Workshop

Joan and Lloyd did.

Joan and Lloyd met at a dinner party. Lloyd worked at the Carnegie Corporation, a philanthropic foundation focused on education in New York City … he was increasingly frustrated that poor and minority children always seemed at an educational disadvantage. When watching his 3 year old daughter reciting ad jingles off television he had an idea … but who to talk to?

Joan worked in educational television … she’d conned her way into a TV producer job though she had absolutely no experience … but things had gone well and she now had a local Emmy award under her belt.

At the dinner party Lloyd asked Joan if television could be used to help educate children. Joan didn’t know but was intrigued and spent 3 months interviewing educators and researchers to find out … and she summarized her results in a report … “The Potential Uses of Television in Pre-School Education” which suggested that advertising techniques that worked with kids like 3 year old Sarah could be used for a pre-school, entertaining and educational television program that appealed to both kids and parents. With the report in hand Lloyd and Joan hit the street and raised the necessary funding.

Today, 50 years after that dinner party, the first television program that came out of what Joan & Lloyd called the Children’s Television Workshop is famous worldwide, has won over a 100 Emmys and kids and parents still count on it today …. Sesame Street.

Sesame Street a great idea … because testing your ideas with friends over dinner can maybe change the world.