Build
Today outside the KU Natural History Museum, we saw an amazing stick sculpture by Patrick Dougherty. So I checked out his website where he has several videos of different installations he has completed. This is one of the longer videos, a little under 10 minutes, but I really liked the the way this one walks through the process he goes through in designing something specific for the location.
Yesterday, a good friend of mine was complaining about Halloween on facebook. The concern centered around the lack of gratitude and civility in 14 and 15-year-old boys knocking at his door. I had a sudden flashback to 10 years ago when I, too, was a Halloween Scrooge. I felt like October 31 was a panhandling holiday filled with bad-mannered kids and mandatory participation.
But then, I thought of my two sons (at the time they were 4 and 2) and the unsociable example I was setting. So, I started with the man in the mirror. I asked him to change his ways. Come on, you know what's next. No message could have been any clearer.
My transformation began with a simple question: what could I do that would make Halloween fun for myself? Well, I love games, and if kids were going to show up in weak customers and not tell jokes, then I could at least make them play a game. So I build the "Web of Fortune."
Every year we set up on the driveway, and ask trick-or-treaters to "Step right up and spin the Web of Fortune. The color you land on determines what kind of candy you win. If you land on a spider, you get an extra prize!"
The Web of Fortune provides a creative outlet for me, and the miniature ghouls, pirates, and princesses seem to like it as well. Sure, there is the occasional rude rug rat that screams, "That's not fair" at me because he only gets to spin once or didn't land on the spider, but I'm having so much more fun it outweighs those minor incidents.
What creative experiences did you see this Halloween? What other activities do you dread participating in that you could turn into a game?
I recently heard a sales trainer wrap up a day long workshop with a review that included the following:
I hope his goal was to overwhelm the group with ideas and not consistency and retention. Our brains (even the most brilliant of them) have limited shelf space. And once the shelf is full, you have to take something off to put something new on.
In training and knowledge management, we naturally think more is better. The more knowledge and ideas I share, the better they will do. The danger of throwing everything at your learner is that they will only remember a fraction of what you cover and that could be the least important part. Never sacrifice the most critical learning for some good ideas that could be helpful. It's better to give your learners bite-sized learning and have most of it stick.
I enjoy posting on Twitter and presenting at Pecha Kucha because they both force me to edit and be brief. They provide excellent practices in the fine are of concise communication.