Back of a napkin and creative problem solving

One of the final sessions at the Gartner HE sessions last week was a workshop looking at new ways of communicating strategies. Instead of lots of words, we had a go at using pictures. Someone once said if you can't communicate your vision, it doesn't matter how good your strategy is. So, we had a go at a technique described in the book, Back of a Napkin by Dan Roam. Jot down some ideas, and draw some pictures. Mine was a student with a smiley face holding an iPad with a world map on it in one hand and a martini in the other. Got it? Student centred (happy student), mobile (iPad), world class (map) and anytime, anyplace, anywhere (Martini!). Wonder if there's a job for me in design?

Today we had the second of our Registrar's events as part of the Sheffield Professionals - a series of  initiatives to ensure that we value the talent of our professional staff. Another excellent session with representatives from professional service staff from across the University, and a mixture of talks, discussion and networking. We even did some creative problem solving based around thinking of an object, then describing its attributes, then using those to think of solutions to problems. Good fun and quite productive once you got used to it!  At the last event in November we asked participants for one big question which we subsequently answered - this time we got more, so the page will be updated soon.