Let Yourself Be Perfectly Imperfect.
I remember watching my desk mate and fellow classmates walk past me during assembly to the front of the podium to receive gifts for doing well in exams . While this happened I would wonder when it would ever be me. At times I would daydream walking up the podium to get my Cadbury chocolate for grades well earned. Yet again and again, I would wake up and find myself in the same place leading on the other side, with no chocolate in sight apart from the occasional generous friend giving me a kionjo.
In the afternoon, after class, I would stay in behind longer than usual while my deskmate went for Hockey practice so that I could catch up on some reading. I would do the same during the weekends when she and other high performing students would go out of school for Sports competitions.
I did not let myself get into Sports because I was scared that my grades would deteriorate even further. If only I knew what I know now as someone working in the Video Game Development Industry, on the importance of play in activating the brain for learning and strategic thinking.
Anyway, I digress; my daydreams were the closest I got to receiving such a chocolatey gift. I know, I know you must be thinking gosh how petty. All the same, I am a human being and coupled with my raging teenage hormones at that time I was allowed to feel that way.
Most schools did not have such gifts and students still did well. However, that was not my reality and for that, I felt inadequate.
The fusion of art and tech is the future; creativity is getting more on demand during this time of accelerated digital transformation -- Wendi Ndaki
Don't get me wrong I had my strong points. I remember being awarded the second position for drawing a portrait during an inter-house competition. But now looking back, I realize no one saw it fit to give us brilliant creative students chocolate as recognition for our creative genius. It tells you a lot about the education system and the solutions for these ingrained mindsets that the sciences are the most important and should be given priority at the expense of the arts.
Anyway, I laboured through high school and ended up with a good enough grade to do a Diploma so as to qualify to do my Degree. This only happened because I am blessed with caring parents who made sure I went through my University education.
I ended up in IT and I decided to embrace it. I eventually fell in love with it which led to me starting this blog and joining the gaming industry where I feel most at home because of how art and tech fuse seamlessly.
To be honest, one must be strong-willed and passionate about art to go through such experiences and still be at it. And because of that, I celebrate myself.
Having gone through the hardships I did during my time in High School, I have come to appreciate applications that gamify learning such as Mavis Beacon for typing and Duolingo for learning foreign languages. Because I love learning new things. It's just the method of learning I used in High School that did not work for me.
I learn best by doing practical stuff that is why Art was my favourite subject in High School and IT grew on me in Uni.
I used to attend classes during the day and work in the ICT department in Uni at night. I would juggle that with doing assignments and also being an active member of a student-run organisation called AIESEC where I would eventually get elected as a Vice President. I even got to travel to Rwanda as a web design volunteer teacher in a High School in Huye through AIESEC.
My alma mater USIU-A made learning fun and my time on campus was full of adventure. I still remember the 24 hour ride from Nairobi to Kigali by bus for that volunteer opportunity. And how we would go to the Rift Valley region for leadership conferences on a regular, both through AIESEC and USIU-A as student leaders.
As I sit here writing this, my life still has its challenges but I feel like my past experiences ground me. I am more appreciative as my life takes shape and as I establish myself as a Creative Entrepreneur.
I currently have clientele from both the Arts and Tech industries. I have travelled to numerous countries fully sponsored because I chose to be bold, follow my heart and do what I love. I recently spoke in a panel with CEOs and influential people in Kenya and I almost did not recognize myself. I received a good sum of money for winning as a team at the Hack Ur Culture Hackathon. My team Hack Circle also received funding from the Goethe Institute Joburg to further develop another solution we created at the same Hackathon.
I have found my calling in the fusion of the arts and technology and I intend to share this passion through the work I produce and hopefully make a difference through inspiring stories that encourage those hesitant to follow this path that it is possible to succeed in it.
