kevin donaldson

Another great RSA clip overlaying a discussion by Sir Ken Robinson on Changing the Educational Paradigm.

A few years back Booze Allen's Strategy+Business(Aug 2006) has a great biographical article about entrepreneur Joi Ito. In this article there was an interesting discussion about how his obsession with World of Warcraft - a MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game), allowed him to experiment with new org design and team management techniques through his WoW guild. This guild was made up of 250 members from all backgrounds from around the globe including a "raid leader" who is an emergency room nurse, and another important player who is an unemployed bartender.

Mr Ito: "I'm playing with all different kinds of management ideas I've had for companies, with a bunch of people who are actually very dedicated. They will set their alarm clocks for 3 a.m. to run a raid of 40 people. They are committed to each other like people in a normal company wouldn't be committed to each other. So as a test bed for these ideas this is actually pretty amazing".

While my wife is against having video games in our home, her view of these is based on what was around when we were kids.  Games have evolved significantly since the days of Donkey Kong and Super Mario.  Many games are  are no longer the mindless couch-surfing, single player games of the late 80's and 90's.  Games now get you moving, and thinking, they can teach strategy, encourage/require collaboration with other real people, and inspire creativity.

Furthermore, the best games win because they figure out how to intrinsically motivate the player to keep playing.  The question is how do they do this, and how can these patterns be used in both business and education more effectively?   Here are two presentations to consider.

The first is a TED talk about 7 ways in which games reward your brain.  (approx 16 min). 

The second is an interactive presentation about Playing to Learn, exploring the role of play in education.