Two Examples of Excellent Customer Service

Monday, December 29, 2008 by Dave Blum As a small business owner, I tend to notice excellent customer service when I experience it.  Over the holidays, I observed two fine examples: 1) Jen and I are scheduled to stay at a B&B in Calistoga, a famed hot spring town in the…

Film time in Old Sac

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 by Dave Blum Most all of our Dr. Clue team building activities are a hoot in some way or another, but not all of them are captured on TV, like the treasure hunt I led this past Monday in Sacramento.  It all fell into place rather suddenly when I was contacted last Wednesday by Tracy Magan…

Tell Me a Story

Tuesday, December 23, 2008 by Dave Blum I was at a lecture last week and struggling to stay awake, which often happens to me at talks, choir concerts, opera, etc.  (Okay, I’m not always the most cultured guy in the world; give me a good football game any day!)  So…

Airport Meditation

Saturday, December 20, 2008 by Dave Blum As a “hunt guy”, I tend to travel a lot for my corporate team building activities. On a typical trip, I jet into New Orleans, New York, Las Vegas or wherever, play-test treasure hunt clues, tend to logistics, assemble materials, meet with the…

This Spud’s for You

Friday, December 19, 2008 by Dave Blum Several years ago, at my favorite conference (the annual gathering of the North American Simulation and Gaming Association, NASAGA), I observed the following remarkable icebreaker. It was presented by Ken Bellemare, a Vancouver-based trainer and magician, who proved to me that the mind…

Treasure Hunt Bar Crawl

Thursday, December 18, 2008 by Dave Blum As much as I’d like to claim that I’m the expert and all my team building ideas arise from the deep, deep wells of my own creativity, the reality is that sometimes clients come up with concepts that blow my own scavenger hunt ideas…

3 Reasons Sports Teams are Different From Business Teams

Wednesday, December 17, 2008 by Dave Blum It occurs to me that teamwork isn’t taught sufficiently in our school system. From an early age onward through college, we are mostly on our own, working solo to earn good grades and academic honors — often in direct competition with our classmates.  During…

Mom’s Scrambled Eggs

Tuesday, December 16, 2008 by Dave Blum My mom’s kitchen was off limits when I was growing up.  Mom viewed the kitchen as her private domain; she did all the cooking for our family and yes, all the cleaning, too. A pretty good deal for me, my brother and my dad, you say?  Yeah, mostly. …

Small Business Tips for Surviving the Downturn

Friday, December 12, 2008 by Dave Blum There’s so much being written these days about the economy and its hit on large companies — Lehman Brothers, Circuit City, the Big Three bail-out, etc.  But what about small businesses…companies like yours and mine?  How are we supposed to get by? Here’s some advice I’ve been giving myself…

Team Efficiency Workshop

Wednesday, December 10, 2008 by Dave Blum One of the things I like most about my job is creating new team building activities –especially when it involves collaboration.  For Dr. Clue’s Team Efficiency Workshop, I worked very closely with my two facilitators extraordinaire, Franco Beneduce and Christine McHugh. Christine and…