A blog for the CCA community

2,000 balloons, 10 spray painted crates, 30 pounds of dry ice, 180 people, delightful wall installations, crafty name tags, inspiring challenges and prototyping kits, thoughtful speeches, expert facilitation of small groups, a wide range of creative ideas - and a whole lot of fun.  That pretty much summarizes the Project Form Visioning Extravaganza that happened on Saturday…Thanks to all who came!  The energy was positive, playful, collaborative, and inspiring.

The Project Form team has been hard at work since Saturday, synthesizing the results from the event and extracting insights and nuggets on which to build solutions.  The big question is now, “what’s next?”, and once the team has had a chance to sit down, consolidate, and digest all the ideas from Saturday, we’ll share next steps with you all on the blog.

Until then, please enjoy some preliminary photos of the event below!  We have hundreds more that we’ll try to share once they are all collected.

 The Project Form Welcome at the CCA SF Campus

Brianna presents the concept of the day at the intro presentation

Time to work!  Crates filled with prototyping tools and a special challenge awaited each group

Working together to ideate

Creativity at work - a great mobile prototype of a inter-campus  transportation concept

Sketching out more ideas

Another active prototype - filming a newscast in 2015

The final hurrah and full group - thanks for a great afternoon!

Want to see a quick teaser for tomorrow’s event?  Click to see more…we hope to see many of you blog readers tomorrow!

As many of you know, Project Form’s Visioning Extravaganza is happening this Saturday, Jan 24th, at the Nave on the SF campus. In preparation for this event, the Space Design Team, which is comprised mostly of students, needs help constructing and installing 5 large balloon sculptures throughout the Atrium and Nave on the SF CCA campus.

1000 air filled balloons will be delivered Friday morning, and help is needed from 10am to 5pm, in 2-3 hour shifts. Food will be available for the volunteers. Please just stop by if you’d like to help!

There are also a handful of spots left for students to attend the event. Please RSVP to vp-studentaffairs [at] cca.edu with the following information if you’d like to attend:
NAME:
MAJOR or GRADUATE PROGRAM:
CLASS LEVEL:
CELL PHONE NUMBER:
DID YOU TRANSFER TO CCA?

YES! I WILL BE IN THE NAVE PROMPTLY AT 11:00 A.M. AND CAN STAY UNTIL 5:00 P.M ON JAN 24th.

The deadline to RSVP for Project Form’s Visioning Extravaganza has been extended to next Wednesday, Jan. 21, by 6:00 pm.  The event is for a limited number of CCA students, alumni, faculty, staff, trustees and administration, and there are still a significant number of student spaces available.  It is a great opportunity for the students of CCA to represent our voice and help strategize and envision what CCA can be, particularly over the next 5 years.  We hope more of you will choose to participate!

To rsvp, simply email vp-studentaffairs [at] cca.edu and provide the following information:

NAME:
MAJOR or GRADUATE PROGRAM:
CLASS LEVEL:
CELL PHONE NUMBER:
DID YOU TRANSFER TO CCA?

YES!  I WILL BE IN THE NAVE PROMPTLY AT 11:00 A.M. AND CAN STAY UNTIL 5:00 P.M ON JAN 24th.

In preparation for the Visioning Extravaganza, we’d like to present to you all the final five themes for exploration, which represent a consolidation of those that we’ve been exploring on the blog.  The plan for the Visioning Extravaganza is to dive even deeper into each of these themes, so let this be food for thought until then.  And please do feel free to share your ideas pre-event here on the blog via comments if you cannot attend or simply are dying to share some ideas - they will be considered!

Awaken a sense of promise: People are drawn to CCA because they believe it is a place that supports those that want to change the world.  So how might we…

• help people recognize and use constraints as a creative challenge?
• reward fearlessness and experimentation?
• make CCA itself an example of the change we want to see in the world?
• better connect with the energy of the Bay Area?

Cultivate Diversity: People are drawn to CCA because of the remarkable diversity of materials, techniques, and perspectives.  So how might we…

• provide authentic engagement across topics and disciplines?
• support the introduction of new cultures, styles, and ideas to CCA?
• foster diversity and cultivate many cultures at CCA?
• embrace the contradiction of rebellious and responsible?

Mind the gap: People are sometimes disappointed by the gap between their expectations and what can be realistically offered.  So how might we…

• better meet the needs of the constituencies?
• get constituencies involved in deciding which care to provide when resources are limited?
• set smart and appropriate expectations?
• leverage community members’ energy to support each other and the campuses?

Envision Greatness: People like to be a part of a school that is world-class because it motivates them to continue to reach higher. So how might we…

• show what good looks like?
• support both broad and deep educational experiences?
• encourage the full range of skills and experiences?
• utilize feedback to stimulate progress?

Build authentic connections: People are looking to forge stronger and more relevant bonds within both the close-in and extended CCA community.  So how might we…

• use technology to bring people together?
• create symbols of identity and pride for the whole community?
• create relevant connections between the close-in and extended CCA community?
• encourage unforeseen combinations of styles/materials/disciplines?

CCA and IDEO have been hard at work on Project Form in the New Year, and we can prove it!  On Jan. 6, an all-staff meeting was held in the SF Nave, and all brainstormed more ideas around the themes we’ve presented on this blog and that have actually been further refined and consolidated (to be presented in a later post).  David Meckel told the founding story of CCA and the movements in art that have impacted the CCA and are still present in our core values, while Melanie Corn presented out the now five themes and told some stories from the process, which all of the faithful blog readers already know about!

Then the whole group split into 20 teams and brainstormed off the themes using “how might we” questions to think about things CCA could do to get better in those areas.  Then we had “gallery walk” time, where groups walked around sharing their ideas.  It was a great success and we’re looking forward toward an equally good and inspiring time at the Visioning Extravaganza on Jan. 24 (get your RSVPs in!).

