Coke Bottles are transforming Manila’s rural areas. These plastic bottles are now being viewed as a green, cheap and sustainable way to light homes. In rural Manila where homes are often built so close to each other that they have no windows or natural light these bottles are a God send. With electricity unaffordable or unavailable for many families they often have to work, do chores, and eat in near darkness. Now there is light! Take a look at this. Absolutely incredible.

Simple solutions can still be creative. Sometimes it is those who are able to fix the vexing problem with simple yet creative solutions. Minds like these truly embody the core value: seeking creative solutions
 

For more on solar power bulbs: Solar-Powered Bulbs Brighten Off-Grid Homes

Yesterday we were seeking creative solutions as Joe challenged the group to several bar bets. The first bet was the hat trick , which Kyle caught on to in the middle of it and ruined the surprise.
Next up was the money count down  where Joe exacted his revenge on Kyle for the aforementioned blunder.
After that, Joe was able to get water from a plate to a glass without touching the plate or the water. We couldn’t even use a straw. That truick involved a pack of match. And finally, the whiskey vs water trick! You had a glass of whiskey and a glass of water and the task was to switch the liquids without pouring it out.
Click the links below and watch the video on how to solve these neat tricks.

Moral of the story: If you have the opportunity, incorporate fire into your morning meeting.

Hat Trick: (http://magic.about.com/od/barbets/ss/110508hattrick.htm)

Coins Trick: (http://magic.about.com/od/barbets/ss/110508coinsbar.htm)

Todd's new ticketing system for live events promises to be a Lawline game changer.

Congratulations to the Web Development Department for their third straight victory for Seeking Creative Solutions.

This month, Todd takes the award for spearheading the live event ticketing system.  It has always been a dream to have thousands of attendees at our live events, and now we are a giant step closer! Todd’s ability to create the entire system of assigning codes to each customer, then testing the system during Pizza Thursdays, has set us up to make that dream become a reality in the near future.

Previous Months’ CV Awards – Seeking Creative Solutions

• June: Joe
• May: Web Development Team
• April: Corey

Nancy: For my morning presentation today, a little birdie whispered in my ear, and I was able to get ahold of “Zoom,” by Istvan Banyai. A rather uneventful book, but filled with pictures. No text, just pictures. It’s actually a pretty cool book even without the need for words. Each page is a picture, and each picture progressively zooms out until you get a pinprick of an Earth (the planet) on a sheet of black. The point of the activity is the photocopy the pictures, scramble them up — and then put them back in chronological order.

Since each picture gives you small clues as to its previous picture, it takes awhile, but with some creative thinking and collaboration, you can make it happen.

So everyone got 2 pictures and we all had one conference table. Many heated collaborations and conversations later, the (approximately) 30 page spread was laid out on the table and we went through it carefully, trying to determine the exact order. About 15 minutes later, we had it all assembled! And success! Seeking creative solutions and driven to find a better way. How did we seek creative solutions? It takes a bit of creativity to think outside the box and see the “bigger” picture — which, in this case, was actually the next image in the ensemble. Driven to find a better way? If the shoe don’t fit, find another one. There were definitely a few hiccups where the picture “worked,” but didn’t exactly work and so we would have to find a better option.

But, we got it! So yay teamwork! And yay for perspective images!

Teamwork!!

Joe, shown above, has become certified in solutionitics. Todd, missing from this photo, has been certified since January 2011.

Congratulations to the Web Development Department for winning Seeking Creative Solutions in back-to-back months.

Last month they were nominated for their efforts in launching Lawline 2.0, a new design of our site and learning platform.  This month they are being recognized for improving our accounting platform for continuing professional education.

After auditing the new CPE standards required by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy, the CPE team realized there were many changes needed in our website to properly certify courses and test users.  Joe sat down with them in order to address all proposed changes, and within hours a plan was concocted to tackle the project.

