Career lessons to learn from updated games and toys

Career lessons to learn from updated games and toysCareer lessons to learn from updated games and toysHave you been watching Jeopardy lately? By the time you read this, professional sports gambler James Holzhauers winning streak might already be over, but hes won over $1.5 million as of the filing of this article. He also broke records including winning 18 games in a row and the top five one-day scores in the history of the show.Everything about Holzhauers winning streak goes against what fruchtwein of us know about playing the classic answer and question game.Follow Ladders on FlipmotherboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreHis very particular style of playing started me thinking about the way that some of us learned big life lessons from playing humble card and board games as kids. It also made me wonder if theres room for a refresher course for all of us.Update the classicsWhats more classic than Lego i nterlocking plastic building blocks, a staple of most of our childhoods? And if somethings perfect, why change, right? Well, not really. In early April Lego launched robotics kits to encourage students to learn programming and STEM skills through hands-on activities.There are also lesson plans available for teachers to work with - and play with - students as they build, code and learn. Toys become classics for a reason but updating them to reflect current trends makes them not only fun to play with but future-friendly as well.Lesson learned from gamesNo matter how great you or your product are, its crucial to study current industry trends and update as needed and when needed. Bonus points if you can make learning and expanding your knowledge base funAnd then update them some moreAs if that wasnt impressive enough, Lego Foundation and Lego Group are in the process of launching Lego Braille Bricks to help blind and visually impaired children learn Braille in a fun and intuitive way. Its an important mission since according to a National Federation of the Blind, its estimated that only 10% of children who are blind are learning to read Braille, compared with over 50% in the 1950s.Theres a bittersweet story connected to the new launch. Morten Bonde, a Senior Art Director with the LEGO Group who is gradually becoming blind, served as a consultant on this project. One of Bondes life missions is to focus on the brightness in life, even though the vision of the world is getting darker.Bonde described feeling goosebumps all over his body the first time he heard about blind children playing with the new Braille Bricks. In the next phase of the project, Bonde said will be involved in developing the visual concept that we will pack the Braille Bricks into. That be the development of packaging, apps, websites, etc. Here I will draw on the experiences I have as a visually impaired person with visual art direction skills. A fun mixture of skills I think.Lesson learned from games Life can throw a lot of curveballs. While its not always possible to actually work during some of the worst of it, imagine if you could find a way to turn your personal setbacks into a lesson for others or personal triumph. leid to be all rainbows and unicorns about it, but not everyone has the same experience or limitations or even skill set you do. Challenge yourself to create something amazing out of something awful if youre able.Reinvent the wheelChess is the ultimate classic board game of strategy with its origins in India in the 6th century. And yet in the 1980s handheld electronic chess games were all the rage, while the early 2000s saw online chess simulation games gaining popularity. Early this year, Square Off chess board which allows you to play on a board with your opponent at a different location was a CES Innovation Honoree.The API (together with Bluetooth and AI) magically allows you to watch as the opponents pieces move on their own across your board so you ca n also pretend youre playing against a friendly, brainy ghost if youre so inclined. Along those lines, ChessPlus is a new strategy tabletop game out of Australia where you combine your chess pieces to create new mashup pieces.Lesson learned from games Just because everyones been doing something the same way forever doesnt mean that you have to. If you think you have a better approach, dont let your boss or co-worker talk you out of it simply because it hasnt been done before.Its not trivialRemember how much fun it was to play Trivial Pursuit in teams? Three new games from Gray Matter Games take the notion of card-based trivia and turn it on its proverbial ear.Badmoji creates a race to guess the lewd phrases using familiar emoji (I really want to try this one) Ridiculous Expositions is another team-based game in which players compete to find naughty expressions beneath the surface of seemingly innocent ones. Youll need a quick and dirty mind for this one. The Game of Wolf is more of a strategic trivia game played either in packs or as a lone wolf- definitely a Game of Thrones metaphor here if you can find it.Lesson learned from games Knowing one topic well doesnt necessarily mean youve mastered it. Taking a look at what you already know from a completely different angle or approach might just make you better at your job..bxc.bx-campaign-1012255 .bx-group-1012255-lyDBLV9 width 900pxheight 550pxYou might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people