Thursday, 11 December 2014

Lecture: What is research? Part 1

Context is Everything

an incomplete manifesto for growth - Bruce Mau

Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.


Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.

Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.

Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
Steven Johnson - where good ideas come from



approaches to the generation and investigation of ideas


stimulated approach
this is a conscious or subconscious search for inspiration from an external repertoire in the surroundings, media, in discussion, libraries etc. The main concern here is the development of analogies and associative approaches, which are then further developed into individual solutions.

systematic approach

this is based on the systematic collection and modification of components,  characteristics  and means of expression: such as by structuring and restructuring, enlarging and reducing, combining and extracting, replacing, adding, mirroring or reproducing

intuitive approach

this is the development of thought process, which is primarily based on internalised perceptions and knowledge, that is to say an internal repertoire. This type of thought process may occur spontaneously, without being evoked specially. This is actually a systematic process that takes place subconsciously.


Types of Research

primary research
research that is developed and collected 

secondary research

published or recorded data that has already been collected

quantitative research

deals with facts and figures. data that can be converted into numbers

qualitative research

explores and tries to understand people's beliefs, experiences, attitudes, behaviour and interactions (in-depth interviews/focus groups/documentary analysis etc)

What is information? 

Information is the result of processing, manipulation and organising data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the person receiving.  Data that has been processed to add or create meaning and hopefully knowledge for the person who receives it . Information should be sufficient competent, relevant, and useful.
Any communication or representation of knowledge such as facts, data, or opinions in any medium or form, including textual, numerical graphic cartographic narrative or audio visual forms 






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