BlogSat

A "2" and Facetime maybe?

One of my favorite frameworks to think about building and shipping products is Larry Keeley 's Desirability-Viability-Capability model. Most great products get these three aspects right... or right enough; inevitably finding the balance and making the right trade-offs is part of the journey. In the book I've linked above, Alan Cooper suggests the way to find that balance is to have 3 different people responsible for each aspect. He suggests the Engineering Lead worries about Capability ( i.e. what's possible and how to do it) , a UX Lead focus on Desirability (i.e. what makes your users love the Product) and a Business/Product person own Viability (i.e. why will this work and how to get it there.) He makes the case that this is necessary not only because these are different skills that require specific training and instincts, but also because of the tension between them and focus each requires. I'm curious what people think though, and how they approach this. Often

After Jane McGonigal 's talk at the gamification conference , I had the same thought that I had as I was reading Tim Ferriss' 4-hour work week earlier today. Some observations from these sources, general self-help lore, and logic: Eustress (the opposite of distress) is a good thing. Its the "good" stress that you experience during gaming that makes you focussed, motivated, alert, determined, persistent etc.. The more often you can get yourself in this state (especially while doing things in the real world that have an impact on your own life) the better. One of the reasons (only one, mind you) we're able to do so well in this state is that we're less scared of the consequences of failure in a game and so more willing to be...well.. heroic. In life, we tend to over-estimate the negative consequences of taking risks or deferring tasks or doing anything unconventional, which leads to stress and makes us less likely to get to "hero" situations. So som

I attended the Gamification Summit 2011 a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco. I couldn’t stay through the whole thing because of a couple of things that came up, but I enjoyed what I could attend. Summary: The goal was to try and put some structure around gaming design and techniques, and review techniques, applications, successes and failures. Some interesting, and not-very-interesting, insights from practitioners. Great afternoon keynote by Jane McGonigal about trying to understand what makes a great game (going beyond obvious gaming tactics) - i.e. “Can we replicate the spirit of game, not just the technique?” Panel on Gamification in the Real World: Location, Commerce and User Experience: Well-moderated by Jenn Van Grove Blake Scholl, CEO, Kima Labs (Barcode Hero) A game layer is the face of our reputation system. Expert status is the motivation to share more and get more reputations What’s the usage like? Very few people actually capture their opinions and recommendations. We