What if Steve Jobs & Disney designed indoor play centres?

What if your budget was limitless, who would you ask to design your indoor play centre?

Well, if your family fortunes survey asked 100 people, most people would likely agree that Steve Jobs (Apple / Pixar) and the Disney team would "probably design the best play experiences in the world".

Alas, we don't have a magic wand (or an infinite budget) but this article about the redesign (more re-imagining) of Disney stores might give you a few clues and ideas as to what your design dream team might come up with:

"Disney Stores, which the media giant is considering rebranding Imagination Park, will become more akin to cozy entertainment hubs. The chain’s traditional approach of displaying row after row of toys and apparel geared to Disney franchises will be given a high-tech makeover and incorporated into a new array of recreational activities. The goal is to make children clamor to visit the stores and stay longer, perhaps bolstering sales as a result."

"Cozy entertainment hubs"; what an opportunity that can be replicated by entrepreneurs starting and operating soft play centres; ironically, the main concern of Disney executives "was that the concept was so lavish that parents would try to use the stores as day care centers," what a great problem to have!

We have talked frequently in blogs and our starting a play centre seminars about key trends that represent significant opportunities for play centre operators:

- The potential of social media in play centres to connect people and grow revenues

- Soft play centres becoming a third place, a family entertainment hub and meeting place within the community

- Designing indoor play experiences that engage all senses and move beyond reliance on soft play equipment that primarily provides a physical play experience

Disney seems to agree and with typical flair, they are bringing a new level of design thinking from which we can learn:

"Theaters will allow children to watch film clips of their own selection, participate in karaoke contests or chat live with Disney Channel stars via satellite. Computer chips embedded in packaging will activate hidden features. Walk by a “magic mirror” while holding a Princess tiara, for instance, and Cinderella might appear and say something to you.

It’s your birthday? With the push of a button, eight 13-foot-tall Lucite trees will crackle with video-projected fireworks and sound. There will be a scent component; if a clip from Disney’s coming “A Christmas Carol” is playing in the theater, the whole store might suddenly be made to smell like a Christmas tree."

These ideas are not only inspirational in terms of play / experience design, it is also exciting that the decreasing cost of technology means that play providers can replicate these features at reasonable cost; we are now only limited by convention and imagination.

Finally, if you are developing a business plan for your soft play area, may I suggest you ask, "how can I learn from Disney and complement the traditional sources of income for play centres (entrance, food, parties)"?

- Can I develop my own brand and characters to sell merchandise or would it be better to work with a recognised brand such as Disney?

- Why not sell toys (via a cooperative website or association with a local toy shop)?

- Why not allow parents to book holidays whilst their children play (another opportunity to use Twitter / social media in your play centre)?

- What if I started a book club and established an affiliate scheme with Amazon or a children's book store?

I have been asking these questions since it became clear that play centres could be at the centre of the combined "on-line / off-line" era. I am still not sure why so few people are taking the initiative; if Steve Jobs or Disney were sitting alongside you, what would they be asking?

ShareAndComparePlay.com is the Indoor Play Supplier Comparison Website that Saves Play Operators £10,000s. The only source of independent reviews on every Supplier to the Play Industry, ShareAndComparePlay.com works to revolutionise the Play Experience for Children and to enable Businesses to profitably understand and meet the future needs of Families.

Follow us at Twitter.com/shareandcompare or (Un)subscribe to our Blog by e-mailing us.

Honesty box for independent "starting a soft play centre" seminars

Since 2007 when Radiohead bravely experimented with an honesty system to sell “In Rainbows,” I have been fascinated how such economic initiatives revolutionise business models, influence demand and propagate ideas.

As you know, we like our experiments (Free influenced the founding of our Company) and trust our community so it seemed an interesting (and scary) idea to use an honesty system in the pricing of our “How to Start a Soft Play Centre” seminars to demonstrate the value of spending a day with us in January.

