Sherlock Holmes & the Internet of Things has over 1,200 collaborators working in more than 60 countries. In an effort to capture the wonderful diversity of the collaborators involved in the project we’ve created the Sherlock Spotlight. If you’d like to be considered please drop us a line.
Sherlock Spotlight
Mireille Pacquet – Paris, France
What’s your background and how did you become interested in story, play and/or design and why?
I originally come from the media industry, mostly the radio industry where I worked as a Program & Music director for almost 15 years designing musical programs and radio shows. I enjoyed the way stories are told on the radio , it’s not a visual medium, so that leaves the door open to interpretation when you are listening to the shows.
I spent the rest of my reasonable professional life in consumer research management in fashion and the fragrance industry and then moved on as a creative coach, using storytelling, creativity and design thinking methodologies to help people and organizations.
Today, I am a storyteller, a teacher and a creative coach. I teach new narratives to students in business schools in Paris and coach companies, start-ups, and individuals using storytelling, design thinking, play and creativity.
I am currently working on the development of my start-up, a “Future Learning Lab” with a Paris business incubator the Labo de l’édition. The Future Learning Lab is an innovative learning and collaborative space dedicated to mentoring higher education drop-out students with storytelling, design thinking and play.
“I have always connected with stories and I like to use that emotional link we have to stories to help people connect and share. I love the endless possibilities of innovation that story, play and design offer.”
I have been using Sherlock Holmes & the IoT in Higher Education, through workshops and I can see how students enjoy the experience, and how much more engaged and immersed they are when a well designed experience like Sherlock Holmes & the IoT encourages collaboration and play.
What is your favorite Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes story and why?
“A Scandal in Bohemia” is one of my favorite stories. This is the first time in one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s short stories that Sherlock Holmes expresses a love interest for a woman with Irene Adler character.
Irene is described as having “the face of the most beautiful of women and the mind of the most resolute of men”, suggesting that for Sherlock to be able to show any interest at all for a woman – this woman would have to be exceptional by nature.
Arthur C. Doyle lets us explore and question the idea that Sherlock could afford to have a more emotional and softer side to his cold and calculated nature. Irene acts as sand in the works of this precision machine, Sherlock’s analytical mind, an exceptional mind that is undermined by this unexpected romance.
The unquestionable admiration Sherlock shows for Irene, (lest we call it love) leads us to also challenge the idea that Sherlock could be human after all.
Can you share why you’re participating in Sherlock Holmes & the Internet of Things?
I participated in Sherlock Holmes & the Internet of Things because I like experimenting with stories using technology, and also because I like the fact that we are using Sherlock Holmes as a thematic frame to carry out the experience.
The MOOC is very collaborative by nature and has encouraged me to explore very different ways of connecting stories through design thinking, play and game design. With my team in the MOOC, we managed to develop, test and prototype a storytelling object using technology, the Ace of Spades.
What is it about the experience that you enjoy and why?
I enjoy connecting and collaborating with a global community of makers and hackers, but I also like the design of the Sherlock Holmes & the IoT MOOC , it’s very different from a standardized MOOC, more human centered, giving us more freedom to experiment, test and try again, in a very open and organic way.
What is it about the program/project that you enjoy and why?
I enjoy the collaborative working space and the course design with the three different tracks :story, play and design. The fact that we have the option of three tracks gave us a variety of lenses to explore the MOOC.
The program was very immersive and it was a very rewarding collaborative learning experience. The course may have been demanding at times but it also helped emphasize the variety of skills from every member in the team in the MOOC : “Elementaire mon Cher”.
I enjoyed the great variety of creative speakers, from crime historian’s to award winning entrepreneurs, it gave us very broad and distinct points of view as inspiration.
The instructors and mentors created a safe space for us to work in, being empathetic and helpful mentors throughout the 10 weeks of the course.
What is it about Sherlock Holmes & the Internet of Things most challenging and why?
The challenge was to keep up with the pace of the MOOC and keep everyone engaged for 10 weeks, as well as get everyone to agree with the different decisions we had to make to be able to prototype and connect our storytelling artifact at the end of the MOOC. Thankfully our team was very committed and we managed to get there in the end.
I guess prototyping our object was probably the most challenging, getting our way around the tech, only one person in the team comes from a tech background and it was a bit challenging for us to connect the object without having any prior experience of the technological specifics.
If you were to pick one are you more like Sherlock or more like Watson and why?
I am definitely more of a Sherlock, being analytical by nature. I like Sherlock’s observational skills, I tend to observe people and nature and make deductions, unfortunately I am but human and my emotions tend to get in the way of my deductions. In the end, I am not anywhere as good as Sherlock Holmes.
What are your plans for Sherlock 2016?
To be a mentor for the MOOC in 2016, helping out as best I can. I have run through the previous version and understand the problems and difficulties the participants will probably run into.
I am also very much ready to enjoy the new re-designed 2016 version of the MOOC.
What are you hoping to explore and learn?
I am hoping to explore new possibilities for collaboration, connecting more objects, designing more stories in a playful way. I am also excited to see what part Artificial Intelligence will be playing in the new version of the MOOC and to what degree of immersion this will get us.
And what are you hoping to produce within the project?
I want to keep being inspired and see how I can transfer some of what I learn in the MOOC in my work as a teacher, using Sherlock Holmes & the IoT experience as an educational tool in Higher Ed.
I am also quite eager to prototype and connect an object again with a team and craft a new story around this connected object.
I am definitely excited to see how far we will be able to push the experience with the help of artificial intelligence.