- Sunni Brown

**OUR FIRST PUBLIC GAMESTORMING WORKSHOP…
…is being generously hosted by Duarte Design on July 22, 2011 in Mountain View, CA,
and we want to see your shiny faces there.

For those of you who prefer moving pictures, click here to watch a video designed by XPLANE that describes the story and practice of Gamestorming. Or, if you’re already a dedicated visual thinker and innovator, you can click straight through to registration. The remainder of this post is for the skeptics, for people who think “game” is a four-letter word at work.

FIRST THINGS FIRST, WHAT IS GAMESTORMING?

It’s a better way of doing business using simple visual thinking.
It’s a set of game structures that make meetings work (using basic office supplies)!
It’s a roll-up-your-sleeves innovation technique.

In other words, Gamestorming is your new business best friend. And it’s a Top 100 Business Book on Amazon, so I can’t be completely full of sh*t.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE TOPICS COVERED?

Some “How-Tos” you’ll learn and be able to take back to work:

How to design meeting agendas that drive you to a desired outcome
How to use simple visual language to increase comprehension and retention
How to apply improvisational discovery to keep participants physically and mentally engaged
How to map systems, visualize process problems and innovate as a team
How to use visual meeting artifacts to give decisions forward momentum

WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM THE GAMESTORMING WORKSHOP?

If you nod in agreement to any of the descriptions below, this workshop is for you.

*My organization rarely runs effective meetings. We often leave meetings wondering what just happened and why we were asked to attend.
*People in my company talk about innovation but few people know any real techniques. We could improve in so many areas – team performance, strategic planning, customer service – if we knew how to visualize and manipulate complex information.
*I need to get good thinking from my people in a short period of time, but I don’t have the bandwidth to learn the nuances of meeting facilitation. Somebody help me.
*My employees live in organizational silos. It’s a constant struggle to get coordination and innovation across divisions.
*I want my company to be leading in the marketplace, not following. I need to learn the secret sauce of Silicon Valley pioneers.

Gamestorming gives you the secret sauce, my friends. We work with real people solving real problems at real companies (doing it faster and actually enjoying the process). If you need more cred, below is a short list of clients who have experienced Gamestorming and loved it. (You can also click here to see case studies.)

DISNEY / ZAPPOS / EBAY / GOOGLE / CIRQUE DU SOLEIL / AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY / TEDActive / DELL / SXSW

The Gamestorming Workshop is one day of your life. It’s at one of the coolest companies in Silicon Valley. You’ll have two dedicated Gamestormers at your disposal (including Yours Truly and the remarkable Dave Gray, Founder of XPLANE). And you’ll leave the workshop confident that you can design and lead a meeting that matters. For $675, that’s not too shabby.

Details:

LOCATION: Mountain View, CA at Duarte Design
DATE: July 22, 2011 (overflow day July 21)
TIME: 9 am – 5 pm
COST: $675 (includes breakfast, lunch, a copy of Gamestorming and all workshop materials)