UCB SIMS INFOSYS 208B: Analysis of Information Organizations:

1
The First Slide
How I came here What Id like to
describe Games Ive known as first time
user as designer, programmer, producer as
father of twins as director of research for
Apples Advanced Technology Group as videogame
producer The Knowledge Community Pitch Games
Im Learning About as an Education Program
Consultant to Foundations Some things Ive
learned its all about the rules its all
about the stories its all about the players
2
GAMES IVE KNOWN as first-time user

• Animal (Twenty Questions)
• early 70s, Kiewit Hall, Dartmouth Time-Sharing
  System (DTSS)
• an algorithm an animal a community a
  menagerie
• managing the zoos (scrubbing)
• Football
• programmed by John Kemeny, RA to Albert
  Einstein, co-inventor of
• BASIC, President of Dartmouth College
• this is not the Pac 10
• Adventure
• with Hunt the Wumpus, the roots of MMORPG
• character development is in your head
• SimCity
• Created by Will Wright and discovered by Jeff
  Braun
• Based on a theory of urban ecology (hint love
  light rail)

3
GAMES IVE KNOWN as a designer, programmer,
producer (This, These, Things Like That)

• Tribunal and Demogame/Demoform/Demo
• designed and programmed in mid-seventies on DTSS
• a very specific historical concept (revisionism)
  and an orthodoxy toolkit
• The Would-Be Gentleman (FAD and Carolyn Lougee)
• wrapped in social history of the era of Louis
  XIV (very consuming)
• sequel 2003 a simulation engine (funded by ALLL)
• The TheaterGame (Charles Kerns and Larry
  Friedlander)
• solution for the Shakespeare is not just a
• extended individual performance into an all-role
  work product to share
• Mogul (Charles Kerns and Henry Breitrose)
• apprenticeship in the early movie industry,
  staff Adolph Zuckor
• emotional investment without historical
  liberties
• Shogai (coming of age in Japan) Alias (social
  science simulation toolkit)
• Harumi Befu and Brodie Lockard (mid-eighties,
  born of the age of the Mac and Hypercard)
• specific cultural context, generalized authoring
  environment (but needed coder)

4
GAMES IVE KNOWN as a father of twins (N gt 1)

• Cosmic Osmo
• published in 1989 by Cyan, distributed by
  Activision
• developed by creators of Man Hole, a
  Hypercard-based product, and then
• Myst
• my interest mousing for two
• Guess-A-Sketch
• produced by Digiplaent about 1997 closed down,
  reinvented in 2001
• my interest socializing with the world
  (2x1020)
• American Idol
• Fox Television, 2002-present, Simon Cowell,
  executive producer
• my interest my daughters participating in a
  small and a humongous
• community of players.

5
GAMES IVE KNOWN as Director of Education
Research at Apples Advanced Technology Group
(when there was one)

• Visual Almanac
• published in 1989 by Apples San Francisco
  Multimedia Laboratory
• collection of multimedia objects and tools for
  teachers kids to create with
• real attempt to get what digital media kids
  might use to express themselves
• Aspen Kids Project
• summer of 1990 at International Design
  Conference
• kids making collections of multimedia objects
  and manipulating them
• Wireless Coyote
• produced in 1991 by Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow
  (ACOT)
• kids in a canyon with all sorts of toys with
  which to do science
• MediaFusion
• produced in 1992 by Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow
  (ACOT)
• (software by Rick Borovoy, now Ph.D. from
  MIT/Media Lab see iBall and co-founder of nTag)
• kids on opposite sides of the continent talking
  issues

6
GAMES IVE KNOWN as videogame producer
Whats My Story?
7
GAMES IVE KNOWN as videogame producer
Whats My Story?

• What?
• CDROM published in 1995 by Digital Pictures,
  distributed by Brøderbund
• (back then, one of CDROM Todays Best 100
  Discs Ever)
• collection of movies of eight folk tales
• Individual story elements (scenes looped at cut
  represented by first frame)
• series of Story building exercises (e.g, pick a
  character, what is that
• characters worst fear, how does that character
  overcome their worst fear)
• childrens tales captured in audio while
  selected scenes are knit together
• music and sound effects studio collection
• designed for non-readers
• Why?
• help children learn to tell stories by giving
  them characters in context,
• exercises to practice and rich media
  accompaniment
• story tellers learn stories more avidly
• kids building stories alone or together have a
  lot of fun!
• to offset Sewer Shark, Night Trap, etc.

