Can Gaming Make the World Better?

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March 13, 2012 at 12:27 pm


SXSWi panel "Can Gaming Make the World Better?"

To kick off this Sunday morning of SXSWi, all those with altruist concerns congregated for the enlightening panel called “Can Gaming Make the World a Better Place?”. This panel was a must-see for I feel a strong, magnanimous aclivity for any person or organization working to improve the world and not just their bank accounts.

The panel consisted of 5 panelists from a diverse array of organizations and companies that utilize and employ gaming and “gamification” in their daily arsenal. The panelist line up included George Weiner from Dosomething.org, Adam Bosworth of Keas, Samantha Skey from RecycleBank, and Nadya Direkova game mechanic from Google inc. The overarching theme of this morning session was the potential of gaming and gamification inacting large scale good by providing incentives to educate and motivate end-users.

Fortuantely for us viewers, the panel was superbly moderated by Gabe Zicherman from www.Gamification Co. (great gamification blog with no room for shameless product placement). From the beginning, Gabe set the record straight and provided a great forum for discussion on a number of intriguing topics for instance reward systems and how its related inciting positive actions and results.

After much discussion, what stood out to this viewer was the battle-tested representative from DoSomething.org George Weiner. His repertoire of experience provided numerous, useful responses and many effective strategies regarding “inciting” a population with goals of deriving social good.

“Make it fun, everything must be fun in some sense. What we are terrified of is competition, there shouldn’t be a loser when competing for positive social change” -George Weiner, Dosomething.org

Adam Bosworth of Keas dispensed a number of health-related responses affording a unique angle to “Gamification” and human welfare. A number of queries he answered were situational examples relating his experience as a parent in order to clearly state his position or knowledge

“The primary goal is to have users constantly challenged to succeed and try to get people to compete against themselves instead of each other”

As you can see in the video above (with George), the world can be made better with gaming and “Gamification”. Those who are looking to impact the world with “Social Good” through Gamification need to focus on effective strategies and creative execution rather than shameless adoption resulting in countless failures.

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Your Computer is the Next Wonder Drug – A Shift in Thinking

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March 15, 2011 at 10:21 am


The amazing thing about SXSW is that the panel you go to may not be what you really expect it to be.  That experience happened twice for me on Sunday.  The first panel was a presentation put together by Jonathan Richman (@jonmrich).  Richman discussed using technology to lengthen our lives and provide a better quality of life. His point is stated quite succinctly.

How we can better leverage digital technologies (most of which exist today already) to dramatically improve our health. Developing a new drug is a gamble. The FDA approved only 21 new drugs last year. The amount spent on R&D by pharma companies last year?

$60 billion.

Something’s not working.

The argument is significant and at the same time, easily dismissed.  You may be thinking, “well of course…computers can help!”  However, the way technology is used may not be angled in the correct manner.  There needs to be a shift of thinking and understanding.  Rather than go point by point of his presentation, I offer of some of Jonathan Richman’s observations to start a conversation.

1. Data is the answer.  How do you get people to give up health data for people to study?  Make it easy for people.  Let them live their lives.  People write whatever they want on Facebook, how do they become comfortable sharing health issues?

2.  How do you break down the personal risk of behavior to individuals?  Everyone knows smoking is bad, but people still do it because they think it will effect everyone but them.

3. If Watson can answer every question on Jeopardy, why can’t he help diagnose disease and sickness?

4. How can we use social media to save lives and extend life?  Watch this video and see!

There are some amazing things we can do with technology.  Some may just help all of us!

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Process Journalism: Getting it First, While Getting it Right

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March 14, 2010 at 9:44 pm


I couldn’t have said it better myself…”journalism is a sausage factory.  It’s messy, but at the end it’s delicious!”

Those words led off the panel, “Process Journalism: Getting it First, While Getting it Right.”

It was a discussion of the ability to break news stories using technology, using social media and using citizen journalists.  Jesus Diaz of Gizmodo, Moka Panteges of Wikimedia, Monica Guzman of seattlepi and Robert Mackey of the New York Times spoke about using all three sources to do some really good journalistic work.  It was their point that you need to use all three of these concepts to be the all-encompassing journalistic outlet.

