New Dr. Clue Party & Social Hunts

Monday, April 20, 2009 by Dave Blum I’m excited to announce that my company, Dr. Clue, has opened a brand new party and social division. Although our specialty remains corporate team building activities (in the form of scavenger hunts), we decided that it would be a shame to exclude all…

Teambuilding and Emotions: Express Yourself

Friday, April 17, 2009 by Dave Blum Why is it that Corporate America is so afraid of feelings? Whenever I ask a potential client what they’re looking for in their team building exercises, they tend to answer the same way: “Well, what we DON’T want is one of those touchy-feely,…

Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 by Dave Blum I try to keep these blogs on topic (treasure hunt ideas, scavenger hunt lists, team building exercises, etc.), but ocassionally something different comes along that I just have to share. That being said, you simply MUST check out this YouTube video.  It’s from an…

One Last Bit About Game Theory, Team building and Collaboration

Tuesday, April 14, 2009 by Dave Blum Before I move on to a different subject (such as team building ideas, treasure hunt clues, scavenger hunt lists, etc.), I just wanted to wrap up my discussion of game theory with a brief description of the famous “Prisoner’s Dilemma”.   The Prisoner’s Dilemma…

More Team Building, Game Theory and Collaboration

Tuesday, April 14, 2009 by Dave Blum Happily, I finished reading “Rock, Paper, Scissors” this weekend and can finally wrap up my book report for you.  Interestingly, I learned in the afterward that the brilliant author —  Len Fisher —  is not, in fact, a game theory expert/mathematician by trade.  Turns…

Game Theory and Collaboration

Friday, April 10, 2009 by Dave Blum In yesterday’s blog, I discussed the “Free Rider Syndrome” and promised to  provide some instruction (from game theory) for encouraging collaboration and cooperation.”  Well, sorry to say–I’m not quite ready to submit my report.  To paraphrase the X-Files, “The answers are out there”…

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,…

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…

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…

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…