Karins hängbröst veckans bästa läsning

På sex rader har Karin, Karins Konstgrepp, berättat om sin kroppsnoja som hänger i sedan Veckorevyns råd från tonårstiden. Över 100 kvinnor, däribland Veckorevyns chefredaktör, har svarat på hennes avslutande fråga 'Vad har Veckorevyn lärt dig?'. Där redovisas en massa ohyggligt knäppa måttstockar och råd som man som tonårstjej i sin osäkerhet och ovisshet funderade tillräckligt mycket över för att man ska minnas det för livet. Ja förutom chefredaktören då som hävdar att tidningen idag har ett helt annat tilltal.

Det här blev veckans bästa läsning - ett kort minne påfyllt med 100 till av samma sort som beskriver ett äkta och odiskutabelt samhällsproblem och en ouppskattad men väl rotad struktur.

An interactive video on sign language

I got the mission to make a game for sign language but realized that if there is something that deaf people have loads of on the Internet it is games. The language must be visualized through video as both hands and face are required. So I modified the mission to interactive video production and looked for inspiration. First I found MegaVega who have produced lots of videos with tunes that children like translated by sing language dance moves. I'd love to see them as background dancers in some music children's show.

I liked them, but needed to show them to some deaf eight year olds to know if they would appreciate it. They sure did, but they also showed me what more they like on YouTube. Vanessa Hudges! But they can't here? No, but many music videos are build by short often romantic stories whith no long incomprehensive dialogues. They are very visual, emotional and tell their own short story.

I've further been looking at the Magnum Pleasurehunt game, and a handfull of interactive stories where the classic man from La Linea is my favourite - short sessesions and very simple choices and stories.

I will also further explore the possibilities with web cam games and timing games as Guitarr Hero to see if I can offer a set of signs to use for different purposes - to put a song together in the right order on the right time or to collect items through knowing specific signs. There is not much done so the field is open, but it is also difficult as I don't know the language and the Swedish target group/sign language source is very small. To be continued...

Man syr, berättar och lyssnar på en syjunta

Syjunta är en grupp, av framförallt kvinnor, som träffas för att ägna sig åt sömnad och handarbete.

Alltså man syr, virkar, stickar eller broderar – och umgås. Syjuntor låter lite gammaldags, men verkar vara något som många saknar när de försvinner, eftersom de återuppstår med jämna mellanrum. Eller de finns nog alltid, men blir mer populära i vissa perioder.

Igår hämtade jag enorma mängder inspiration från Beata Wickboms bord fyllt av färggranna garnnystan, stickor, pärlor och påbörjade och ibland avslutade hantverk. Det är otroligt trevligt att skapa något, och dubbelt upp om man skapar något som går att använda, som gör att man slipper handla, något unikt, något som inspirerar andra att själva pröva på. Syjuntan är också ett bra sätt att få lära sig hur man gör – stolpar, luftmaskor, moucher och mönster. Jag är ett steg närmare egna amigurumis.

Än mer inspirerade sällskapet. Det går inte att prata så mycket när man koncentrerar sig på att räkna maskor. Det blir mer att var och en berättar sin historia ett tag. Man får lära känna varandra på ett mindre ytligt sätt än på ett ståmingel, alla lyssnar på och fokuserar på en i taget.


Igår var det - alla lika imponerande - Lesley som aldrig ger upp, Görel vars första film kommer upp på biograferna om en månad, Sofia facilitatorn, Paula mästervirkaren och den som matchar uppgift med rätt person, Katrina som får saker gjorda, Eva uttrasslaren och Jeanette som man lyssnar till när hon talar. Och så Beata – nätverkaren, moderatorn och den ultimata värdinnan. 7 nya kvinnliga förebilder!



Det vore så klart kul med några virkande män som kunde berätta sina historier också.

(Köp snigeln på Made by Sohpie om du inte kan göra den själv)

Everyone's reflections from 3 days in Dubai

Here are the summarizing reflections from most of the She-entrepreneurs after three days in Dubai.

Samantha - Started off one to one, now I’m one to thirty.

