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Saint John Walker
Saint has spent 20 years helping the UK VFX industry get the right talent. Currently working in VFX, he has also co-authored the popular Core Skills of VFX handbook for ScreenSkills
Location East Anglia. Somewhere.
Achievements
Activity
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Paywalls. Walled Gardens of learning. If you use the connectivity of the web, you'll often bump into these walls. This is also true if you are researching a topic and you dont have an affiliation to a College/university. People would suggest I'm not excluded, I just have to pay. That's a major form of exclusion?
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Would collaborative be a better vector than social?- which I think is a loaded expression.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
I guess it depends on the unconscious bias' we bring to personae- they become reflections of the people we know in our own social class and our experience. Thus the designed course can avoid those who maybe most need it, because certain needy demographics might be invisible to us....and then we wonder why certain sections of the population don't opt into our...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
The fact that 13 years later the rendition of an interview in SL has none of the warmth or nuance of a 'filmed' interview is indicative of how little the creators of Virtual Environments have learnt about human social behaviour in the intervening time.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Hi all. I'm in creative industries education, and looking to mix PM skills with Course Design and industry stakeholder activities.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
I think the idea of the project as a temporarey organisation was a useful one i hadn't considered, as is the idea you are working towards your obsolescence! I enjoyed the explanation of Project Handover and then the Lean and Agile approaches.
It's also clear that as a PM you need to have at least some people skills to go with your spreadsheet nous! -
Saint John Walker made a comment
Cheers.
>>some comments to bear in mind heading into Week 3.
I thought this was a 2 week course? -
Saint John Walker made a comment
Interesting, thanks
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Saint John Walker made a comment
In my line of work it would be interesting to see Agile applied to Course Curriculum Development, that tends to follow traditional linear formats, often leading to some obsolescance before the course is finished. Scrums and sprints around modules and marking structures seem entirely possible.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>Might there be some projects where an Agile Project Management methodology may not be suitable?
I thonk agile is a culture as well as a methodology. Small fleet-of-foot companies working flexibly on time sensitive projects probably exploit Agile better, where everyone is also learning to adapt their roles as they go. Companies where everyone has their name... -
Saint John Walker made a comment
Firstly communicate diplomatically, reminding staff of contracts. It might be necessary to speak to the project sponsor, and in some cases, liaise with the OM. You want to be thinking ahead to how you might need to replace key personnel, and what effect this would have on budget/resources.
Do not be sentimental or compromise the project. -
Saint John Walker made a comment
Great diagram. So, there must on occasion be conflict between the two as the PM is temporary, whereas the OM has wider responsibilities and so sticks around and has to deal with any blowback?
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Saint John Walker made a comment
>.>Have you experienced any of these models of project management?
Agile Methodologies are often used in the design of Computer Games and I can now see why. Iterative models are very useful in image based projects- to see a rough version first ensures you are on the right track. -
Pedagogy has been replaced by lists IMHO
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Saint John Walker made a comment
I think a robot has taken over the writing of this course.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
I'm finding this a little stodgy- be nice to have case studies
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Saint John Walker made a comment
The Scope/Time/Budget interdependency triangle. This is the reason for a Just in Time supply chain culture, and our clogged roads with freight...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Handover training is something I'm aware of, and it's an art to train the client enough to enable them to train their staff, so you don't get sucked in to a dependency culture.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
It must be tempting to play down the Post Project Review especially if time is tight and you are over budget- who wants to spend more money in that case? Also if everyone's thoughts are on moving on to the next project. However logging the lessons learnt is an investment that pays off next time round.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
In a people-centred project, debriefing and even aftercare are important to get right- and if the team is diffused across the world it's more of a challenge. I can imagine the frustration too if key workers aren't debriefed or visibly appreciated.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Having some kind of event- a punctuation point like a 'wrap party' common in the film industry is a good way to create a perception of closure, and wean off those people who have relioed on your every word, but this event itself needs to be project managed, and there's usually a 'mop up' aftermath to sort out too. A good PM will want to keep everyone sweet, in...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
A PM needs to curate information- filter what people are told to focus on, but still maintain a common vision for all participants
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Saint John Walker made a comment
>>> Can you share an example of a time where you have seen bad communication cause problems for a project? How about examples of good communication
Sometimes 'presenteeism' of the PM is symbolic, but on other occasions it is efficacious- for staff to be able to ask questions as they turn up, rather than long email threads. In the Creative Industries, great...
