tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-336296802011-06-18T21:59:18.392+07:00We are a bunch of people working in Art Explore, a studio that aims to develop creativity in Indonesia. Through this blog, we hope to share our creativity (or the lack thereof) and threads of thoughts (or the lack thereof) floating around our studio that are produced from within as well as without.Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.comBlogger311100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-11538176903174661002007-09-30T16:37:00.000+07:002008-12-09T19:20:37.918+07:00

The Jakarta Post, Features, 30 September 2007Dewi Susanti & Kayee ManHave you ever woken up from a dream with a weird, but reassuring feeling that you'd solved a problem that has been bugging you for a while? Unfortunately, we don't come up with solutions to our problems through dreams very often, as our dreams are often disjointed from reality. But through dreams, psychologists -- pioneered

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-23111290727410120972007-09-17T09:56:00.000+07:002007-09-17T10:00:55.158+07:00

The Jakarta Post, Features, 16 September 2007Published as "Use the most appropriate language to get through"Kayee Man & Dewi SusantiEver experienced tearing your hair out over not being able to get through to someone? We have. What's wrong with the people who just don't get it? With some afterthought, we conclude that most of the time, we're just not using the right language to communicate

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-41879373337021495962007-08-26T15:08:00.000+07:002007-09-03T12:14:44.150+07:00

The Jakarta Post, Features, 26 August 2007Published as "Positive thinking can be spread beneficially"Dewi Susanti & Kayee Man We are sure you have been around people who seem to sap every last bit of motivation, hope or happiness inside you. Like The Dementors coming out of Harry Potter, the presence of these people seems to highlight every negative aspect of life, often to the point that you no

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-85653666827916022142007-08-13T23:56:00.000+07:002007-08-14T08:42:12.113+07:00

The Jakarta Post, Features, 12 August 2007Published as "Freshen Up Your Thinking to Seek Solution"Kayee Man and Dewi SusantiDewi once saw a child, who, upon coming into a room and seeing assorted color papers on the floor, immediately jumped onto the "pool" of paper and started "swimming" with excitement and joy.We know a child who was the Queen of the Land of Solian, in which lived a monster

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-32461872868283733142007-07-30T13:41:00.000+07:002007-07-30T13:53:42.193+07:00

The Jakarta Post, Features, July 29, 2007Published as "How to balance efficiency with creativity"Dewi Susanti & Kayee ManAny company or institution needs to have a workable system in order for the organization to function properly. For most of us, our first instinct is to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in such a way that productivity and therefore profit-making can be maximized.As part of

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-47888034159585372082007-07-15T18:07:00.000+07:002007-07-15T18:15:51.934+07:00

The Jakarta Post, Features, July 15, 2007Published as "How to maintain self-motivation"Kayee Man & Dewi SusantiOka, our coworker, recently asked Kayee: what keeps you going when you're motivation is low?Specifically, he was referring to work. Off the top of her head, Kayee answered that it was a vision of her future that keeps her going when it gets tough. She also answered on behalf of Dewi --

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-84514217152239668832007-07-01T19:05:00.002+07:002007-07-01T19:14:06.928+07:00

The Jakarta Post, Features, 1 July 2007Published as "Vision, change and life goals"Dewi Susanti & Kayee ManAs you go about your daily life and routine, both personally and professionally, how often do you wonder where your life is heading and how your present activities might contribute to your life in the future? Or do you tend to live for the day and not get too worried about where you are

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-27750727132403998102007-06-18T22:41:00.000+07:002007-06-18T22:49:14.785+07:00

Features, The Jakarta Post, June 17, 2007 Published as "Admitting mistakes crucial to seeking solutions" Kayee Man and Dewi SusantiSorry seems to be the hardest word, coos Elton John.Whether it is the hardest word to say or not, Kayee's friend advises people in romantic relationships that during moments of tension "Always say sorry first, then find out what you have done wrong." A little extreme

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-50713960242853621322007-06-01T14:21:00.000+07:002007-06-01T14:23:01.455+07:00

An interesting article on 3M's struggle between efficiency and creativity at Business Week.