It will be tough at times but totally worth it. Let it be imperfect as you start and watch it improve as you go. We are always on a journey towards an elusive perfection, so let yourself be perfectly imperfect. And try try try. Apply for those opportunities and then let go, meanwhile count your blessings and stay positive. All will be well.
I never got that chocolate in High School but I tried my best. Now I can buy myself all the chocolate I want with money earned doing things I absolutely love. What more could one ask for? I did my Diploma while my classmates were doing their Degree I felt low in the beginning but when I went to do my Degree I achieved more than I thought I would. And so can you, that thing that is putting you down right now will make for a great story in the future. Be kind to yourself and those around you and let yourself be perfectly imperfect.
Thursday, December 31, 2020 | Labels: Art, Creative Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Design | 2 Comments
8 Team Building Lessons from the Internationally Acclaimed Netflix show Money Heist
Image source |
In an ideal world of team building, each person each day is excited to be involved in the project or work they do. Are you?
This piece is inspired by the Netflix series Money Heist and a business training I attended on building an awesome team by IE International University. As a viewer of Money Heist, I was impressed with how the heisters were able to make the general public join them in a rebellion all thanks to the remarkable team they had built.
As a writer in the entertainment industry, I have realized that collaboration is important and in order to collaborate well, great teams need to be built.
The essentials of team building are purpose, mastery and autonomy. Businesses around the world that are able to successfully achieve these 3 goals usually also succeed in providing motivation, allowing for creativity and improving productivity in their teams. In addition to these 3 essential elements to team building are gender representations, adapting to change, persuasion, recruitment and networking.
Let's talk about all the essentials as inspired by this internationally acclaimed Netflix show.
1. Purpose
The Money Heist's team purpose is to print 24 billion euros and also to complete the greatest heist ever. The fact that they plan to print the money means that they will not steal; that is how they get the protestors on their side.
In a team, things happen and goals change but the larger goal should never change. In order to have a great team like the professor, it is important to educate the team into their behaviour and purpose as individuals and as teammates.
2. Mastery
Education should make sure that each team member has a high level of mastery in their area of expertise. In Money Heist, the person digging the escape tunnel, the person printing the money and the person keeping the hostages in check were the best at what they did.
We like to work in teams when we believe that we're going to get better at what we do or what we like to do. This is highly motivating.
As a team leader, if you assign a role to someone and they act hesitant or say they don't want it, it's important to help that person understand that they are going to be incredibly valuable - not only in this team but also to themselves as they build towards greater competency for the future.
Nairobi: Image source |
Aspiration for greatness inspires mastery. In Money Heist, the aspiration is to a great robbery, freedom, breaking away from traditional society, and its requirements. This aspiration for greatness gives an opportunity for mastery through practice.
For instance, Nairobi is good at printing money but she goes to become an even greater master when she prints 24 billion euros in the greatest money heist in history.
Berlin is a master of social, emotional and cultural intelligence. He understands people very well. He knows what makes them tick enough to know what and how to say things in order to persuade them to do what he wants them to do.
3. Autonomy
Money Heist highlights the power of a team that is formed by autonomous people who can make decisions within the guidelines of the culture of the group. Everyone was able to make decisions in order to change and adapt the plan to changing conditions on the ground. There's a culture of instant communication especially when it comes to who is in charge when the professor is not around.
It is important to remember that everything is derived from culture. The professor taught them to have shared values which included spilling no blood, making the money, and getting the money out so that they could improve everyone's lives.
Denver: Image Source |
Team leaders are meant to be driven and passionate about what they do so that the team members can learn by example. Each team member should be self-aware enough to know what drives them personally.
In one episode, the team leader Berlin who was not in full possession of his mental faculties ordered Denver to take Monica's life. When met with the dilemma of shooting her or being killed himself, Denver made a rather clever decision that saved both their lives and led to their love affair. This goes on to show the power of autonomy versus blindly following of leaders even when they are clearly on the wrong.
