Think Tank PodCast (Unedited)

The following interviews shared in this blog are unedited versions of potential podcast episodes. Uncollapse each section of the origin story below to learn more details.

Origin Story

+ The Idea

Whenever I come across an idea for a service or product there are a handful of go-to people I call. I run these by each of them and with each call the idea evolves. Each individual has a unique perspective or philosophy they bring to the table. Some of them are designers or artists and some of them are fellow entrepreneurs or analytics.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve come up with ideas and then never have the motivation to fully execute them. This could be due to lack of energy, time, or resources. So instead, I decided maybe I could turn the conversation itself into the final or first product. Instead of repeatedly walking away from the ideas with negative feelings about how I couldn’t follow-through, I started to reflect on what I love about those experiences. Above all else, it’s ideation.

I absolutely love problem solving. Ask anyone who knows me. I love puzzles of all sorts like escape rooms, strategy games, etc. In each activity you have to analyze the situation at hand and exercise your creativity to make decisions or create a plan to execute.

So here goes my first attempt. However, I’m not going to commit to the idea of creating a full brand identity or launch plan (both could be potentially steep slopes for me) for this experience until I have successfully recorded 12 episodes. Why? Because life happens. If anything, this could turn out to be a really great exercise. The fact of the matter is that with my current situation in life, I can’t afford to fully commit to another passion project because there are other things I need to prioritize. However, I don’t want to lose whatever piece of what these ideation experiences contribute to my life. So I’m going to set a few parameters.

+ Parameters

• I’m going to limit each episode to 30 minutes
  • 5 mins for introductions
  • 20 mins content
  • 5 mins for closing
    • At the end of each episode we’ll look up whether it’s an existing product or service
• I’m not going to edit the audio into curated episodes
  • I’ll upload the raw audio from episodes here on this post
    • Minimal editing required will be to align the separate audio tracks recorded by each participant
  • I won’t edit them into polished episodes until I’ve recorded 12 episodes
• End of episode, we’ll look up if the idea exists
  • The purpose of each episode is to engage in the process of ideation

+ Working Titles

• I Have An Idea
• Empty Pitches
• Pitch Practice
• Think About It

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Episode Queue

Ep. 1 A PodCast About Ideation

February 5, 2021

This episode explains the idea behind creating this podcast. I essentially explain the origin story to Kris and Joe who share their feedback on the greater purposes this project could serve.

Ep. 2 The Creative Intern Temp Agency

February 5, 2021

In this episode we talk about the manager-employee relationship and an idea to create an internship program focused on developing healthy manager-employee relationships. The first title I thought of was “Bad Managers Inspire Positive Youth Development Program,” but that seemed a little too much like click bait.

Effective onboarding and training are topics that I’ve grown very passionate about over the recent years. I’ve worked in a lot of roles where I was responsible for developing protocol and training employees or interns for companies with little to no training material to start with. Being that we’re in the middle of a pandemic, I have a growing concern for the young adults in my life, especially the shy ones, and want to create opportunities to help them gain professional experience whilst navigating through this new window of teleworking culture spreading across the nation.

X-Men Characters Sourced from Comic Vine

Ep. 3. Clubleisure

November 14, 2020

Practical activewear with stylish silhouettes? The video below is a compilation of the first brainstorm sessions we had about an idea currently described as clubleisure.

Ep. 4 Filipino American Voices Just Livin’

February 11, 2021

A conversation about an idea to start a podcast on modern Filipino American experiences.

Raymond Obispo, who we call Obi is a mentor and now longtime homie of CJ and I. Through the works of social commentary and traditional Filipino folklore, Obi facilitated a journey of exploring Filipino American identities for generations of students. His organization is called Filipino American Culture Society (FACS). We were also introduced to the art of creative production and stage performance through FACS.

It had been some time since I engaged in any kind of meaningful dialogue about Filipino American culture with my peers so I figured I’d hit up one of my original sources and ask if he’d be interested in starting a podcast of his own. Our round table discussion took many turns, but left us all with good energy and high hopes of seeing this through. We brainstormed titles like “straight kickin’ it”, “this is the story, and “we are the story.” Those will probably be worked into our copy in some form, but the Obi summarized it perfectly when he dropped the line:

“Authentic Filipino American voices just livin’.”

