extension my grade, at risk. 

I have learned that if I need to work in a group; I work better in a small group, primarily in threes or in pairs. According to "Songwriting loafing or creative collaboration?: A comparison of individual and team written billboard hits in the USA" by Terry Pettijohn and Shujaat Ahmed, "Social loafing is the likelihood of individuals contributing less when working on a task as part of a group than when working on a task alone...Social loafing generally increases with group size and decreases with task importance...". The more people there is to a group, the more likely people will start slacking because they don't feel that they need to do much because more people are working on the same project. By having a small group, I can ensure that there won’t be any slackers that will infuriate me during the project. I have also found that working with people I know, or have worked with before, increases productivity and performance of a project. Due to the fact that I know the people in the group, I can better assess their strengths and distribute the tasks of the project accordingly. It also helps that these people already know my personality type. They listen to my suggestions and add their own ideas to the mix rather than shutting me down and then doing whatever they want.  

By now, you are probably wondering, 'if you have such specific requirements to your teams and you are aware of the detriments you have when working with a group, then why not work alone?' I originally thought of working alone at first. Generally, I find that I am more productive when I don't need to worry about what other people are doing. During the "Lost at Sea" activity we did in our class, I found that the team's score was over double the score I received for the same task. The higher the score, the worse the team or person did on the activity. I know as an individual, I perform better than the group. 

However, this is a very massive project where I am treading in very new territory. I need another person to be there with me and help me through the process. Even if they are also going into something they have never done before, just having someone to discuss ideas with will benefit me more than if I tried to power through it alone. That is why I strived to find a teammate who would be able to work with me. I found that and so much more in Bailey Saslow. 

I have known Bailey for about a year from the time I wrote this blog. We sat next to each other in language arts class during our junior year of high school. Although we were just acquaintances, we did a few group tasks for that class and completed them without any friction. From what I have seen, Bailey is a very cool and kind person who is extremely dedicated to her work. She understands the tasks at hand and works hard to complete the work presented to her. This was one of the reasons we worked so well with each other. This senior year, Bailey is in two of my classes, language arts and media studies. She is one of the few people I am acquainted with in my classes. All my other acquaintances or friends either graduated high school, moved to another location, or got stuck at home due to the pandemic. There aren't many other students that know me in my classes this year. For these reasons, Bailey is the perfect person to team up with for this project.

When creating a team, an important key factor is communication and building off of each other's ideas. Creating ideas in a group could lead to very innovative and creative solutions or ideas on how to carry out a project. In the words of "Of rabbit holes and aquamarines (cabbages and kings)" by Salome Krell, "Meaningful (creative) collaborations have the capacity to foster a sense of community and partnership as well as to create the space for new ideas, advancements, and solutions to 'old' problems. At the root (and core) of collaboration is communication: without this, collaboration would be all but impossible." We have already completed group tasks together. We know how to communicate with each other and conjure creative ideas that get the project done. 

When we first started talking about the project, we already knew that it had to be something that we were very familiar with. With all the new programs and skills we have to learn, we knew that we needed to make the topic easy on us. Through conversation, we decided to do our magazines on animals. We didn't have anything specific at the time, we just came up with an idea that we were both familiar with. Bailey has two Instagram accounts. One for herself, and one for her adorable dog. She often has pictures of her dog just looking as cute as it can be. Since I don't have Instagram, or any social media account for that matter, I asked her to send me a few screen shots of the posts she does with her dog. All the posts she showed me were just adorable pictures of her dog. I noticed that these pictures looked very clean and professional. This meant that our decision to make our magazine about animals would work out because she knows how to photograph and talk about animals.

So now that I have chosen an amazing partner, what comes next? Now, we finalize the specific topic we want the magazines to focus on and start the project.