Shoe Swapper Game
Pick a problem, throw two dice to see whose shoes you wear, then come up with ideas from that person's point of view. After three pairs, pick the best idea.
Updated
Shoe Swapper Game
1. Pick a problem. The book’s example is how to bring more customers into a restaurant.
2. Throw two dice to see whose shoes you wear. The board has 36 pairs of shoes. In the book the first throw is a 6 and a 2, which lands on a celebrity’s boots. (The book’s board names a particular celebrity. Here every pair of shoes is a role instead.)
- Whose shoesA celebrity
3. Think as that person for five minutes. The book’s example, in a celebrity’s shoes: a great way to drive business might be to give the customers celebrity gift bags. That could spark another idea about making customers feel very special, like a celebrity. There could be a gift bag with unusual toys, a fake paparazzi photographer at the entrance, and framed autographed photos of celebrity customers on the wall.
4. Swap shoes twice more, then pick the winner. Throw the dice again for a new pair of shoes and another five minutes. The book plays three rounds, and the winner is the idea that best solves the problem.
Now put on your own three pairs of shoes below.
How to play
- Pick a problem. Anything you want ideas for.
- Throw the dice. They tell you whose shoes you are wearing: a role such as a young child, a fitness fanatic or a mad scientist.
- Think as them for five minutes. Come up with as many ideas for your problem as you can from their point of view, not yours.
- Swap shoes. Throw the dice again for another role and another five minutes. You play three rounds.
- Pick the winner. The idea that best solves the problem wins, whichever pair of shoes it came from.
Why it works
The Shoe Swapper chapter says that to get the brain thinking in new directions, we need to go outside what is familiar. We need to experience new things and bring diversity into the mix, and the chapter’s way of doing that is to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. You cannot ask a fitness fanatic or a mad scientist what they would do, but you can imagine it, and the imagining gives you ideas you would not have had in your own shoes.
In the book’s example, thinking as a celebrity led to celebrity gift bags for restaurant customers. That led to a second idea of making every customer feel like a celebrity, with a fake photographer at the door and signed photos on the wall. The second idea was sparked by the first.
The shoes
The book’s board has 36 pairs of shoes. Some are roles, such as a Martian, your grandma and a dictator, and some are named people. On this site every pair is a role, so there are no real people to get wrong or to imitate. Where the book names someone, we have used the kind of person they are, such as a business tycoon or a peacemaker. Two dice give the column and the row, as in the book’s example, where a 6 and a 2 landed on a celebrity.
Where this comes from
This is the Shoe Swapper board game from the Shoe Swapper chapter, played on screen. The rules and the example are the book’s. The roles that replace the board’s named people are ours. Nothing you type leaves your browser and nothing is stored.
Questions
Is this the same as role-playing? It is close. You do not act, you just ask what that person would do about your problem and write down the answers.
What if the idea from the shoes is silly? Keep it. The book’s own example has a fake paparazzi photographer in it.
Can the same shoes come up twice? Not in one game. Each round gives you a different role.