- Raymond Obispo

After the Show Kickin’ it with FACS Alumni

If you were ever a member of FACS, the Filipino American Culture Society, you know that after the meetings or workshops Alumni usually stick around end up chatting for a while. The following conversations were edits picked out of the original recording and most importantly the reveal of our mystery guest, Charlene Prosser. We went on so many tangents like FACS legacy, Bridgerton, and Baby Tees. Aside from the random nuggets we touched a little about the potential of the new stories the next generation has to share and how to transition our Filipino American Storytelling journey from stages to screens.

Ep. 5 Uncharted Maps

February 28, 2021

Joe has an idea for an app that would let you engage in a personalized land discovery experience. From restaurants to strip clubs, this app would combine features from existing apps such as roadtrippers, Foursquare, Yelp, and Google Maps in order to help users keep track of all of their favorite locations.

Each map would start out blank and only a specific range around the user would appear visible. As the user begins to travel to different regions, the geolocation of the user’s device would activate a feature that would display geographical features of the map. The user could then mark their favorite locations which would appear alone and without all of the other “visual clutter” of other buildings and sites. Helping to reduce cognitive overload, this would allow the user to concentrate and locate specific land sites.

Ep 6. Food Storage and Waste

March 7, 2021

Image sourced from asiansneverdie Instagram account

In 2018 I took a course called Non-Instructional Interventions which was part of my Instructional Design & Technology program. I was given an assignment to create an intervention to solve an existing issue or address an opportunity within my household. Uncollapse the link below to read the full prompt.

+ Intervention Design Assignment Prompt

You will design 1 non-instructional intervention. Your audience is family members and your intervention involves establishing, improving, maintaining and/or extinguishing family member performance regarding a problem/opportunity inside your home. There is no instruction. The intervention may use any type of media available to your household. Your experience design prototype will include the following: context/rationale for the intervention, persona construction, analysis, objectives, a non-instructional strategy, and assessments.

The goal of my intervention was reduce food waste. I came up with an idea to strategically organize our refrigerator and pantry in a way that would hopefully motivate us to finish our leftovers. Maybe one day Joe and I will give it a try for a week or a month and report back with our results.

Ep 7. Fitness Challenges and Goal Setting

March 30, 2021

Source from MyFitnessPal

As many of us do, I’ve attempted a number of challenges for fitness, meditation, etc. throughout my lifetime. My journey to become more disciplined will be never-ending.

Aubriel Vo and Joe Laguerta, two of my most consistent accountability partners, joined me on this episode about fitness challenges and goal setting.

For the month of April, I’m starting a fitness challenge with our friend Andrew Mihalkovic (and anyone else interested) and we’ll be doing a 2nd episode to check in on how the challenge went.

In this first episode, we talked about different variables that have helped each of us find success with our own fitness journeys or other challenges. Aubriel mentioned the value of comradery and devising a detailed and maintainable plan of attack. Joe introduced the idea of SMART goals, the significance of having a meaningful “Why?,” and I attempted to apply it to my goal:

Specific: Run or walk and use an app to track my progress
Measurable: Total of 30 miles
Achievable: I attempted and accomplished this goal in 2019
Realistic: I could try to complete 1 mile a day or stack several miles a day when needed
Timely: My deadline is April 30, 2021 at 11:59pm PST

Short-Term Why: Recently, I’ve been assisting on a few production shoots which is far more physically demanding than the desk work I do other days of the week. I’m interested in increasing my stamina and endurance.
Long-Term Why: I want to condition my body for a more physically active lifestyle in general. We used to play a lot of recreational sports, but with the recent pandemic we haven’t been as active. More specifically, we are planning to start a family several years from now and I want to make sure I’ll be able to handle the physical demand and energy levels of raising children (or attempt to) lol.

Lorna's Business Cards

My aunt owns a catering business in the philippines and I wanted to create her business cards. I sketched out a few ideas, but ended up dropping the ball. Fortunately, it’s not too late to get started!

I too photos of a few food items to help me get started.

MARchived: Media Archiving Business Plan

Services

• Restoring Archival Assets

  • Digitizing Photo and Video

  • Photo Restoration

  • Video Editing

• Producing New Materials

  • Filming or Recording Interviews

  • Producing documentary style videos

  • Shooting Portraits

Presentation

+ 90 Second Investor Pitch

Written in 2013

MARchived encourages the preservation of family history through artistic photo and video production. We specialize in photo restoration, video conversion, and documentary work. Our custom illustrations and animations will ensure that your product is one-of-a-kind.

A key feature of our package is the privacy contract. We firmly believe that our products are by the family and for the family. They will not be sold outside the family or for any other commercial work, other than approved use to promote our business through demo reels and such. Our target market is the middle age generation and senior citizens who either don’t have the time to produce these products or simply don’t have the knowledge to do so. We aim to make our services affordable for the “middle-class” and “low-income” families.