Thanks to Joe and Todd’s work, the site will soon have every course living up to NASBA’s standards!  They are true creative solutionists.

Joe: This morning I presented six bets you will never lose. While that is not necessarily true, the odds are certainly in your favor. The secret to winning almost every bet lies in simplicity and seeking creative solutions. The answer is right there in front of you, you just have to think outside the box a little bit.

Here is the video that I pulled the bets from:

A few weekends ago, I visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and I came across a very inspiring story. It is one the exemplifies one of our core values, Seeking Creative Solutions.

Ellen Church was a nurse and was certified to be pilot. She always loved aeroplanes but when she applied to become a pilot, they told her no because she wasn’t a man. However she found a way to overcome the obstacle by becoming the first stewardess. Ellen convinced the owner of Boeing that nurses would be a wonderful idea to calm passengers. The rest is history…

Start the video at 2:14 and stop at 5:19 to learn more of Ellen Church.

The new site may have launched in June, but countless hours in May went into the design and creation of Lawline 2.0.  Our web development team stayed late, came in early, and sought creative solutions the entire way.

There were many days in May where emails would be going back and forth between developers, David, and Jeff at ridiculous hours of the night or morning to ensure the launch was done as soon as possible.  The creation of Lawline 2.0 has created a buzz that is not limited to our office, but our customers, industry, and the world.

Without this crew, I’m not sure what we would do.  So here’s to you, Web Developers!

Corey, who has been with Lawline.com since June 2011, has been a main stay on top of the sales leaderboard every month.

Recently, Corey’s gone out of his way to research and plan ways for improving the contact rate with leads for the sales team.  This includes sending timely e-mails and teaming up with marketing to ensure all channels are always on the same page.

Corey has helped to main stream the sales process by guiding newer salespeople toward success.  Because of this, the department has reached record numbers, and has also gotten him involved in interactions with current customers for renewals!

Trisha: 1) A couple of weeks ago I had the company split up into four teams. Once the teams were formed we started the game of guessing what the picture is from a really close up picture of it. I called the game mystery picture game but it probably has other names. Basically I took pictures of objects from a far so you knew what the object is and then really close up. Teams had to guess what each item was from the picture. It’s pretty interesting to see what people know and guess.

2) Yesterday morning I had the team yet again split up into four teams. Once the teams were set, I explained what they where in for. I decided to take an idea from MTV. Where we had the teams figure out puzzles to move on to the next puzzle. The first puzzle was a math one where all the columns and rows had to equal the same number. Once I checked their answers, they where able to move onto the word search. After I checked the word search , the logical question was up. The logical question was my last question and it definitely took the longest. Nobody could get it in time but it was great seeing everyone work together and coming up with different ways to answer each question.

Melissa: Ben Vanleeuwen started the Vanleeuwen Ice Cream company four years ago. Since then he’s been serving 100% organic ice cream to the masses. His success is the perfect example of what can be accomplished when you stay committed to your personal values and strive to find a better way.

This morning, Ryan showed a video on Jason Silva speaking at the PSFK Conference that took place in New York City a few months ago.

Ryan: Jason Silva is a futurist and philosopher that has become famous through his short form videos that have been called “Movie Trailers for Ideas” and “Shots of intellectual espresso.” This talk specifically concentrates on ideas and imagination and how creative solutions, today more than ever, can be thought up and executed in real time. He then goes from talking about the process of being creative and “connecting the dots” to seeing how our ideas that are manifested in the real world are a continuation of natural patterns that are all around us every day of our lives.

When the sales team complained that many of the people on the Illinois list no longer worked at the firm Jeff took immediate action.  Doing is usual working through late in the night he came up with a solution that the sales team can easily search the person in the firm and see if they still work there.

The goal is to save time and only focus on the right people.  What was so great about it in true Jeff fashion he sent a email with screen shots diagraming exactly how to use this feature in the CRM.  Hope this goes a long way!

