Archives - August 2010


Gaming goodness

My passion for play and belief that the principles of game mechanics & playfulness are not only a Very Good Thing, but a brilliant means of encouraging behaviour change, is something I bang on about a lot here. No great exposition here, just a few examples of gaming-related awesomeness I recently came across:

Playmakers

Playmakers from thinkpublic on Vimeo.

From film maker & social innovator Ivo Gormley (of Us Now and Think Public fame), I only recently discovered Playmakers, a film exploring the world of pervasive gaming, and specifically following the fantastic Hide and Seek crew & their development of a new game & how it explores the use of public space. Not sure quite how or why I managed to miss this one, but v. glad I saw it – well worth a watch.

 

The Good Gym

Again, it’s not a new one, this one’s been around for quite a while, but I’ve only just stumbled across it, and it’s a good ‘un so thought worth sharing just in case. The Good Gym is another project from Think Public, also backed by the fantastic guys at Social Innovation Camp, Headshift and UnLtd. Loneliness is a big problem amongst older people in the UK. 13% of people over 65 in the UK say that they always or often feel lonely, and 17% of those living alone see family and friends less than once a week. At the same time, lots of us younger (and not so young) folk know we should be getting fit but going to the gym is very isolating – and in many ways a wasted resource:

In gyms all over the country people all over Britain work away furiously; peddling, pushing, lifting, running and achieving no external benefits. The Good Gym aims to harness this energy by making it easier for people to channel this energy towards social good.

It’s a pilot project in Tower Hamlets that aims to link up people who want to get some exercise with older people who may be in need of some company. I heard about it on a recent episode of Shift Run Stop, where Ivo Gormley talked about how it was tapping into our existing behaviours and trying to use them for good by making them much more fun. So instead of going to the gym, you go for a run, and go and visit someone you’ve been matched with. Maybe you bring them a paper. Maybe you have a nice cup of tea and a chat. You get fit, and you bring people together. Happy days – awesome stuff.

 

EpicWin

I love love love the idea behind this one. I talked about Chore Wars in my Playful talk about changing behaviour through play, and this is like Chore Wars on steroids. EpicWin is an iPhone productivity app with a difference – instead of just ticking off items on your to-do list, it turns them into a game:

Rather than just mentally ticking off your chores, completing each one improves and develops your character in an ongoing quest to level-up, gain riches, and develop skills. Doing the laundry is an epic feat of stamina so why not get stamina points for it?!

The more you do, the further you will journey and the further you go, the more loot you will uncover and the more your character will level-up in skills and stature. And unlike traditional videogames you’ll then benefit from a tidier home, a more organised working day or succeeding in whatever other life goals you wish to achieve.

The app is a join venture between the awesomely talented Rex ‘Rexbox’ Crowle (of LittleBigPlanet fame) and Tak Fung (of Fox vs Duck fame). If you’re a hardcore GTD-er then this probably isn’t for you. But if you’d like to inject a sense of playfulness into your to-do list, it kicks ass.

 

Gameful

Gameful is the newest initiaive from the truly kick-ass Jane McGonigal. In her own words:

I’m Jane McGonigal, and I gave that TED Talk in February 2010 [about how games can make a better world]. And now, as a result, I get about 50-100 emails every week from really interesting people who are: passionate about positive impact games and looking for potential collaborators; launching a start-up, and looking for employees or co-founders; seeking advice or mentors; looking for co-authors for papers, or co-panelists for conferences; need someone they can interview for a book, or a news, magazine, TV or radio story; and most importantly, looking for a world-changing game they can play TODAY.

I want to put all these people in touch with each other, so we can all make and play more good games together. That’s why I’m starting Gameful….Gameful is an online “Secret HQ” where you can connect with other people who believe in the power of games to make us better and change the world.

Jane defines good games as any game that’s dedicated to making some kind of real positive impact on the players’ lives and the world around them: games that make us happier, smarter
stronger, healthier, more collaborative, more creative, better connected to our friends and family – better at whatever we love to do when we’re not playing games. (The aforementioned EpicWin app is given as one such example.)

There are lots of brilliant projects being supported and crowd-funded via Kickstarter, and this is one of my faves – I’ll definitely be pledging my support, and I can’t wait to see what’s developed & nurtured by Gameful. Good times.