We’ll be posting a link to the results from the session once the document is uploaded onto the CCA server.  Until then, please enjoy the photos below:

All intently listening to the “Intro” presentation

Brainstorming on the themes in the 20 small groups

Presenting and sharing results during a “gallery walk” at the end of the day

And more ideas!

Today we’re announcing the Project Form: Visioning Extravaganza - and we want you there!  We WANT to hear from you and we NEED to hear from you.  Many of you have participated in the work generated by Project Form through on the spot interviews, the ongoing blog, and Post It brainstorming sessions.  Now this is the opportunity for a select number of students, faculty, admin, and trustees to further discuss and help create the vision for the future of CCA.

WHO:   YOU - Current undergraduate and graduate students, staff, faculty, and trustees.
WHAT:  An important strategic planning event.  IDEO is facilitating an event called the * Visioning Extravaganza.*  This will be an inspiring event where members of CCA’s community come together to help form the vision of CCA for the next five years.  Lunch and refreshments will be served.
WHEN: Saturday, January 24th - From 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
WHERE:   CCA’s San Francisco Campus, The Nave.

Please RSVP no later than 11:00 pm on Thursday, January 15th, by emailing vp-studentaffairs [at] cca.edu and providing the following information:

NAME:
MAJOR or GRADUATE PROGRAM:
CLASS LEVEL:
CELL PHONE NUMBER:
DID YOU TRANSFER TO CCA?
YES!  I WILL BE IN THE NAVE PROMPTLY AT 11:00 A.M. AND CAN STAY UNTIL 5:00 P.M ON JAN 24th.

If you are a faculty or staff member or trustee, please RSVP by emailing Barbara Jones at bjones [at] cca.edu.

Thank you in advance for helping to make CCA a stronger an even more exceptional institution.  If you have any questions, leave us a comment on the blog with your contact info and we’ll get back to you promptly.  We look forward to seeing many of you on January 24th!

We began these virtual brainstorm sessions with the idea of Dream Big, where we asked about how CCA might awaken a sense of promise in all its students, faculty, and admin. Closely linked to this idea is our next and last theme, “Expect Greatness”. After all, dreaming big is about creating change, being inspired and inspiring others. In order to execute on these dreams, however, we, as a collective, need to be not just good, but great. We need to be world-class.

We all have our individual strengths and weakness, so in this pursuit of the big, how might CCA encourage all of us and give us the individual support and help to fulfill our potentials? In moments when we are struggling, how can CCA and we as a community help and encourage each other? An idea to establish programs of peer mentors and advisors, pairing up undergrads with grads, freshmen with seniors, and/or first year grads with second year grads has been suggested – what do you think about this? What else can be done to support each other to be great? And in moments when we are excelling, how might we recognize those bright stars in each other? What does great look like and how could CCA recognize that? CCA can only be a good as its community members, and feedback and open discussion is crucial in order to stimulate our own progress. So what CCA do and what solutions can be put in place to encourage more constructive and actionable feedback from the community?

We’re hoping Project Form is the first step establishing this dialogue, but we hope to make this conversation sustainable. Tell us how we could make it so.

So how might CCA optimize for best fit?

Now let’s take a step back from the future exploration we’ve been embarked on and take a look at the reality that surrounds us. It’s all well and good to discuss and speculate about CCA’s future, but the truth is we must start at where we are in order to make that future happen. We must build upon our current assets and remedy current issues in order to achieve the future that we hope for.

So today’s theme is “Mind the Gap”. Yes, the reality is that there is a clear gap between expectations and what can be realistically offered. There are basic needs of the community that CCA can better meet, and many have been mentioned on this blog already, such as more frequent faculty feedback, or mentor relationships between students, or more support for CCA’s craft heritage, or even more green and social spaces for informal hanging out. What other relatively “easy” wins do you think CCA could engage in? And how should CCA prioritize these problems and devise solutions that can be acted upon when resources are limited? Ideally, we as the CCA community will have a say in what kind of care should be applied to what kind of problems. How can we make our voice heard and help CCA hear it?

And then comes the question of how to execute on these solutions. CCA is what it is, and there is great untapped potential within our walls. How might we leverage existing assets in creative ways, and work with what we have to achieve what we want? How might we set smart and appropriate expectations for what we can do now in order to do what we want later?

How can we better communicate and then together remedy issues with current assets?

It’s a New Year - Happy New Year to all! It’s actually a particularly appropriate time to talk about the next theme we’d like to invite you to explore – “Nothing to Fear”. This is a time when we look forward to a new year, new beginnings, and resolutions abound. Here at CCA in particular, we want to be a part of a place where “things happen”, where we can be a part of something new and fresh. We want to feel free to experiment, and be rewarded and supported by CCA for the risks that we take in our pursuit of creative excellence. We want to feel as if there is nothing to fear.

So how might the CCA, and we as a community, support each other in our pursuit of the new and emerging? How might CCA create the right conditions for creating and making new things, and simultaneously reward fearlessness and experimentation? What are these new “things” that we can explore? We’ve talked about sustainability and more community-focused projects - what else is new and emerging that we as a community can be gently steered toward exploring?

Innovating and taking chances on the unproven is also a scary thing. In order to reach out and take risk, we also need to feel like there’s a safe haven to return to if those risks don’t pan out. Can CCA be that place, where we are free to fear nothing, but also have the support of a soft landing should we fall? Solid communities are a great way to feel that support and bonding – is there a way that CCA can foster and build communities around emergent themes and interests? What emergent themes and interests could those be?

So how might we nurture innovation and emergence at CCA?