According to Wikipedia, an honesty system is:

“a philosophical way of running a variety of endeavours based on trust, honour, and honesty…granting freedom from customary surveillance…with the understanding that those who are so freed will be bound by their honour … not (to) abuse the trust placed in them.”

Although we know our seminars to be extremely popular and valuable (you can read feedback here), the challenge we face in fully adopting a fully fledged honesty box system is that unlike Radiohead, we have released no albums (believe me, that is a good thing) and unless you have attended our seminars (where capacity is limited to fifteen) you have no way of measuring value in advance.

Therefore, reflecting the principles of trust, value and honour in pricing the seminar became the most important considerations. After much thought, we decided to maintain the current price but at the end of the seminar, ask attendees to value the day they shared with us. If they think the value of the information we share is not worth £100 (+ VAT), we will refund the difference; this does not cover failure to attend where we offer alternative dates. Don’t worry, if you join us and value the day at more than £100, we will not ask you to pay more (unless you really really want to).

Like all experiments, we can’t predict the outcome but we hope this shows our confidence in the value of the information we share, the trust we place in the users of our website and those attending our seminars; this also hopefully makes it even easier to get your hands on all the independent information you need when starting a soft play centre.

Ultimately, we also hope that by again trying something new and risky, we inspire and / or encourage soft play suppliers and indoor play centre operators to experiment with business models and adopt ideas from outside the indoor play industry.

As always, our future is in your hands…over to you.

ShareAndComparePlay.com is the Indoor Play Supplier Comparison Website that Saves Play Operators £10,000s. The only source of independent reviews on every Supplier to the Play Industry, ShareAndComparePlay.com works to revolutionise the Play Experience for Children and to enable Businesses to profitably understand and meet the future needs of Families.

Follow us at Twitter.com/shareandcompare or (Un)subscribe to our Blog by e-mailing us.

Now we all have the power; "Yes sir/madam, of course"

Leading and working in transparent times is challenging and even scary to some; however, this same risk offers untold possibilities as we discussed in "Twitter in Play".

Each day, we encourage soft play suppliers and other organisations to open their business to social media and in the words of Seth Godin, lead with their glass jaw.

Once again, Seth has written a concise insightful note for leaders in transparent times who are worrying and planning rather than doing, listening and evolving; an excerpt:

When your staff sees how much power you've given random consumers, they'll freak. And then, magically, they'll start treating customers differently, because maybe, just maybe, this customer is the one who's going to use the power. Suddenly, the answer to, "do you know who I am!!" is, "yes sire, forgive me."

Social media and transparency, jump in and see what happens.

ShareAndComparePlay.com is the Indoor Play Supplier Comparison Website that Saves Play Operators £10,000s. The only source of independent reviews on every Supplier to the Play Industry, ShareAndComparePlay.com works to revolutionise the Play Experience for Children and to enable Businesses to profitably understand and meet the future needs of Families.

Follow us at Twitter.com/shareandcompare or (Un)subscribe to our Blog by e-mailing us.

Why is play not all aflutter about Twitter?

Depending on who you believe, Twitter is either:

1. “A real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices”

Twitter

2. “A playground for imbeciles, skeevy marketers, D-list celebrity half-wits, and pathetic attention seekers.”

Daniel Lyons, Newsweek

3. “A tool for connecting people with people and people with information; a tool that at its highest manifestation can change lives and empower people to change the world”

Gareth Lymer, ShareAndComparePlay.com

Whatever your thoughts, you have likely heard about Twitter (we have been presenting on Social Marketing in play for almost twelve months) but as of yet, the play industry has yet to embrace Twitter or Social Marketing to reach anywhere near its potential.

Let’s go back to basics and remove the distraction of technology and hype.

Organisations exist to create products, services and experiences so valued by people that they are willing to exchange their time, effort and money to benefit.

In the case of Play, we are asking parents to trust that we are creating and providing valuable experiences for the most precious of people who cannot fully articulate their thoughts and needs whilst the impact of the experience may not be felt for many years.