 

Gaming Brands

Last, but by no means least, is the fantastic IPA Diploma dissertation from my old uni-mate and super smart planner at BBH, Tim Jones – Gaming Brands. Tim doesn’t just look at gaming as a means of delivering great communication, he looks at game mechanics as a way of approaching brand planning itself:

Gaming Brands is an approach to brand planning that applies the principles of gaming to brand building. This approach represents a fundamental shift from building brands as message transmission devices, to building brands as behaviour change systems. This approach is firmly rooted in established human psychology, leveraging our predisposition to ‘game’ life to further the commercial aims of brands operating in the modern world. Gaming Brands has implications for those who understand consumers as active participants and wish to build truly interactive brands to suit their needs.

You can read the full dissertation at the site above (and I’d def recommend doing so, it’s a very thought provoking read) and in true gamer-style, Tim’s hidden a number of easter eggs within the essay itself. Playful academia FTW!

August 24, 2010 in Communication, Inspiration, Play | Permalink | 1 Comment

Week 2

[ photo courtesy ]

So in the grand tradition of weeknotes, I’m posting this one a bit late. I’m also not going to flog a dead horse – if I’m simply too busy doing then I’m not going to sweat missing the odd week too much, equally if I’m struggling for stuff to write about then I shan’t inflict my waffle on you, dear reader. But I’d like to try and see if I can use these as a way to look back on the overall process & journey of going freelance, as well as to reflect on some of the things I’ve been thinking about during a given week.

So, week 2. My time’s principally been spent working on the Goodby project, which has been really interesting and a terrific learning curve. Interesting firstly because it’s a knotty problem (and as a planner, they’re the very best kind) with an open-minded client, and a super-smart team of folks back at the ranch in San Francisco. But also interesting from a practical point of view, being that I’m working mainly at home, and triangulating between an agency team on the West Coast, and a client team split between London and Geneva.

Working at home definitely has its benefits – no commute (although the down side of this is limited opportunity to get Chromaroma points!), and the novelty of being able to work in your pyjamas has its own appeal! Avoiding distractions is pretty much the same as it would be in an office, insofar as the main culprits are net-related (email, twitter, IM, google reader, facebook, general noodling around), so the discipline required to remain focused isn’t much different. I’m finding the main difference is that working at home means you don’t have the banter and human contact that you get in the office, so the temptation to get distracted by email, IM, twitter etc is perhaps greater, as it’s the main outlet for talking to other people…..and being somewhat, er, chatty (read: gobshite) it’s definitely something I crave!

It’s looking like my next major project will be for a brilliant agency: until it’s totally confirmed I don’t want to count my chickens, but having met with some awesome people there and had some firm discussions about coming in to spend some time with them, I’m excited about the coming months. So if all goes according to plan, I’ll be based in their lovely offices for 4 days of the week, and working from home on other stuff on the 5th. Also got some shorter consulting gigs lined up before then (more to follow on those) so things are filling up.

I think that if I were going to be working from home for any considerable length of time, I’d probably want to look into a co-working space, both because my other half works from home (and as a record producer with a full studio setup in the second bedroom, it’s not necessarily the quietest place to work, plus I can more easily relocate to another desk, whereas he can’t so easily move a studio!), and because I think I’d go a bit stir crazy spending all my time at home. That and I do quite like making a separation between work and home – at uni I always liked to work in the library rather than in my room, so that I could mentally separate work from non-work, and I’d like to think of our living / dining room first and foremost as somewhere for relaxing rather than my office.

There are several brilliant options near me – including the Islington Hub, the King’s Cross Hub, the newly-launched TechHub in Shoreditch, and the Hub Culture Pavilion a little further afield in Soho. My discerning friend (and producer extraordinaire) Antonio Gould has spoken very highly about the King’s Cross Hub, but would love to hear from anyone else if you’ve spent any time in any of these space (or indeed have any other suggestions that you’d recommend). I don’t have any immediate need but would be good to think about options as and when – the attraction of these spaces being the opportunity to sit amongst likeminded people, and crucially, reasonable rates with the flexibility to spend more or less time there as needed.

In other news, I had a great catch up with the always-incredibly smart Chris Thorpe about his hot-off-the press FirstPlaces to support Race Online 2012, which gave me tonnes of food for thought. I was gutted not to be able to come along to Young Rewired State on Friday (thanks to the wonderful Tiffany St James for the invite) but am really excited by all the fantastic innovation which came out of the day, and never ceased to be impressed at what great stuff happens when geeks meet government.

