SEEKING PLAY Sunni Brown - Doodle Revolution & Gamestorming
LEGO Alert!
Around the 50-minute mark, Sunni busts out LEGO to answer some questions.
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Hello there!
We’re Dr. Jane Hession and Ronan Healy. We’re a husband and wife team and co-founders of the service design studio How Might We - www.howmightwe.design
We're passionate about Play and provide online and in-house training in the LEGO Serious Play method to:
1) Third-level Educators - https://bit.ly/LSP_Ed_Innovators
2) Organisational Innovators - https://bit.ly/LSP_Org_Innovators
Episode Twelve
It’s often tempting to describe a guest as a "Legend," but this label feels especially fitting for Sunni Brown. And we don’t just mean legend in the sense of being "famous"- though Sunni deservingly is. We mean legend as in "a story handed down by our ancestors," as we believe Sunni embodies the stories of our ancestors.
As the author of The Doodle Revolution, Sunni embodies our ancestors who used cave paintings to communicate hunting tactics, societal values, and intangible spiritual concepts. This connection is particularly strong with Sunni’s new venture, the Centre for Deep Spiritual Design.
As the co-author of Gamestorming, Sunni represents our ancestors who used games to teach skills, resolve conflicts, and strengthen bonds. These games were vital for transmitting cultural knowledge and identity across generations, and for Sunni across organisations.
So there you have it.
Sunni Brown.
Legend.
Sunni Who?
Sunni Brown is a social entrepreneur, bestselling author, keynote speaker, expert collaboration designer and facilitator, and earnest American Zen practitioner.
She’s the founder of creative consultancy Sunni Brown Ink and The Centre For Deep Self Design, and was named one of the “100 Most Creative People in Business” and one of the “10 Most Creative People on Twitter” by Fast Company.
Her TED talk has drawn over 1.6 million views, and her work on visual thinking has been featured in every major U.S. publication, including The New York Times, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, WIRED, and Entrepreneur. She has also been featured twice on CBS Sunday Morning and The TODAY Show. The former CEO of MURAL recruited her to be their first and only Innovator-in-Residence.
Sun’s two globally beloved books - Gamestorming and The Doodle Revolution have been translated into over 25 languages. She's one of the educators widely credited with the rise of visual thinking as a tool for deeper inquiry.
Contact Details
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunnibrown/
Websites
www.centerfordeepselfdesign.com
https://nothingintheway.substack.com/
Books
The Doodle Revolution
https://amzn.eu/d/eWjYiKI
Timestamps
(0:00) - Introduction and Welcome
(0:14) - Guest Introduction: Sunni Brown
(2:02) - Key Quotes from Sunni Brown
(3:28) - Introduction to the Interview
(4:04) - Sunni’s Childhood and Personality
(6:59) - Overcoming Adversity and Resilience
(10:00) - Parenting and Play
(13:07) - Stories of Vulnerability and Recovery
(14:26) - Adult Playfulness and Attributes
(17:08) - Primitive Ancestral Wisdom of Play
(21:00) - The Value of Being Present
(22:26) - Play as a Socializing Function
(26:12) - Play in the Workplace
(28:21) - The Importance of Play in Preventing Aging
(30:00) - Facing the Unexpected
(32:21) - Embracing Chaos for Creativity
(35:33) - Advice for Young Professionals
(39:35) - Explaining Work to a Child
(40:54) - Career Evolution and Fuzzy Goals
(45:14) - Current Work and Collaboration
(48:11) - Doodling and Visual Thinking
(49:30) - The Role of Visual Language
(50:18) - Using LEGO for Creative Expression
(51:00) - What Inspires Your Work
(52:00) - Impact of Work on Perception
(54:39) - Conceptualizing with LEGO
(57:05) - Designing Systems for Collaboration
(58:07) - Softening Separation
(59:52) - Closing Remarks and Future Collaboration