As the indoor play centres we design, build and operate impact children for the rest of their lives, is it not our responsibility to figure out new ways to create value; to observe and listen to customers, sharing information and collaborating to invest in the play experiences of the future?

Today, technology enables us to listen and observe children and parents, to gather, analyse and utilise information so that we can better provide transformational (play) experiences and yet we choose to ignore the opportunity; why?

There are a woefully small number of soft play suppliers (three to my knowledge; as it happens, the same three suppliers that have embraced our website / transparency) and a relatively small number of play operators that use Social Media to exchange information with (prospective) customers and the broader community.

Furthermore, those organisations that use Twitter et al waste the valuable attention of their customers by talking solely about their business. This is like being the guy at a party who continually talks about himself rather than genuinely being interested in others.

Just because you are being ignorant using Twitter rather than in person, doesn’t make those that just talk about themselves any less of an ass.

In terms of opportunity, the potential of Social Media in play is infinite. To get the ball rolling, here are three simple opportunities where Twitter and / or Facebook can be used by play centres:

• This prototype toy for kids sends Tweets to parents to say what the child has been playing with. Why can’t we use a similar principle to gather information as to what children use and like on indoor play equipment (so we can track which events they like rather than us guessing)? Why can’t we communicate this to parents on a big screen so they can “see” what their child is doing?

• Weather often equals a busy play centre and yet it is difficult to predict either. Why not incentivise customers to use Twitter to let you know if and when they will be visiting so that you can adjust staffing accordingly? A better service for customers and more profit for play centres.

• Why not establish a social network around your play centre so that parents can exchange information on parenting and then meet at your play centre when they like; if you can facilitate new connections, you will win (and so will your customers)

Whether you believe Twitter is for “imbeciles…/…half-wits”, has the potential to change the world or somewhere in between, in coming weeks we hope to persuade of the potential of social media to provide additional value to customers of play providers / suppliers and significantly grow the value of the play industry.

In the meantime, can we persuade you to take the first step of visiting Twitter and registering your name? 5 minutes could change your life, or at least, your business.

ShareAndComparePlay.com is the Indoor Play Supplier Comparison Website that Saves Play Operators £10,000s. The only source of independent reviews on every Supplier to the Play Industry, ShareAndComparePlay.com works to revolutionise the Play Experience for Children and to enable Businesses to profitably understand and meet the future needs of Families.

Follow us at Twitter.com/shareandcompare or (Un)subscribe to our Blog by e-mailing us.

What we can learn from Walt Disney...(and thanks Paul)

In September 2001 whilst we were at Disney World, my wife bought me a paperweight engraved with this quotation by Walt Disney:

“You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world…but it requires people to make the dreams a reality”

In short, business is all about people.

This valuable message is one that I have carried with me for many years; business is so much easier when you respect and trust the talents of others, enjoy their company and share a common purpose.

I write this blog at this moment because ShareAndComparePlay.com will soon be losing its Managing Director, Paul Smith.

I have been friends with Paul for many years and we started our first business together in 2002, since then we have started two companies, sold one and travelled throughout the world looking for innovative products and services to introduce to the UK’s indoor play industry.

When Paul started working with us in March, it was at a time when we were largely unknown with few soft play suppliers aware of the potential to engage with customers and prospective play operators using our website. At this time, Paul was the one leading the way to contact suppliers and spread the word, a thankless and difficult task at the time but one that he pursued with typical vigour, skill and ultimately success.

Although we did what we could to persuade Paul to stay, there are certain things that even we can’t change (like moving Kilkenny to the UK); the reasons for Paul leaving us are twofold.

Firstly, Paul and his family live in Kilkenny, Ireland. If you have ever visited this beautiful place then you will understand why they choose to live there but also be aware that it is two hours from Dublin which makes travelling to the UK and back in a day or two (it involves a 3am start) a challenging affair.