In order to begin operations, MARchived will need an investment of $30,000. These funds will be delegated between payroll, promotional campaigns, supplies, and production equipment.

Helping MARchived start up is the first step towards building your family archive. How will you leave your mark?

Thank you for taking the time to listen to this presentation and I will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

Business Plan

The following is the deck I presented in my class:

Todo Todo Dance Instructions

Empathic Design

In 2018, I took an instructional design course with Dr. John Baaki. Dr. Baaki often explained to our class about the significance of empathic design. That is, design that is fundamentally user-centered with deep consideration for the specific user.

One of our design assignments required us to construct a persona and instructional material for this persona.

“When designers construct personas, they build empathy for users, speed the design process, and make certain users’ needs are met.”

VESTERGAARD, L., HAUGE, B., & HANSEN, C. T. (2016) ALMOST LIKE BEING THERE; THE POWER OF PERSONAS WHEN DESIGNING FOR FOREIGN CULTURES. CODESIGN, FEB, 1-18,

Todo Todo Line Dance

I decided to create instructions for the line dance to the song Todo, Todo, Todo by Daniela Ramirez. It’s very popular to see line dancing at Filipino parties whether it be a wedding, birthday, or just a potluck. I didn’t learn about this dance until I was introduced to my husband’s family.

We have many friends and even family members who have yet to master the dance. Being that we had recently got engaged in Dec 2017 I wanted to use this assignment to create an instruction manual for the dance. The persona I based my assignment on was my mom, Marina Matel. Unfortunately, one major detail flew way over my head. The font was too small for her to read lol!

The Project

The details below are the documentation and creation process for my project. Although I did complete the manual, I’ve listed this under my drawing board blog rather than my process blog because my friend, Carmiliza Riculan, and I are planning to eventually make an animation or video tutorial for this. There are some existing tutorials out on the web, but we plan to utilize more techniques to enhance the learner’s experience such as:

• Self-Paced Learning Modules with Short Video Clips
  Having short video clips not only allow users to scrub throughout the timeline, but the chunked material helps them find what sections they’re looking for easier rather than scrubbing through one long video

• Motion Graphics
  Animated illustrations, such as the ones in my PDF, to help reduce cognitive overload and simplify the image into a symbol of a foot rather than a video. Less processing for the brain to do

• Multiple Video Perspectives
  After they learn from the motion graphics, the video element will allow them to see positioning of the entire body and movements other than the feet

Design Process

The following are excerpts from my final report:

+ Context

I recently got engaged over this past winter break. At every wedding my fiance and I have attended for his side of the family, the song "Todo, Todo, Todo" by Daniela Romo is played and his family performs a line dance to it. My family has been to a few events where this line dance was played, but only one of my other immediate 15 family members knows the dance. Usually learners just jump in and learn the dance by observation and practice. Many members of my family have tried to do the same, but still don't know the dance. My fiance and I want to have this and many other line dances played at our wedding.

Having a self-paced guide alleviates the pressure of trying to learn the dance in public, trying to keep up with the fast pace of the music, and most of all it allows them to learn it at their own pace. Once the learner is familiar and comfortable with all of the steps, they will be able to start implementing techniques like shifting weight, adding finesse, and ultimately dancing to tempo.

There are a total of 31 dance steps and when performed in tempo, one rotation of the dance is only 10 seconds. However, the dance steps are not as straight forward as dances like the electic slide where you may be moving in the same direction for 4 counts. There are a lot of twists and turns and when people put their own style to it, they might choose to shuffle instead of cha-cha. That can add even more confusion for the novice learners who are observing. One of the initial challenges I forsee happening with this guide, is the learner failing to keep in mind that the objective of this lesson is to learn the footwork of the dance and that the guide will not be teaching about tempo or shifting weight.

+ Persona Construction

I primarily designed this instruction to fit the needs of my mother. She is the only member of our family who refuses to get up and dance in front of others if she is not confident about what she is doing. Having this self-paced instruction will allow her to learn at her own pace and in the comforts of her own preferred environment. She will be classified as a novice learner.

My sister in-law and my sister have both seen the dance and tried to jump in on a round. They are both musically inclined, however are not very physically active. They have a lot of fun trying to learn the dance, but have never succeeded in retaining it. Being musicians, I thought using the elaboration method could help them imagine that they are building a melody of some sort. They will be classified as novice learners as well.

