The Imagination Challenge

The creation of meaning, giving meaning to technology

"Fosbury Flop" original high jump in Mexico City (can be downloaded)
- new technology, foam rubber, made it possible

Imagine what new technology makes possible

Example: different socks for different feet, "single socks"
- requires leap of insight to accept

Pingu
- recommended TV show
- penguins mumbling, kids in all languages can understand

New product - Treo 600
- MP3 player + speaker → "mouth scratch"

Play attitudes, "ecology of imagination"
- being a "grown-up" (as a child thinks of it)

"Art Attack" TV show -vs- "Martha Stewart Living"
- fast ideas -vs- slow instruction

Recommended music: DJ Crush

Dichotomy between work & play
- a manufactured one
- deprives us of play
Pro sports → subcontracting of play
- kills imagination, creativity

Example: "Don't play with your food"
- corporate line
But corporations need imagination to avoid becoming culturally irrelevant
So use play as a working method

The Ecology of Play

free, separate, uncertain, governed by rules, make believe, never a task

Ask "What could be possible?"
Journey from accidental adult to purposeful grown-up

To have → things, things are passive
To be→ experiences, relationships

Recover the sense of seriousness of a child at play

Play → knowledge & mastery of the present in order to plan and deal with the future

Work: things you can learn (e.g. patent)
Play: things you must master (e.g. golf)

A Human-Centered Approach

- look at things as people would

The Trickster

- "Chief Possibilities Officer"
- possibility incubates creativity

Tactical - protects
Strategic - creates

Invention causes disruption
- back up, look around to capture market
- innovate
- innovation + imagination lets you better use a new invention/technology