On a more personal note, one of the factors behind going freelance was the need to try and manage my work / life balance better to get better control of my health – having spinal problems resulting from a broken back many years ago means dealing with chronic pain for the long-term, and what I’ve learned over the last few years is that the biggest barrier isn’t actually my condition, it’s me. I’ve treated my pain like an enemy needing to be vanquished, and my way of dealing with it has tended to be a case of charging on regardless and considering making any concessions to my condition as ‘giving in’ and ‘letting it win’. Which is of course bollocks. So a big focus for me personally is trying to get better control of my health and wellbeing by learning to respect my health issues and not trying to pretend they don’t exist, and thus to adapt my lifestyle accordingly.

I’m lucky enough to have a brilliant pain specialist who’s fantastically supportive, and a visit to the pain clinic last week to review medications and general pain management techniques was really helpful. There’s still lots of work to be done on the more practical things like getting back into a strength training / yoga / pilates regime, and actually doing the exercises given to me by my physio – but a huge part is the mental side of things. It’s something I’m going to have to live with, so acceptance is the first real step. I used to think I had accepted it, but the fact I’ve been trying to crack on without really acknowledging the need to respect my condition suggests that I really hadn’t. I don’t want to be one of those people who’s defined by a health issue – it’s not who I am, I’m many things, but I also have to recognise that it is a part of me that’s not going away any time soon. I’ve steered clear of personal stuff on the blog for the last few years, but writing this down feels like a positive step to me starting to actually deal with pain management, rather than just paying it lip service. So onwards, and hopefully, forwards.

August 12, 2010 in Weeknotes | Permalink | 2 Comments

Chromaroma at SCAMP

I’ve finally got around to posting up the talk I gave at the fantastic She Says SCAMP conference in July, and thought it would be an opportune moment to point it out in case it’s of any interest, and talk a little bit more about the very exciting project I spoke about.

She Says is a fantastic organisation – even though the world is roughly half men, half women, the same can’t be said for the creative departments of most digital agencies. So rather than moan about this, a group of women decided to do something about it, and thus She Says was born – an organisation which holds regular events for women in the industry to share good stuff and support each other to progress within the industry.

The London crew put on their first big event last month, called SCAMP, a conference about making creativity. The theme was ‘Work in Progress’ – since good ideas take time, they’ll go through lots of iterations, Ideas on a whiteboard, post-it notes, prototypes, many directions until the one presents itself as the final ‘thing’ everyone else sees. The aim of SCAMP was to share a diverse range of creative projects – with the added twist that whilst most conference lineups tend to be dominated by blokes, for this event this was turned on its head with one lone male speaking alongside a bunch of inspirational women. It was an awesome day with some incredible speakers, all sharing some fascinating projects, and it was most definitely an honour to be invited to share something I was working on.

As I mentioned in my first weeknote, the very talented Toby Barnes, of Pixel Lab, Mudlark and Playful fame, very kindly asked me if I’d like to get involved with Chromaroma, which turns commuting in London into a game. I’d spoken at last year’s Playful about the power of gaming and play to help change behaviour, so as you can imagine, this is absolutely right up my street. Chromaroma’s currently in closed alpha, although Season 2 has just started with another 300 new players added, so it’s still very early days, but I’m going to be helping with ongoing strategic development, and particular with existing and potential partners. I’m really excited about the potential for Chromaroma in helping change behaviour around transport (especially hopefully getting Boris Bikes on the system so you can be rewarded for cycling instead of taking the tube, for example), so there’s lots of opportunity to work more closely with TFL to get more & richer Oyster data, do more with it, and hopefully have lots of fun in the process. Not to mention where we could start to take it with other partners – gets the neurons firing and excited about the potential for who we could work with and what we could do. Happy days.

So at SCAMP, being as the theme was work in progress, I talked about the fantastic work that Toby and the team have been and are doing on this very exciting project, and some of the potential for where I was starting to come in. Below is the deck posted up on slideshare (annoyingly slideshare seems to have crunched some of the formatting on a couple of slides, grrr), or alternatively I’ve posted up the slides with accompanying notes (NB keen observers will note that the talk borrows heavily from Toby’s excellent talk at Future Everything, as Chromaroma is his baby seemed only right to tell its story in his own words!)

Chromaroma @ She Says SCAMP – Jul 10
August 11, 2010 in Talks | Permalink | Leave a Comment

Week 1

[ photo courtesy ]

Well there have been a few changes round these here parts. After a brilliant 2.5 years with the lovely folks at Naked Communications, having learned a hell of a lot and been privileged to work with some of the best & brightest minds in the business, I’ve made the scary but exciting decision to go freelance. I’m both shitting it and totally stoked about the opportunity to spread my wings, and get stuck into a whole range of different things with different people. But you don’t know unless you try, right? We’re always telling our clients to learn by do-ing and to fail faster, so I figured it was time I took some of my own advice.

