The GliderCell Blog

Friday, August 21, 2009

More Companies are Allowing for Creative Time

One way to get employees in any organization to be more productive, is to allow them time to work on their own projects and ideas. Google allows employees to spend 20 percent of their time doing exactly that.

Source: Gerard Darby, NESTA (The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts)

Lee Chazen

Lee Chazen is an educational content developer and writer who does consulting work under the name GliderCell. Chazen studied political science at Colorado State University, also receiving a minor in history and concentration in Russian and East Central European Studies. In the months following Gary Hart's presidential campaign, Chazen became a campaign manager for a California state assembly race where he also helped to coordinate a trade mission of Silicon Valley executives to the former Soviet Union (initiated by state assembly candidate Wendell Williams).

Chazen moved on to a career teaching high school world history, U.S. government and speech and debate. Convinced that teaching in a traditional "top down" method wasn't working for students, Chazen worked with students to create their own learning experience through the use of a game called Global Challenge. The Global Challenge Project continued for seven years and formed the basis for a research paper called Thriving on the Edge of Chaos. In this paper, Chazen argued for more games and projects in the classroom, where both teachers and students feel empowered.

Chazen has been a French horn player since the age of 7, playing with various symphony orchestras, wind ensembles and brass quintets. Hobbies include running, hiking and disc golf.

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Friday, August 21, 2009

More Companies are Allowing for Creative Time