Creativity in Play
Image via CrunchBase
As adults, we naturally fear the judgement of our peers. When we were kids, we were not embarassed by the things we did or the ideas that we told other people. We could go about and play as we wanted in our imaginary worlds. To exclaim to everyone what exactly was on our minds. Over time, we all learn to be insecure about those fictitious ideas and lose the freedom to take risks.
For most adults, I believe it is difficult to bring back a childish mentality for playfulness and creativity. Tim Brown tells the story of the powerful link between creativity and play. Tim Brown is the CEO of Ideo, which is one of the leading firms on innovation and design. He proposed that creative companies design their workplaces to allow their employees to relax and have fun in efforts to produce great ideas. He says in his talk that those that are best at creative ideas are those who can “unconsciously surrender themselves to the experience.” I found it really interesting that he made the point that friendship is the shortcut to play because of trust. Playfulness leads to creative solutions in an enjoyable way.
In summary, here are the three main bullet points about Play from Tim’s talk at TED:
1. Exploration - lots of ideas - go for quantity
2. Building - think with your hands, learning by doing, prototype
3. Role Play - act it out, working with interaction scripts to test for authenticity and empathy
Play is not anarchy. Play has rules. Players negotiate the rules.
