HARNESSING THE BRAIN

The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe.
Michio Kaku

I have been interested in how the brain works since the 1990s. Here’s the list of workshops, seminars and reading material, both paper and electronic kinds, which register my enthusiasm in the workings of the brain:

1. Attended Edward De Bono’s workshop on Lateral Thinking. Yes, the man himself.
2. Read and attended Goleman’s seminar on Emotional Intelligence
3. Attended a 2-day workshop on NLP
4. Read and practised Roger von Oech’s A Whack on the Side of the Head (How you can be more creative). I came across this book and his cards in 1995 and I was really attracted to it. Especially the cards. I practised what was on the cards, and they are still with me today!
5. Read up on SCAMPER and facilitated a few workshops on this useful tool
6. Attended a 3-day workshop on Emergenetics – the Science of behavioural and thinking preferences. It's a course which i signed up to be a certified trainer and user of the tool. This will be extremely useful for showing people how individuals and teams can function more productively and cohesively. Part of the course taught about the corpus callosum, the narrow bundle of neural fibres which connect the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This bundle of nerves can be stimulated to enable increased firings of the neurons. The desired outcome is of course to increase human productivity and vitality throughout the day.
7. I also learnt more about synaptic pruning through personal study. As we learn new things, many synaptic connections are made. New skills, new environments, constant exposure to learning and thinking increases the firing of the synapses. However, synaptic pruning takes place when there is no incremental firing. In other words, what is not used is pruned. This occurs between early childhood and the onset of puberty in humans and many mammals. This presents a strong case for early exposure to a myriad of experiences.

You might have seen this graphic. With the cumulative knowledge of the workings of the brain, brain gym and its health benefits, child development and the obvious advantages of playing with clay, I recently combined them and through the encouragement of a former client-turned-friend, Faith Tan, the business owner of Bluetree Education Centre, a workshop for mommies and their babies was born.
The feedback was generally positive and mommies shared that they had a few takeaways for the day!
More on the workshop in the next post!
As we gear up for August, where many orders are coming in for our heritage kuehs,

work on the website is still being finalised. But yes, it will appear. Soon.

2016 Will be Our Best Year Yet!

Hi everyone! Wow! it has been 3 years since we last posted! Just when anyone thought we had gone into hibernation. No!!! We have been working hard to make this whole meaningful venture sustainable, starting with one. One life.
To sum up: Well, it's worth it. There are so many words, so little time. But we will start off 2016 with the reason for our existence. Two testimonials which we believe more than account for our 3 years of blog absence.

The first testimonial comes from Madam Asmah, the Employment Support Specialist from SPD

"...Joycelin has been working with The Creative Clay Company since 2012.
Joycelin used to be a timid person with low self-confidence. Ever since she joined The Creative Clay Company starting off as an apprentice, Joycelin has gained an eye for detail in her work. Besides gaining financial independence, Joycelin’s physical dexterity has also greatly improved. Joycelin is more confident and independent now. She is also very proud with her work and has better self esteem compared to when she started.

The Creative Clay Company, with their strong belief in PWDs, has helped Joycelin improve her life and life values. The Creative Clay Company has been very supportive and never fails to give encouragement on her work. This is an achievement that not a lot of organizations have achieved."

Thank you Madam Asmah for your encouragement.

And a heartfelt word from Joycelin herself:

"My Journey with The Creative Clay Co. has been a life-changing experience for me. I've learnt as an apprentice in clay arts that i have to be teachable and an open heart to learn and to have mature trust toward my mentor. Even if you've been corrected or scolded by your mentor, it is ok because it's just makes me stronger. Because the leader who corrected me is the person who truly believe in me even if i fail a thousand times or have some form of learning disabilities. I also do my best to be happy because Joyful people create joyful art :)

In Clay Art I need to be Accurate, Consistent and Fast; and I will achieve this when I practice and put my heart and soul to it. I also have to be open to feedback by my teacher and coach, Mr Leonard, as well as my customers.

As I get to know and learn from The Creative Clay Co. (Mr. Leonard), I also got to know him in person. Through this professional and caring mentor-apprentice relationship, the fear of male-mentors just slowly went away and healing began to take place. Now I am healed by God’s grace of anti-social and fears of man-mentor.

Clays heals and break barriers. Clay arts is a universal language that only the artist can understand yet when it’s shared around it’s a masterpiece to be inspired. :)"

Hopefully these testimonials have enabled us to be accountable for our 3 years of online blog absence.

