Feeding the Puppy

As Mary Poppins would say, 'The Job's a Game'...

Last year, when I was doing the IPA Excellence Diploma, I wrote an essay on the use of real time data to create daily, game-like interactions.  

You can read it here, if you're off the mind to...

A Spoonful of EasyJet

Ever since writing it, I've been particularly interested in creating work systems that incorporate elements of games.

Because as the principle behind 'spoonful of sugar' would have it, if you add an element of fun to a job, the job becomes a game.  And we'd all like it a lot more if our jobs were a bit more like games, yeah?

So I was very excited to find out about this forthcoming book...

Total Engagement
Using Games and Virtual Worlds to change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete 

 


Of course, I can't tell you owt about it, as I've only just ordered it from Amazon.  But the blurb certainly sells it to me...

"Implementing components of multiplayer computer games in the workplace will address a host of age-old problems. Games can not only stem boredom and decrease turnover, but also enhance collaboration and encourage creative leadership. Games require extraordinary teamwork, elaborate data analysis and strategy, recruitment and retention of top players, and quick decision making.

Recreating some elements of games - such as positioning tasks within stories, creating internal economies, and implementing participant-driven communication systems - can not only boost employee engagement but overall productivity."

Sounds really interesting, doesn't it?  I'm very much looking forward to reading it

(thanks to the tip off from the guys at Natron Baxter, an Applied Gaming outfit over there in that there USofA...)

Anyhoo, I think that it appeals so much because, as kids, my brother and I were big fans of 'God Games' like Civilisation, Populous et al, and like most blokes my age I've lost days to Championship Manager. 

 


If you're not familiar with the principles of such games, they are based upon an absolute mountain of data... with tens, hundreds or thousands of different characters, units and the like all needing your care and attention on a turn by turn basis. 

You've got a set objective at the end, of course, but the only way to win the game is to set that big objective aside, and deal with the game on a turn-by-turn basis.

So whilst your overall big strategy is there, it's actually much more important to continually pay attention to the thousands of smaller tactical decisions. 

The big strategy is as simple as 'win the space race' or 'defeat the other competitors'.  The methods you use to do that constantly change and evolve depending on the circumstances...

Is it possible to do it for companies?  Well, I believe so already... let's see what interesting examples and ideas the book brings when it arrives next week.

A Kindle Killer? Why bother?

I just saw this on Mashable... Barnes  & Noble (US book retailer) are launching a 'Kindle Killer'... it's called Nook apparently...

 


There's a huge part of me that's becoming increasingly sceptical about the whole eBook market (especially at the prices people are asking for them).  For various reasons...

"It's like the iPod for books" say some folks.  Well, no it's not.  The iPod was different.  It replaced other expensive devices (walkman, discman, minidisc etc) that people had to carry to listen to music.  A £200 iPod replaced a £110 discman or whatever.  That's a good deal.  Paying $279 dollars for a Kindle or Nook where no device existed previously... doesn't seem like a good deal

Then there's 'e-ink'... the ability of the Kindle et al to 'look like a printed page'.  Wow, you've spent all that time, energy and money to make something that looks like a static printed paper page.  Brilliant, well done.  You've just given everything on your device the exact same limitations that printed books have...

But the major thing bothering about me is that fact that the tablet is coming...

 

And not just Apple; Microsoft, Dell, Asus, Toshiba... everyone will make a tablet, like every phone manufacturer is trying to make an "iPhone"...

When tablets become competitively priced, you can pick up an device that let's you do everything an an eBook lets you do and everything a laptop does to boot (edit documents, surf the web, watch video et etc)...

...then why would you bother buying an eBook?

Winning the eBook war is a little like becoming the king of the dinosaurs... it may be good for a while, but something big's coming to make you all extinct...

I'm trying to win a bookcase from Faris

Yes, I'm trying to win a bookcase off Faris.  It's not really a long story, but it's one that you should go here to read about. 

But if that's 'the long', then 'the short' is that I needed somewhere to post the following up online.  And this is that place.

It's the entry on 'book reviews' in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  (With a million, million apologies to the late great Douglas Adams, of course).

 

I originally did this for the IPA Excellence Diploma last year.  It is an excellent thing to do, I recommend it.  Though it has made me one of those annoying fellows that quotes lots of stuff.

E-Book readers - excite us, please!

Nice comparison article from Wired here on the seven (yes, seven, where did they all come from?!!?) different competing E-Books that are now available to buy (though not all of them have hit this side of the pond so far).

Glancing through the specs though, not many feature colour screens.  The producers seem focussed on making the experience as similar to the look and feel of the printed page as possible.

Which yes, I can see why they'd do that; people are used to it, it's what probably they ask for in research groups - "can it look like a book please?".  Because that's what people they expect.

But as Akio Morita (Sony Founder) said about the first Walkman, 'I don't think any amount of market research could have told us that our product will be successful'. 

If you think about everything that's possible with a screen nowadays, making it replicate 'the printed page' is just a bit lame.  Why the hell would I want a £300 device that manages to look like a £5 book?

Come on, E-Book people, impress us a bit more... and excite us.