Big Innovation Lives Right on the Edge of Ridiculous Ideas

Imagine for a second if you could somehow wrap up the creative chaos of a kindergartner's life and apply it at work. You'd go on field trips, make stuff, hatch crazy ideas, and be awed by the world on a daily basis. Sound ridiculous? At the renowned international design consultancy IDEO, it's how work gets done every day.Psychologists tell us that as we age, we become self-conscious in classroom and other public settings, and quietly begin to suppress our playful tendencies for fear of being childish or breaking with social norms. Creativity requires that we fight against this trajectory.

At IDEO, being playful is almost an obsession. The company believes that great, innovative work cannot happen without trial-and-error, experimentation, and maybe even a little tomfoolery. Few know this better than Brendan Boyle and Joe Wilcox of IDEO's Toy Lab.

Boyle, who teaches a course at Stanford's d.school called "From Play to Innovation," is a partner at IDEO and heads up the Toy Lab in addition to promoting entrepreneurial thinking throughout its locations worldwide.

Wilcox, a toy inventor at IDEO, is a former circus performer and kinetic sculptor turned industrial designer and founder of Sway Motorsports, an electric tilting trike project based in Palo Alto, California.

I spoke with Boyle and Wilcox by phone about how they integrate play into their work lives, and culture – and how you can, too.

First off, when I say the word "play" what does it mean to you?
Brendan Boyle: This is a quote from Stewart Brown, who is founder of the National Institute for Play, "Most people think that the opposite of play is work (especially in the corporate world) but the opposite is boredom or even depression." To me, play is what you're passionate about doing. You want to do it because it's enjoyable and you want to keep doing it because it brings you joy. But play is a ton of effort.