You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. -- Plato

The basis of human trust is established through play as Plato rightly pointed out.
Play is serious!
Nothing lights up the brain like play.
Play is the beginning of knowledge.

Yet it seems that, just like creativity, it is educated out of us. When was the last time you played? Really played, engaged in silly, childish activity, with no purpose at all but to have fun?

If you have kids, it was probably yesterday. Children remind you of how simple things really are - or should be. A simple peekaboo makes them giggle. As adults we loose our creativity and start using our imagination to find excuses. We think about 'what people would think'. I mean, seriously, what would they think if we went up to a stranger and went 'you're it' and ran away playfully? The stranger would most likely think you just escaped from a mental institution. Because he does not know that play is vital - no matter your age.

Listen to Stuart Brown on this subject.



I love the idea of the wearable meeting at the end of the speech :-) It is in line with my earlier post on innovation and meetings at Ideo.

So go out and play. And if you lack imagination, go find some children, borrow them from friends or family if you don't have any. And just follow them along in whatever they want to play. And the more you do that, the faster your imagination comes back to you from way back when you were a child.