Sound advice for anyone in the business of having ideas

I was taught another lesson by Mark Palmer yesterday – two lessons, if I’m being totally honest with you.?

Mark is an incredible creative facilitator, strategist and creative thinker, who has run workshops at School of Communication Arts since we reopened in 2010. ? This is what one of this year’s students wrote after her class with Mark.??

A few weeks ago, I invited Mark to teach his hot stuff in VR, to the talent going through Creative Mastery. ?

I hope that I am not being unkind by telling you that Mark is somewhere on the cusp of being a Boomer / Gen-X.? ? It’s best not to ask him his age – because I think he’s ageless and timeless. ? But I wanted to share with you, the reader, that Mark is a bit older than the average creative working in industry because I think it is important to frame this and provide context.

Mark regularly teaches a class called The Four R’s ?for me, in which he lays down the foundations for frameworks that I want to build on throughout the course.? ? One of these four R’s stands for Random and is to remind us that random stimuli can always be used to help us approach solving a problem in a new way. ? This practice is fundamental to Lateral Thinking, the term introduced by Edward de Bono in 1967.

De Bono passed away in 2021, aged 88. ? I wonder what he would have thought, had he seen Mark’s playful demonstration of how to practice Lateral Thinking inside VR.

One of the spaces we regularly use for teaching is a virtual gallery because it allows us (teachers or learners) to quickly put stuff up on the walls, and then anyone can walk around on their own, or in groups, to discuss what they see. ? Spatial sound means that it is possible to speak to the person next to you, looking at the art in front of you, whilst two people at another piece of art nearby can have their own private conversation.

In demonstrating the concept of introducing random stimuli, one of the ways in which Mark dressed the gallery wasn’t with images on the walls.? ? Instead, he planted sound effects on the walls, projecting stimuli such as thunder, wind, rain, a baby crying.? ? We had to walk around the gallery, using these stimuli as prompts to solve a problem.

I was blown away by Mark’s creativity.? ? I shouldn’t have been because he is genuinely brilliant and well known in his circles for being brilliant.

I had been worrying about how Mark would cope with this new technology, because the learning curve is very steep.? ? Getting work up on the walls is a bit fiddly and one of the things I was worrying about was whether Mark would have the time and patience to bring his magic to this platform.

Probably, Mark had a moment when he looked over the edge and wondered what he had signed-up for.???

Another of the four Rs is Re Expression and Mark’s clever use of sound in the gallery opened my eyes (and ears) to what’s possible for us as teachers in that space.? ? I had only been putting images and videos on the walls because I hadn’t considered the possibility of putting something on the wall that couldn’t be seen. ? Mark simply wanted to know what was possible and kept his mind open.

I continue to be inspired by how the faculty at School of Communication Arts 2.0 , and friends such as Mark Palmer, are using ENGAGE XR to deliver powerful workshops for the industry.? What inspired me so much in Mark’s class was how he saw the gallery with fresh eyes and was able to bring decades of wisdom as a creative facilitator with him.??

He had never taught in VR before this class. ? He hadn’t even worn a headset.

There’s something incredibly powerful that comes from being just outside your comfort zone, equipped with years of experience and the mindset that you want to explore what’s possible, because it’s fun.

I say this for two reasons:

• Every creative business should hire a creative person, or team, in their 50s or 60s, two or three days a week.
• Every creative person should practice their craft on a canvas that’s new to them and out of their comfort zone, exploring what’s possible with the curiosity of a child.

Mark Palmer looked very youthful; wearing a baseball cap and carrying an athletic body of somone in their 30s.???

He’s much cooler IRL — and just as young at heart and in mind.