In honor the guitar legend, Les Paul, Google posted a guitar designed with the Google logo. The cool thing was that it allowed users to interactively strum the guitar. How fun is that! Well apparently over two days millions of Google users also thought it was wicked cool. It is estimated that 10.7 million man-hours were spent strumming the guitar strings.
Very quickly, a statistic came out saying that $268 million dollars were lost in productivity because of all the hours spent jamming out.
The part that struck me was “lost productivity.” I’m not convinced that is how we should look at the time spent strumming away during work hours. In fact, I think we should initiate another study that shows the great ideas, brilliant solutions and new thinking that came just after people played away.
Play ignites the curious mind. It engages our sense of discovery and wonder, which in turn, increases our creativity. So for that, I say play away. Maybe a few minutes of playful fun is exactly what you need to get those ideas flowing.
In fact, due to the popularity of the Google guitar they have decided to give it a permanent home.
Here is the link. Make some beautiful music!
www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html