WesHanson.com

Technology

Games People Play

We’re just trying to get our heads around Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, squinting through the mourning veil we’ve donned for our beloved books (the real ones, not the “e-” variety), which Nicholas Negroponte of MIT’s Media Lab tells us will be gone in five years.

Now we’re being told “decade of social” is over. What? Already?

That’s the argument of Seth Priebasch, who writes in the Harvard Business Review (September 9, 2010) that the “decade of games” is upon us. While the last decade was all about connections and integrating a social fabric to every facet of our digital and analog existence, this next decade is all about influence. Oh, for heaven’s sakes!

When he speaks of games, Priebasch is referring to the underlying behavioral dynamics, not specific game software such as World of Warcraft and Farmville or hardware like Nintendo Wii and Xbox. These dynamics, he predicts, will alter such non-computer environments as customer service, workplace, entertainment, and shopping.

We should probably listen to him. He is 21 after all. And he’s the “Chief Ninja” (something oldsters quaintly refer to as “CEO”) of SCVNGR, a mobile gaming company funded by Google. “I tend to think of life as a giant game,” he writes, “a somewhat poorly designed for sure, but one big game nevertheless. I enjoy watching how game dynamics subtly, often invisibly, influence almost everything that everyone does.”

So that’s the game then: gaining influence, manipulating choices. The social network infrastructure was built so we could track and channel the traffic. Nice.

Games are certainly the rage. President Obama recently announced two video game design competitions, one to encourage students to get more interested in technology (the winners will get $50,000 worth of computer stuff for their schools), the other for pros to conjure up a game to spark young interest in science, technology, engineering and math.

Priebasch says there are seven game dynamics that can be employed to “get anyone to do anything.” His favorites:

  • The Appointment Dynamic — a “player” must return at a predefined time to take a predetermined action. Happy hours would be an example, as would the online game Farmville. He foresees health care companies using this dynamic to improve fidelity to medicinal regimens or the government to reduce traffic overload with financial incentives.
  • The Progression Dynamic – the player’s progress (score) is displayed and improves with task completion. Example: Activision’s World of Warcraft, with 11 million monthly players worldwide or a café that offers a free drink once you’ve purchased nine.
  • Communal Discovery — An entire community works together to solve a problem. can be used to solve immensely difficult problems in record time.

Malcolm Gladwell said later in an interactive discussion at NewYorker.com: “Oy. Save me. This is what drives me crazy about the digerati. They refuse to accept the fact that there is a class of social problems for which there is no technological solution. … Technology does not and cannot change the underlying dynamics of ‘human’ problems: it doesn’t make it easier to love or motivate or dream or convince.”

To which I’d like to add: people playing games to manipulate other people. What’s new about that? All through recorded history, you can read about that. In a book.

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ADDENDUM: Here’s a link to how businesses are using games to boost sales, training, and productivity: http://buswk.co/lQlVTg

Through a Tunnel, Darkly

Finally, through the gloom of our economic circumstances we can see a beacon. Thing is, it’s attached to an oncoming locomotive called the China Express.

The People’s Republic has left behind Japan, Germany, the UK, France and Italy. Already the world’s biggest exporter and energy consumer, it has its sights on soon overcoming longtime number one America.

But outside of bragging rights, why should we care? Why get our delicates in a twist? Nationality matters far less today than skill sets. Whatever your citizenry you can prosper — if you stay ahead of the train. (Indeed, some argue that countries are passé anyway. It’s the key global cities that matter: http://bit.ly/buP8Y2)

Determination to avoid irrelevance propels us to adopt new gadgets and adapt to new lifestyles. That’s why we’re all learning to communicate through social media, right? We were all going about our business just fine before its advent. And now you hardly engage the world without it.

Social media is increasingly where the jobs are — for instance in tourism, the world’s largest industry by some measures: http://bit.ly/c5zqGY.