Berlin: Image Source |
Therefore, in order to form a good team, it's important to foster a feeling of autonomy and ownership in each individual so that they can act in accordance with the purpose of the team.
Hierarchy also determines culture: the money heisters hierarchy was that of peer relations except for the professor who was slightly above. This contributed to the openness of the members when it came to communication. There are many moments in the series where different people became the boss.
4. Gender representation
In Money Heist, there is a balance in gender representation; we see powerful female figures in Raquel and Alicia who represent the former and current head of the police. While Raquel allows for moral ambiguity and questions what the police do, Alicia does not. She is a member of law enforcement with questionable ethics and morality. She will torture and harm people in order to get what she wants. Although they were both in the same team, to begin with, they no longer are because they do not share the same values of good and bad.
Raquel shows her autonomy when she joins the heisters, a team she was once against. This is the beginning of her transformation into developing her own power and her own set of ethics and values. She becomes completely revolutionized, even wearing different kinds of clothing like shown in the picture below. She carries with her all the knowledge she has of law enforcement and becomes a crucial member of the heisters team.
Raquel: Image source |
5. Adapting to change
It is important to note that in every team there will be conflict and resistance. The reasons for resistance are fear, loss of control, uncertainty, surprises and unfamiliar things - all of which stem from change. One of the key features of teams is that they can change' this is highlighted by how the law enforcement team changed once Raquel left.
A radical change also occurred among the hostages when Monica joined the heisters. This is after Arthur dismissed her when she told him that she was carrying his child. The painful dismissal leads Monica to the arms of Denver her captor and eventual lover (Stockholm syndrome). Monica fully embraces her new team and even goes on to take on the name of a city and what better city for her than Stockholm.
Stockholm: Image source |
6. Persuasion
Persuasion is a key skill in team building. And it requires a show of evidence and credibility. You are more likely to persuade people if you show them evidence that you believe they should do the thing you say and you have credibility in it. One should also have emotional, social and cultural intelligence in interacting with a group to increase the chances of successful persuasion.
The professor is great at persuasion, an example is how he got Tokyo to the team by saving her from a trap the police had placed to arrest her. He also revealed some details about her life that no one else knew and explained how he was going to help her change her life.
7. Recruitment
Hiring is dependent on culture: what culture do you want to create, and who are the people who can help you create this culture? It is important to ask yourself questions such as
- Will you have a shared purpose with the new member of the team?
- Will they be accepting of responsibility and autonomy?
- Will they be able to make decisions much like the ones the leader would?
- What role will they take?
- How will they fit with the other members?
- Will they be able to communicate easily in the group and will their addition be useful?
Mastery should be taken into consideration too because you want to hire people who are capable. For instance, the Professor hired Tokyo because she was good with a gun and great at being a thief.
New Recruit Bogota: Image Source |
8. Networking
Who is in your network? What are the networks of the people who are in your network? Networking helps us access expertise that we don't have and get our goals achieved as a result.
We should all be like the Professor who was a connector connecting networks. He had done his research and figured out a network of thieves with specific skills that he needed for this particular heist. He was so good at networking that he was able to bring Raquel who was once against the team to his side and into his network.
Thanks to Money Heist we have seen the power of autonomy, mastery and purpose in accessing the drive and motivation of people to really want to be engaged in their work. People seek meaning and a sense of accomplishment as a primary motivation.
Giving room for gender representation in our teams is also a great way to build healthy teams. We also need to improve our persuasion, recruiting and networking skills because after all, we all need each other.
Have you watched Money Heist? What was your biggest takeaway lesson from it?
Tuesday, October 06, 2020 | Labels: Creative Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Culture, Film, Teamwork | 7 Comments
African Creatives to the World with Africacomicade's Gamathon
Did you know that the Video Game Industry is bigger than Hollywood? Well, it is and in 2020, the global games market is set to generate more than $160 billion and increase by 7.3% year on year. In Africa, the market for games has risen from $105 million to $570 million in just four years! The African population is young with the average age being 20 years. This will form the labour force of the future, as well as the gaming community that will raise the user base for games.
