There is this game we play at the Tech School with students called Spectrums. It's a simple, non-verbal game to get to know others quickly. It’s played by asking a series of questions or scenarios and getting students to place themselves on an imaginary line that spans the room depending on their response. So, I might ask if you’re an extravert or an introvert for example. All the extroverts will go to one side of the room/imaginary line and the introverts go to the other. Students standing in the middle can be both but where you find yourself is a conversation starter.
To be honest, when I did this with some Year 9’s half of them didn’t know what an extrovert or an introvert was so I used statements like ‘morning person’ or ‘night owl’, ‘watch sports’ or ‘play sports’, ‘good news first’ or ‘bad news first’. This very simple activity gets students moving, highlights the diversity we have within the group and hopefully ignites more profound conversation between students as they discover common interests or opinions.
I discovered that on most questions, the majority of students were in the middle. Conversations around this were the most interesting and the best reflection of reality because being one or the other of anything isn’t all that common. I float around the middle of most things in my life. Kids on devices for example - I wish I was at the hard end of absolutely not, but I’m more in the middle with an hour a day at the moment. I think I’d comfortably sit at the ‘extravert’ end of the spectrum and ‘bad news first’ but if you asked me if I’d had a good day or challenging one, I’d be sitting in the middle, 95% of the time, unless of course you asked me on wednesday this week where I hit both ends of the spectrum within a few hours of each other and hard.
I’ll start with the positive (going against my instinct of ‘bad news first’) only because it's chronologically correct. On Wednesday morning I got a linkedIN message from one of the participants of the Women in Leadership group I spoke with last week. After listening to my story last week, this incredibly generous woman reached out offering us a 2 bedroom house, rent free if we needed it. No strings attached, just a small contribution to bills would be all she asked. As I read the message I felt my eyes welling up. This woman, who I’d only just met, was offering us a home. I couldn’t believe it. What an INCREDIBLE community we live in.
I took a while to compose my response because although the offer was extraordinary it was also 40 minutes out of Ballarat which isn’t practical but nevertheless, I was truly moved. I appreciate that not everyone has a house to offer but it reminded me how important offering what we can to others is. Over the last 6 months, I feel like I have been the recipient of so much good fortune. So many people who just check in and say - hi, how ya going? People who have offered me opportunities.
I try to reciprocate by offering the same check in’s with others and I cheekily do it en masse with this blog making sure that I'm sharing anything useful I’ve stumbled upon. Meaningful connections with others is the most valuable asset any one person has - all they cost is time, our most valuable resource. It makes sense. Fair trade. This amazing stranger who reached out via LinkedIN blew me away. I felt completely humbled by the world I live in.
I rode this wave of community spirit and enlightenment all the way home. When I got there I checked my Design Dept emails and discovered the opposite end of the spectrum in an unexpected email from PicRights Australia Pty Ltd. I thought it was spam at first but on closer inspection, they were sending me an invoice for $1455.00 for the use of an image on one of my blogs.
In this particular blog, which was number 50, so over 4 years old, I wrote about my career paths as a graphic designer. One section of said path was when I worked as an export designer at Cengage Learning (15 years ago) and I shared some of the photoshop work I’d done. It's pretty much a spot the difference but there was an image of a UN tank that I had to change to ONU (which makes no sense now) for a french canadian version of the book. I now apparently owe $1455 for having this image on my website.
I, of course, freaked out because I hate getting in trouble (if I it wasn’t part of my plan) and we barely have enough for rent let alone a spare $1455. Luckily Matt kept a cool head and had actually read about this sort of thing happening as the ability to search images online has become more precise. Companies like PicRights can now take swaths of images and just endlessly search for their use. They said they had sent me warnings but I’d never received any correspondence from them before this email.
Having been wretched from one end of the spectrum to the other I tasked Matt with the response to PicRight. With the help of chat GPT he wrote a very convincing letter about the image being used for demonstration purposes (which it was) and not for commercial exploitation or distribution. Quoting sections of the Copyright Act 1968, section 40 around fair dealings, I’m hoping that this will resolve the issue. I removed the image as well but I thought it worth sharing this incident for any other designers showing work online.
In the space of a few hours I went from my heart being so full it could burst to it feeling threatened and in danger. Any day where you hang around in the middle of those things is a winner. Matt sent me this quote from Darby Hudson by his Mum that sums it all up quite nicely.
“Darby, Love, life is a walk in the park. But with rabid stray dogs and someone going to mug you. But on a beautiful day, of course. And that’s all that matters.”