My two oldest nieces, 16 and 13, love line dances. They are always very enthusiastic and ready to jump in on the dance. However, they always get mixed up with sequence 3 , 4 and 6. This guide will help them break down and visualize the turn sequences. They will be classified as advanced learners.

+ Objectives & Instructional Strategies

OBJECTIVES With the given paper instructional guide, the learner will be able to identify each step in the six dance sequences of the Todo, Todo, Todo line dance in sequential order.

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

Elaboration

I have used the elaboration in two ways. First, I use it while teaching the individual steps of a sequence and I use it once again in the sections where they are combining the sequences.

Recall

The objective of this lesson is for learners to identify the steps of each sequence. Given the 15 minute time constraint, I only provided the novice learners with two assessment questions after each sequence. I used the worked example method for these assessments. The novice learners are required to fill in one missing step in a sequence. For the advanced learners, they are only given the starting steps of the sequence and are required to fill in the remaining steps of the sequence.

Develop Mental Model

I imagine that most learners who pick up line dances from observation, rarely visualize what their footwork would look like laid out on paper or the floor from a birdseye view. This guide helps learners visualize a path to follow and identify the exact directions their feet should be oriented in, rather than general motions of the dance.

Practice

Once a learner learns a new sequence, they are required to combine it with the previous sequence they learned. This repetition of the previous sequences helps them retain the steps better and get a better idea of how to perform the full dance.

+ Task Analysis

Preperation

1. Clear a 5x5 square of space on the floor
2. Designate which direction of your area will be the "front"
3. Designate which direction of your area will be the "back"

Todo, Todo Line Dance

*Sequence 1 "Cha cha to the left" *

1. Take one step slightly diagonally to the left.
2. Follow with your right foot.
3. Take one step slightly diagonally to the left.
4. Keeping your left foot in place, swing your right foot behind your left.
5. Pick your left foot up and shift your weight to your right foot.

*Sequence 2 "Cha cha to the right" *

6. Step with your left foot down in place.
7. Swing your right foot back to the front and slightly to the right.
8. Follow with your left foot.
9. Take one step slightly diagonally to the right.
10. Keeping your right foot in place, swing your left foot behind your right.
11. Pick your right foot up and shift your weight to your left foot.

*Sequence 3 "Cha cha turn 180 degrees to the back" *

12. Keeping your right foot in place, swing your left foot clockwise and step in front of your right foot.
13. Follow with your right foot.
14. Take a nintey degree clockwise step with your left foot.
15. Swing your right foot clockwise behind your left foot.

*Sequence 4 "Cha cha turn 180 degrees to the front" *

12. Keeping your left foot in place, swing your right foot counter clockwise and step in front of your left foot.
13. Follow with your left foot.
14. Take a nintey degree counter clockwise step with your righ foot.
15. Swing your left foot counter clockwise behind your left foot.

*Sequence 5 "Cha cha to the left, cha cha to the right" *

16. Take one step slightly diagonally to the left.
17. Follow with your right foot.

18. Take one step slightly diagonally to the left.

19. Shift your weight to your left foot and pick your right foot up.

20. Step slightly diagonally to the right with your right foot.
21. Follow with your left foot.
22. Step slightly diagonally to the right with your right foot.
23. Shift your weight to your right foot and pick up your left foot.

*Sequence 6 "Pivot turn"*

24. Step in place with your left foot.
25. Swing your right foot clock wise behind your left foot.
26. Step ninety degrees counter clockwise with your left foot.
27. Swing your right foot counter clockwise, turning your body 180 degrees.
28. Follow with your left foot.

+ Assessments

Formative Assessments

Novice learners were provided with 2 worked examples that followed every new sequence. An answer key was provided for the learners in the back of the guide.

Advanced learners were provided with the starting steps and were required to fill in the remainder of the sequence.

Cummalitive Assessments A survey was provided at the end of the guide for the learners to list any feed back for the designer.

Instructional Guide (PDF)

Reflection

Previously, some of the learners expressed that they felt they were just "not coordinated enough" to learn the dance. I thought that having a self-paced lesson could the remove certain pressures from the equation, allow them to learn it under their own circumstances and help build their confidence. I figured that seeing the foot steps from a birds eye view might help the learners visualize a "path" as opposed to standing behind someone. I utilized the elaboration method because the learners were required to identify a lenghty sequence and not just recall a simple fact. Also, I didn't include written directions for steps because I didn't want to determine what type of method the learner should use. Some learners decided to actually get up and practice the steps, while others formed mental models that helped them for the written assessment portion since they were memorizing what the actual image itself looked like.

