Top Five Clue-Writing Tips
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 by Dave Blum Here are my Top Five Clue-writing Tips for creating excellent treasure hunt clues: 1. Use wordplay: I love playing with words when brainstorming scavenger hunt ideas. Anagrams are great — you can send someone to a statue of Ben Franklin, for example, by writing, “Head to the mixed-up ‘Neb […]
It Takes Three To Build Trust
Monday, December 8, 2008 by Dave Blum From time to time, just for fun, I make a mental list of the most brilliant people I know. Inevitably, one of the top names on the list is Harald Katzmair, Ph.D, founder of Vienna/NY-based FAS Research. Harald is one of the world’s foremost thought leaders in Social […]
Solving the puzzles of networking
Friday, December 5, 2008 by Dave Blum As I’m fond of saying, “We live in a puzzle culture”. Heck, hop on a plane sometime if you don’t believe me. You’re bound to see at least half a dozen people noodling away at a crossword puzzle or sudoku, with a kid or two in the back […]
A Puzzle-riffic Wedding
Thursday, December 4, 2008 by Dave Blum In a recent post, I listed a variety of my favorite scavenger hunt ideas and suggested a few innovative ways to use puzzles in our daily lives. One of the treasure hunt ideas I neglected to mention, however, was: Announce Events. I mean, why send out a simple Evite when you […]
Victims, Heroes and Villains
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 by Dave Blum One of my favorite books in recent years is Gary Harper’s “The Joy of Conflict Resolution“. Harper, a trainer, writer and facilitator based in Vancouver, is a member of the instructional team of the Centre for Conflict Resolution at the Justice Institute of B.C. His book bears the subtitle: […]
The Monk and the Tiger
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 by Dave Blum The other day, I was re-reading one of my favorite inspirational books, Sylvia Boorstein’s short and pithy “It’s Easier Than You Think“, and came across this parable: “A monk was being chased by a tiger toward the edge of a cliff. He leaps off the cliff, grasping a […]
Getting in the Flow
Monday, December 1, 2008 by Dave Blum A few years back, I attended a NASAGA conference session led by Bernie DeKoven. He spoke to us about the elusive quality of “flow”, a term much-popularized by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. According to DeKoven, the “flow” state is that feeling of being “in the zone”, when we feel like we’re at one with […]
Things We Do
Saturday, November 29, 2008 by Dave Blum For those of you who haven’t yet made it to my website, Dr. Clue is the company I founded in 1995. Our six featured team building activities serve clients in the following ways: 1) Our puzzle-based Treasure Hunts allow participants to navigate around a given city neighborhood, museum or resort, discovering […]
Favorite Treasure Hunt Movies
Saturday, November 29, 2008 by Dave Blum When looking for new scavenger hunt ideas and treasure hunt ideas, I often turn to the movies for inspiration. As described in an earlier blog, scavenger hunts are defined as the search for objects on a scavenger hunt list. Treasure hunts, by contrast, are a journey that moves along via […]
Five Ways to Use Clues in “The Real World”
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 by Dave Blum We live in a clue and puzzle culture, thanks in large part to the amazing popularity of The Amazing Race, National Treasure, The DaVinci Code and similar TV shows and movies. The entertainment media has clearly latched onto treasure hunt clues and scavenger hunt lists for the fun, […]