Ever wonder who you would be in a parallel universe? You could be just about anyone. A firefighter, intergalactic trader, hero or villain. 

Rob had just two questions for us (Well technically, it is four questions):
-If you could do any job at Lawline.com, what would it be? Why?
-If you had to choose someone to do your job, who would it be? Why?

With this question, people had to think hard considering they love the job they are doing. After some time, a majority would like to be a Program Attorney or Web Developer. The reasons behind choosing program attorney is that they would like to organize events, speak with attorney, gotten through law school and educate others. As for Web Developer, it would allow those to be creative.
When it came to choosing those to cover their position, it seemed everyone was trust-worthy in performing the job.

Shark or Temple..can't tell.

This past Friday morning, Sal & Alex went on an adventure! They were the main stars in Ken’s Improv game called “Fill In The Blank”.

The audience (Lawline.com employees) gave them three things:
1. Location (Cancun)
2 Relationship (Father & Son)
3.an object they are looking for (A Mayan temple)

By pointing to us during various times, they were given blank suggestions and went with it. Sal apparently was a very tall four-year old kid who carried a spear which he left at the dog park. His father, Alex, led his child through shark-invested waters and seemed to not be quite happy with his son’s mistakes.

The purpose achieved: Thinking outside the box, thinking on their feet and having fun.

This morning, Trisha had the team play the Pulse game.

The Pulse game entitles first to have a coin and a small ball. In this case, we used Ann’s rubberband ball. Then everyone was split into two equal lines facing each other across the room.  Each line held their teammate’s hands beside them.  The first person of each line, Chris and Julie,  had their eyes open, while everyone else had their heads down and eyes closed. In between the last two people of each line, Sean & Jeff R, is a chair with the rubber band ball sitting on it.

When Trisha flipped the coin on heads, Chris and Julie had to squeeze the hand of the next person and it went down the line, like an electric current.  Sean and Jeff R would try grab the ball before each other.  The first person to grab the ball got a point for their team.

Basically this game was another form of communication and just a fun way to start the day because everyone got competitive trying to beat the other team to get the ball.

Jeff F(II): Today I asked the Lawline team to work through an exercise known as the traveler’s dilemma- a variant of the popular game theory thought exercise, the prisoner’s dilemma.

In pairs, everyone was asked to choose between either $2 or $3, knowing that if both chose the same amount, both would receive that amount.  However, if the amounts differed, the person choosing $2 would be rewarded with $4 and the person choosing $3 would be reduced to $1.  The paradox of the exercise is that the most rational decision (choosing $2 since it always yields the highest individual result) does not actually yield the highest values.

Watching the game play out, what was most striking wasn’t the decisions people were making but rather why they were being made.  A sense of altruism and what worked best for the pair was evident and this led some pairs both choose $3, the optimal outcome.  This is a great example of being driven to find a better way.  Though some chose $3 because it may have seemed to be the higher yielding value, some chose it simply because they realized that you don’t always have to be rational, and working together and trusting in one another, a better overall result can be achieved.

Gamal has always been a go-to person when it comes to creative ideas.

Most recently, he was a major factor in the idea generation of the Lawline landing pages (see the new tiers pages: http://www.lawline.com/gb), as well as a marketing fax to better communicate with potential customers and improve the sales process.

Further, Gamal has actively found ways to best segment our sales leads and lists and issue leads among the staff for optimal success.

Yesterday morning, Sean wanted everyone to play this card game in order to work on seeking creative solutions.

We had four teams and four decks of cards. Two teams formed an alliance with the task for one group to arrange all the shuffle cards in ascending order and the other in descending order. Each person were given random amount of cards face down in their hands. Chris mentioned what helped was that his group created a strategy before arranging. When his group were done, they helped their ally finish.

Since everyone had different cards they had to work together as a team to place the cards in numerical order. There was really good communication from both teams and Sean felt like that was the key to winning the game. Once the winning team was on the same page they were able to complete the task in only a matter of seconds.