Gamification?
I want a badge for everything I do. Who do I talk to about that?
Increasingly, everything I do seems to want to pat me on the shoulder and say ‘Hey, guy, good job!’ I admit: I like it. The group over Gamify defines this theory: “Gamification is the concept that you can apply the basic elements that make games fun and engaging to things that typically aren’t considered a game.” They say it’s going to completely change the way we interact with the world. I’m not sure I buy that, but there are definitely some things to pick up and use in marketing – specifically online marketing.
Rewarding users and providing positive feedback for doing what we want them to do can be the difference between someone staying or going. Taken a step further, it can lead them to come back for more, which, in turn, allows you another opportunity to talk to them (let’s be honest, to sell to them).
It’s not the solution to every problem, but it might be a cool solution to some of them.
The Ghost Club Storyscape: Designing for transmedia storytelling
SMXL partner Jason Nunes is one of the co-authors of The Ghost Club Storyscape: Designing for transmedia storytelling, a paper by Hank Blumenthal, the producer director of the feature film, The Ghost Club. Jason co-wrote and acted in the film.
Here’s the abstract:
One of the key questions about transmedia storytelling is how to design a participant’s experience across different media so that it is connected and perceived as a whole. We extract four components for building such connections from current work in media studies and production literature and practice. These proposed design components are mythology, canon, character and genre. To test this approach we have designed and developed a group of connected digital media expressions, The Ghost Club Storyscape, to experiment with these four ingredients on multiple media.
The Power of Sticky Notes: Strategies for Identifying and Prioritizing User Experience Goals
Check out this excerpt (currently the lead story on theRockPaperInk blog) from SMXL partner Jason Nunes from Interactive Design: An Introduction to the Theory and Application of User-Centered Design, published by Rockport Publishing, and due out in September.
Roots and Leaves: Collaboration: Two minds come together to write and design a book
SMXL partner Jason Nunes and Funny Garbage Creative Director Andy Pratt are co-authoring a book called Interaction Design an Introduction by Rockport Publishers, which will be out in September. Andy wrote a great blog post about the team’s writing process, and collaboration in general. He makes some great points. Here are Andy’s key ingredients for successful collaboration:
- Trust and respect: Everyone on the team must trust each other and know that the other team members will deliver. Don’t focus on what others are doing. Don’t micro manage. Do what you do and do it well.
- Egoless team members: Confidence is important. Be confident in your skill set, your opinions, and your voice. But listen to what others have to say and let others talk. Collaboration is about dialogue. Your contribution is not measured by how much you talk. It’s measured both by what you say and how you listen.
- Clear responsibilities: Everyone needs to be clear on who owns what. Other team members should be able to critique. After all, you’re working with professionals who bring their own experience and opinions. A project manager should be able to give their opinions to a designer, a developer to a user experience designer, and so forth. However, in the end, the owner of that decision or task needs to make the final call. And because there is mutual respect and trust within the team, everyone should be comfortable with that.
What do you think? When you collaborate what are your ingredients?
A Look Back at SXSWi 2011
The last post I wrote for the Samsung Press Corps. It was a lot of fun and I hope to do more writing in the future. Stay tuned…
A Look Back at SXSWi 2011
by Meghan Scibona, Published: March 17, 2011
As a fifth-year attendee of SXSW, I can definitely say that this year’s event did not disappoint. Here’s a roundup of some of the interesting things I noticed during the five days of SXSWi.
The Moguls of Food Porn in the Press
From
SXSW Eats: Food panels during interactive festival
The Moguls of Food Porn
3:30 p.m., Monday, March 14
Nadia Giosia of the web series-turned-Cooking Channel show Bitchin’ Kitchenand Matt Armendariz of MattBites.com will lead a panel about everyone’s favorite subjects: sex and food. Food bloggers aren’t the only ones turning their obsession and passion for food into erotic prose about and lusty photographs. “The audience is sure to leave hot and bothered and hungry.”
From
SXSW coverage: What Makes A Good Panel?
Yesterday, I set about finding out what SXSW attendees think makes a good panel and got some good answer. It also got me thinking about the panels for which I’ve moderated or been a panelist. The biggest fear I always have is not presenting to the level of the audience. Two years ago I moderated a panel on low budget filmmaking. As a filmmaker, when you finally get a small budget to make a film, what do you spend it on? Camera, location, crew, talent, hot lunch? We weren’t sure whether we would be talking to first time filmmakers or experienced pros. We did a show of hands at the beginning but we weren’t tweeting at the time. That would have helped. As Colleen Newvine points out in the article below, you should always been checking the feedback during the panel, so you know what’s happening for the audience and you can connect with them.
SXSW Commentary on Content Curation
A bit about content curation. We here at SMXL have quite a bit to say about content curation. Stay tuned. Jason Nunes and I will blather on about it in the next day or two. In the meantime, the post from the Samsung site:
Cut through the Noise with Meaningful Content Curation by Meghan Scibona, Published: March 13, 2011Yesterday afternoon there was an impromptu panel at the Samsung Blogger Lounge on the future of content creation. During this session, we took a look at the key to effective content curation and how it’s evolved beyond simple automation.In attendance were Leslie Bradshaw, President and COO of JESS3, Sam Decker, CEO of Mass Relevance, Jeremiah Owyang, Partner at Altimeter Group, and Steve Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify.net and author of Curation Nation.
SXSW Cares: an inspiring story
I met these two wonderful ladies in the blogger lounge yesterday. In the past 27 hours they have now raised $13,000 for the American Red Cross, to aid Japan.
One of the founders, Leigh Durst said it was an interesting problem. At SXSW there is so much talk about who is influential. How do you reach influencers? These three founders, Leigh Durst, Deb Ng and Rob Woo have become overnight influencers. Sitting in the blogger lounge I’ve had a front row seat to all the excitement behind what they are doing. It’s very exciting.
SXSW coverage: interactive panel “Asleep in the Classroom: A Wake Up Call from Tomorrow”
My first blog post from SXSWi. It was inspiring to hear all the ways that technology can help education, even if not enough is being done yet. It seems like technology companies have a huge opportunity to continue to invest in education and to donate resources. I hope they continue to see the upside.