Lucy Bradshaw is a Senior VP at Electronic Arts. Maybe you haven’t heard of Lucy, but you’ve definitely heard of the games she’s behind: The Sims and Spore. Last November, Fast Company ran a great interview with her that is really inspiring. When you listen to her speak, you can feel the love she has for the product she develops and the passion she has for doing it in a playful, collaborative way.

Here are some of the key take-away points from Lucy’s interview:  Read the rest of this post

This morning I spent some time with a team going through some serious morale issues.  Lots of things seemed to be getting the team members down, but when they broke it down to the “root cause” it seemed that the team just wasn’t having fun anymore. There is no sense of playfulness at all. In fact, the few times they did try playing a bit, they felt guilty and were the object of organizational scrutiny for “playing” on the job.  Read the rest of this post

I’m a super passionate person about my work. I love to be 100% engaged in everything I do. But to be honest, I get bored easily.  Sometimes it’ll be some small thing that I get bored with during the day. Sometimes, I’ll get bored with something more significant in my life.  Either way, my boredom with whatever it is that’s boring me acts as a wake up call.  It let’s me know I’m moving or thinking in the wrong direction. It makes me pause to consider how I can reframe something to be more exciting, more interesting, more innovative.  In fact, when I’m really attuned to my boredom, I use it as a pause to refresh my viewpoints. So, in a strange way, getting bored can be kind of a good thing for me.  Read the rest of this post

Here’s a quiz for you. Which of these two teams succeeded in making history and being extremely innovative in the process?

The A Team
• Budget: $2,000,000 in grant money.*
• Project Manager: A world renowned scientist and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute.
• Team members: The best scientists money could buy.
• Subject matter expertise: Years of scale model experience.
• Industry connections: Extremely well connected.
• Publicity behind the project: Unprecedented.  Read the rest of this post