Recently I had the opportunity to take my kids to “Toy Story 3″ (http://disney.go.com/toystory/)at IMAX, Fox Studios. It was quite fortuitous for me as I had also just finished reading “Innovate the Pixar Way” (http://amzn.to/aU4hnt) and seen a story about Pixar on 60 minutes (http://bit.ly/9SAK5V) which I’ve also embedded below. So what’s this got to do with games and play, apart from the obvious connection to toys in the film’s title? We’ll for me, the real heart lies in how a playful attitude is harnessed as a means to foster and enhance innovation and creativity.

The fruits of Pixar’s work are clear to all, as they have forged ahead in effect creating an industry on the boundary between computer science and animated filmmaking. Works like Luxo Jr., Reds Dream, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Toy Story still resonate with audiences. But at the core, is creating an environment which, by embracing play, aims to innovate and have people think differently. For me, this is the reason why Pixar create such innovative and exciting products. By providing a series of constraints to a whole lot of filmmakers and come up with interesting solutions… is the essence of design thinking. And “Innovate the Pixar Way” is filled with plenty of examples of this, along with some of strategies they use to develop creativity. If you’ve ever read any books on Disney and the way they create experiences for people, you’ll find a lot of similarities here.

The upshot of this for me is that, increasingly businesses are looking at new ways of thinking, of creating products and experiences never seen before… of doing things differently both within and external to their organization. And at the core of achieving this is embracing innovation through creative thinking and a playful attitude. Consequently, while a “work/play” dichotomy still tends to dominate corporate culture, this is changing, and play will become more important within corporate culture.

Recently I came across a couple of DVD’s which shared my passion for play. Always excited about new views on play, I purchased them from US-based Giant Impact (they were unavailable from within Australia).

Kevin Carroll

Before I ordered them, I had never heard of Kevin Carroll, so I was interested in finding more about him, and his views on play. Carroll is a motivational speaker based in the United States, and has had enourmous success with this book Red Rubber Ball, in which the ball serves as a metaphor for your dreams and goals in life. While primarily catering to a business audience, I found synergy with his views on play and my own. He finds play something powerful and important in life, enabling people to innovate, create, problem solve and analyze. While he does not explicitly speak of mental models, visualization and conceptual thinking, I would appear to exist as an undercurrent to his work. In his DVDs he espouses to his business oriented audience, the potential and true power of play, and engages them to become more playful in life and work.

Both DVDs are mostly excerpts from a live presentation by Carroll to a largely business oriented audience. Carroll’s details the role that play and games has had on his life in quite a powerful way using the red rubber ball in both a real object and metaphor for the pursuit of dreams.

I found these DVDs both valuable and affordable (around US$20 a piece), and useful addition to my library. If you’re interested in purchasing, then contact Giant Impact directly, especially if you live outside of the continental USA so that you can arrange appropriate shipping.

Links
Kevin Carroll: http://www.kevincarrollkatalyst.com
Giant Impact: http://www.giantimpact.com

Serious Games Source reports on a recent “exergames” project conducted at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).
Students were grouped into teams of five and tasked with designing games to encourage physical movement and exercise. Teams then had to come up with their own, original game concept and accompanying website for peer review. In all 16 game concepts were produced and included titles such as JumpShock! to a multiplayer toast-throwing simulator Toast.

More on the game concepts, and associated discussion, is available on the project website at Lecture 2130.

Links
Serious Games Source Article
http://www.seriousgamessource.com/item.php?story=24111
Lecture 2130 @ RMIT http://gameslecture.blogspot.com/

Last weekend in Sydney, X|Media|Lab hosted a Serious Games conference and workshop. The event was attended by international speakers including Noah Falstein and Ian Bogost. Due to other commitments, I was in Melbourne and unable to attend. However, journalist Jason Hill covered the event in his ScreenPlay Blog (which even includes an interview with yours truly).

As an aside, while in Melbourne, I did manage to catch the Dali Exhibition, entitled Liquid Desire, at the National Gallery of Victoria. The volume of work exhibited was astonishing, and included paintings, sculptures, animation, sketches, film, jewelery and holograms. What struck me the most was the vivid, luminescent properties of his paintings. It was as if the painting themselves were a light source; it was absolutely amazing. The other thing that struck me was the intense detail of this work which was immensely intricate. A definite must see.

Links
Serious Games article@ Screenplay:
http://blogs.theage.com.au/digital-life/screenplay/2009/06/15/seriousgames.html
X|Media|Lab: http://www.xmedialab.com
Dali: Liquid Desire: http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/dali/