Caroline - I have personal connections to everyone and understand the context where everyone comes from.

Camilla - A relaxing experience where we know eachother.

Raya - I extended my network. Action point is to start using the social media tools as much as I can.

Hoda – I have become optimistic, I had lost all my hopes.

Abeer - Friendship.

Malin – Constant learning and friendship. Next step is to go to Damaskus.

Eliza – new interest for the middle east, and next step will be to learn more.

Sofia – will take care of this network.

Antonia – greatful for your stories.

Karin – we are a good family – you challenge your familly, you cry together, you fight and laugh. I’ve decided to do something else in life when I come home.

Pernilla – want to use what I can do and am good at to help you do what you are good at - revolutions.

Noha – I will miss you all. The network is very important so I think you will all be a big puzzle that will help you all.

Norhan – I think this network is really working for change. I have been asking questions and got help. I have learned something about each one of our mentors here. Now I have energy and I will lead my own project and runt my own baby.

Ida – glad we are so united. I have heard such great stories and is happy to bring them home.

Sara – sisterhood. The beauty of contrast.

Solidad – beauty of trust, honesty and acceptance.

Context and feminism differs

Fortunately the surreal Dubai experience was balanced with real life of the same weight. There were eleven very real women telling us their very real stories. It was just as inspiring to discover how we were just alike, our meeting-points, as to be bewildered by the differences. As women, or even just ambitious social entrepreneurs, there are no discrepancies. The contexts are widely separated.

The Iranians rest in my mind with their listlessness. I felt they didn't have much hope for any changes and I'm not sure that they knew what changes they wanted. They seem to often rely upon medical and scientific proofs and it was clear that our countries don't present the same facts. In Sweden we believe homosexuality proven not to be a contaminating disease and women are not yet proved to be better fitted in sense of orientation than men.

Our participants confirmed a sense of that not much has changed after the revolution, but when digging a little deeper it turned out that she was now allowed to talk about what ever she wanted to talk about in public and people are performing and letting their messages out loudly on the streets. The remaining frustration is not to disrespect though. It requires lots of energy, dreams and high goals to succeed with the performance of this people - they have still far to go to reach the goals they were breaking the ice for.

The Palestinian girls could have been my Stockholm neighbours and yet they and their parents have been living in contingency for all of their lives. Revolutionized news can never touch them as they have never had a stable state. These entrepreneurs have huge will to make change and even though they found it hard to register a company targeting a good cause, they had found their own ways to deal with it - slow but concrete. Both them and the Jordanian girl had run into system problems with their projects when trying to create job opportunities for unprivileged women. Women who are not allowed to work in a house where there is a man present or carry the garbages outside the house are not easy to engage and when succeeding their salary goes directly to her husband anyway. But clearly the failures only create new ideas to move forward.

The Syrian was a chapter of her own - a woman in the middle of a revolution. Every piece of her and her story felt invaluable, and I am just happy that there are people like her. It's those who make changes come true. She had it in her finger tips. I feel certain that we will read about her and her friends in the history books in the future - that I've met a historic person.

We also met three outstanding Dubai located women volunteering for the Acumen Fund. They had all changed their banker careers in New York for the same in Dubai. I have never ever dreamt of beeing an investor but they made me envy their skills in making big money and investing them in huge long term beneficence projects around the world. I'd like to put them on tour inspiring all hungry economy students to become rich and beneficent.

I guess the only subject we never touched during these three days was feminism. Some of the projects in the group aim to spread women's rights to those who don't know them, and I'm sure we all had the same base in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but feminism is much more complex than that. While someone believes that wearing hijab is the only right way to live life even though she by that is forbidden to enter night clubs or even take a job, someone else believes that the color of pink by itself will turn girls to limited helpless souls. These are sensitive matters - true to one and false to another.

We had a engilded tea at the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi after having been rejected to enter the night club due to wearing hijab. By respect for the religion they said - unsexy and conciously excludingly I suspect.

Soledad Pinero Misa och Malin Speace

Dubai starting it's own new culture

Dubai is hot as a sauna. And humid. When being in Sweden it’s completely impossible to imagine what it feels like to always be surrounded with such heat and the first day you’re just amazed by it. This state of amazement strikes me again and again the following three days. Most of the impressions from Dubai are impossible to imagine before you experience them.

