Fantasy play is the most connected to what we call divergent thinking. It’s the closest thing to the design-thinking process that we have in engineering.īut I think equally important is some of the fantasy play. And all the iteration that goes on is so important. What does it take to make the structure stand up? If you make it too thin at the bottom and too wide at the top, it falls down. Take the simplest concept of a stack of wooden blocks. The process of play is imagining something, creating it, seeing if it works, iterating it, experimenting, trying it again. What we’re really focused on as a company, and what I’m passionate about, is this concept of what I call purposeful play. Georgiadis: The way the brain develops is so much driven by all of these surrounding experiences that kids have. I’m interested in your thoughts about trying to keep kids engaged in learning and in being scientists and engineers. So I think a company like Mattel has an opportunity to continue that passion in kids. That’s the natural state of kids – to play, to explore, to create, to hypothesize, to gather data, to analyze the data, and then basically make their model of the world around this.īut at some point along the way, kids lose that excitement. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen when I pull this glass off the table, so let’s try it.’ They’re not afraid to fail, and they’re not afraid to break that glass, much to their parents’ chagrin. That’s how we learn about objects and about relationships. Kids at a very young age start losing interest in STEM, and that’s very interesting because every child is born as a scientist and engineer. Heinzelman: At the University or Rochester we’ve worked very hard over the last few years to diversify our student population. But then I said ‘Wait, I could make my 20 percent project my 100 percent project.’ I could follow my passion for kids and education, and run a company that is really focused on learning and development through play. When the board at Mattel came to me and said ‘we really want somebody who can help reimagine this company for the future,’ I took a step back and at first hesitated, because I really loved what I did at Google. All my side “20 percent” projects were focused on how do we work with parents, how do we do research with educators and others to help kids really understand why these careers hold a future, and what the opportunities are. In fact, with STEAM education, which includes the arts, because I truly believe that the user experience and the magic we can create with technology is so important for our future. At Google we had something we called a 20 percent project, which is a way in which we re-inspired ourselves to lead the company by finding something that we were personally passionate about, that we believed could significantly move our company or the industry forward.ĭuring my decade there, what really inspired me was the importance of women and minorities to fall in love with STEM – science, technology, engineering, and math. Georgiadis: One of the things that for me has always been important is to pursue your passions. What led you to make some of those decisions along the way to finally ending up as the head of the biggest toy company in the world? Their topic: “Inspiring the Next Generation of Leaders in a World Transformed by Globalization and Technology.” Here’s what they had to say: Heinzelman: I’m interested in your career progression. and former president of Google Americas, drew appreciative laughter from a Wegmans Hall audience with this observation during her Meliora Weekend fireside chat with Wendi Heinzelman, dean of the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. 'Have you ever seen a kid pick up a magazine and get annoyed because it doesn't swipe?'
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