BABS Directory

Playing games like a child, full of ideas and discovery - when was the last time you did that?

In a world demanding expansive learning capacities, imagination, and mind-bending flexibility, the successful person - child or adult - needs a playful curiosity. Play is at the heart of creativity. It's also what allows the brain to respond in new ways.

Children playing well together represent a force of imagination. While they invent, running and bouncing and observing each other, they feed the healthy growth of neural patterns. This is the kind of brain power that solves puzzles and meets challenges. When children have intelligent leadership for their playtime, they may grow into natural collaborators. Well-orchestrated play helps children acquire a taste for innovation.

I had the opportunity recently to see what intelligent leadership looks like and experience it as an adult - on a living room playground. The folks from Playworks gave us a taste of what goes on when they partner with a school to provide an organized, inclusive experience for the kids.

Responding to our leader's calls, we navigated chairs and couches, swabbed the deck and became a lighthouse together. We laughed and interacted, moving through our "recess" like a dance.

Playworks is intelligent leadership. The work is right on the playground, at recess, where children have been experiencing fear, danger and chaos for years. Many schools found the only solution was to put a stop to recess.

I was sad to learn this, although some of my experiences on the playground were traumatic. And of course this affected my performance back in the classroom. Once a small girl has been bullied, what else can she think about? Even with the fear factor, I can't imagine spending entire days in a classroom without a chance to run around outside and, well, be a kid.  It's alarming to me to consider the impact of schools without recess. I'm big on brain health, and right there the system has gone right off the cliff. What are the kids doing all day, just sitting at their desks? This is not a solution.

Learning about Playworks and seeing what they do firsthand, was exhilarating. There are opportunities for adults to come in and volunteer on the playground -- brilliant idea! -- and many different ways to learn responsibility and leadership through their programs.

Go spend a few minutes on their website at Playworks.org. Read about Founder Jill Vialet's vision for the company, and how they've evolved over fourteen years of experience. Be sure to look at the stories of transformation. See how effective these programs are at making the whole educational process work better. If there is a school in your area already partnering with Playworks, find out how you can get involved. If not, maybe it's time to explore how you can make that happen! Playworks also takes the corporate personality out to recess. Check it out!

Suzanna Stinnett

Thanks to BABS Directory Member Betsy Burroughs for inviting me to the Playworks special evening.

Why is the concept of purpose starting to eclipse the idea of "mission" or "vision?"

These posts help clarify why purpose is of interest to entrepeneurs and innovators.

First, Daniel Pink's article "Is purpose really an effective motivator?" Daniel offers a perspective revealed in a study conducted by Wharton's Adam Grant.

Is Purpose Really an Effective Motivator?

Watch this entertaining video from Cognitive Media, where Daniel Pink outlines more concepts from his book, "Drive," including how purpose fits into the picture.

RSA Animate - Dan Pink, Drive

I thought Michael Phillips might have something to say on the idea of purpose, and I found this interesting article  on the subject where he mentions Mary Douglas as the original thinker on purpose:

The institutional need for purpose

Simon Sinek excels at pinpointing essentials. I did notice, by the way, that his core graphic resembles a bull's eye. His "Why" relates directly to purpose:

Start With Why

And finally we have another tremendous video - do not fail to watch this one - with Simon Sinek explaining his idea "The Golden Circle"

Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action

With respect for art curators, we'd like to adopt your word: Curation.

Why? Do we need curation?
Curation is a major concept for the modern web. That's because no one can make any sense of the morass any more. The Internet has delivered us into information hell.

Sure, we can filter. Filters are the answer to the flood of data. But curation is what happens when people get involved.

Our best bet today is to know people who are good at filtering some area and telling us what they've found. We need lots and lots of people curating. Then we need curators to curate those people. A lot of this activity is happening naturally as people struggle for relevance, meaning, and visibility.

We have some good forms of curation on the web. Some online directories are nicely curated. Most online directories are striving to be huge, which is not the goal of curation, and ultimately makes them useless.

Examples of curation and curators
Blogs are curation. The blog author picks her topic and then, if she's following the typical format, she sets out to connect lots of other blogs and topics and list them in categories. It's one of the best forms of curation because it's so human-based. If you like this person and you get to know her and you stick around, you can benefit from the efforts of all her unique filtering. The more she comes from her genuine interests, the better and more reliable is the curation.

Meetup.com is a form of curation. Your larger community is filtered into local groups of interest. That's helpful. That's meaningful.

What are some other forms of curation? Twitter lists. Facebook groups. Finding your niche. Stating your purpose. Can you think of others? Let me know on my Twitter account: Brainmaker
 

Narrow the path
Curation is about narrowing the path by adding meaning in ways that save your audience time and frustration.

The global brain is on serious overload. We are all on overload. Narrow the path.

Suzanna Stinnett
Owner and Chief Curator, Reclamation Arts Directory