Oscar and Oluwatosin the Co-Founders. Their talk can be found here. |
The Africacomicade Gamathon is a virtual event that is hosted on itch.io. It is an initiative that was started by Oscar Micheal and Oluwatosin Ogunyebi to showcase African Creatives to the World. This is not only limited to the Creatives in the Gaming Industry but also those in the wider Entertainment Industry like film, music and content creation. Gaming is an industry that brings other industries together and this will become even more evident once you register for free and attend the training sessions and talks.
The aim of Africacomicade is to let the world know we have African Game Developers who are doing well. And to invite Creatives of all kinds from Storytellers to Illustrators, Marketers to Animators, Musicians to Sound Technicians and more to learn how they can plug into this inclusive Industry. It is a chance to show all these people the job opportunities they can leverage.
The Gamathon started on the 24th and will be running till the 30th of this month August 2020. The first 5 days are dedicated to training through talks and panel discussions. A lot of insight into the gaming industry will be shared by Industry leaders. Then on the final two days, Creatives from different African Countries will team up and create games for 48 hours in the exciting Africacomicade Game Jam.
If you are a newbie, not to worry. There will be training sessions in the program such as using platforms like Buildbox which requires no coding to create a game but focusses more on logic. Communication about all these training opportunities will be done through the Africacomicade Discord channel. Gaming and Game Publishing companies will also come in and inform new as well as established Game Developers what they have to offer.
The training sessions are in an effort to assist in the education needed in the Gaming Industry. It seeks to highlight how there are endless opportunities for what one can do with their gaming skills.
As a player you can become a professional game tester and assist Game Developers with the much-needed feedback during the different development phases of their games. You can also become a Professional Esports Athlete and stand a chance to earn just as much as the professional football players do.
So as you can see there will be lots of activities before the Game Jam this weekend. If you are a Creative and, to be honest, I believe we all are, you may want to register and learn how you can offer your skills in this fast-growing Industry. Also, note that there are lots of prizes to be won. I look forward to seeing more African Creatives building their networks and growing in the Industry. And I hope you will be one of them.
Tuesday, August 25, 2020 | Labels: Animation, Art, Creative Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Culture, Design, Film, Gamification, Gaming, Mentorship | 0 Comments
8 Interesting Ways to Remind Yourself That Every Experience Counts.
How did yours start? I mean the journey to where you are in your life at this moment. It all makes sense when you look backward.
The following is an account of my own experiences and how they have turned out well, in spite of me feeling like I had taken a wrong turn a couple of times such as in University. I know many of you have felt like this one time or another.
How? well, I always had a wanting attitude towards computers and had avoided taking computer classes in favor of my art in High School.
I came to realize that it was because we were mostly taught theoretically and did not get to interact with the computers as much. Why? well, we had just one computer lab in a boarding school with close to 1000 students.
Fortunately, I got to enroll for IT essentials and Cisco Certified Network Associate classes right after finishing High School. The courses had lots of fun visual aids and were hands-on so I fell in love with computers as a result.
Once I got over my funk with Technology, I went on to graduate with a degree in Information Systems Technology from United States International University (USIU) -Africa.
My Tech background came in handy when I finally got back on track by enrolling for a certificate course in 3D Animation at Shang Tao Media Art College. I later met a lady that would end up changing my life in ways unimagined.
Maintaining a keen eye on her table, I continued with my dance around at the mentors stationed close to her. This continued until I eventually got the chance to go to her table. Our session felt super brief, but I remember leaving feeling so inspired, it had been worth the complicated dance.
doing the internship I wrote about here in India.
4.) Count your blessings and remember that everything is always working out for your good.
Funny thing is she was also in India at the time of contacting me, only in a different state. What are the odds?
