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. But looking back, it would’ve […]
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 to help my team building […]
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 I were tasked with sifting […]
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 […]