All three aspects intertwine and every panelist had a great way of discussing how to use them for journalistic purposes.  Robert Mackey used the example of covering the recent protests in Iran.  He noted that Iran has a good amount of bloggers and citizen journalists.  When the NYT used these sources, they were very transparent and pushed the fact that the NYT was having a “conversation” about the what was on the web concerning the protests.  For Mackey it is about using the web to find clues and there are multiple clues out there to find! For example,  he found clues about the validity of protest video on youtube by looking at street signs in the video and then checking them using google maps.  He also believes that user and reader comments are extremely important.  Those comments are usually from people who are passionate about a subject and know a ton about it.  Those comments help to verify clues on the web.

For Monica Guzman, Twitter has become an incredible tool.  “It’s one voice to make up many voices. It takes many voices to make up a story,” said Guzman.  When Seattlepi covered a citywide murder story, the Twitter feed from those in the city became an incredible source of clues to the story.  The tweet is a starting point and the journalist needs to use common sense.  However, Guzman shows that citizen journalists do good work.  They want to be reliable and in this instance, citizen journalists would correct themselves if there was a mistake.  ”People have always been police scanner junkies,” said Guzman.  “Now when there’s a crime, they tweet about it.” 

Moka Panteges discussed how Wikipedia is changing the world of the “overall story.”   Wikipedia entries become a dynamic articles that expand over time.  She understands that a Wikipedia article is not original reporting, but it is a real time aggregation of the news.  The numbers for Wikipedia are astounding.  There are 365 million unique visitors a month, with 15 millions articles in over 270 languages.  That’s a ton of eyeballs looking, editing and discussing posted topics.  Wikipedia puts an event into context.  It is the nature of the wiki-beast that over time the article becomes clearer and more accurate.  It’s a technology that needs to be understood.  While it is not a source, it is a starting place of real time news gathering.

It was Jesus Diaz who really brought it all together.  As a blogger, he broke the story about Steve Jobs and his deteriorating health.  As a blogger, he got a tip, he checked his sources, he broke the story, wrote it with journalistic integrity and then…got slammed for not being a journalist.  To be honest, it did not matter;  he had the story.  Here are two great write-ups!  I highly recommend reading the original blog post. 

Orignial Blog

CNBC tries to Catch Up with the Story

Thanks to Diaz, it is a perfect example of blogging beating the journalism elite.  It is time to recognize that blogs and citizen journalism do exist and they can do a damn good job!

Overall, the panel was incredible, as actual working journalists showed incredible examples of technology, social media and citizen journalism changing the face of journalism.  I think I see a crack in the ivory tower.

Oh if you want to check out the slides and information used…. Bit.ly/processjournalism  More great stuff from Jesus Diaz in the slides!

4 Comments | social media, Sunday, SXSWi, twitter, video, Wikimedia Foundation, YouTube | Tagged: , , , | Permalink

The Inside Workings of funnyordie.com

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March 14, 2010 at 4:30 pm


If you had 30 million page views a month, a deal with HBO for a weekly series and plans to start making movies, one would assume you had it all figured out.  For funnyordie.com CEO Dick Glover and Creative Director Andrew Steele, they are still figuring it out.

After over a decade of writing for SNL, Steele joined funnyordie.com, because he grew bored of the traditional medium.  He believes that the internet is a viable option at this point, but people are still trying to figure out the silver bullet.

Funnyordie.com has created a platform that works.  Besides the user generated comedy video content, they have been involving celebrities in the sketches they produce.  The set up works beautifully.  Their goal is to foster a place for talent to do whatever they want to do.  It can be anything from trying something new in a risk free environment, to supporting a cause or to even changing their image.

They do everything on the cheap.  This recent video combines a tremendous amount of talent….

Presidential Reunion

Everyone got involved for FREE!  Shot it on a Sunday, it was posted on that Wednesday.  Ron Howard directed this sketch and before shooting, believed that it would cost six figures.  Instead, it was under $5,000; most of that to pay for travel for the talent.  So how do you get Chevy Chase, Dana Carvey, Jim Carrey, Dan Aykroyd and the others in one room?  You give them a reason; the purpose of this sketch was to bring to light the need for financial reform.

Glover has been smart in the business structure as well.  His creative offices are based in Los Angeles and Hollywood.  The actual technology structure is based in Palo Alto and all the advertising sales and marketing offices are in New York City and Chicago.

While the platform of funnyordie.com seems to be working, much of the other things are a tad nebulous.  Glover laughed that they can guarantee eye balls, but they cannot guarantee how viral the sketches will be.  He said that just because it has a celebrity attached does not mean instant success.  They actually create office pools to try an guess what will be a success and what may not live up to expectations.

