Game The Machine

I am spending some cycles these days thinking on the integration of play and work. I happen to believe that there is some real magic to be had here for organizations and for firms looking to supply the next generation of software.   Sure making work a game seems a bit out there (I get that), and I guess I could go back to thinking about RSS and Twitter, but I think that is pretty well covered by a host of others.   Knowing my current fascination with this topic, Jake passed along this TED talk by Stuart Brown:

Although I agree whole heartily with the message, and his story about the wild polar bear playing with huskies is incredible (watch it just for that), the section on the integration of play into our adulthood was sorely lacking in actionable information.  We are told the diagnosis (“Play is important to everyone”), but are abruptly kicked out of the hospital without any treatment and a draft from the back of our robe.  To be fair, Stuart did share some work done in his class on play at Stanford that endeavored to connect play with adult work life.  The short video showed how his  students  would “re-invent” the meeting.

As the video rolled, I was hoping for something incredible, and unfortunately was left feeling frustrated.   The idea presented by the students was to put on full body white painters overalls and then use dry erase markers to keep notes on each other during the meeting.   Sure, set to music and fast motion editing, it seems fun, but I think it hurts our cause more than helping it.   No “serious” executive will ever see that as anything but a waste of time.  In fact, no one that works anywhere, at any level, would see this as valuable.  I am sure it was fun to do, but if we want to make any inroads we simply cannot ignore the firm footing “getting something done” has in the mindset of the modern worker.

To give credit where it is due, they are at least trying.  Just because we do not have a great solution today, does not mean that the problem does not exist.  The imbalance of play and purpose that most people feel at work cannot be ignored.  These are just the crude early efforts.  My sense is that we will have to take smaller, bite size approaches of integrating play with work for it to be effective, but that does not mean that more ambitious concepts like the one presented at Stanford will not provide the fodder for more practical initiatives.

In my next post I will give a practical example of how I think play can be integrated with a product management role inside a company.  Stay tuned.

Photo Credit: Timothy Hamilton

I recently watched this excellent video of Nick Fortugno at the Meaningful Play conference in 2008.  If you are into designing games with a message behind them it is worth a watch.

Among other things, he highlights the basic split in entertainment between “form” and “content”.  Form being the mechanics used to convey the message.   Using examples from the past like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, he shows clearly how known formulas have been used effectively to deliver what some might call, socially responsible messages.  In the case of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, she used a fairly common literary model to inject a social discussion of abolitionism into the mainstream social conversation.

If you ponder formulas, you can find them in all types of media and entertainment.  From a gaming perspective, you see them as First Person Shooters (FPS), Simulation, Role Playing Games (RPG), Board games, and more.  From a film perspective, you might think about Action, Drama, Comedy or Documentary.  It is essential to understand that each of these formulas attract a specific audience with clear expectations well trod by their previous experiences.  People are attracted to a specific formula because of what it provides.  How many nights have you said, “I am in the mood for a comedy”?  – It is much more rare to say you are in the mood for a comedy about golf, or an action movie about the African diamond trade.

If you go see a horror movie, you will expect some blood and gore, creepy imagery, and most likely some scantily clad teenagers at a deserted lake.  As long as the director provides those key elements, you’ll leave (to a degree) satisfied.  You got what you ordered.  If the entertainment meets that core need and provides the emotional experience you sought, then you are open to receive the message they are delivering.  From a design perspective, you just have to honor the formula and provide the desired experience or it will cease to be enjoyable to the audience.  If you deny them the pleasure of a deep belly laugh when they yearned for comedy, no matter how interesting you may find your message, it will be lost.

If you are a web designer you may see a parallel here when you consider  Steve Krug’s views on convention.  His opinion is that using expected behavior is good no matter how cool you think that flash widget is!  Use a search box that looks the same as everyone else.  Have a shopping cart icon that leads to the shopping cart.  If you plan to reinvent how the shopping cart, search button, or the hyperlink work – you better have a very, very good reason.  So your website formula is standard, the message (ie. content) is up to you.

