Let me tell you about my day and then I want to run an idea by me, or you if you happen to be reading this.
So today was THE EPIC MEETING, essentially we all sat down at a conference call with the rest of the management team from America, introduction were made and then Niko gave me the floor. I walked them through what I had done, the process I had used to eliminate certain markets, and the markets that were left after that process of elimination.
I honestly didn’t get the “push back” (mother taught me that phrase) that I had expected. They would say “well what about this market, why wasn’t that on the list?” then I would respond “because yadda yadda it actually isn’t what it really appears to be” and Niko or Trent would also chime in with their industry experience about why that may be, there response was then “o… well the logic seems pretty good to me.”
We all agree on the markets that I presented and began discussing what we should do next. Basically the meeting couldn’t have gone better.
Now before I’m done patting myself on the back I should at least say this. When you have the Director and CEO of the company as your direct boss that is clearing and making suggestions on your work as you go along, you’re probably not going to meet a whole lot of resistance from the other people that are just being brought on board. But still I’m just glad I didn’t mess it up. After that I spent the rest of the day talking with Booz about life and working on the next phase of the project.
History today: Obama signed a nuclear disarmament (really more of a lessening then a disarmament but hey let’s not get picky) with Russia today. Pretty sweet I guess, now we can only nuke the world 7 times over instead of 9. We also agree to not nuke any country that is part of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty which is nice of us. No worries we can still nuke Iran and North Korea, just countries like Switzerland are safe. But who would want radioactive chocolate anyways? Apparently though people think that only having 1,500 nuclear warheads leaves us defenseless… I hope I can be that defenseless some day. Still has to be ratified by congress but is expected to pass.
Of course the one day I bring my umbrella is the time when it actually doesn’t really rain, which I guess I shouldn’t complain about but still, it’s the principal of that matter. Once I got back on campus we went to a local street vendor and picked up some delicious bread, meat and green beans on sticks. Very tasty and cheap.
“But how do you know it’s properly sanitized!!??”
I saw him cook it over an open fire? Other then that I just try not to worry about it, no way of really knowing anyways, if it looks ok and it taste ok I just enjoy it.
Then we had a small pre-game party on our floor, just sat around drinking beer and smoking my hookah. Let me clarify, THEY drank beer, I just sat and talked. Not a beer person, something about the carbonation and alcohol not really being a great mix for my stomach, and it taste like terrible. Nor do I really need the calories. I’ll just stick to my mojitos, thank you.
Now back to this idea I'm currently brainstorming about. Feel free to comment on it, or make suggestions and what not. I know it’s crazy, I know it’s near impossible, etc. And if you wish to copy it you can, just ask that you tell me how it goes. Best of luck.
My idea: A video game business. No no you don’t get it yet, a business ran via a video game. Stop I already know what you’re doing, you’re putting this in a little box, picturing 14 year old boys sitting at their computer killing orcs in a business suite. Wipe that out of your mind.
We already see the generations of people playing video games more and more, in fact over 2 billion hours worth of online video games are played every week. Some may say that’s a terrible thing, but it is what it is and you’re probably not going to change that. Instead what does that mean? You can not spend that amount of time doing a task and not get very good at it.
The question is then what does video games make you good at? Researchers are finding that gamers are extremely good at optimism and collaborative problem solving (among other things but I think this is the most important). What does that mean? It means we’re motivated to solve the impossible. When we run against a boss that we are defeated by again and again we continue to try until we eventually find a way to defeat it. This victory then turns around and reinforces our perception of being able to do anything in this virtual space. We also have to trust others in order to complete certain tasks, trust that they will be there to help us, trust that they will play by the same rules, and trust that they want to accomplish the goal. This leads us to be more willing to trust in others to play their part in group projects, even friendly competition can be fostered in the same way.
Now we just have to find a way to take this virtual optimism and bring it into the real life.
Think of the problems we face with work and now think of how this might solve them. Almost everyone has a problem with receiving feedback, well what if we create a program that tracks your progress within this framework. Your projects are assigned point values, your character has certain skill sets which are improved via completion of this project, this feedback on how you’re doing reinforces your feeling of achievement with completing your project. Can it not be reasonably assumed that you develop skills while working on projects? Why not assign this a numerical value? Why could promotions, raises, and bonuses be based off of this information?
We don’t even need to say “this is work.” Dress it up, make the tasks more important than they actually are. Take my research into global transit markets. I wasn’t looking at markets in which to suggest our company move into. I was really gathering information on zombie outbreak control mechanisms. See two months ago there was the first recorded break of the Zero Opiet Metabolic Bio Irrational Enfection (I know it is misspelled just get over it) or Z.O.M.B.I.E. The cases began to follow the pattern of certain public transit usage, and finding out the daily ridership of such transit system that meet particular criteria is a key piece of information in tracking the progress of the outbreak. Suddenly I’m not just mindlessly shifting through data on the web I’m trying to solve a global epidemic that could put the future of the world at risk. Provide me with the tools to make my life more interesting and I will do it.
Complete crap right? Well ya, I just spewed that out in three minutes but you get the idea. Work is only work because you make it so, but gamers show that we would rather be mentally engaged and solving problems then just sitting around mindlessly relaxing. With that hypothesis it could be assumed that you could pull this into the real world and dramatically improve worker satisfaction and productivity.
“What about the jobs that are really repetitive, wouldn’t you just be playing the same part of the game over and over?”
Yes, and people will do it if the right carrot is in front of them, we call it “grinding.”
Anyways I’m just throwing out ideas here but I believe if we give ourselves constant feedback, a fun environment, a feeling that our work is truly important, and a sense of being able overcome extreme hurdles we’ll be able to utilize this vast human investment in time and energy that is video games. Creating a work force that could be massive, highly diversified, and motivated.
Don’t think about this like a normal person, think of this like a gamer, you don’t have the power to change the problem; you only have the power to solve it. How?
It should be noted that I’m piggybacking off of the research being done by Jane McGonigal who is looking at how to get video games to solve peak oil, world hunger, etc. I’m just shifting this to a corporate setting. I watched her presentation on TED.com, one of the best things on the internet.
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