And so following in some very fine footsteps indeed, and first initiated by my friends at the-then Schulze & Webb (now BERG) this also gives me the opportunity to have a crack at writing regular Weeknotes.

I think, and hope, it’ll be a useful discipline – it’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of whatever you’re working on at that particular moment in time, but just as I’ve always advised my clients of the importance of taking a step back and looking back at the bigger, aggregate picture, so too should I take some of my own medicine.

So here we are. Week 1 – my first official week working freelance.

People are wonderfully supportive. Over the last few weeks I’ve been lucky enough to have several chats over coffee with awesome folks who gave me some really helpful pointers, tips and general ‘things they wished they’d known about / done at the outset’ when they first started freelancing. Others have provided much-appreciated support when I’d have a bit of a freak-out about the fact I’d resigned my job without a job to go to, and what the hell was I doing? (Stumbling across David Hieatt’s recent observation that the three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary was also pretty timely).

T’interweb is, unsurprisingly, invaluable. There are some brilliantly useful resources online for the new and wet-behind-the-ears freelancer who’s just starting out, from the more obvious Business Link type stuff to Phil Gyford’s utterly fantastic A Beginner’s Guide to Freelancing (few years old but still pretty much essential reading).

I’ve still got a lot of admin to get in order. The CV & site need updating, and the portfolio I said I’d develop needs doing. But being obsessively anally retentive about organisational matters means I’ve rather enjoyed getting my paperwork and whatnot in order, and I actually love a good spreadsheet. Especially one with conditional formatting. (Yes, I am that tragic. Really).

I’d said I was going to take a few weeks off between finishing at Naked and starting work, to spend some time decompressing and catching up on all the stuff (i.e. life) that’s been utterly neglected over the last few months of being totally manic and flying round the world running workshops for Coca Cola (including 5 countries in 4 continents in 3 weeks. Sorry trees, my carbon footprint from May/June was horrendous). I’d been meeting with lots of people to line stuff up, but the plan was to have a bit of time off over the summer before kicking off.

Then a short but v. interesting project came up courtesy of the brilliant Gareth Kay, to work with the very fine folks at Goodby Silverstein & Partners on a piece of work for a UK-based client of theirs (I’m not sure that BERG-style project code-names are really my thing, so for now I reckon it’ll just be ‘the Goodby project’ or similar). All good stuff, smart people, an interesting challenge…. and also getting my first taste of working at home. I haven’t yet had a full-on day working in my PJs but as I was promised that this was one of the perks of going freelance I’m determined to have at least one pyjama-clad day at work. I’m sure my vision of a clothing-lite future is going to be a crushing disappointment, but that’s life for you.

Not quite week 1, technically week -1 (or week 0?), which I guess makes me a week behind already, but bugger it, I’m playing loose with the ‘rules’ and bunging it in this week’s note: last Thursday I also had the pleasure of joining some fine folks to judge Cadbury’s Pocketgame game creation competition, which was terrific fun as my good pal Willsh made playing games an integral part of the judging process itself – you can see what a terrible time we all had in this little film of the afternoon’s proceedings.

Even further behind, as it was at the beginning of July, but I haven’t yet written it up and so I’m now really really playing loose with the ‘rules’, I spoke alongside some really kick-ass women (+ 1 bloke) at the first (of, I hope, many more) She Says conference, entitled SCAMP, as the theme for the day was ‘work in progress’. I spoke about a project I’m very excited to be getting involved with – the fantastic Chromaroma, which turns the city of London into a game and makes commuting really magical. I’m chuffed to bits to be doing some stuff with people like the brilliant and lovely Toby Barnes (of, amongst many things, Playful fame….you are getting your ticket for this year’s event, aren’t you?) – got lots of interest about becoming an alpha tester from attendees of SCAMP, starting to get involved with some development stuff with TFL, and been invited to go down & share some stuff about the game with the nice people at BBH and Made by Many, as part of the ‘Meet the Makers’ series organised by Anjali.

Other stuff I’ve done includes:

Backed Bud Caddell’s awesome Bucket Brigade project

Met up with some brilliant people about future projects / opportunities to work together. Exciting.

Finished some great books (again this isn’t just this week’s reading, and I’m cheating as I went on holiday so this sounds a lot more impressive than any future weeks’ reading will be): highly recommending Cognitive Surplus, The Spirit Level, The Hell of it All, How Not to Grow Up and my current read, Elephants on Acid (and other Bizarre Experiments)

Still not seen Inception

August 1, 2010 in Weeknotes | Permalink | 2 Comments