30 minutes, gingerbread, and a unique solution.
On Friday we had the office Gingerbread house competition. We were broken up into teams of four, given a few bowls of candy, one gingerbread house, icing, and charged with producing a competition worthy gingerbread house in 30 minutes. Now, this may not sound spectacular at first, because, well, it's making a gingerbread house. But it was the way my team approached the challenge and constraints that I am most proud of (and helped us win the friendly competition). You see, we at first thought about doing the normal thing: try and build a traditional gingerbread house, but add a few tweaks (features) and beautification (design) to make us stand-out. But, after a few minutes of thinking about this, we asked a simple, but very important question, "why does it have to be a house at all?". By exploring this question, we realized that it didn't have to be a house, that it could be anything, and the end result are the attached pictures below. Our masterpiece, the Scandinavian strongman, pull a dump truck full of candy competition. Honestly, take a close look, we even had the thing on top of liquorice wheels!
Creative constraints and the Hughe Gallagher's college essay
I thought about what my team had pulled together on Friday, and even though it was just for fun, we hit on something important. We asked a simple and curious question, looked at our constraints differently, and said "why can't it be something else?". Too often when we are working, we self censor what is about to come out of our mouths. We don't dare ask the simple, silly questions because we have been trained not to. But it's the simple and silly questions you ask when faced with a problem, when talking to a customer or when doing competitive research, that we uncover our most important insights. It's the ability to have that open, curious mind that a young child has. It's one of the reasons why I call myself digitalinfant. I thought about where I had seen someone approach a question or challenge in a similar way, and the first thing that came to mind was Hughe Gallagher's college essay to NYU. Hugh's essay was more of a satire (even though he did submit it to a few colleges), but it was the way he addressed the traditional application question asked of every college hopeful student that is so intriguing. Hugh looked at the application question and said, "why can't it be something else? Why can't I answer this in a different way?". The essay is stomach hurting funny. Enjoy!
A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION:
ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.
I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.
Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.
I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.
I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.
I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.
But I have not yet gone to college.
Source: http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/joke/essay.htm
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