The Play Zone: Unlock Your Creative Genius and Connect with Consumers [Hardcover]

Lewis Pinault (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 27, 2004

LEGO(R) building bricks and toys. Intricate treasure maps with color markers. Creative imagination run riot. Play.

Not your usual bag of tools for puzzling through the serious management challenges, demanding client values and the growing complex of technologies, which make up the new consumer experience.

In this groundbreaking new book, Lewis Pinault -- author of the infamous expose "Consulting Demons -- again draws back the curtain on the professional services industry. This time he reveals the latest cutting-edge findings set to revolutionize the consumer experience: the amazing relationship between innocent play and complex technologies and how the growing importance of our creative power as consumers is redefining the multitrillion-dollar consumer industry. Pinault turns from exposing the pitfalls of the "old-guard" consulting industry to highlighting the best professional services and technology firms and exploring the emerging developments and intriguing personalities defining the Play Zone: Johan Roos, Cliff Dennett and the team developing and supporting LEGO(R) SERIOUS PLAY (TM) use LEGO bricks to express and advance the revolutionary language of 3-D metaphor to instigate new patterns of thinking through the intuitive power of play. John Caswell's Contextual Frameworks (TM) resets and aligns entire enterprises and industries against a unique understanding of consumer wants and needs, rendered in captivating works of business art. The immersive environment of the Play Zone, where biometric, radio-frequency and adaptive computing technologies converge to bring us to the "Internet of Everything."

By integrating the latest findings from the fields ofcomplexity science and customer service and management, and rendering them simply and logically, Pinault has created a system of six principles that offers a whole new means of cutting through complexity -- principles that can be successfully applied to any management and social setting to unleash the power of play in all aspects of the consumer experience.

Filled with entertaining stories, larger-than-life characters and eye-opening revelations, "The Play Zone will guide readers through a boisterous crowd of important new ideas so that they can connect with consumers like never before.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Amidst the legions of books peddling gimmicky sound bites on business management comes this highly complex approach to understanding consumers. Pinault (Consulting Demons) advises applying chaos theory to business and social science—through the youthful art of play (often with LEGOs). "Playfulness," he insists, "can allow the ‘hidden order’ of chaos to emerge." "Sophisticated, complex structures arise in nature all the time" and with the right creative spark, he supposes, this same self-emergent organization can help businesses understand customer desires and brainstorm new product ideas. All of this innovation occurs in Pinault’s "Play Zone"—a time and place where local players can globally affect the complex network of consumers by "playing" with various devices he calls "Ubiquitous Tools." For example, a Cabbage Patch Doll stakeholder used "the butterfly effect" in the 1980s when he paid a group of people to fight over the then-obscure toys at a single U.S. store, triggering immediate news coverage and a worldwide sales rush. But Pinualt focuses beyond the low-tech to new tools like Amazon.com’s personalized web suggestions for each visitor, which are based on an ever-increasing list of past purchases and searches. To help readers swallow the meaty scientific jargon, the author provides a quick primer on chaos theory in the introductory chapter, while sidebars and flow charts break up the prose, making important concepts slightly easier to digest. The toy graphics and constant reference to the LEGO company’s "SERIOUS PLAY" program sometimes make the book read like an advertisement. Still, this is a refreshingly thoughtful book for imagining businesses that agilely adapt to consumer demands.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“Challenging...filled with intriguing ideas.” (USA Today )

“A fun and informative read...The intended takeaways of this tome are many.” (International Newspaper Marketing Association )

“An interesting read for managers who value alternative approaches to old disciplines, sparking new insights in the process.” (Harvard Business School, Working Knowledge )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: HarperBusiness (April 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0066621011
• ISBN-13: 978-0066621012
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,714,223 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for understanding consumers, May 18, 2004

By 

"freezergeezer" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Play Zone: Unlock Your Creative Genius and Connect with Consumers (Hardcover)

I've read a fair number of business books over the years - some more useful and insightful than others. The Playzone is definitely one that's worth the buy and the reading time. The perspectives given in this book are very fresh and as you read it, make a lot of sense (actually, a lot of common sense - despite almost being put off by the near-scientific "complexity theory", the book neatly and easily explains the chaotic world of customer behaviour). I was looking for a book on customer service and ended up reading a book on consulting techniques using Lego bricks (very cool !) and some new stuff coming our way like the radio product tags - as well as some really great insights into customer service with some great stories. All good stuff for my MBA dissertation !! Check out Chapter 4 - its inspired. Everything you need to know about delivering great service to customers - stores that REALLY think about how I feel and what I want, and entertain me : now that's the stuff that flicks my switch !

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Johnny Mnemonic (Consumer) Experience, May 1, 2004

By 

LSEPolSci (London England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Play Zone: Unlock Your Creative Genius and Connect with Consumers (Hardcover)

A startling new take on the Consumer Experience. Where 'retail anthropologist' Paco Underhill leaves off on the Why and How We Shop, Pinault immerses us in the physical and technological context that has now begun to 'Shop Us.'

He breaks The Play Zone into three main chunks, each one of which carves out important new territory for both consumers and the companies that serve them: 1) An introduction to complexity science - and its applications to organisations - that stands on its own right as one of the finest primers in the area, chock full of examples from nature to business, and of course, shopping; 2) a review of some of the great new tools - and in Play, one of our own, most important intuitive tools - that unlock a new and increasingly necessary means of tackling complexity (the LEGO material is particularly irresistable - where do you get those kits?!) and 3) a future-state view of how key technologies are blending to transform the consumer environment and experience, from biometric scanners to next-gen customer profiling software to miniscule radio-frequency ID tags.

The technology even invades the book. There's a little sticker inside with its own serial number unique to each copy of the book. Check out Pinault's Website theplayzonebook.com for a neat and playful dive into all this stuff, including links to what you can do with the 'electronic product code' serial number.

It's a bit like a Johnny Mnemonic experience, cramming a lot into a little space, both in the book and brain. A long version or workbook might help. Take it when you're awake!

1.0 out of 5 stars Special Editorial Section, November 8, 2007

By 

Max Hodges (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Play Zone: Unlock Your Creative Genius and Connect with Consumers (Hardcover)

There is every indication that Lewis was paid to write this book as a marketing tool for a certin company which I'm not even going to mention because they don't deserve any press from stunts like this. From the opening line which titilates the reader with sex, Lewis comes off as nothing more than a shill for the product this book promotes. Nice to see it prices at $.39. Feel sorry for anyone who actually paid any money to read this book-bound ad copy. Shame on you Lewis, your Consulting Demons book was great, but sorry, you lose all credibility with this stunt.