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It's Air Traffic Control rather than being the pilot- only you are also responsible for the loos and the drinks trolley working to spec, and booking, planning and evaluation too. Stakeholders aren't just the passengers either.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Having a broad portfolio of businesses like Tesla means risk can be allayed. I wonder also if there's a point where risk is good PR in this area.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Is there a dimension of the Comms Management Plan that deals with Stakeholder comms- who needs to know, and when? So far it's all about internal comms.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
"The project manager and the project management team must also ensure that information and its management does not get relegated to secondary importance".
I can understand how this can happen in the unpredictability and 'busyness' of the project, and I'd imagine it would be easy to forget about archiving and evaluation when under the cosh of a deadline. -
Saint John Walker made a comment
Actually I don't think the question was well defined- it might have been better to give a concrete case study example to tease out responses. There was a previous FutureLearn course that had an example of an ice cream factory owned by a family which was a bit like a soap opera.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Only relevant info please. The wing span of an African Swallow doesn't concern me here. (Monty Python reference for those not familiar)
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Hmm, does the information manager need to be an expert in the field of endeavour to know who the experts are to call upon? Or have an idea of what to filter down to the team? Or do they just need to be good at mastering the info cycle? I'm imagining if an Info manager is unsure of the field they will be cautious and just pass on all the info to the team,...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>how do you think the “Five Ws” could be used as the basis for initial investigation?
To help decide what is in and out of scope. What is unachievable or impossible, or within grasp. -
Optimally managing the triangle of Costs, Resources and Time towards a defined and finite goal.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
I didn't read the article, because I didnt want to sign up for more spam. Another case study written by ARU could have been more useful to tease out certain learning?
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Saint John Walker made a comment
We need to remember to focus on managing Risk, not trying to eradicate in. Innovation springs from risk, anything new or progressive is a risk. Also too much control can breed a culture that sticks with what it knows and doesn't grow.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>Have you experienced any projects where attitudes and approaches to risk have had a significant effect on a project (good or bad)?
We introduced Risk Registers to student degree projects at University. Students tend to overpredict/over-emphasise the probability of things happening but underplayed the impact. This is because they often lack experience of... -
Saint John Walker made a comment
This part of the course has a higher word count- I wonder if that's because its a different author, or just the nature of explaining risk. Might be useful to have an example to bring it alive as a subject?
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Residual Risk: Maybe probability and impact have been damprened, but the risk is still there...
Secondary Risk: If too many resources are invested in managing one particular risk, this may generate other risks elsewhere. -
Saint John Walker made a comment
I can feel that famous Donald Rumsfeld quote coming...about the things we know we don't know..."There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know"
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Saint John Walker made a comment
"Risks also offer opportunities and advantages, as do the management actions decided upon to deal with risks; these provide important advantages to the project". I wasn't sure what this means. By solving potential risks new efficiencies might be found? The whole system becomes more resilient due to RM? But do Risks in themselves offer opportunities? Anyone got...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Risk Management isn't static- as the project progresses risks change likelihood, and levels of unpredictability and threat change. Communicating these through dynamic documentation to the whole team and persistently updating can be useful.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Yes. Its about balancing the Cost Time Quality triangle Jerry showed us. If you want to compress time, you need to change cost and/or quality. The 3 are interdependent.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Rather like a large extended family members are being born and declining throughout the life cycle. Its a mistake to think of the whole team being born and dying at the same time. To keep the analogy going, some people are born merely to manage the deaths of others.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
So I'm assuming no-one wants to pay a PM to go through the Concept phase and finally announce its not viable; so I guess much work can be done beforehand with feasibility studies, research etc.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
I'm guessing handover and closure need to be well specified so there is agreement with the client, otherwise the PM could find themselves exploited and over delivering!
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Waterfall: inexorable movement through phases of a lifecycle. No feedback loops in this model.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
The Map is not the Territory!
The Plan is there as a direction, but will change when the rubber hits the road! "Events dear boy, events" as Macmillan apocryphally said. Plans need updating and interrogating as you progress, as no-one can predict stakeholders or client behaviour that well.... -
Saint John Walker made a comment
Communication...you need to temper it for each Stakeholder; I often overexplain to stakeholders just looking for reassurance, thinking I'm being helpful, but I'm often swamping them. Also, what ways do groups of stakeholders EXPECT their news? Email, or physical appointments? Pinterest at their leisure or Powerpoint in the office?
