Episode 55 – Do Not Play This Game At Work

Tom Grant, analyst from Forrester Research, joins the show to talk about his new website Serious Games At Work and his love of board games. We look at a listener link on do Games at Work really help productivity. Realizing they are probably asking the wrong question. They should be asking – Should you be playing pirates games at work? If so, who get’s the red stapler?

Seriously, we discuss that the game part has to be more of a periodic entry into the Magic Circle, and not a mandatory daily activity. This allows businesses to achieve effective optimization, while still keeping the game fresh and engaging. Have you thought about refreshing your serious game content to keep your employees or customers engaged?

Show Links:
Serious Games At Work
Twitter
Crusader Kings II
Scourge of War – Gettysburg
Breakaway Games
Avalon Hill
World Boardgame Championships
Homo Ludens
Buy A Feature
Do Games At Work Help Productivity
Microsoft’s Language Quality Game

Obligatory causal reference to Daniel Pink

Monopoly removes jail
The Dinner Party Download
The Rant Episode

Saving Throws:
Emotiv Insight Kickstarter
Jaw Bone Up Team
Hospital Process Game
Serious Games At Work
Endgame Eurasia

Episode 54 – She Blinded Me, With Science!

Games for Health, Experiments, and Brain Improvements are some of the topics we talk about this week as all three co-hosts are back together. Phaedra tells us all about the discussions of gaming at the Southeast Smarter Healthcare & Life Sciences Summit, which allows Michael R. to reminisce about work he did in healthcare almost 20 years ago. We brainstorm on how electronic medical records could be integrated into simulations, so Doctors could pre-experience a procedure with all the nuances of the patient’s history. Given these simulations, we do a quick diversion to talk about the history of genetics.

After playing a few games to improve our brains, we discuss the value of flash cards… So sit back, and grab your favorite hand held gaming platform and enjoy the show!

Show Links:
Southeast Smarter Healthcare & Life Sciences Summit
Remission 2 -Online Cancer Fighting Video Game
Remission 2 – Play the game here
Wounded Warrior Project
Living forever – from Ted
Labster iOS App
Mendel’s Genetics
Lumosity
Brain Age: Concentration Training for Nintedo 3DS
Anki – Intelligent Flash Cards

Episode 53 – Mad (Wo)Men and MOOCs

Michael M with Coca Cola

Michael M with Coca Cola

 

Phaedra and Michael M talk about reaching people in different ways — through advertising, in game purchases, marketing, and education.  Establishing relationships between organizations and people, whether from a brand to a person, a game to a player, and an instructor to a student are all changing and scaling up.

Phaedra and Michael discuss how that specifications for all courseware should be structured so that anything could be plugged into a MOOC (Massively Open Online Course).  Imagine what could be — mobile, social learning, in-course purchases, power ups, gamification, audio, video, and even more!

We are just delighted to have had you dialed our way.  You can find us on G+, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter and more.  Please comment, friend, tweet and favorite us with topics you would like to hear more about!

 

 

 

 

Selected show links

 

SuperAwesome Launches Mobile Ad Network — http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/11/kmn/
womengamers.com — http://womengamers.com
more Hungarian Coca-Cola advertising —

Hungarian Coca-Cola ad

Hungarian Coca-Cola ad

Blackboard founders say Online Education to Put Price Pressure on Traditional Schools — http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/11/blackboard-co-founders-says-online-education-set-to-put-price-pressure-on-traditional-schools/
MOOC — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_Open_Online_Course
Kahn Academy — http://www.khanacademy.org
Office of Science, Technology and Planning – http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp
Goldie Blox — http://www.goldieblox.com
Mad Men TV show – http://www.amctv.com/shows/mad-men

Things that make you go hmmmm

Budapest Starbucks Finder

Since there will be a delay in producing the audio podcast for this past Friday’s recording with Michael M and Phaedra, I thought I’d share a couple interesting things. This morning, on our way to Visegrád for the annual Palace Games, we stopped at the Deák Ter Starbucks for some caffeinated encouragement. I noticed the chalk sign in the coffee shop and shared it with Foursquare, and remembered the Lewis Black comedy routine where Lewis said that there are places, such as in Houston, where you could walk out of one Starbucks, and see another right across the road. Good news for those visiting Budapest, that there is a map right in the Starbucks to find another Starbucks.

A listener shared a link with us this morning that had me practically spilling my coffee — the “worst video game ever” from the New Yorker.

The fact that this video game would grant one, (yes, you got that right) one point to the player who successfully completed one full, real time equivalent eight hour trip from Tuscon, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada is only the start of the fun. There is nothing to see or do in this game, except to pilot your bus from Arizona to Nevada. No pausing, no breaks, and driving the bus requires constant correction. I’m laughing again just thinking about what this gameplay must be like… A challenge to our listeners for the next show… Give the article a read, and mail/tweet/post to Facebook, G+, Tumblr your suggestions for what kind of business games could be launched given a similar setup.

With some good luck, my hard drive replacement and data restoration will be complete, and the show will be posted by Wednesday. This post was written from my iPad after formatting the newly installed hard drive and kicking off the restore. Maybe there’s a game in this, where I would have to stay up for hours, clicking on ‘ok’ buttons that would time out and require me to restart the whole operation again if I didn’t respond within 30 seconds. While I’m laughing a bit, I’m also concerned, since I do need this hard drive restore to work!