Hello! This is my fifth blog post for the In-Dept project, and in this week’s post, I will be discussing some progress that I’ve made on my skills, and how I’ve been using “How to Have a Beautiful Mind” by Edward de Bono to host more interesting conversations with my mentor!
Progress Update
Since my last blog, I’ve met with my mentor once and I’ve also started on the next “phase” of my In-Depth project, which is to start learning how to use a game engine called “Unity.”
I’ve started to make some minigames in destiny using their provided tutorials and assets, and I’ve been having a lot of fun! I’ve been learning about Unity’s hierarchy, folders, and a bit of Unity scripting, which is how code is implemented into Unity. The thing I enjoyed the most these past two weeks while working with Unity is definitely when I went through the platformer game tutorial because I could increase the character movement speed and jump height to a ridiculous degree, which I found very funny.
During my conversation with my mentor, I got some help with the aspects of Unity where I had trouble with, such as the “publish” feature, how animations in Unity are prompted, scripts, and the C# “using” command called “using UnityEngine” which adds new commands specifically made to be able to be used with Unity, and is what you need to add to your scripts to make it able to be implemented within your game.
My plan for the following two weeks is two start working on a long tutorial that my mentor recommended to me which will hopefully give me some basic knowledge of the Unity program, and some other miscellaneous courses as well to gain knowledge about what other games this game engine can create.
How did I identify the “Six Hats” in my meeting between my mentor and me?
In one of the chapters of “How To Have A Beautiful Mind,” de Bono reasons why we argue so much is because “we use argument not because we think it is such a wonderful method – but because we do not know any other method.” Thus, he created an alternate way of “parallel thinking,” called the “Six Hats.” In this method, de Bono uses different colours to describe the different ways of thinking about a certain situation. The “parallel thinking” part comes in during the conversation, as it is important that every member of the conversation is using the same hat in the same conversation, thus, “parallel thinking.” However, due to this, you also need to be able to identify the different hats in this method.
In the Six Hats method, there are six different hats that embody their own unique trait of the conversation.
The Six Hats:
The White Hat – White means information, and when it is in use, everyone is focusing on information in parallel. During a white hat conversation, all information is laid out on the table. Hard facts are facts that we can check. Soft information covers information such as rumours or personal facts.
The Red Hat – Red includes emotion, feelings, and intuition. An important point during a red hat conversation is that you do not have to give any reason for your “feelings” at all. You just express them, for they exist in you. Lastly, intuition is helpful when there is no other way to check the information.
Black hat – This hat is the most used of all the hats in normal behaviour, as it includes critical thinking and judging information. It helps us to act properly and safely.
Yellow hat – Unlike the black hat, which is very much apart of our thinking culture in an argument, education, and elsewhere, the yellow hat is almost entirely neglected. In this hat, we look for values, benefits and why something should work. The yellow hat leads us to insights and everyone makes an effort to find value.
Green hat – This hat is the productive hat. This is because it, as de Bono describes, “asks for ideas, alternatives, possibilities and designs.” This hat helps with creativity.
Blue hat – This hat’s role is to help organize other hats and your thinking. First, it defines the focus and purpose of a conversation. Then, it sets up a sequence of hats for the conversation.
Here is a short conversation between me and my mentor, in which I will try and identify the hats used in the conversation.
I think I did a good job at identifying the hats in our conversation, even if I highlighted some parts that didn’t apply to a certain hat.
My plan for the next few days will be to keep grinding on more Unity tutorials, and once again, thanks for reading, and check back in two weeks for my next In-Depth blog post!