Secondly, the birth of Holly Mae in March means that Paul wishes to be at home a little more than he has been in the last few years and so he will be leaving us to work in Ireland which means he can for the first time in many years, work in the country in which he lives.

We would like to thank Paul for his dedication and leadership during the last eight months and I would like to thank him for working with me for so many years on a journey that has been extremely rewarding; we wish him well in his new role and I will do my best to hold the fort until additional help arrives.

Our dream of a world where children can live their dreams continues and so as Walt said, we require people to work with us (this doesn’t just mean colleagues but also partners and individuals with a passion for play); therefore, the search will begin in the New Year for a new Managing Director capable of continuing the good work started by Paul, there is still lots to do.

Thanks for your support.

ShareAndComparePlay.com is the Indoor Play Supplier Comparison Website that Saves Play Operators £10,000s. The only source of independent reviews on every Supplier to the Play Industry, ShareAndComparePlay.com works to revolutionise the Play Experience for Children and to enable Businesses to profitably understand and meet the future needs of Families.

Follow us at Twitter.com/shareandcompare or (Un)subscribe to our Blog by e-mailing us.

How to lose an argument online...the socialisation of soft play

Since January, we have been encouraging the indoor play industry from soft play suppliers to play centre operators to collectively explore and discuss the future of play; only through intelligent and creative exploration can we grow the industry and share the positive impact of "activity without purpose".

As developers and enthusiastic users of web technology, we believe in the potential of online communities to discuss important topics and collaborate in developing insightful solutions, our aim is to facilitate these discussions as broadly as possible.

To some, the socialisation of information is uncomfortable but we are beginning to see the embracing of this change with people using and contributing information more freely. In the last few days, I read this blog by Seth Godin discussing how to lose an argument online and how to make the social web work for you.

As one of the most popular bloggers on the web, this guy knows what works and this is what he says:

"Earn a reputation. Have a conversation. Ask questions. Describe possible outcomes of a point of view. Make connections. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Align objectives then describe a better outcome. Show up. Smile."

Simple, but effective.

ShareAndComparePlay.com is the Indoor Play Supplier Comparison Website that Saves Play Operators £10,000s. The only source of independent reviews on every Supplier to the Play Industry, ShareAndComparePlay.com works to revolutionise the Play Experience for Children and to enable Businesses to profitably understand and meet the future needs of Families.

Follow us at Twitter.com/shareandcompare or (Un)subscribe to our Blog by e-mailing us

Soft play suppliers, your reviews count!

When we started ShareAndComparePlay.com, it was an experiment to test if we could revolutionise an industry we care deeply about, by introducing the following philosophies:

1. Provide valuable and corroborated information, for Free
2. Introduce Transparency, improving standards and reducing costs
3. Facilitate collaboration to enable innovation in play (involving children, parents, play operators, soft play suppliers, designers and schools)

Since our launch in February, this “experiment” has evolved into a commercial organisation enabling growth in the play market and with the potential to support change in subsequent markets, such as weddings.

To introduce each of the above, we developed and rapidly tested several strategies, inviting all stakeholders to share what we have learned so that they may invest in the future and prosper.

In the last few days, Spi Play (where I was previously a shareholder and Director), one of the “traditional” soft play equipment suppliers took up our offer. What was scheduled to be a two hour meeting took four hours; we discussed the changes that our presence has caused and how the market may evolve, both a threat and opportunity for an organisation such as Spi.

As previously discussed, “radical transparency” is likely the most controversial and difficult of trends that are resulting from our launch. The value-added by each organisation is laid bare (add no value and you will be eliminated) and all strengths, weaknesses and actions will be exposed to the market.

The essence of transparency for me is that each business must imagine that each and every communication, installation and quotation were being exposed to a capacity-filled Wembley stadium; future customers being able to judge each action and make informed decisions.

In reality, no organisation is ever going to achieve 100% satisfaction all of the time, at least in part because a positive or negative experience is in the eye of the beholder. However, what is important is that organisations engage with reviewers, encourage customers and employees to participate in the play community, allowing all to learn and share their experience.