I felt that it was important to have two versions of the guide, because my family consists of a variety of learners. Although my mom is the only one in my household currently, I gave the guide to some of my other family members to test to get more feedback. However, my mom alone gave quite a bit of feedback and I fear that I may have actually left her feeling even more defeated than before.

If I had not talked to her in person after her attempt, I would have thought that she learned the dance very well. It turns out that she thought that the guide was designed very well, but she was simply "born with two left feet." With that said, I failed to meet my learner where she was at.

Positive

• Learned steps they previously overlooked

• Enjoyed layout and visual design

• Repeating the steps and gradually combining the sequences little by little made it easier to remember

Negative

• Not a 15 minute lesson for novice learners

• Numbers on footprints were too small

• Foot placement competed with natural upper body movement

• Typos in document

• "This would be easier with music"

• Mixed up numbers

• A lot of work for 10 seconds

As usual, I was overly ambitious and did not manage my time wisely. If I were to redo this assignment with the same objective, I would think of a way to develop the guide faster. I spent far too much time working on the visual elements and I believe this may have even distracted me from identifying some of my learners issues.

This design will serve as a blue print for a video version I will be making in the near future. Eventually, I will be working with illustrators, animators and videographers to create a video tutorial that we will share with our family and friends through our wedding website. This assignment was a great way to gain some necessary feedback. It has reminded me that I need to take more time to investigate my learners and consider their needs more carefully.

Filipino American Educational Children's Series

Cultural Disconnect

One day, circa 2009, I was driving around with my nieces. They’re 1st generation Filipinos Americans, like myself, meaning my parents were born in the Philippines, but I was born in the United States. For a reason I can’t remember, I asked them what the capital of the Philippines was and they couldn’t name it (It’s manila by the way). In retrospect, they couldn’t have been older than middle schoolers at the time, but I still, I think I learned that trivia at a very young age. Anyways, I was taken back a little a realized that our family’s connection to traditional Philippine culture is slowly dissipating. I currently can’t speak Tagalog (My family’s Filipino dialect) fluently myself, but more on that in some other blog entry on introspective cultural awareness later…

When we got back to their house that day I wanted to teach them how to learn to count from 1 to 10 in Tagalog. This was long before I studied the art of instructional design or even knew what it meant for that matter. I thought about how my nieces were singing on the ride home and how they could recite nearly any song playing from the radio verbatim. They didn’t miss a beat. So we grabbed my ukelele and made a song.

Proof of Concept

The following video is a draft of the an episode I created my freshman year (2009):

Below is a storyboard I created for the stop motion portion for the story of Malakas at Maganda.

Here is a stand alone version of the counting song which I later recreated (3D video featured near the top of the entry):

Filipino Youth Group

This is an audio recording by Carmiliza Riculan used during a live performance by the youth organization FACS, Filipino American Culture Society:

Carmiliza and I first learned about this story while in FACS and under Raymond Obispo’s mentorship. More on that experience later. Here is a FACS performance of the piece at the 2007 Asian Pacific American Heritage High School showcase.

This piece is performed periodically. This is a version performed by the 2016 cohort.

Matel Artistry

In 2015, I got really into doing henna. I wanted to start a mixed media art business, but I didn’t want to commit to doing any one type of art. Since my nickname is MA I wanted the logo and name to include those symbols. So I came up with the name Matel Artistry.

I still couldn’t decide on a logo, so my best friend, CJ Riculan, designed a couple of parody logos. We printed these out on temporary tattoo paper and gave them away for free each time I gave someone a henna tattoo. I made the bumper (short marketing video) show above to advertise my services on social media.

I never had a solid business plan to start with, but it was a good exercise and who knows… maybe one day it’ll end up being the starting place for a media production house or something.

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Sports Photoshoot

Origin Story

For our wedding, we wanted to play off of the “team” aspect of our teamJPMA brand and make creative portraits stylized like trading cards of our bridal party for our website. We referenced memorabilia and editorial images from various sports and athletes.

Video Mock Ups

One major component of this project was going to be a narrative video to show each of us getting ready for the wedding day. We wanted to spoof athletic commercials so I created a mock up video using found footage of sports commercials.

This mock up video was also edited using found footage and images in order to give our photo and video team an idea of the styles we were looking for.

Due to time constraints, we didn’t end up getting to execute this project, but may plan to do something in the future.