After my first post about communication I think it’s apt to return the same point again, after our visit to the UN HQ for the first workshop of the trip.  The day kicked off with a couple of introductory speeches in a conference room that we’d be using for the remainder of the day.  It came as a bit of a shock to us (the students) that the figures who were making speeches were in fact our participants to train.  This mostly because most of the students/trainers who were meant to be there, were not – due to work commitments. We had assumed a typical make up of students; young, casual and probably for most of them – unlikely having much experience in the workplace. We were faced with an older crowd, in suits and for most of them – in a professional workplace. However, students and trainers can cover many demographics and backgrounds and it was our job to face this challenge and just get on with it.  Which we did.  I must express my thanks now to a fantastic group I was working with – the girls conquered on despite what we were faced with.  Still, there were challenges ahead of us…

Even after a quick ‘warm-up’ game between all participants (before splitting in to two groups) there after followed some awkwardness.  We started with mind mapping.  Had we defined  – in detail – what a mind map was and why it was important for prompting ideas and brainstorming, we wouldn’t have been left looking at blank faces and body language that seemed to suggest discomfort. Nonetheless, things began to slowly progress.  Storyboarding didn’t come without its own challenge, although was a little easier.

Again today, as I have done before, I found myself making misjudged assumptions about the people around me and in this case our participants.  I felt at times amateurish in the limited knowledge that I had and that our participants would be critically assessing this incompetence.  However in fact, they could not have been more engaging and committed to the video project.