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-5519951872744231072007-05-27T20:18:00.000+07:002007-05-27T20:25:00.651+07:00

Features, The Jakarta Post, 27 May 2007Dewi Susanti & Kayee ManHave you ever felt frustrated with your coworkers or employees because they do things that are counterproductive to what you or your team are doing?If you are not an especially patient and forgiving person, the chances are you would respond yes to this question. Even if you are an especially patient and forgiving person, we bet you

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-59188866984510661632007-05-13T11:36:00.000+07:002007-05-13T11:45:56.096+07:00

The Jakarta Post, Features - 13 May 2007Kayee Man & Dewi SusantiHave you ever felt your life is spinning out of control? Kayee feels it all the time. A few years ago, she read an academic piece that suggested a balanced life is a myth. She has never agreed more. Dewi feels her life is out of control in other ways. At times, she has felt her life is being taken over by people she doesn't even know

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-19925132052928784542007-04-29T13:47:00.000+07:002007-04-29T13:54:41.942+07:00

The Jakarta PostFeatures - 29 April 2007Published as "Overcoming Fear of Making Decisions"In working with employees and with students, we often come across people who are unsure of what to do when given open ended problems. This article will focus on decision making and discuss blocks that may create fear for making decisions and ways to overcome them.In the early years of developing creative

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-51476929790867367632007-04-15T12:16:00.000+07:002007-04-15T12:24:50.842+07:00

The Jakarta PostFeatures - 15 April 2007Published as "Why some firms perform well while others don't"Dewi Susanti & Kayee ManWhat makes some industries perform better than others? What makes a company, among many in an industry, excel in the market while many linger and languish?In a recent visit to arts and design industries in Bandung, Yogyakarta, and Bali, Dewi came across an interesting

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-36036149335261938042007-04-01T22:27:00.000+07:002007-04-01T22:29:28.488+07:00

The Jakarta PostFeatures - 1 April 2007Published as "Curiosity isn't just about asking questions" Kayee Man and Dewi Susanti, Contributors, JakartaWhen was the last time you stopped to think about what you saw?When was the last time you jumped with excitement over something you found amazing or wondered about something you encountered, became curious about it, and discovered something new about

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-72514478989069064582007-03-22T21:51:00.000+07:002007-03-22T21:54:15.606+07:00

The Jakarta Post Features - March 18, 2007 Published as "Find challenges in our everyday lives, seeking happiness" Kayee Man & Dewi Susanti, Contributors, JakartaWhile most countries are concerned with their Gross National Product (GNP), Bhutan measures its Gross National Happiness (GNH). To our amusement, The Economist (Dec. 23, 2006) reported that David Cameron (leader of the British

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-11005052553267358912007-02-26T22:33:00.000+07:002007-02-26T22:45:14.671+07:00

Features, The Jakarta Post, 25 February 2007Published as "Solve your problems after a good night sleep"Dewi Susanti & Kayee ManWe all know about the importance of sleep. But many of us, for one reason or another, at times are forced to cut back on our sleep, or even forego it for a night or several. When Dewi was back in school studying architecture, pulling up all nighters was (and still is)

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-88447580072947089842007-01-31T10:16:00.000+07:002007-01-31T10:20:38.995+07:00

The Jakarta Post, 16 July 2006In the early days of Kayee’s life in Jakarta, she has a ‘bug’: She loves Chinese fast food, but could not find it in Jakarta. She started to ask around about the possibility of opening up a Cantonese style noodle shop. She had great discussions with friends about how the restaurant would look, but like in most cases that you can perhaps relate with, the conversations

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-17005061816614345132007-01-31T01:25:00.000+07:002007-01-31T10:16:50.062+07:00

The Jakarta Post, 30 July 2006What drives excellent performance? We are sure many organizations are in search for an answer to this question. Many of us are also in search for an answer to this question, in the quest to elevate our own performance, be it in our further studies, work or hobbies.This article will explore and offer an answer to this question by way of two examples: one that resulted

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-28128855747101480942007-01-30T21:09:00.000+07:002007-01-30T21:19:32.679+07:00

Feature, The Jakarta Post, January 28, 2007Recently, when opening her e-mail account, Dewi's attention was caught by news titled "The Memory Pill" with this short description: "If you have experienced a painful or traumatic event, would you want a pill which could lessen the bad memories of what happened? That option might soon be here because of a drug called propanolol." Intrigued, she clicked

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-82728194690499656872007-01-15T20:49:00.000+07:002007-01-15T20:56:28.777+07:00

How often do you find yourself in a situation where you need to reach a solution to a problem with your co-workers? How does your group go about it? Does your boss decide what to do? Does your group decide to vote and let the majority decide the outcome? Or do you try to reach a true consensus? If you have been part of different groups, think about how you felt when your boss simply made all the

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-1164100262448878272006-11-21T16:09:00.000+07:002006-11-21T16:11:02.453+07:00