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Saint John Walker made a comment
These days everyone's a PM in some way as modern workflows demand it. Also the sheer amount of govt outsourcing. Also thanks to social media business models we have a complaint culture that means competing stakeholders can amplify their concerns that PMs ignore at their peril.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
So multiple projects don't necessarily fit into a programme. There needs to be some strategic cohesion.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
We've heard about how projects are finite and how you 'work your way out of a job' but sometimes (eg in StartUp culture) the thing that was a project becomes permanent. A one-off event becomes a regular monthly success, or a new service moves into a permanent phase. Sometimes PMs become founders.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Hmm, can Project Management be collective? We tend to talk about the role in the singular. Like in the UK we have a Prime Minister, but their role is not to manage- that's (supposedly) the Cabinet. Although over the decades more power has been given to the role, its still not equivalent to the executive power the collective have. Can you have pairs of PMs, or...
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@JohnGibson "failure to communicate tasks and expectations effectively" - this is rife in the Universities I've worked in- grand projects underperform due to a a prevalent insistence to still use email to communicate quite complex projects to multiple stakeholders. This seems to be a cultural thing, as PM tools are widely available.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Alright, I'm going to say i have an issue with the Alternative definition ("Projects have a specific and unique task that is aimed at meeting a specific need or purpose") as it depends what you measure as success. As an example would the 'meeting a specific need' in an education project around the creation of a new textbook be measured in the physical object...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
The definition of a project can be honed for different industries- a creative project needs to often wrestle with levels of ambiguity and sometimes deliberately not give the clients what they think they want. Also in some cases the client (say a commisioner of an opera or play, or a film company) may want their own expectations confounded, to create that...
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To be a little analytical:
APM's definition denotes "a desired outcome", whilst PMI talks of outputting "a unique product or service" I think APM plays down uniqueness which I agree with, as its possible to unknowingly create something thats been done before. I think PMI maybe could refer to the experiential economy in their definition- and include "unique... -
Saint John Walker made a comment
In the case of some spheres of like the Client and Project manager are the same person. This misses out much about learning a skill to understand the client's wishes that they may not be able to articulate well. Natural miscommunication can lead to much frustration and negotiation that you just don't experience when Client and PM are the same person...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
I work in teaching and the creative industries, and everything is a project. My career is a project, the act of making anything is a project when it is not about pure repetition. If it ceases to be about a unique output or a unique context, then I guess its not a project but a procedure.
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Saint John Walker replied to Hamish Morrison
@UnaM As Higher Education isn't compulsory but a choice made by the applicant, I think there's been the assumption that entrants are motivated and self-aware enough to direct their attention to the studies they chose, but we probably underestimate the other pressures young people have (family expectations, status, path of least resistance etc) that inform...
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The course doesnt stop here. Looking forward to a lot of reading.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Interesting courses, but I think i'll take a leaf out of the neuroscience handbook and do some Spaced Practice- go off and have a holiday before I sign up...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Whilst this course was STEM-facing, I probably wasn't alone as a teacher of Art who got a lot out of it. As such I wanted to ask about the Neuroscience of creativity. Does neuroscience say anything about maximising the brain's ability to be creative? Are there any counterintuitive or unexpected strategies that work?
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Lots of material yet to read in this growing area. Learning about Learning can be very dry but thanks to Professor Paul Howard-Jones (University of Bristol) and Professor Tim Jay (Sheffield Hallam University), Karen Hornby and Rachel Jackson for putting it together in a relaxed pace with plenty of room to breathe!
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Learning and education are two different things. Learning is the curiosity instinct, channeled via attention. Teaching tries to accelerate and codify learning. Resilience or Grit are protection when things are difficult.
We're still only at the beginning of understanding learning through neuroscience and cognitive psychology, but we are not a static...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Would Arts students at HE level be motivated to study more effectively by Recognition of Employability digital badges awarded within their degree course?
Or would it devalue and distract from their degree award?
This needs to start with research into their motives for going on an Arts degree anyway... -
Saint John Walker made a comment
Wow, not sure how I missed NFER before. I've been keen to do more work on digital badges and microcredentials to recognise specific learning at HE level, and this might be a good 'nudge'.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>Find one project that you would find useful for your own practice and in the discussion below say why.