Dress code attitude
Already at the airport I get amazed by the tricky attitude of 10 customs officers in kanduras in their saunter in front of the passport check. Kandura is the classic arab style white ankle-length white shirt that at least half of the men you see in Dubai wear. These guys are holding a show of power in front of us. Only when they want to they will staff a counter to speed the service of the squiggeling queues of dead tired travelers. It is 6 in the morning and we’ve been stuck on a plane at Qatar airport for hours.

The mixed dress code of the airport is remaining also when going in to Dubai. Many women wear an abaya, a black over-garment covering most parts of the body. Just as many are covering their head with an hijab. Again as many cover only their hair with a shawl, but I would say that the biggest part are western styled – not provocative, but proper and stylish. The total overview reminds me of New York.

The land before Mad Max
In the taxi my company asks the driver if he is originally from Dubai and yes, he answers… Later I am thinking that we must have met the only native driver in all of Dubai. Who can be from here? There seems to be no original town, no history, nothing before these skyscrapers. I learn that there have been people living there since early 1800 and it was formally established in 1833. The modern Dubai was created after the UK left the area in 1971. I am almost right though – this taxi driver is a rarity. 84% of the population of metropolitan Dubai was foreign-born, about half of them from India. I still guess that most of the city has risen from the desert as a strange construction of concrete, shiny facades and futuristic lush designs. Entering the Sheik Zayed road makes me pretend I’m in the world before it turned to the apocalyptic set of the Mad Max movie.

A country of free, well educated, wealthy men and women
The next morning I learn at the School of Government that there are 22% women in the Dubai Government, 59% women in the work force and 70% women at the university. These are interesting figures considering that the population is 1,7 million, of which 24% are women.

Later I am taking a photo of one of many walls decorated with the current ruler, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, also the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE. I find it amazing that his family has been the constitutional monarchy since 1833, but an Egyptian friend working in Abu Dhabi informs me that the people love him. This Sheikh sees to that everyone in this country is wealthy. The people building and falling down the skyscrapes are all guest workers – free to go home if they want to.

A fictive reality
I had a coke at the top of my hotel, enjoying the view of Burj Khalifa- structure in the world (321 meters), but only that height 40 floors up is enough to make me dizzy. I was wandering about in the redoubtable Mall for an hour, thought I would never get out and get some fresh air again, passing an ice rink, an enormous water fall and a gigantic aquarium. I felt dizzy all the time from constantly changing temperature from outside 40 degrees to inside 18. At night time the city is fully illuminated, shimmering, sparkling, glimmering. It’s beautiful but you just keep wondering how much energy is used to make this fictive city become real. I also start to hunger for the real people, the real Dubai, the real air. But there is nothing else. The air in Dubai is air condition, the habitans are bankers making money and the culture is futuristic buildings and concrete floors. This is a new culture, in it's very beginning.

In Dubai with Swedish Institute

The Swedish Institute (SI) is a public agency that promotes interest and confidence in Sweden around the world. SI seeks to establish cooperation and lasting relations with other countries through strategic communication and exchange in the fields of culture, education, science and business.

I'd say that lasting relations were built last week in Dubai when fifteen swedish social entrereneurs rejoined their protegees from different arabic countries. I got an irretrievable gift in the form of an invitation to join this group to coach them further in the power of social media. Thank you Javeria Rizvi Kabani for that. I feel like I owe you one.

She Entrepreneurs is a program for dialogue, mutual understanding and knowledge sharing between young women social entrepreneurs from the Middle East, North Africa and Sweden. The program, She Entrepreneurs, includes participants from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, West Bank/Gaza and Iran. Its aim is to inspire, provide tools to work for sustainable change, and to develop a network of women social entrepreneurs in the region. She Entrepreneurs is a pilot program that was introduced in Stockholm in February this year.

I will make three following posts from this journey. The first will be about Dubai - the most screwy place on earth. The second will be about the meeting with these amazing women - so alike but in such different contexts, and finally I must probably put down some thoughts on some new discoveries about the power of social media.