No profession has changed more than journalism. Some newbies despair of entering a field in such economic upheaval (http://bit.ly/b029Er) while institutions like Columbia University scramble to keep up by offering a new degree in journalism combined with computer science.

Some things will stay the same, though – change for change’s sake be damned. You can’t afford to lose your authenticity as you continually refresh and refashion your skills. Your character is still and ever will be your greatest asset. That’s what customers, like friends, truly value. Don’t lose sight of that, for instance by focusing more on what you aspire to do than what you can realistically provide today. And then deliver.

Keeping Up With the Joneses

Sometimes when Monday rolls around and the blog is screaming for attention, you can’t help but feel a little “dial up” in a broadband world. Gotta keep going, gotta keep up … but, oh Lord, how?

You haul yourself to the computer to feed the little monster. You’re motivated by the fact that seemingly everyone else is doing it, breeders who have put a little bit of themselves out there to carry on. Technorati says there are more than 100 million blogs out there and proliferating quickly — along with Facebook pages, Tweets, and whatnot. One must keep up with the Joneses — and the Ramirezes, Chans, and Nahasapeemapetilons.

What’s the reward for this ceaseless communication? Recognition, influence, and customers (if that’s your bag). I seek an engaged readership and the off-site SEO (links from other sites) that catches the eye of search engines. But that all comes only after you nurture your little bundle past its vulnerable (to say nothing of messy) infancy. At this point, most people avert their eyes. That’s OK, I don’t take it personally. I don’t think my baby’s ugly.

At some point, however, it really may take a village to raise this child, so I hope others can assist the little fellow’s long-term prospects. Which isn’t a hint for birthday presents, but an invitation to contribute some content with your comments.

Internet vs. Books

The Internet makes so much information available so quickly and to so many that it feels like a fount of endless and everlasting knowledge. It’s not.

To know is to learn. The Internet feeds conversationalists, but can’t compete with books for forming students’ minds.

But, wouldn’t you know it, there are two schools of thought on the matter. One, exemplified by Nicholas Carr in his book “The Shallows,” thinks the Internet is a flashy, link-happy distraction the erodes the ability to think deeply.

Backing that up, researchers recently found that the disadvantaged students who read books (of their own choosing) over the summer had significantly higher reading scores than similar students who didn’t. Another report on 27 countries found that kids who grow up in a home with at least 500 books stay in school longer and do better. Meanwhile, a recent Duke study of a half-million 5th through 8th graders in North Carolina found that the spread of home computers and high-speed Internet access coincided with major declines in math and reading scores.

Another group maintains the Internet benefits education because playing computer games and conducting online search heightens attention and the ability to process information.

New York Times columnist Richard Brooks recently adjudicated this debate and shared the interesting observation that it’s not the mere presence of books in a child’s private life but the change in the way the students see themselves as they build a home library. They see themselves as a distinct group called “readers.” [http://nyti.ms/booksforlearning]

The book reader begins as a novice and builds his knowledge brick by brick, layer by layer. The egalitarian and youth-oriented Internet scoffs at such hierarchy and at the book learner’s respect for the authority of masters. These different cultures foster different types of learning, as Brooks points out.

The Internet is great at keeping you “with it” on current events, figures, and trends. But literary culture – with its requirement that you defer to greater minds and respect the authority of the teacher – is better at cultivating the mind. It ranks the greater over the lesser, the important over the unimportant.

It’s Google’s Universe, We Just Live Here. Find Out Where…

You know that people looking for particular goods, services or information find your website by conducting a search through Google. But do you know how it works? Of course you don’t, unless your last name is Page or Brin. The methodology and mathematical formula that drives the company’s dominant position in search is secret. Really, really secret. Now, in a move akin to stealing Coke’s recipe, PPC Blog has diagramed how it thinks Google search works. It’s worth studying [http://ppcblog.com/how-google-works] to learn how your potential customers and readers might find you by rummaging around in electronic universe. Just remember that having a fully optimized website can’t deliver everything you need and desire. There’s also social media, a whole other galaxy to master.