Worldskills Abu Dhabi 2017: C4

Competition Day 4

Removing Barriers. Working together. Making friends.

With all three major assessments completed, today offered a short test project focused on ‘collaboration’ to develop an interactive PDF to showcase competitor mosaic tiles. Fun stuff. Teams of different nationalities re-configured and push aside the privacy dividers and began working with each other (naturally, interpreters are vital for this). It was a terrific morning. Smiles all round.

Whilst time was short, small huddles formed and tasks divided. Competitors now work for each other, rather than against. The presentations following lunch were well considered and laugh a minute.

A few rushed notes:

  1. Fairness and trust is a personal responsibility. There is very little grey area for experts.
  2. Presentation of completed work is worth every piece of effort. Take some tips from the Visual Merchandising skill. Practice makes perfect. Wield a glue stick and a blade as deftly as a Wacom Pen or mouse.
  3. Network early, so you make connections during day one. It gives you a chance to deepen bonds with different cultures,  rather than just getting to know people during the end of the competition. Attend the Skill Out.

Plus, a few great suggestions also from the group today:

  1. Share portfolios and a piece of work at during introductions. (This would help with point #3 above)
  2. Openly debrief at the end of the day and share work results. Perhaps even a quick critique session to go around the room to articulate the individual experience, identify issues, weaknesses and successful elements. Offer generous applause after each talk.
  3. Perhaps offer a creative think tank brief for Kazan 2019 which draws upon multiple aspects of design skills, such as photography, scanning, retouching or even animation to showcases Floristry or Patisserie skills (neighbouring stalls), to then output via Large Format media or digital billboard. Embrace new technologies.

Group work looks far more appealing does it not?