Read about the Swedish Institute and the She-entrepreneur program and check out theTwitterfeed on #sheent11

It doesn't have to be broken to need a change

Luke Williams talked about how to be and not to be disruptive. I use to avoid people who have written a book because they tend to market it with a catchy and quotable summerization presented with an attitude and a big sapient smile. Maybe I didn't think that the concept of distruptiveness was possible to summerize well, but I guess Luke proved me wrong.

In a business world of nonstop change, there's only one way to win the game: transform it entirely. This requires a revolution in thinking—a steady stream of disruptive strategies and unexpected solutions. In Disrupt, Luke Williams shows exactly how to generate those strategies and deliver those solutions.

He kept his promise. I feel I can use some of his catchy quotable summerization as a checklist more or less.

- Don’t build what people want, build what they don’t know they want. (Ford said it and Steve Jobs is a master of it.)

- It’s hard to be disruptive because we want people to like us, we don’t want to separate from the flock.

- Disruptive is the opposite of control and stagnation.

- We tend to like and favor ideas we already know - those that fit in to what we know from before.

- Being intentional unreasonable prohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifvoke new ideas.

- Identify clichés and make a contradictory to find something that nobody else does, something surprising and disruptive.

- It doesn’t have to be broken to need a change.

(Socks are sold in pairs of two - no at LittleMissMatched who sell socks in three for mixing and for the one you always loose.)

FourSquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai prolonged the list with
- The more unexpected the higher outcome.
- The more predictive the easier for competitors to copy.

When building Stardoll we have been stuck in and practiced each and everyone of these problems. I just wich that I had had these tweetable oneliners to lean on by then. It never worked very well just saying 'Girls will like it'. On the other hand, it will always be hard to convince everyone, or even anyone, that you are not crazy but the rest of the world is.

Read about crazy genius Steve Mann and Dave Asprey.

What is the most disruptive - full time conntected or fully disconnected?

Keynote speaker Amber Case (@casorganic) turned out to be the most charming personality ever. She is that sort of person replying every question with a smile and a ‘thank you’ before answering. Telling her story she laughs over and over again, enjoying the world and the people in it.

Amber showed us the story of Steve Mann, an amazing half maniac creative genius from the 80s still active today. We laugh at him because he was so out of the box but he was really ahead of everything – so far in front of us we couldn’t realize it, crazy enough to try out things before they were possible. This made me think of who is that Steve Mann character of today. Who is considered full feathered crazy but will be recognized as genius in 20 years?

Maybe we soon after met that person in Dave Asprey. Dave himself challenged Amber already at her speech asking her if she was only passively talking or if she was actually doing any cyborg practicing herself, which she replied that she did. She, just as Dave himself, measure everything she does. Statistics about you and your body seems to be interesting to the scientists and you can’t avoide the sense of elitism as often with cyborgs. There is always a fine line between health and support and superhumanpowers.

I interpreted Dave’s story about going from a super clever 150 kg computer addicted guy in his 20s to an (almost) normal functional family man with the help of happiness data as a story of healing – a remedy. He has found a way to control his mind and not let it do unhealthy choices, but on the contrary, only do what makes him feel good. You get a little scared by this man and yet I’m wondering if he’s not the Steve Mann of our times. Will we in 20 years look at him and see that he was right even though his practice will seem disruptive even in the future?

Susan Maushart discovered just as Dave that the fulltime connected life can have bad impact on the health of a family, and so she disconnected the entire family for a year – including 3 teenage kids. I wanted to ask her what she believed that the kids will say about it when they are 40... My mom experimented with our lives...or My mom did a real good move back then... To be completely disconnected today means that you put your kids outside both communication with school and moreover with their friends. Again this might have been the only remedy for this family, but I feel that I will not try it at home.

The success of the GameBoy

I held a very short session in a composition of three today, filling in Björn Jeffery's talk on the Toca Boca research on bluckbusters. Here is an even shorter version of my preso:

There are lots of lessons to learn from blockbusters and I’ve been looking into the success of the Nintendo GameBoy.