Do not take any of that as the venture being unsuccessful.  Their model of content is somewhat counterintuitive.  A stand alone niche website is supposed to fail.  Their site is definitely succeeding with seven million unique hits a month!

Along with the website and the HBO series, they are venturing into film making.  They are currently working on a single focused film with Tim & Eric.

The panel was Q&A based and at the end Steele said something that has really been echoed in many of the other panels this year.

“We are in a creative explosion. Everyone can make a video.  The one thing that drives all of this is hard work…you can be a movie maker in a second!  Go out there and do it right now!”

11 Comments | fans, Sunday, SXSWi, video | Tagged: , , | Permalink

Selling Sub-Culture without Selling Out

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March 14, 2010 at 2:08 pm


There is something amazing about listening to different people with different experiences and different expertise talk about the same thing.  It is especially amazing when the topic is as tough as the one of creating relationships between sub-cultures and the corporate world.  It all came together at the Sunday afternoon at the Selling Sub-Culture without Selling Out panel.

Publicist and people “connector,” Jeff Newelt, led a panel of smart and savvy sub-culture aficionados who discussed how corporations and those who are leaders in their sub-cultures can work together.  Panelists included artist, Molly Crabapple, founder of Urb Magazine, Raymond Roker, indie publisher and Curser founder, Richard Nash, and highly touted blogger Gala Darling.

It is important to define the term sub-culture.  According to the panel, a sub-culture is a participatory culture that is intelligent and does not care about the mainstream.  It should also be noted that sub-cultures will eventually become the mainstream and cycles of imitation are tighter and more intense than before.  According to the panelists, the idea of “selling out” seems to be dying.  It’s about making a living, but still keeping the core interests of the sub-culture within the creativity of the artist.

The panel was quick to point out that corporations should follow some rules when wanting to involve sub-cultures with their product.

1. Don’t become a culture vulture! Treat your artists or musicians well.  Toyota/Scion was a great example of a corporation working within a sub-culture to promote a product.  They helped to launch and sustain music careers of those that participated in the campaign.

2. Hire the original artist or musician; do not rip off someone’s art.  Corporations should work off of cultural DNA and not steal ideas. Nike killed their brand for skateboarding shoes by stealing an idea rather than asking to use the album cover.  It killed their campaign, because the sub-culture crushed it.

3. Corporations should hire listeners.  The listeners should research and understand the sub-culture they are wanting to involve.

4. Creative contests are EVIL! It devalues the artists’ work and it is basically crowd slave labor.  Corporations should do portfolio reviews and not ask 100,000 artists to design a logo.

5. Corporations should look to empower people of a sub-culture!  There may not be a huge monetary return in providing workshops, educational seminars or even health insurance for a year for skateboarders, but it creates loyalty in a brand.  By giving tools to a sub-culture to succeed, it is investing in creators and builders.

The leaders of sub-cultures, the artists, the musicians and the taste makers have responsibilities as well.  This is not a one way street.

1. Don’t become a Shilldibeast. Molly Crabapple said that a Shilldibeast is a greedy individual who just takes the corporate dollar no matter what!

2. Do not support a product you do not personally believe in.  This is especially important for bloggers.  The blogger should stay true to their brand.  Once people realize that their favorite blogger is being untruthful, the blogger loses credibility within that sub-culture.

3. Work with a corporation that makes sense for YOU!  The relationship should not be about a short-term gain for the sub-culture artist or blogger.  By going with a short-term gain, it creates brand erosion.  The relationship needs to be a win/win for both artist and corporation.

4. Do not lose sight of the fact that content is a way of connection.  It only works by sharing with others and engaging those people.  That engagement is what corporations are trying to tap in to.

5. Be a leader in your sub-culture! It is no longer…”if you build it, they will come.”  It is now…”if you build something AMAZING, they will come.”

While guidelines for working with corporations were discussed, Richard Nash stated that staying indie is still the way to go.  In the changing economic times, Nash believes that the indies can ride it out.  For an indie label or publisher, it is not about volume, but it’s about connecting with people.  It is time to let go of the industrial way and it is time to connect and create interactions with listeners and readers.  It is no longer the world of the shelf; it is the world of the tag.

On a personal note, it was amazing to hear people discussing issues I have been thinking about for the past year.  It was certainly fun to watch the panelists discover they were all on the same page.

3 Comments | culture, entrepreneurs, Sunday, SXSWi | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink

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