What is half of 8? Most people would immediately think that the right and only answer is the number 4. Why? Because we all learn mathematics in school, and it teaches us that half of 8 is 4. But what if we look at the number visually? We can cut or fold the number 8 into two equal parts. If we cut or fold 8 horizontally, we would get the number 0 or the letter o, depending on whether the number

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-1164100161077626462006-11-21T16:04:00.000+07:002006-11-21T16:09:21.096+07:00

Who do you think are creative? Most people would probably think about Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, Affandi, Basuki Abdullah, or some of the lesser-known artists they like. But are artists the only people who can be considered as creative? And does one have to be well-known to be labeled as creative?Some time back, we were putting together a presentation to explain, among other things, that

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-1160497436856029842006-10-10T23:20:00.000+07:002006-10-10T23:23:56.876+07:00

Imagine you are a participant in a workshop. The facilitator gives you a photocopy of a picture of a strawberry and says: "I want you to recreate the strawberry using these basic shapes: circle, oval, square, rectangle and triangle. But you can only use two of them and they have to perfectly match the size of the strawberry in that photocopy. You can use color markers to make your strawberry, and

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-1159002287167555782006-09-23T16:02:00.000+07:002006-09-23T17:12:33.316+07:00

This past month, we have been going through a process of evaluation. We’ll share some of the issues that keep coming up in the past year, because chances are, some of these issues are rather typical in a work and social setting. So here they are: how we could appreciate one another, how we could be more helpful, how we could argue about an idea but avoid personal conflicts, how we could be more

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-1159002118646909372006-09-23T15:54:00.000+07:002006-09-23T16:09:52.663+07:00

A group of managers meet with the agenda to discuss how to come up with new products or added-value customer service: "Let's sell our products on our website.""No,too risky. Imagine all the cost in setting it up and maintaining it. We don't have the expertise. Anyway, sales are good, we're doing fine the way we are." "We could do a cost benefit analysis to justify the costs." "Who's got the time

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-1158979740434648112006-09-23T09:36:00.000+07:002006-09-23T10:07:21.636+07:00

I read a review on Freakonomics written by my economist friend Arya Gaduh a while ago. But only recently I finished reading this interesting and highly entertaining book [1] by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Among many things that could be discussed in relation to creativity, the one that I would like to bring up in this posting is the claim that most people are driven by incentives,

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-1158847732004089672006-09-21T21:05:00.000+07:002006-09-22T00:35:53.546+07:00

Oka, one of our team members, often forwards us emails with interesting visuals. One of them was this picture of a person who created sandals from two plastic bottles. This reminded me of my experience in training facilitators from East Bali Poverty Project. Below were some of their definitions of creativity, which they formulated before the training started.Kreativitas adalah suatu kegiatan yang

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-1157893656156939062006-09-10T20:06:00.000+07:002006-09-16T09:09:18.340+07:00

Person 1: What do you get when you cross a pig and a centipede? Answer: Bacon and legs. Person 2: Knock knock. Answer: Who’s there? Person 2: Scott. Answer: Scott who? Person 2: Scott nothing to do with you. Person 3: What is a ten letter word that starts with gas? Answer: Automobile. Person 4: Why does Superman have a S on the front of his shirt? Answer: Because Batman bought all the medium and

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-1157710004702750862006-09-08T17:04:00.000+07:002006-09-09T12:00:17.336+07:00

While working on our annual review (we were established in the month of August – thus the oddity of timing), we noticed the lack of participations in our parenting seminars and the little response we got in our parenting surveys. In the past three years, on average, parents’ participations on free seminars we conducted had been less than 5%, while surveys, although waged better than seminars,

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-1157201654597628292006-09-02T19:46:00.000+07:002006-09-03T11:41:22.163+07:00

Yesterday’s article in Kompas attracted our attention. Ika Dewi Ana in “Kearifan dalam Pendidikan” wrote:“Mahasiswa sekadar datang, duduk, mendengar, dan mencatat (dikurangi berpikir) apa yang disampaikan dosen. Usai kuliah, salah seorang mahasiswa akan meminta salinan kuliah yang biasanya disusun dalam presentasi power point. Tak ada lagi hakikat belajar.” In her full article here, she noted

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33629680.post-1157007279649849012006-08-31T13:52:00.000+07:002006-08-31T13:54:39.653+07:00

Have you ever been in meetings where lots of questions are asked but nothing is achieved? Or meetings where lots of people throw around lots of ideas with no follow-up action? Or situations where a detailed plan is worked out only to realize that you were working on the wrong problem or idea? Or a situation where people actively jump into action on the first idea?To effectively and creatively

Dewi Susantinoreply@blogger.com1