I started by asking all my game savvy friends about it and they all answered short and direct in one word – Tetris.

Tetris was included in the GameBoy per default from the release in 1989. Nintendo run a long struggle for the rights with both the Russians and other parts, so the game was strategically important for them. But why were Tetris and Gameboy the perfect match when everyone else were doing cooler stuff? Tetris was and is considered a game for girls.

Other gaming consoles of different brands were all cool looking black as something to steer a spaceship with. The Atari Lynx was released right after the GameBoy with mediocre success. They all offered the latest technology at the time, the coolest games and design - the kind of features that appeal to any hard core gamer. The target group was by that limited to primarily boys 16-30 years old, at most 10% of the population.

The Nintendo style was completely different. I’ve urged for everyone of their devices and I own them all. It's clear that they recognized a potential market much bigger than those 10%.

They made a toy that most people could possess and play. It could be carried in a pocket. It was cheap, easy to start and end and had long lasting batteries.
A tech device has wires and ports, a toy has batteries.

Long life time batteries are also important to let people bring it along to school, handle it to others and to get hooked to play for hours.

A toy has easy interaction for the inexperienced. No pre-skills demanded. It’s easy to get started. But to get that quick start you also need a fun short session game that is easy to get into.

The low price was prioritized to let everyone be able to own it. Cheaper weak processors didn't offer complex graphics and action games and Tetris was required to create the perfect match.

This Nintendo reciepy is most relevant today – keep casual games as casual as they can get for casual people.

Musing on Gamification... Motivation... Usability... Fun

John Cook refers to PopCap co-founder Jason Kapalka in GeekWire July 21

Creating a term like gamification does more harm to the business because it actually dilutes down what a game means. And, in his view, a game has one simple goal: to be fun.

On July 24 Peter Friedman suggests 'Maintainable motivation' as a new term for gamification.

The ‘science’ of maintainable motivation extends far beyond games and gamification, because it includes all aspects of persistent engagement, even when the initial intention was ‘single-action’. For instance, a sales message might be a ‘one-off’ opportunity to buy something (for instance, selling your car: ‘perfect condition, one careful owner’) but it might just as easily be sold from a dealership which will want you to only ever buy cars from them for the rest of your life.

My reflections are that
- the term Gamification feels as it is forgeting or denying that much of the knowledge of motivation powers is not deriving from games only but from sciences as pedagogy and psychology. Gamification is all about usability and goals. Previous on this >>

- the goal of gamification is to make something - anything - fun or at least without thresholds for the targetgroup, pretty much the same as a game, pretty much the same as pedagogy.

- the social games don't always have a fun core game (sow and harvest) but the game mechanics make it fun to interact, compare, invite, return, progress and even to pay pushing social or individual triggers.

- there are fun core games that get boring as game mechanics for introduction, virtual economic systems, progress and so on are bad.

- it is sometimes difficult to introduce non gaming or non social media users to the term of gamification, and easier to talk about motivations. But words such as Quests, Missions, Progress and Rewards are not foreign at all.

OMG, I chose a boyfriend in Top Girl

I've tried CrowdStars iPad app Top Girl - same graphics and shopping as in their previous facebook app It Girl, but now with focus on a boyfriend. What a sad story, and yet reckoned to be a huge success. You create your avatar from a few botoxed western Hollywood actress looking features, dress for success to find a boyfriend who will bring you all luck in the form of gifts. In my heart I hope that it is not primarily the game itself, but rather the now classic and well implemented game mechanics that make the girls get started, bring in all their friends and return.

Send your friends gifts on Facebook and maybe they will send you some back - check
Shops not available at this level, work your way up or pay to get there now - check
Return in x hours to attend your relation - check
Share every one of your steps for all your Facebook friends to see - check

But then I guess the message below is one that few girls can resist... (from Facebook Top Girl app)

Ingen nyhet att kvinnor spelar, men rosa spel är ännu ocreddiga

Expressen skriver om 'nyheten' att andelen spelande kvinnor är lika stor som andelen män - men det vet vi väl ändå nu. Stardoll och King.com har i alla fall övertygat mig för länge sen om att jag trodde rätt.