In the case of Spi Play, I was pleased that they have responded to a recent negative review by calling the customer (who re-visited our site to say he was much happier), accepting that they dropped the ball in that particular case and then committing their organisation to valuing each star rating.

It is in the latter point that the role of the reviewer has commercial impact. Our algorithm means that each star awarded has real value in terms of pounds. This is because that more people each week are visiting our site (thanks again) as they start an indoor play centre and the worse an organisations overall rating, the lower they appear in our listings and the less likely future play operators are to make contact.

In an “eco-system” such as ours, each participant has an important role to play; ours is to provide an independent platform for information exchange; the suppliers is to listen, engage and contribute; the (prospective) play operators is to share their experience and use the information in making decisions.

In terms of advice for play suppliers and others (the offer for a meeting is always open if you would like to personalise the information and share our experience), this is a (very brief) summary:

- Participate with the play community. Share experience and expertise using our play forum (please don’t just make it an advertisement for your business) and by commenting on blogs; if you have insightful views, please tell us and we will publish them or interview you for softplay.tv

- Encourage your customers and prospects to review your organisation. If you have no ratings, not only are you at the bottom of the charts, play entrepreneurs are assuming you have something to hide

- Look to innovate by forming partnerships so that you can share the costs of R&D (more about this in a future blog); no one organisation is profitable enough to invest in developing the play areas that children dream about and play operators will want to buy. Participating in our play design competition is an alternative and low-cost method of innovating, contact us to learn more

- Consider exposing your value chain to the free market for comparison. For example, if you manufacture play equipment, consider listing as a components supplier so that people starting a play area can choose which elements of your proposition they want to buy. Transparency enables working with "best of breed" in each supplier category (e.g. maintenance, design etc) , invest and compete in each category to provide customers with genuine choice and value

This is an exciting and potentially prosperous time for the play industry; we hope more organisations continue to embrace the potential of the three philosophies that started it all.

ShareAndComparePlay.com is the Indoor Play Supplier Comparison Website that Saves Play Operators £10,000s. The only source of independent reviews on every Supplier to the Play Industry, ShareAndComparePlay.com works to revolutionise the Play Experience for Children and to enable Businesses to profitably understand and meet the future needs of Families.

Follow us at Twitter.com/shareandcompare or (Un)subscribe to our Blog by e-mailing us

ShareAndComparePlay.com-LIW news!

As each person with a dream will testify, it can be scary and lonely as you develop your ideas and seek to convince the World they can make a difference.

Well, after the amazing feedback and the number of people that visited us at the LIW, we no longer feel scared nor alone; knowing that people value our service has given The Share & Compare Play team a fantastic boost; thank you!

This was the first time we met many of the people that use ShareAndComparePlay.com and someone even walked up to say “I LOVE your site, what you are doing is really helping;” someone else said they had only come to the show to see little old us, we could not have been happier.

Although we had a limited budget and decided at the last minute to attend, our Graphic Designer worked wonders in creating a stand that was a physical representation of our indoor play equipment comparison website; as you can see, we also had our ideas table from our forthcoming competition to re-design the indoor play experience.

More photographs are available on our Leisure Industry Week Flickr stream, below are a couple of things I found particularly interesting and worthy of further exploration:

This children's Go-Kart can be made by children and dismantled before being re-built as something else. This product is exciting because it reflects a trend towards Free Play, enabling children to make their own play experience, this trend still has a long way to go but this is a great start.

VEQTOR Play released details of their exclusive agreement to design and install Soft Play Equipment utilising Disney characters. The introduction of the Disney brand for us by Indoor Play Centres reflects significant potential for Entrepreneurs seeking to start the next generation of soft play centre.

We have been talking for a while about the need for sensory play, engaging all of the senses of children playing rather than solely providing a physical play environment. Most play areas now have a soft play football pitch but when walking the show, I saw this sports area where all kinds of activities could be played on sand; really exciting possibilities with this if you have the space.