8
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCH
Pensare Knowledge Community

• What?
• middleware wizards wanted to do education VCs
  said, corporate training
• Executive education play
• three generations of collaborative platform,
  integrated Dukes DEEP
• IDEO collaborated on for time-based, self-paced,
  tool-oriented content
• Software Development Kit (SDK) for design,
  development and production

9
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHCommunities Abound

• Technology does not create communities, but,
  communities absorb technology

FROM, Learning Together, Working Better,
Michael P. Carter, Ph.D., Chief Learning
Architect, Pensare, Inc., Kompetanse 2001, Oslo,
Norway, 1 February 2001
10
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHCommunities Abound

• Gathering places have become virtual

11
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHCommunities Abound

• Exchange is its own reward

12
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHCommunity
Strategies

• Define and articulate your PURPOSE
• Build flexible, extensible gathering PLACES
• Create meaningful and evolving member PROFILES
• Design for a range of ROLES
• Develop a strong LEADERSHIP program
• Encourage appropriate ETIQUETTE
• Promote cyclic EVENTS
• Integrate the RITUALS of community life
• Facilitate member-run SUBGROUPS

(Amy Jo Kim, Community Building on the Web)
13
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHA Listening Post
14
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHA Sales Convention
without the Bar
See, also, Leadership MUD
15
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHAn Executive
Retreat without the Golf
16
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHArchitecting
learning together for better work

• Platform as Medium
• Content as Catalyst
• Tools as Learning
• Contributions as Centerpiece
• Collaboration as Value going Forward

17
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHPlatform as Medium

• Where things are timely and relevant to work

18
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHPlatform as Medium

• Where others know things you would like to

19
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHPlatform as Medium

• A place that complements the classroom

20
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHContent as Catalyst

• Content created with scholars and practitioners

21
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHContent as Catalyst

• Content is chunked to be accessible everyday

22
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHContent as Catalyst

• Content fits within technical and cognitive limits

23
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHContent as Catalyst

• Delivered to evoke insights into work life

24
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHContent as Catalyst

• Tools are designed to reinforce, capture, be
  useful

25
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHContent as Catalyst

• Tools work for you when you can do more or less

26
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHContributions as
Centerpiece

• Contributions represent learning and work captured

27
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHContributions as
Centerpiece

• Tagging the contribution makes it accessible

28
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHContributions as
Centerpiece

• Profiling puts people in touch with their works

29
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHCollaboration as
Value Going Forward

• Experts judge when they can, colleagues every day

30
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHCollaboration as
Value Going Forward

• A comment is worth a dozen contributions

See, also, CSILE from OISE www.oise.utoronto.c
a
31
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHCollaboration as
Value Going Forward

• When it cant wait, there is chat

32
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHCollaboration as
Value Going Forward

• As it evolves, there is threaded discussion

33
THE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY PITCHConclusions

• Unlike the meeting, the convention, the retreat,
  a knowledge community is a process, not an event.
  People continue to learn to work better together.

See, also, ChangeCompanion www.changecompanion.com

34
GAMES IM LEARNING ABOUT as an Education
Program Consultant to Foundations

• Immersive and Pervasive Games
• Pervasive games (Can You See Me Now? B.U.G. (Big
  Urban Game), )
• USE mobile and embedded technologies in novel
  ways
• FOR location specific contest aware challenges
  interactions
• TO CREATE mixed, augmented, or adjacent
  realities
• Immersive games (The Beast, Majestic, )
• ALL THAT, IN SERVICE OF
• unbounded, unframed, open-ended play in
  everyday wrap
• massive goal or solving a sprawling mystery
  cooperatively
• alternate realities .
• Unfiction in direct opposition to
  Machinima, but what a story cf. non-fiction
• according to Star Wars
  Galaxies
• The Runaway Game Spectacle and Performance in
  Networked Play, Jane McGonigal, UCB Center for
  New Media, at Story Engines Storytelling and
  Computer Games, Stanford U., 2/6/04.

35
GAMES IM LEARNING ABOUT as an Education
Program Consultant to Foundations
Designing Social Interaction in Games core
mechanic, magic circle, lusory attitude, the
metagame (and chording the controller) MMRPS
Massively Multiplayer Rock-Paper-Scissors There.c
om User-Created Content and the Metagame
(e.g.,TRLG, AdBo) World Game Player Lifecycle
Confusion, Excitement, Involvement, Boredom
(www.costik.com) Rich Bartles Player Types
Achievement, Exploration, Socializing, Imposition
(www.mud.co.uk.richard/hcds.htm) Nick Yee,
MMORPG motivation Achievement, Immersion,
Socialization, and Escapism (The Demographics of
Motivation www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000
753,php) Multiplayer Play Designing Social
Interaction in Games, Katie Salen, Eric
Zimmerman, Greg Costikyan, Kira Snyder, IGDC2004
36
The Last Slide
This, These, Things Like This (aka SDK, Mods,
Thereware) N gt 1 Technology will catch up to
people Follow the story Online communities are
made, not born (someone designed them) The
future is the users (Jarons law) its all
about the rules its all about the stories its
all about the players