AnnMarie Thomas

AnnMarie Thomas's Speech Descriptions

Professor AnnMarie Thomas demonstrates how play can exponentially boost our capacity as makers and inventors. For over a decade, Dr. Thomas has been at the forefront of creating engaging environments that allow people of all ages to develop the skills, tools, and joy they need to turn ideas into realities. Whether you are a multinational corporation or university, Professor Thomas can show you how to incorporate hands-on activities into your organization, so that your group can unlock a fervor for learning, designing, and innovating.

Professor Thomas customizes all her talks with the latest research and studies. Her material is always presented with humor, beautiful imagery, interactivity, demos and imaginative case studies. Audiences leave her presentations feeling entertained, inspired and ready to innovate and collaborate!

Building a Culture of Creativity and Collaboration to Spark Innovation

Do you want to bring more innovative thinking and problem solving to your organization? In this talk, Professor Thomas will teach your team the tools for creating a collaborative and creative organizational culture.

Many organizations know that staying competitive means fostering a culture where employees feel comfortable voicing and trying new ideas without being criticized or penalized. Thomas will show how successful companies like Google, Sparkfun, and others, are using play and collaboration to grow and maintain the leading edge in their industries. Yes, play!

Rather than something frivolous or time wasting, play is actually a crucial tool for unlocking creativity and for engaging employees. Thomas will show how the four elements of play – joy, whimsy, engaging new people, and surprise! – lead to new ideas, innovations, and partnerships.

While “play at work” may seem like a contradiction, this talk will show that allowing employees the freedom to explore new ideas and interactions, without exacting precise boundaries on timelines and outcomes, will lead to a more innovative and nimble organization. Thomas will explore compelling case studies from a variety of organizations and corporations with the newest research on organizational productivity and retention.

New ideas and paradigms require novel ways of approaching systems and they way we approach problem-solving. Innovative problem solving is unlikely to happen if project teams and management do not vary their work environment and stimuli. Play gives us a way to do this. This isn’t simply about painting the walls a new color and adding beanbag chairs. This talk will focus on cultivating playful behaviors and patterns, not by simply making an office “seem playful,” but by looking at ways to actually change behaviors for the long-term through shifting corporate culture.

Thomas will also explore how to energize and motivate teams through collaboration and encourage curiosity and innovation. She will teach specific high-tech and low-tech ways to spur new ideas, concepts, and partnerships. Thomas will illustrate this from her own experiences collaborating with a diverse group of global brands; world famous artists, musicians and dancers; star chefs; and even preschoolers! Through these examples, she will emphasize the importance of learning to look at problems from a variety of different viewpoints.

As part of this talk, “surprise” will be shown to be an important element of creativity. So Thomas will work with the event organizer to add a customized surprise to her talk. In past talks this has involved anything from live demos of new technology designed in her lab, exploding musical pastry, or an interactive audience challenge.

Participants will learn how to:

• Encourage creativity within their organization.
• Create space for play in their day-to-day work.
• Reframe the concept of “play” from a frivolous diversion to a critical tool in synthesizing disparate concepts and ideas.
• Utilize collaboration as a tool for developing new perspectives, increasing productivity and a positive team environment.

The Maker Mindset and Entrepreneurial Thinking

This current talk by Professor Thomas is an entertaining, compelling learning experience for forward-looking, innovative companies and associations. This talk can also be customized as the perfect message for university student groups.

Where do new ideas come from? How can you bring your concepts to life? What methods can help you solve new challenges? This talk looks at these questions from the lens of Making, and the modern Maker movement. The presentation will start by introducing the concept of Makers- those who create rather than just consume. The Maker Movement is a global phenomenon: In 2016, over 1 million people attended maker faires held around the world. But what is the Maker Movement? And how can thinking like a Maker help your team find opportunities to create new value, innovative thinking and positive change?

Thomas is an Engineering and Business professor who has worked with organizations around the country on topics related to Making and creativity. In this talk she shows her audience the power of a Maker mindset, why companies such as Google have opened makerspaces in their offices and why even public libraries are offering maker gatherings and equipment like shared sewing and 3D printing stations.

For example, what does it really mean to “share” information? How can adopting an “open source” attitude and policy help organizations become more productive and competitive?

Professor Thomas has interviewed dozens of adult Makers – ranging from top designers, industry leaders, and world-renown scientists – and uses these stories to show you how to harness the invaluable assets of the Maker Mindset:

• Makers are curious. They are explorers. They pursue projects that others might not have thought to delve into.

• Makers are playful. They often work on projects that show a sense of whimsy.

• Makers are willing to take on risk. They aren’t afraid to try things that haven’t been done before.

• Makers take on responsibility. They enjoy taking on projects that can help others and contribute to the team.

• Makers are persistent. They don’t give up easily.

• Makers are resourceful. They look for materials and inspiration in unlikely places.

• Makers share and are open—their knowledge, their tools, and their support.

• Makers are optimistic and have a positive effect on those around them. They believe that they can make a difference in the world.

Thomas will explore the common threads between Makers from diverse backgrounds, and discuss how anyone – from entrepreneurs and C-Level Executives to association members and university students – can benefit from thinking and acting like a Maker. More importantly, Thomas will provide specific, tangible ways to adopt and implement these attributes that will lead to exciting new projects and collaborations, while encouraging positive teamwork, proactive exploration and curiosity.

Thomas will convince your audience that they *are* all makers and the benefits of seeing the world this way. It is an empowering message that will challenge listeners to get started tackling new opportunities and solving current problems to create new value and ventures. Your team will truly understand that problems really are just opportunities in disguise!

An interactive option that Thomas can include in this talk is having the audience fill out their own version of a “maker mindset” with a “to do” list to start their personal journey. Audiences gain exclusive insights that they can put into action.

Professor Thomas has given customized versions of this popular, inspiring talk to audiences as varied as Google, Disney, the National Library Information Technology Association’s annual meeting, and numerous schools (from K-12 to MIT).

Additional Talk Titles

Youth and Education Groups: Making Makers
Dr. AnnMarie Thomas addresses the important role that making played in the childhoods of many of today's adult innovators, educators, designers, and engineers. This is contrasted with some of the ways in which today's children are allowed to explore the world around them.

Thomas talks about the work of the Maker Education Initiative, focusing on developing the people, places and practices to allow more children the opportunity to be makers.

Thomas and her team demonstrate that science or engineering lessons can be found in almost anything – and a sense of play can make those lessons accessible and incite young minds.

Playing with, and for Data: Lessons in Data Across Creative Fields

Unusual collaborations can often lead to new ways of taking and analyzing data. This talk looks at lessons learned from working with chefs, circus performers, and preschoolers.

Workshops
Dr. Thomas also creates and teaches custom workshops on topics such as the Maker Movement, Creative Circuitry, Play, and Design, for audiences ranging from association meetings to corporate retreats.