Here's to 2016! Fom the founder, leonard:
"2016 will be challenging, on the training front. However, i remember that in al things that there must be trials in order to have testimonies. So we courageously press on to give you the best quality handmade clay craft which are unique to us!"

MORE STORE OPENING SPECIALS!!!

Hi Everyone! We are promoting our 100% uniquely handmade clay products over this period of two weeks! Hurry down to our store at http://thecreativeclayco.storenvy.com/
For now, we give you an offer which we JUST rolled out!
A picture tells a thousand words and so we'll let the pictures tell you!
Just email us your interest at tcclay@gmail.com

HURRY WHILE STOCKS LAST!

Have you visited our Store Yet?

Thecreativeclayco's online shop took the founder two years plus to envision. After spending seven years playing with air-dry clay and teaching it to children, young people and adults, we have decided to showcase it in an online store. http://thecreativeclayco.storenvy.com/

We want this to be part of our grander vision of providing opportunities to the less privileged - specifically people with disabilities. Managing double bottomline? Thriple bottomline? It's really challenging. When we mean challenging, we mean more than the usual challenges: Besides the 4Ps, we have the social mission - the HR policies, and the need to rise up to the marketplace competition - stiff competition in the face of rising inflation and weak growth, to do well AND to do good.

And we don't want people to buy from us out of sympathy; and I believe our PWD staff don't want that either. We want every customer to buy from us because there's a need to be filled, a demand to be met, and a product that can attract. In other words, we want people to appreciate the 100% hand-made products as a thing to be appreciated.

What's the road ahead? We don't know. But we will do our best to make it a good company that stands out from the crowd, not just in Singapore but also in Asia and the rest of the world.

We are focusing on Scalability, Sustainability and Sociability. We will also try to provide integration of the PWDs with the rest of the company staff and to make ourselves a truly barrier-free organisation.

In the recent Social Enterprise conference, these words, said by someone, still rings in my ears: What separates one human being to another is OPPORTUNITIES.

We want mre opportunities and we will work very hard to create opportunities for ourselves and for our less privileged staff.

Will you give us and yourself an opportunity to make their lives better?

Buy from us.

Make this Christmas a more meaningful one for yourself by patronising us, a social enterprise that provide opportunities for ourselves and the people with disabilities. We know that this term PWD is actually not very accurate.

It should PWO - People With Opportunities.

Have a joyful and meaningful Christmas.

Up Close and Personal - Joycelin

Joycelin joined Peak Paradigm and Thecreativeclayco as a clay craft apprentice. Her Cerebral Palsy caused her to be unable to walk. But boy, her hands can surely do clay handiwork!

She will be packing, later producing handicraft for sale. She is seen here receiving her first day gift - a set of clay tools. We appreciate her joyful and can-do spirit!

We asked Joycelin to tell us her story:

Joycelin Toh’s Story


Engaging with art and craft has been my burning passion since childhood, especially clay art. Clay art making and painting gives me great joy and contentment. I’ve made many pieces to give to friends and others during birthdays or other seasons. My friends love it and say it’s beautiful.

I have participated in art competitions and some of my art work has been displayed around Singapore. In one competition when I was with the Spastic Children’s Association School, we entered a team competition to decorate a big starfish and we won first Prize.


I went to two Special Schools – Asia Women’s Welfare Association School (AWWA) and Spastic’s Children Association School (SCAS). In my two special schools teachers taught me how to do art and craft and enjoy doing arts from then on I fell in love with art.

Besides art, I have also participated in other competitions like swimming and horse-riding. All these competitions helped me to gain more confidence, courage, joy and boldness in life.

I graduated from Spastic Children’s Association School in 2010 and joined Society for the Physically Disabled (SPD) in July 2010 to take up the IT Apprenticeship Programme. Later on I went onto the Techwerkz Programme, learning data entry skills.


I joined Peak Paradigm in December 2012 through the help of my Job Placement Officers. I want to do my best and bless others in my clay art as I sell to them to our customers.

A Fresh Start to THECREATIVECLAYCO!

Today marks the start of our new social enterprise blog, THECREATIVECLAYCO.blogspot.com! We employ people with disabilities as clay craft artists, administrative and other positions with the aim of empowering them and giving them opportunities. All of us need opportunities and that's why we see fit to start a social enterprise.

We need your support! Our online retail store will be opened very soon and we hope that you will like our 100% handmade clay handicraft and buy them for use and enjoyment.

We will be making more announcements very soon.