This is how I was blessed with an opportunity to work closely with Ng'endo who is not only an amazing human but also a multiple award-winning Animator. I got to see how she goes about her daily activities and it was amazing how easy she made all of it seem.
6.) Heed to their advice and be open to trying out the new things they recommend. After all, you have to be willing to change the way you do things in order to be like the people you admire.
I had attended one-week workshops before so I was eager to absorb the knowledge and simply move on with my life. This particular workshop was different; it introduced us to a project called Enter Africa.
So when we were told about the magnitude of the project that it's running in 14 other African countries concurrently and the requirement to commit for the next two years, it all came as a surprise to me.
It was during this workshop and subsequent meet-ups while working on the project, that I started
getting acquainted with concepts such as gamification.
All the same, it ended up being a pleasant experience. I was sent to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on a one-week workshop and then to Munich, Germany to be a panelist for my very first time representing Enter Africa Nairobi.
7.) Request for help from your mentor when called to do something they have done numerous times.
So I called Ng'endo to share the good news with her as well as to ask her what she would advise me to do in preparation. I did as I was told and I remember being super calm and confident on D-day. Her advice had been of great help.
8.) Be open to change the trajectory of your life when you stumble upon new things that align with your interest and that compliment your passion.
During my stay in Germany, which I was fortunate enough to extend to one month, I got to meet a Kenyan doing his PhD there. I first met him at the Munich Media Days Conference where I was speaking and later on we set a meet up with him, my father and myself a couple of weeks later.
Coincidentally, he had already met my father a year before. When I informed him of what my father does for a living in Germany, he asked me for his name. And when I mentioned "Mutisya", he retrieved my father's contacts from his phone like magic.
Thanks to this meeting, I am currently preparing to pursue a Master's degree in Game Development and Animation for Film. My first love Animation has found herself a new partner and I'm totally fine with that.
I am currently studying German on Duolingo
and looking forward to enrolling for German classes later this year. All the while reminding myself that whichever way it goes, all is well. After all, at the end of the day, I will have a new language added to my arsenal. And every experience counts. Now it's your turn to look back at your own life and remind yourself how every experience in your journey counts.
Sunday, March 22, 2020 | Labels: Animation, Creative Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Gamification, Gaming, Inspiration, Tributes, Virtual Reality | 8 Comments
How to Build Enlightened Wealth As A Creative Entrepreneur
We believe you have a destiny to fulfill. There is music in you, a song you are destined to sing, or instrument you are destined to play in the symphony of life.
Some people discover their destiny quickly, some people take decades to do so, and others never even look for it. When you tap into this pure vein of gold you become the person you were born to be." - Mark and Robert
Now join me in the journey of discovering our divine life path through a book whose entire theme is the higher power's approach to business success.
Higher power, God, the Creator, Source, we have different names for the Supreme Being that created us and cares for our well being.
The following are 5 business lessons that, as a Creative Entrepreneur, resonated with me. These lessons are from the enlightening book Cracking the Millionaire Code by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G Allen.
1. Lesson One: Giving
It took Oprah Winfrey's demotion from a lofty news anchor position - which she did not like anyway - to a stagnating talk show no one watched at that time, for her to discover her destiny.
At first, when she started the talk show, she was made to interview a couple with their child. The cheating husband confessed in front of the national TV that his girlfriend was pregnant and Oprah saw the humiliation in his wife's face. And that was when she decided that enough was enough.
She decided that she would not let TV use her but rather she would use TV to impact people's lives positively. She continues to do so using new media like YouTube even after a successful 25 years as a TV talk show host.
It is important to know that at times your destiny is shown to you in disguise. In Oprah's case, hers was what her boss thought was a demotion. Yours could be a lay off that led you to follow your passion of cooking that you were putting off for the future which never seemed to come.
The authors introduce an interesting term in the book. The ANGELS code refers to the team of people working with you on your business. We need a strong team and they need us. It is good to have a team of people who are positive, forward-thinking and who have a track record for success.
