Design Thinking, Improv

Upcoming short free talk.

You are invited to attend:

ISSIP Service Design Speaker Series

Radical cross-collaboration at Cisco with Design Thinking & Improv
on Wednesday, February 26th 2020, 11:00 AM - 11.45 AM US Eastern Standard Time

Plants need nourishment from the soil, water, and sun. Humans need an authentic connection, empathy, understanding, being seen and heard, a sense of direction and understand what comes next. How Might We Achieve Radical Collaboration with Design Thinking & Improv?

Speaker:   Asli Ors – Cisco

About the speaker:

Asli Ors is a Design Thinker, Innovation Catalyst, Improviser and helps teams create empathic solutions built on intelligent networks that solve our customers’ challenges with design thinking. Believes, when Play and Work tangles magic happens. By magic, she means meeting the business goals by aligning on core requirements, design principles and project priorities in a timely manner.
Service Design Series Chaired by - Payal Vaidya and Daniela Sangiorgi

Zoom information provided on registration. 

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Robot Comedy for Data?

Ultimately we will have to be able do a better job of getting data based on reactions to proposals.  Is standup comedy using robots a model of how to get this kind of data? 

What's the Deal With Robot Comedy?
How to teach a robot to be a stand-up comedian
By Naomi Fitter in IEEE Spectrum

Nao robot learning to be a stand-up comedian

This is a guest post. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE.

In my mythical free time outside of professorhood, I’m a stand-up comedian and improviser. As a comedian, I’ve often found myself wishing I could banter with modern commercial AI assistants. They don’t have enough comedic skills for my taste! This longing for cheeky AI eventually led me to study autonomous robot comedians, and to teach my own robot how to perform stand-up.

I’ve been fascinated with the relationship between comedy and AI even before I started doing comedy on my own in 2013. When I moved to Los Angeles in 2017 as a postdoctoral scholar for the USC Interaction Lab, I began performing in roughly two booked comedy shows per week, and I found myself with too good of an opportunity for putting a robot onstage to pass up.

Programming a NAO robot for stand-up comedy is complicated. Some joke concepts came easily, but most were challenging to evoke. It can be tricky to write original comedy for a robot since robots have been part of television and cinema for quite some time. Despite this legacy, we wanted to come up with a perspective for the robot that was fresh and not derivative.

Another challenge was that in my human stand-up comedy, I write almost entirely from real-life experience, and I’ve never been a robot! I tried different thought exercises—imagining myself to be a robot with different annoyances, likes, dislikes, and “life” experiences. My improv comedy training with the Upright Citizens Brigade started to come in handy, as I could play-act being a robot, map classic (and even somewhat overdone) human jokes to fit robot experiences, and imagine things like, “What is a robot family?”, “What is a robot relationship like?”, and “What are drugs for a robot?” ... "

Beyond Musical Improvisation

Have always mused that improvisation should exist beyond music.   Business process extension that lead to better results?  Creative extension of the basic?  Note AI connection.   Real time aspects for business?  Here an example in the musical realm that lets you think about it.  Technical explanation and online demo at the link:

Piano Genie: An Intelligent Musical Interface

We introduce Piano Genie, an intelligent controller that maps 8-button input to a full 88-key piano in real time:

Piano Genie is in some ways reminiscent of video games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero that are accessible to novice musicians, with the crucial difference that users can freely improvise on Piano Genie rather than re-enacting songs from a fixed repertoire. You can try it out yourself via our interactive web demo! .... " 

Improvisation and Virtual Onboarding

We experimented with this, but it was never implemented, perhaps for cultural reasons.  Found it to be be fascinating approach, especially the process involved.   And how will we be onboard with the use of virtual assistants?

" ... Virtual collaboration has become popular in the recent years, especially at the workplace, due to immense technological advances. According to a report, in 2011, around 79% of the U.S. workers prefer to work from home and are comfortable holding a job where at least part of the time they work within a virtual workplace. Keeping this in mind, many forward-looking organizations adopt different approaches for efficient group work and best practices of collaboration into virtual settings. But just like face-to-face meetings, meeting in virtual workplace has its advantages and challenges.... "