Creativity and Play

I’m working on a brainstorm relating to video content. We’re going to pretend that all the technical issues are solved, and focus on the content and the process. I’ve been looking for some ways to increase our creativity for the workshop – and I came across this video, suggesting that more play at work would lead to more creativity.

He’s specific and points to three ways that play can be part of the creative process;

• playful exploration; trying things, being unashamed of your efforts
• playful building; building, children build towers designers build prototypes
• roleplay; being someone else, children use a costume to try a new identity, designers can put themselves in the place of the customer

But he emphasises play is not anarchy – there are rules – and children will quickly point out and breech of the rules. Without the rules it can be more difficult to establish the necessary framework, and the necessary trust to have effective play. Without the play you won’t get the creativity.

The result is that I’ve added the 30 circles trick into the workshop – I think it’s a really fast way to get people involved and being crazy. Each participant is given a page with 30 circles of the same size arranged evenly, in one minute they have to adapt the circles, turning them into tennis balls, faces, globes, wheels. The emphasis is on quantity – not quality – and the task is designed to get you playing.

I’ve also been off to Think Geek, looking for those finger rockets.

image child via pixabay