One action step would be to come up with a list of people and start contacting them on whether they would be interested in collaborating on your joint business idea.
ANGELS stands for
Access to assets - The access to capital and financial assets your team members have.
Network capital - The people that your team members know.
Genius capital - The talents, gifts, and creativity of your team members.
Experience capital - The educational background as well as the street smarts of these members.
Light capital - Do they have a giving spirit and a strong belief in a higher power?
Use these to determine the right people to put in your dream team.
The star code is discovering and serving a special group of customers and treating them like the stars they are. According to this book, most of the startups that succeed are those whose owners focussed on this code.
A good example of treating customers like STARS would be a story I heard from an audiobook I listened to a while ago about someone, let's call him Sam.
Sam had gone to a bar to watch a baseball match. He found the bar TV already tuned to another sports channel.
Since he was the only one at the bar at that time, he requested the waiter to change the channel to the one that was airing his favorite baseball match.
The waiter did and then proceeded to serve him his burger and drinks. Later on, as the bar started filling up, the TV was automatically tuned to the channel he had found on.
So when the waiter noticed, he went to Sam and told him that it was not fair because he was the first one there and should be able to continue watching his game.
Not wanting to stir up the crowd that had gathered at the bar, Sam told the waiter that it was fine. He was willing to move to another room that had no one in it to continue watching the match.
The waiter went on and changed the channel to the baseball match anyway. He also took the remote, removed the batteries from the remote, and gave them to Sam.
After hearing this story, I could not help but imagine the reaction from the other customers - and smile at how special Sam must have felt.
It is said that Sam did not enjoy the burger from the bar, but he left that place with a lasting impression and a great story to tell.
Conclusion
All these lessons are strongly dependent on finding one's divine life path and I believe everything else gets better with time after that.
At the moment you are able to start giving even if it is in the form of volunteering your skills and talents.
You are also able to find a team of passionate friends to work with on a primary product as well as those that are linked to it. Remember PRISM?
And once you start earning loads from these multiple revenue streams, you are able to give back monetarily or by building platforms that share tips on how you made it work for you.
You can also start treating your customers like the stars they actually are. I believe the business will keep coming back to you because of how special you make them feel.
It's a whole cycle people!
So join me this new decade in implementing these lessons into our Creative endeavors. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Let's crack that Millionaire code.
Friday, January 31, 2020 | Labels: Book Reviews, Creative Entrepreneurship, Creativity | 1 Comments
How a Fun, Simple Game Changed My Perspective About Games.
Image Source. |
Image source. |
Saturday, June 22, 2019 | Labels: Animation, Art, Creative Entrepreneurship, Gamification, Gaming | 14 Comments
Inside Clever Art Gallery's Unique Outdoor Exhibition in Nairobi
Monday, May 13, 2019 | Labels: Art, Creative Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Event Review, Fashion, Inspiration | 4 Comments
DOTs' Unconference 2018: What I learnt about Creative Internetwork of Humanity
These young participants stood out during DOTs' Impactathons which were short, intensive programs that introduce concepts on social innovation and enterprise and support youth to develop ideas to address specific problems in their communities.
Wednesday, October 31, 2018 | Labels: Creative Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Event Review, IoT, Social Entrepreneurship | 4 Comments
- Animals
- Animation
- Art
- Augmented Reality
- Book Reviews
- Creative Entrepreneurship
- Creativity
- Culture
- Design
- Digital Marketing
- Event Review
- Fashion
- Film
- Gamification
- Gaming
- Hackathon
- Inclusive Design
- Innovation
- Inspiration
- Internet of Things
- Interviews
- IoT
- Mentorship
- Music
- Poetry
- Pointillism
- Prezi
- Social Entrepreneurship
- Social Media Marketing
- Teamwork
- Technology
- TLL
- Tributes
- Virtual Reality
- Yoga