Episode 133 – Game Brains

Episode 133 – Game Brains was recorded on Friday, the 18th of February 2016. Does playing video games make you smarter?  Michael and Michael answer this question with a resounding “maybe”, as they go through a tour of several interesting links, from Google’s DeepMind computer playing Go, to Volvos starting up without keys, to toys that think and 3D printing going back to 1964 with plastigoop. We hope you enjoy the show! Selected links Can Video Games make you Smarter? — https://youtu.be/OOsqkQytHOs Luminosity — http://www.lumosity.com Gmailification — http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/17/google-launches-gmailify-a-way-to-use-gmails-best-features-with-non-gmail-accounts/ Mailbox — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mailbox/id576502633?mt=8 Airmail — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/airmail-your-mail-with-you/id993160329?mt=8 Google Now — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Now Connected Toys and the Serious … Continue reading

Episode 122 – Motivational Design

Phaedra and Michael M start off the show with a discussion about Phaedra’s experience at the SimTecT conference in Adelaide, Australia.  Phaedra reflected on an interesting question posed to her while at the conference — how motivational design could be used to extract someone from an indoctrinated, calcified way of thinking.  Motivational design leads to humanitarian design and then on to persuasive design, not just for simulation content, but also for how the experience is created and tailored for the user to know when and how to interrupt their flow for maximum benefit and impact. As you pass through the … Continue reading

Episode 86 – App Granularity & Gamification

Sandy, Phaedra and Michael R. are traveling, on vacation or otherwise engaged in important work, so Michael M. takes a shot at a solo show to explore some thinking on how a number of major apps are breaking down their function into smaller bite sized bits and deploying them as individual apps. Examples of this are FourSquare, with its Swarm app, Facebook, with the Messenger app, alongside some of the recent acquisitions like Instragam and WhatsApp. Linking to the Gamification theme of this podcast, Michael muses on how this application functionality breakdown allows for smaller component pieces of functionality can … Continue reading

Episode 84 – Engagement through Gamification

Sandy, Phaedra and Michael M. find the uncommon ties, to bring together people, planet & profitabiliy through the engagement power of gamification in this episode. The discussion spans Human Resoures, with Phaedra speaking in Paris this week, to Nike’s gamification ideas from the Harvard Business Review Game Jam, to Tesla’s strategy to deliver an electric car for everyone. The ideas spark and arc between the co-hosts around ways for how individuals can participate economically in the new opportunties that are opening up through the intersecting business models from Solar City, Schneider Electric and Tesla. Ideas on SMS-based gaming and local … Continue reading