The Stories We Spin
Wednesday, April 8, 2009 by Dave Blum As my Austrian friend, Harald — the *genius* (see my blog entry for December 8th) — is back in town this week, he and his girlfriend, Jutta, my wife, Jen, and I gathered on Monday for dinner at a sushi place near Union Square. (Harald LOVES his Japanese seaweed salad–must […]
Lessons from Treasure Hunt Scouting
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 by Dave Blum Yesterday was a rare scouting day for me — one of the pleasures of being a professional creator of scavenger hunts and corporate team building activities. My “task” (if you can call it that) was to walk every street and alleyway in San Francisco’s Union Square area, in search of interesting/unique/funny locations for […]
Team Building and Trust: Part 5
Monday, April 6, 2009 by Dave Blum Due to my father’s passing a couple of weeks ago, I found myself unavailable to lead one of my scheduled scavenger hunts at the Natural History Museum in New York City. Calling around desperately at the last minute, I eventually get Franco, one of my senior facilitators here in San […]
Team Building and Trust: Part 4
Friday, April 3, 2009 by Dave Blum Back in July of 1985 (years before scavenger hunt ideas would begin dancing in my head), I was a 22-year-old college graduate, about a month into a two-year stint as an English teacher in Shimonoseki, Japan. Mr. Ueno, my boss and mentor, was giving me final instructions before sending me out […]
Team Building and Trust: Part 3
Friday, April 3, 2009 by Dave Blum So far this week I’ve discussed 3 different requirement for building trust: 1) Avoiding gossip 2) Giving consistent effort 3) Demonstrating empathy Today I want to talk about requirement #4: Follow-through A team leader, Marilyn, tasks her marketing director, Stuart, with the challenge of delivering a branding report within […]
Team Building and Trust: Part 2
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 by Dave Blum Some years ago, I was leading one of my corporate team building activities in perhaps my favorite location for scavenger hunts: New Orleans. One of the participants, Patty, was struggling with the scavenger hunt list — not because the treasure hunt clues were too hard, but more because of a […]
Team Building and Trust: Part 1
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 by Dave Blum The longer I work in the field of corporate team building activities, the more I realize that trust building is THE key factor for ensuring team success. By declaring this I don’t, in any way, mean to diminish the importance of such vital team elements as personnel assessment, […]
My Week Off–With Dad
Monday, March 30, 2009 by Dave Blum A bit of explanation is in order, I think, for my week away from this blog. On March 22, at ~6pm, my father, Walter, died at a hospital in Santa Rosa, CA, from complications related to lymphoma. He was 81. It was a fairly sudden illness, one that took us […]
Team building Idea from Battlestar Galactica
Friday, March 20, 2009 by Dave Blum Battlestar Galactica–my favorite TV series ever–ends tonight after a marvelous 5-year run. I’m both excited and saddened: excited to see how it all ends up; saddened that there won’t be anymore giddy adventures with the ragtag fleet of humans and their fight against the Cylons. For those of […]
Showdown in Nepal, part 2
Thursday, March 19, 2009 by Dave Blum So there we are on the Himalayan bridge: Matt, Julie, Laurie, Steve and I, plus one unperturbed Sherpa and 15 very-determined Nepalese oxen. Laurie, who’s at midpoint, sits down and wraps herself around her pack. The rest of us turn and huddle against the guide wires, endeavoring to make […]