Were you at the LIW? If so, did you see anything innovative that interested and excited you? We would love to hear from you.

ShareAndComparePlay.com is the Indoor Play Supplier Comparison Website that Saves Play Operators £10,000s. The only source of independent reviews on every Supplier to the Play Industry, ShareAndComparePlay.com works to revolutionise the Play Experience for Children and to enable Businesses to profitably understand and meet the future needs of Families.

Follow us at Twitter.com/shareandcompare or (Un)subscribe to our Blog by e-mailing us

PS. Thank you to all my colleagues at ShareAndComparePlay for all their work in creating the site we dreamed of. Karen, Richard, Paul and Matt B...we could not have done it without you!

Developing a Mission Statement for Play

A few days ago, researching for our Starting a Soft Play Centre seminar, I stumbled upon this article about a Montessori School in San Francisco and these words jumped out at me:

“Nature lays down a plan for the construction both of personality and social life, this plan becomes realized only through the children’s activity when they are placed in circumstances favorable to its fulfilment...”

… Montessori who based every idea she developed about childhood learning primarily on years of observing children doing what they naturally do… understood child’s “play” to actually be what we adults think of as work. It’s how they come to master their environment.”

Supporting what children naturally do; a simple philosophy that the modern day Indoor Play Centre should have at its core, from Design to Operation.

Intrigued, I conducted a little more research and again was excited by the Mission Statement of the Montessori School referred to in the article:

"We provide a foundation for the excitement of learning, at an age when learning is effortless for children. And we create a harmonious atmosphere so children can develop all aspects of their personalities—physical, social, intellectual, and emotional."

Judith Flynn, Founder and Director, Montessori Children's Center

As we encourage new Play Operators to look beyond focussing solely on the purchase of soft play equipment and instead facilitate the use of all senses in play area design, these words and this purpose resonate as reflecting our vision for Indoor Play Centres as Centres of Communities that support the Development of Children through Play.

Recently, ShareAndComparePlay.com began to prepare a revised Mission Statement to reflect our Purpose and Values; this is what we prepared a few weeks ago:

“We Dream of a World where Children freely create and enjoy Play experiences that help them to live their Dreams.

Our role is one of facilitating the sharing and comparing of valuable experiences and information within the Play Community.

Learning through listening, observation and collaboration, we help organisations to profitably provide Play Experiences and support children in the natural process of play; to the benefit of all.”

If you are starting a Soft Play centre, do you have a mission that guides your thinking and communicates your purpose? If not, can I suggest that you start developing one that reflects your purpose, values and core proposition?

A little more Research shows that Wikipedia refers to “Child Centred” Education being at the fore of the Montessori Method, as it should be at the Centre of Play Design; the following statement is intriguing from a Design perspective:

“From the moment the child enters the classroom, each step in his education is seen as a progressive building block, ultimately forming the whole person, in the emergence from childhood to adult. All focus is on the needs of the child.”

Exchange the word “Classroom” for Play Centre and this begins to reflect the holistic approach to Soft Play Design that we must begin adopt if we are to develop the Next Generation on Indoor Play Facilities.

In summary, three questions:

- If you are Starting an Indoor Play Centre, are you thinking holistically and adopting a child centred approach to the Design of your Indoor Play Experience?

- Are you communicating your vision to Suppliers, Investors and Community in the same passionate tones as the examples above?

- If Dr Montessori was your Play Designer, how do you think your Indoor Play Centre would look and operate?

An interesting and potentially prosperous future awaits those that can answer these questions positively.

ShareAndComparePlay.com is the Indoor Play Supplier Comparison Website that Saves Play Operators £10,000s. The only source of independent reviews on every Supplier to the Play Industry, ShareAndComparePlay.com works to revolutionise the Play Experience for Children and to enable Businesses to profitably understand and meet the future needs of Families.

Follow us at Twitter.com/shareandcompare or (Un)subscribe to our Blog by e-mailing us