About Emeralda
Games for the gifts of life
Watercolor sketch of Emeralda Region with its mountains, lake, islands and cities.
The Seattle Times announced a call for ideas to name an initiative of economic development entities
in government intent on improving communications among international, national, and local bodies. It was 1992.
They needed a brand name denoting the region in the Pacific Northwest spanning British Columbia to Oregon. Already Seattle had
it's "Emerald City" and Oregon had "Emerald Valley." Green-ness seemed to be the notion - as in "Washington: The Evergreen State."I submitted my idea to the judges: "Emeralda." They didn't take it. They chose "Cascadia."
I took Emeralda and gave it to my notion of a fantasy region, a sandbox for my life game:
"Emeralda: Games for the gifts of life."
Picture a child playing in a sandbox with toys, sticks, and stones to build structures
for collaboration, always hoping
someone would come along and play, too. Now
picture the child as old, playing with technology, art, and learning, and still hoping.
My playing pieces are my gifts of life that advance my Human Structural Intellectual Capital (HSIC)
and
Intellectual Property (IP). If collaboration with others comes out of this daily practice, so much the better. I never meant Emeralda to be a game like Solitaire. I meant Emeralda to be collaborative. As the poet said, "No man is an island, entire of itself."
Emeralda is a lonely sandbox, although I have my wife and family; and I am happy to play alone if that's how it has to be.
I have an idea for
a new game to play, "Escape Emeralda." That is another game, waiting for development with collaborators. "A structure for collaboration," said Rosabeth Moss Kanter, "is an insurance policy for hope."
I believe the best structure for collaboration in these times is games and Emeralda is a suite of games I think about for this purpose.