The Connector? wtf After yet another conference (a bit ambivalently attended tbh), I realized Ive morphed over the last five years of intensive mid-career pivoting from super-introverted creator type (my cave is rural, I tell you, in more ways than one) to the connector—a maker of stuff whos been traveling between media for decades as a content creator... and between geographic regions, industries, personality types, skill sets, mindsets, agendas, etc etc etc to find new pathways. Games and Meaningful Play at Michigan State University: Academically oriented (which gave me pause initially, oy, pedagogy/parsing, not my strength), but populated by super smart and creative types who dont know what I know, havent done what Ive done, havent met the people I know. And vice versa. Thats what conferences are about, right? Meaningful connections ensued. A few takeaways: 1 Digital literature: Some teachers are embracing this new media approach and (soak this in -> CREATING it as game designer-writers) to move us all collectively into the future of storytelling. They need help (hey, they TEACH, full-time, grading papers every weekend). Lets team up!!!!! Theyre hungry for games as lit, interactive stories as lit, RPGs as lit. etc etc. Turn One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest into an ARG (The Ward). Shape The Odyssey into a first-person classroom game. And, Inanimate Alice, which pioneered some of this approach and is poised (poised, I tell you!) to do much, much more. :) 2 Co-creation, design process, iterative testing: OMG. This is so ingrained now with me—from both a science and tech pov AND a storytelling pov. How about you? Invite your audience in, early and often, to figure out how to solve a problem, create something amazing. Messy, chaotic, at times... and perpetually beta, but MAKE IT WORK. Efficacy. Results. Real. 3 Know each other: A bullet point in the Jesse Schell keynote that resonated. Ive been working with language experts (domain experts in his terms) and authors and artists and coder and project managers, and communications specialists... so important to talk to and respect each other and share ideas toward a common vision (Disney theme in Jesses version—everything serves THE STORY). Introverted as I am (by nature), I feel as if Ive morphed into a natural collaborator, with tentacles. All along, my goal has always been: make great stuff. And that takes a team, all-in. Whos out there? And a vision.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 03:11:56 +0000
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