The Spaced Learning Research from Hallam and QUB. I was especially intrigued by the statement "The neuroscience literature supports the use of shorter spaces between learning (of around ten minutes), and the cognitive psychology literature supports...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
>>Consider the last time you changed the way you teach...What was it that you changed or began to do differently and why?
Bruner's Spiral curriculum made perfect sense to me- essentially building increasing complexity onto a subject as you visit it again and again. It also makes sense in an iconic way- students can buy into it because its easy to envision,...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Weirdly, I only discovered the Learning Scientists last night, and I'm enjoying "Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide" by Yana weinstein and Megan Sumeracki (Routledge 2019). Also check out Nick Shackleton Jones "How People Learn" (Kogan Page2019) and his affective learning theory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lR1Fwqt0G8
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Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>Are you convinced by the EBC model as a way of understanding the science of learning?
I'm struck by how little attention is put onto Environment and Structure now we know this. We supposed our brains operate in vacuums. The teacher often has little leeway to maximise EBC via learning environment or curriculum template. What I mean is they still have the... -
Saint John Walker replied to John Thomas
@JelenaSisko @JohnThomas I've noticed the use of social media as a forum for what used to be more formal Learner>Teacher communications is common now and seemingly led by Learner demand, as its the idiom they are constantly present in.
In my area this has led to problems of students adapting to professional communication etiquette. I have some degree...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>Now you know the process of EBC, what impact will it have on the way you teach?
It occurs to me consolidation happens all the time in an Apprenticeship situation , as you learn on the job and build and consolidate there and then. With Degree courses there may be a gap between building knowledge and consolidating it. You can stand there on your first day...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
I like the Power of Yet but wouldered if it would be better understood by kids as the Power of Not Yet? i can appreciate that might sound negative though.
>>>students who seem to give up easily, or not try in the first place - those students who’s doubt in their own ability has a negative effect. What ways have you found that are effective in developing... -
Saint John Walker replied to Hamish Morrison
As A Uni lecturer, it's a little more complicated than that, and IMHO it's a mistake to think all Universities are a monolithic mass. The nature of work has changed too.
However, I agree, I think there's evidence students have been brought up through School to perform to tests rather than to learn, and want instant dopamine hits for learning- like they... -
Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>Amongst adults, learning experiences that have been found to increase the size of the hippocampus
Interesting. No doubt some politician will find this out and suggest we save money in the Education sector by awarding degree grades based on measuring students' hippocampuses (hippocampii?) -
@JohnThomas This is what worries me about the (now widespread) perception of cognitive load. It becomes a byword for "I won't learn this, I'll wait for something more interesting in case I go over my limits!"
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Ah, Growth Mindset. I heard there has been critique of Dweck's evidence that it works as others have been unable to repeat the results? A book I enjoyed was James Anderson's "The Agile Learner" (Hawker Brownlow) where he places Growth Mindset and Costa and Kallicks Habits of mind together in a more nuanced explanation.
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@HamishMorrison Yes, Benedict Carey calls it a 'fluency illusuion' -by highlighting you assume you've processed it. Yes, I get the Barbara Oakley LHTL newsletter which is always good for morsels too.
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I think both Reviews and Previews make sense as they provide a logic to a learning programme that the students might not have already picked up. "We are going to do this because it relates to what we did last week in X ways"
We may think theres a clear logic to the curriculum, but teens who live in the moment won't necessarily pick it up. So in out degree... -
Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>What questions might you have about this research and its applicability to your context? Does this support the argument that ‘sleep often suffers from technology use’?
Surely its not the medium but the content? There are therepeutic and calming video games out there (albeit not the ones kids are immediately attracted to).
Stardew Valley is not Call of... -
>>>Given the role of sleep in consolidating learning, what are the implications of this for your practice?
teenage students generally DO seem to be able to learn stuff despite the partying and late nights, whereas I sleep like a log and struggle- so clearly age and neuroplasticity is a factor too. However, we have recently changed the teaching day from 9.30... -
Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>How often is a new idea revisited and when? How are you enabling your students to store the new information in different ways?
