I'll always remember one of my favorite Pedrazzisms, about playing a game of email. In my head, it's said by the WOPR voice from Wargames.
How freaking awesome would it be if Foursquare could get an IRL tie-in with a nightclub, e.g. the mayor jumps the line, VIP-style, with x friends.
John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises)
· 1 month ago
I second Jake in thanking you for writing this. The AppsLab is certainly contributing some ideas in this area, and this post itself suggests a wealth of possibilities. (I previously used one of your writings as partial inspiration for a recent post of my own.)
You are correct in noting the negative connotations of play. I forget when this happened, but I was in a meeting once in which we were looking at a problem, and I mentioned that I would "play around" with a solution. The response was NOT positive.
You are also correct in noting that gaming is a prime driver in the advancement of technology. Which brings me to my one concern....Although it isn't discussed much, another very potent technology driver is pornography. And while there are people who have no problem with the Oracle AppsLab exploring gaming, I don't think that the "friends of AppLab" or your Oracle bosses would be receptive to incorporating pornography into your activities - especially if you wanted to use a certain person's yacht for filming purposes...
Jake
· 1 month ago
Who said anything about pr0n and yachts? I don't get why you add that concern here, since we didn't mention it. Maybe I missed something. Or did you wander off the reservation a bit there :)
JordanOAtOracle
· 1 month ago
A different twist on this is the combination of gaming, social networking, and charitable donations as offered via GamesThatGive (http://www.gamesthatgive.net/welcome). Definitely worth a look.
andrejk
· 1 month ago
Here's a good video of the power of games to make people do hard work: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-824646.... Luis van Ahn did a lot of research in this area, he calls it "human computation".
Jake
· 1 month ago
I've seen that one, excellent video.
Bob Rhubart
· 1 month ago
My first thought after reading this was of Pekka Himanen's 2001 book, "The Hacker Ethic," and it's description of the enthusiasm software developers apply to their work. It also brings to mind a conversation I had with Floyd Teter and John Stouffer at the Oracle ACE dinner during OOW09, in which we talked at length about how software development is as much a lifestyle and a culture as it is a career path. I know this is somewhat tangental to the subject of Paul's post, but there is a connection.
The first bunch of developers I met when I began my IT career in 1997 were young people who had little or no formal training in computer science or software. They were, without exception, gamers, who learned their craft by customizing or deconstructing their favorite games, starting as kids. The passion and focus they applied while playing -- and playing with -- those games as kids became the defining characteristics of their approach to the work they did as highly innovative -- and highly employable -- developers.
So, to bring this back around to Paul's post, imagine what kind of an economy we'd have --hell, what kind of world we'd have -- if every job, every task, could inspire that kind of passion and focus and sense of fun and challenge and satisfaction.
BTW: Similar thoughts expressed in my 2001 review of "The Hacker Ethic": http://bit.ly/h4WR2
All Comments
I'll always remember one of my favorite Pedrazzisms, about playing a game of email. In my head, it's said by the WOPR voice from Wargames.
How freaking awesome would it be if Foursquare could get an IRL tie-in with a nightclub, e.g. the mayor jumps the line, VIP-style, with x friends.
You are correct in noting the negative connotations of play. I forget when this happened, but I was in a meeting once in which we were looking at a problem, and I mentioned that I would "play around" with a solution. The response was NOT positive.
You are also correct in noting that gaming is a prime driver in the advancement of technology. Which brings me to my one concern....Although it isn't discussed much, another very potent technology driver is pornography. And while there are people who have no problem with the Oracle AppsLab exploring gaming, I don't think that the "friends of AppLab" or your Oracle bosses would be receptive to incorporating pornography into your activities - especially if you wanted to use a certain person's yacht for filming purposes...
The first bunch of developers I met when I began my IT career in 1997 were young people who had little or no formal training in computer science or software. They were, without exception, gamers, who learned their craft by customizing or deconstructing their favorite games, starting as kids. The passion and focus they applied while playing -- and playing with -- those games as kids became the defining characteristics of their approach to the work they did as highly innovative -- and highly employable -- developers.
So, to bring this back around to Paul's post, imagine what kind of an economy we'd have --hell, what kind of world we'd have -- if every job, every task, could inspire that kind of passion and focus and sense of fun and challenge and satisfaction.
BTW: Similar thoughts expressed in my 2001 review of "The Hacker Ethic": http://bit.ly/h4WR2