Episode 60 – Bubbly Bubblers in Gamified Buildings

Phaedra, Michael and Michael were delighted to be accompanied by Ross Smith, Director of Test in the Skype division of Microsoft for this show, centered around games for employee engagement. Ross described the recent work that he and his team have done with giving personality to buildings and using the building itself as the ‘game master’, to orchestrate and facilitate employee engagement. Games for health One of the intriguing examples (also discussed in Episode 58, but without the benefit of Ross’s first hand experience) uses a water cooler with personality as the mechanism for gamifying health.  While drinking eight glasses … Continue reading

Episode 59 – Productivity and Pleasure

The gang’s all here and we continue our discussion from last week’s ethics episode. Do you believe that we have the right to be told all the usage of data gathered from any game we play? It it our right, even when the game is free? Is there any difference between games and free services such as Gmail or Facebook? Should the data collection be opt in or opt out? How often do you read the emails you get from your favorite games or services, where they may be changing the terms of service? We discuss all of this and … Continue reading

Episode 58 – Zombies vs Mummies

Porter Stowell joins Phaedra and Michael M for a rockin’ good time across a broad set of topics for this week’s show. Phaedra shares her stories from the Serious Play Conference in Seattle earlier this week, highlighting how Ross Smith has created a building with personality to interact with the people who enter and use it. We playfully riff off of the idea that a water fountain may say “glad to be of service” and how other aspects of the building personality may interact with people, and how municipalities could interact with citizens, rewarding them for taking action to help maintain … Continue reading

Episode 57 – These Are Not The Hosts You Are Looking For

While our Co-Host Michael Martine is on a bit of a well deserved holiday, Phaedra and Michael R look at wether Carrot is a good example of a social to do app. We also review how social investment may work based on Wired magazine’s work with Kapital, and then we go off on a tangent when Michael R – mis-reads an article. We look forward to our rescheduled interview with Emotiv CEO Tan Le. And, we tee up the idea of ethics and a game’s actual intent – should they be obvious to the player? All this and more – … Continue reading