Thank you!

www.jumpingclay.blogspot will be changed!

Hi everyone! www.jumpinclay.blogpot.com will be changed to www.thecreativeclayco.blogspot.com from 2/12/12!

We look forward to an new and exciting journey with the new social enterprise which we have recently started. We are a social enterprise who employs people with disabilities to give them gainful employment. That's our mission. And we need your support! Thanks!

Faceoff beween King of Pigs and Red Angry Bird

So you think you know a lot about Angry Birds? Here's some interesting facts, from
http://goo.gl/KyJ40


1.Angry Birds was made by a team of four people and took eight months to finish because it was such a low priority for the company.
2.The game cost less than £70,000 to make.
3.Angry Birds fans include public figures as diverse as David Cameron, Paul Gascoigne, Kylie Minogue, Conan O’Brien and Jon Hamm, Mad Men’s Don Draper.
4.It has sold more than seven million copies on Apple’s iPhone.
5.After the raving red hot game, the Angry Bird Space is launched as a paid version.
6.Rovio Mobile developed more than 50 games, with relatively little success, before finally striking gold with Angry Birds.
7.The Angry Birds beta for Android hit more than one million downloads in three weeks.
8.Twenty different Angry Birds toys will be released early in 2011.
9.Peter Vesterbacka, Rovio's official spokesman, has the job title 'Mighty Eagle’.
10.Speaking of unusual titles, one of Rovio's game testers was nicknamed the 'Rovio Killer' because he was so bad at their games.

It's one the games which i consider highly innovative!

What THECREATIVECLAYCO Stands For

We are so proud of our social enterprise. Thanks to the generosity of Angela Kong who collaborated with us to do this at an unbelievably record-breaking time! Pro Bono!

Our beneficiary are the special needs - We focus on the special
needs individual ('i') We assess their strengths and train them; we give them opportunities - then they give back to the organisation. ('O') When that happens, there'll be a smile on our faces!

And that's precisely what THECREATIVECLAYCO Stands for!

Meet our new staff!

Meet our staff! Joycelin (picture, right) joined THECREATIVECLAYCO. as a clay craft apprentice as she has a passion for clay craft.

Joycelin says: "Arts have been my burning passion since childhood and making clay art and painting them gives me great joy and contentment.

I Joined Society for the Physically Disabled in 2010 to take up the IT Apprenticeship Programme then later the Techwerkz Pro
gramme. I want to bless others in my clay arts and sell to them to our customers."

When you buy our handmade clay craft, please know that part of the proceeds go to the training and development of our special needs staff.

Say Hi to Joyceline when you see her :-)

We use many varieties of air-dry clay as we are constantly innovating :-)

Introducing THECREATIVECLAYCO!

Hi Everyone! We have recently registered a new company, a social enterprise, under this name THECREATIVECLAYCO. We have considered a long while to do this. Why? We figured: "Why just slog to meet the double-bottomline? Happiness is not just dependent on making money. Why not involve the less priviledged in our quest to return something back to society?"

Thus the birth of THECREATIVECLAYCO. We aim to benefit people with disabilities by employing them, training them to use air-dry clay to create beautiful art objects for sale. This will generate income for themselves. In this way, they have gainful employment, get training in lifeskills and in the process become self-confident.

This, we feel, is very much aligned to our government's aim of creating opportunities for the less priviledged in Singapore.We feel very much that this is not just a commercial strategy but deep down inside us, we want to do this. So we need your support as well. The special needs staff will learn workplace communication skills and other relevant skills which will enable and empower them to be effective contributors in the Singapore workforce.

On 2/12/2012, our blog will be changed to THECREATIVECLAY.BLOGSPOT.COM to reflect the change in our business identity.


Will we survive in this cut-throat industry? We think so! Firstly, we are versatile with many types of air-dry clay. We started out with the Korean brand but the price started to increase astronomically. At the same time, so many varieties of air-dry clay emerged in the market.

Secondly, we believe innovation is surpreme in the art and craft industry, just like in any area of business. The real innovation is not hiding behind patents and sueing people who infringe them. True innovation is in one's brains. I quote Dr Ting Choon Meng, HealthStats International CEO, who has 80 patents to his name. More importantly, he's a doctor with a heart - his inventions tackle the scourge of diabetes, one of the main killers here in sweet Singapore (no pun intended).

