The Pros and Cons of Serious Lego Play, Team Building, and How To Deal With Insufferable Cynics

Recently I participated in a "Strategic Lego Play" team building exercise at an engineering retreat. Strategic Lego Play (a/k/a, LEGO SERIOUS PLAY, the trademarked name of the activity by the LEGO company) is a team building activity whereby groups are given piles of Legos to build models that conceptualize certain ideal engineering and management principles. For example: with a given pile of Legos, we were tasked with building a model of what an efficient management process would look like to us. I suppose the challenge is you have finite resources, limited time, a team you must work with, and a goal to do something. I'll buy that.

Couldn't we simply do this exercise, however, with anything that happened to be in our immediate area? Couldn't we gather a pile of sticks and figure out how to make something? What about random items found in the nearest trash can? I am wondering now - and you are probably too - if I am simply too cynical to get value out of strategic Lego play? And, when did I become the insufferable cynic when it comes to these team building type of activities? How do you deal with people like me?

The good sport in me says "Oh, strategic Lego play is a different kind of team building exercise." The cynic in me says, "This is a game for Kindergarten age kids. "  

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Scratch Writing Is Pleased To Announce The Holiday Cafè - An Awesome Pittsburgh Literary Web Magazine

PITTSBURGH - Scratch Writing, Inc. is pleased to announce a new web magazine, The Holiday Cafè. The web magazine aims to showcase local artists, writers, photographers based in the Pittsburgh area.

Managing editor of the The Holiday Cafè is Nicole Sebula, a Pittsburgh-based writer who also works at the University of Pittsburgh. Nicole comes from a background of literary magazines, which include The New Yinzer. She has also written her own book, My Crazy Life, and is currently working on another one.

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Where Patch.com Went Wrong with Hyperlocal

Patch.com (owned by AOL.com - yes, of 1980s Internet fame) set out to do something ambitious: become the national media leader on delivering profitable hyperlocal news coverage. By all indications, it does not look like that ambition will bare fruit. I am not celebrating that fact, but traditional media will likely smile.

To carry out its ambitious plan, Patch systematically launched hundreds of hyperlocal websites, each with a full-time editor, sales person, and a network of listings contractors, and what have you. The idea was to provide coverage of the so-called lesser served suburban communities, which typically are made up of attractive market demographics.

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