So let’s connect this with the world of software that people use to get things done – email, task management, payroll, bookkeeping, project management, etc. – collectively “business software”.   If entertainment like films, games and books have taught us anything, it is that you must first create something enjoyable.  Play is paramount.  In the world of entertainment, purpose is largely ignored (on a percentage basis), but you can see it shine through in films like Erin Brokovich, The Insider, and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, among many others – documentaries are great at this.  In the world of business software, the report card is skewed in the other direction, with purpose being the leader by a wide margin, and fun being largely ignored.  The very idea of fun seems at odds with something of value.  Both worlds could do with a bit of balance.

My hope is that the future of business software can assimilate the lessons of entertainment by making something people want to play consistently as opposed to a tool to get something done.   We are already seeing simplicity as a key design principle, but I believe that the dimension of fun is next.  My guess is that we will as an industry need to adopt or invent a new formula for software and apply them to the problems we are trying to solve in a novel way.  Who is up for a game of email?

Your move.

Photo Credit: Strocchi

Play is our natural state.  It is healthy and fun.   In that state, we are engrossed and engaged.  Time, as they say, “flies”.  As we grow up and put aside childish things, we lose this connection to our natural state and a strong division between play and work emerges.  In fact it is worse than this, because in the adult mind, play itself has not only changed, but in many cases, it has been lost altogether, morphed into some hobbled likeness of itself.  Play becomes a scheduled 30 minute block on the treadmill or a set of reps that some trainer mandated be completed before gulping a protein shake of predetermined size.  The once energizing activity becomes goal driven and miraculously, it loses it’s magic.  Did you ever ask a child why they play?  What exactly is the objective of climbing the monkey bars?

In many ways, this subtle mental shift from play to work marks the end of innocence and a firm transition to adulthood.   At some point that we can’t quite pinpoint, this new mode of being, becomes the norm, and yet the vast majority of us move along, day in, day out, in some Orwellian food line, without questioning why.  We assume that work simply must be this way, for that is how it has always been.  After all, that is why it is called “work” after all. Work is about getting something done – there is a purpose, a goal, an outcome – something of value beyond the individual is created by the activity.

work (see definition)

“exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something”

This is where things get interesting…

Let’s return to our example of kids playing in a playground.  If you asked an adult about the value of such an activity, they would list off several: physical fitness, learning group communication skills, imprinting gross motor movements, and the list goes on.  So clearly something worthwhile is being produced, but that is an observer’s perspective.  That is looking at results and outcomes.  That is the objective thinking of management.   To the player – there is only one objective  – to have fun.  The moment the fun slips through their fingers, they drift to another activity meeting that simple criterion.

This distinction is essential since I posit that we can see work as an adult in the same way.  The key is to understand that  making an activity fun in itself does not remove, change, or eliminate the benefits of the activity – it just makes the activity inherently enjoyable.

Our historical view seems to be that the world is binary – either you work at something or you play at something and never the two shall meet.  I question that assumption.  I not only believe that work (and other activities) are capable of being simultaneously fun and valuable beyond the individual.  I see nothing inherent in purpose or utility that precludes enjoyment to the point that it ceases to be work in the mind of the doer at all.  The cause of our current conundrum, as I see it, is a lack of creativity.

It is my goal to bridge these two worlds of play and purpose to highlight the art of creating products, services, and a way of work that embrace a new, higher standard.  However, we should be clear there is a method to the madness.  There is a reason to embrace this new model, other than it being new.  From a human perspective it is the most healthy – people should be living lives of play, but it also works from an economic perspective as well.  If we endeavor to make what most people do more than a task to be completed, we can drive  loyalty, passion, usability, and use.  It could just be the secret weapon to making something people remember.

Designers of products and services today spend a majority of time on fleshing out purpose.  What are the features?  What does it do?  Why would someone buy this?  All valuable questions, but my hope is that we can add a bit of balance to the process.  It would serve us well as providers and consumers to ponder the role that play could have in our creations.  More play not to the detriment of purpose, but to its enrichment.

Your move.