I quote him in today's Straits Times - Opinion Page, A37. He says: " In research institutes, the KPI tends to be filing patents. To them, IP equals patents and patents equals IP. This could not be further from the truth. Look at Coca-Cola. Its recipe, a trade secret, is kept inside the safe. Imagine if it filed a patent, the whole world would know what Coca-Cola is made of. You need an IP strategy, which means thinking of the business model, then working backwards to decide what to do - to file, not file, keep secret, brand, whatever.

The second thing about IP is that everybody thinks we file a patent, have the product we can sell, then protect it, enforce it and sue infringers. But that is a very low form of IP. The highest form is in the licensing of IP. That means i don't even need to make products; the IP is the product."

That's space-age thinking for all of us.

Thirdly, we will survive because we are not a big organisation. We are still a small fry who aims to do good. In our case - we help people with disabilities. It is not a business strategy per se. It's a human condition which we want to see met. Big businesses are only concerned about profits - however necesary they might be. Big people take a big hammer and hammer smaller people with a mallet. They also take time to change and adapt. Usually they do not have time to innovate, be creative, learn how to work and emphatise with the less fortunate. For organisations who do not speak the international language - which is still English, add in 5-10 more years for them to innovate.

Whatever, the case may be, we have moved on from using one type of clay to the dynamic use of many types of clay to suit different types of clay works. What's more important is that we want to help people with disabilities by giving them opportunities. That's why we need your support!

One More Thing: Please LIKE us on Facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/TheCreativeClayCo?ref=hl

Thank you and we look forward to an exciting start in our social enterprise, THECREATIVECLAYCO

Children's Art Camp!

These excited children were so happy to find out they were going to learn how to make a snowman wearing a scarf and the red angry bird! Their faces tell the story satisfaction and happiness :-)

The Creative Clay Challenge for Corporates

Being trained in Organisation Development and having a deep interest in management, i customise this programme for corporations from different industries. This is a recent one which as usual went successfully well. The participants had great fun and bonding as a result.

Starfish on a pebble

This is done for a very special occasion - the wedding of a friend. A memorable moment :-)

Magnetic Clay Stone!

The constant need to innovate is not only an economic need - in the world of art and craft, it is also a necessity. Which is why given a conducive environment with a reflective artist, innovations do take place.

This clay 'granite stone' is magnetic! The magnet is embedded in the clay. So, this artistic work is now a practical desk-top stationery! Check also at this URL for more innovative works: http://goo.gl/75cxE

Exhibition and Workshop

November 8, 2012. I was at the Pit Building. The F1 race was over but i was there to facilitate a workshop as a volunteer. This is the collaboration between me and another Social Enterprise, Social Change in Action. The audience? Young people. They enjoyed themselves! And so many wanted to buy the green pig but it was not for sale. Sorry :-)

Calm and Balance

Black and white is an extremely powerful combination. When these two colours are managed well in air dry clay form, the results are satisfying. Here, they look like granite stones.

Playing with AIR-DRY CLAY is GOOD for YOU!

When a child is given a piece of clay, he or she instinctively squashes, kneads, pokes and presses it. It is a wholesome and fun activity. Our air-dry clay is safe, non-flaking and non-toxic. Very simply, they dry by itself. It also leaves no mess (parents and teachers are happy with this!)

There are so many benefits of playing with clay:
1. It improves one’s gross and fine motor skills.
2. It helps one to be observant.
3. It improves one’s left and right brain functions.
4. It improves one’s self-esteem
5. In addition, shaping air-dry clay into shapes and figurines that one likes is
a fun, all-weather activity fit for all ages!!!

In a one-hour session, the child makes a few items which he or she will be able to bring home. All materials will be provided. It is enjoyable!
Contact us: peakpara@gmail.com or leonardkok@yahoo.com

Let the FUN begin!

Know Our Heritage Food Series 2 and 3

Hi everyone! Our Know the Heritage Food Series is officially over! The responses were good! If it interests you, we will put up 2 and 3. Let you guess!

Series 2: Which is the CLAY Belly Button Biscuit?
Series 3: Which is the CLAY Ang Ku Kueh?

Know Our Heritage Food Contest - Series 1

Besides using clay for facilitation, I have also started making handmade clay items for sale a few years ago. My latest concentrated efforts are focused on our "Heritage Food Series."

Under my company name, Peak Paradigm, I have also started organising a series of contests to promote our clay items for retail.

This is the first one in the series. Visit out FB page to join the contest:http://goo.gl/Es41w

Standard Contest rules can be found here: http://db.tt/QK1SdBmH