We adhere to the idea of the Spiral Curriculum; (Bruner); we teach the same processes often, but increase complexity each time. So, in each iteration students have to revisit an idea and update it based on the new level of...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Thanks for a thought provoking course, especially the ethics and issues thrown up this week.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
This move towards ethnic monoculture can seem very pronounced in the news media, where they need to have a spokesperson/figurehead to personalise an issue but they can end up losing nuance or a spectrum of opinion. Muslims are always devout, Asians are entrepreneurial, Women are not interested in serving in the Boardroom etc.
I remember how surprised I was to... -
Saint John Walker made a comment
Tweenagers, Screenagers, Kidults...and commentators are too keen to tell us how Generation Z are different from Millennials. As we've heard these theoretical constructs can be concretized erroneously into supposed fact, rather than being seen as ever shifting multilayered venn diagrams with fuzzy edges.
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The concept of the 'aspiring poor' mentioned in "The Fortune at the bottom of the Pyramid" is a rather strange one, as is the idea of "a new lens of inclusive capitalism" but BOP makes sense, although it seems that giants like Unilever are having a hard time making it work. One can imagine it also becoming a dumping ground for now-obsolete products from the...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
The poor, especially in rural areas away from cities have traditionally been unrepresented or 'invisible' but the proliferation of mobile phones and their strategic use within the community in various areas of Africa for instance, is starting to change that.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
I've noticed more companies these days explaining their policy regarding the data they collect (since Snowden, which I think was the main watershed, but maybe also Cambridge Analytica). Many vow not to sell the data onwards. I wonder if there's a case for thinking of the data as being 'borrowed' from the customer, and say being destroyed after a year?
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Saint John Walker made a comment
I've heard about more user-centric models where the individual sells their data as the default. The 'company is only a custodian' is a useful model although it does imply there's a way to take it back.
The main issue is that of concatenation- that by putting different data sources together you have more to exploit. From finding out what you eat or drink an... -
I guess the ethics here are you need to be upfront in your motives, so customers know you are not a third party but rather the vendor. Recently there have been cases of the line being blurred by YouTubers recommendations?
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>>>Could you see a use for either brand communities or content marketing in your own organisation?
i guess in education our version of Content Marketing would be running free one day taster courses for prospective students to try out before they commit to a degree course.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>Does this model of co-opting customers online as partners have any relevance to how you might run your business?
If at my University the students are the customers, then certainly they are partners in our recruitment activities, and apear on the website to talk about their experiences, but because 'our customers' are all in one location there is no need... -
Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>What characteristics of an online community do you observe in this example?
It's young in terms of 'look'- not too corporate but more like a fansite. It would be important NOT to look like a Bank! The Headings are areas that appeal to Young Urban Professionals.
The idea it is 'homebrew' and 'community' is suggested by the fact the interviews with cultural... -
Saint John Walker made a comment
I thought Kickstarter was a place of transient users- once their campaign is over they move on- but I can see the efforts made by KS to promote a community of serial investors. They clearly have great data on users.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>What are the main differences between a community formed and promoted by a producer, and a self-started group?
Customers can be good at reading authenticity. Prpducer promoted groups can be subject to control-freakery by the brand. Self started groups can be chaotic and critical of new developments, and so can become a useful barometer of public...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Being able to find your customers, and them being able to find you, makes the Long Tail work. Customer service is also possibly more acute as there are less customers for obscure products and being badmouthed by one of them will possibly have greater repercussions?
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Probably a bit long in the tooth now, but I found (2013) Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier's "Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) to be eminently readable, at a time when there were few sensible books out there on the issue.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
>>>What benefits might the golf playing customer derive from the data?
If I'm reading this right, the ability to compete against others remotely seems interesting. But certainly improving your personal best is a benefit.>>>What benefits might the company derive from the data?
I'm assuming there are a whole range of accessories and additions. Also,...
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Saint John Walker made a comment
The quantified self was a big thing a few years ago (in the States only?) but as yet I think the FitBit type wearable computing seems to be the main example.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
Although gathering and selling data from these devices is what happens when you interact with Amazon or Facebook, there's something queasy about the fact with IoT it's gathered from within your home. However the young generation dont seem to have these qualms, and appreciate the 'recommendation' economy that ensues from this data.
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Saint John Walker made a comment
More widespread adoption of IoT seems to have been stymied by really bad security. The stories of being able to 'hack' into baby monitors remotely, or doorbell sensors.