Mattias Snygg tror inte alls på principen med rosa spel.
- Det finnsspelutvecklare som med-vetet riktar sig till kvinnor och unga tjejer som målgrupp och mängder med undersökningar om vad tjejer vill ha att använda sig av, men jag tror att det enda sättet att göra riktigt bra spel på är att göra dem så som man själv vill ha dem. Likheterna är större än skillnaderna när det kommer till vad för storts spelmekanik som tilltalar män och kvinnor.

Det är däremot som alltid trist att se att 'rosa' spel alltid anses vara skit och meningslöst att utveckla alls. Hade jag trott på det hade antagligen Stardoll sett helt annorlunda ut idag.

Både vad gäller de rosa spelen och alla andra spel blir det väldigt viktigt, precis som Mattias Snygg säger - att man ska göra spel som man själv skulle vilja spela - att tjejer fattar att de ska utbilda sig till speldesigners och delta i utvecklingen av spel: Speldesigner verkar fortfarande uppfattas som en helt manligt yrke om man tittar på ansökningarna på högskoleutbildningarna - say what? För mig är det där nyheterna borde fokusera nu.

Ljuvliga Lotta Engberg

Underhållande, charmig, glad, spontan, snygg, rolig och underbar är Lotta. Och bra på att sätta ihop gäster och låtar till en massa glada människor som vill sjunga med. Hon kör Djungelboken på svenska och stjärnonas pappor på scen och alla är med.

Games should have a guided path

I had an hour to spend today at the jury's public discussion of the Stockholm based game education programs of FutureGames. We listend to jury members from DICE (Battlefield), Teotl (The Ball), Lionhead (Fable) och Frictional Games (Amnesia)who were about to elect a winner of the final exam projects. I have not yet had the chance to play the games but the discussions aroused a few thoughts.

The first game discussed was a rhythmical batting game compared to Patapon, but the jury members could not get through it and felt there should be more instructions to it. I spontanously thought about the target group of such a game and finally the designer of the game asked the jury if they had ever played this kind of game before, and no, they had not. A game jury should probably be put together out of different gaming types to be fair I guess. No matter how great each and everyone is in their field, the mix in the jury is crucial.

The second game discussed showed this even more. Someone got disappointed by being alone in a forest while someone appreciated the well rendered pine trees as an experience all alone and yet someone else wanted to find more objects and actions to explore.

Several of the games presented lead to the discussion about whether a game should have a guided path or not. The conclusion was that you always need rewardings for your actions, some hidden and subtle progression and that every action needs to get clear response to make the game meaningful. I thought about Sims where you need to make people fall in love to get children and you need to get children to be able to make them go to school and so on. It's both rewarding and making a path of progression. (as is life)

Well finally I thought about how also fantastic but yet junior game developers tend to concentrate on the core game and forget the same thing as for example e-commerce and communities. They fail to quickly introduce the game functionalities to the user and add more by time. They don't make clear why the user should want to come back soon, or want to go on to the very end of the game. No matter how great a game idea is it is more fun if people will want to play it... a lot.

Looking forward to work with the students on this this fall.

Foursquare turns NY to a giant game of Risk

The board game Risk, in which players maneuver plastic armies on a http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmap in order to achieve “world domination,” has firmly occupied one corner ohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giff nerdom for about fifty years. Foursquare stationed itself in another more tech-oriented corner of that same kingdom about two years ago. Now, at last, the two categories of nerdom meet.

“World of Fourcraft” uses Foursquare and Google Maps APIs to turn New York City into a giant game of Risk.

Read the post on Mashable

Company culture close to a Cult

Next when reading Tony Hsieh’s book I’m wondering about how it is to have a family at home and friends from before when working at Zappos. It’s great to love to go to work, to feel that you have friends there who care for you and who support you, but as a parent of three kids I wonder how you cope with the other cultures that you must be a part of – the small communities of every school and daycare that your children belong to? It feels quite important to actively take part in your children’s school when parents arrange mingles and activities. If you don’t your kid is soon an alien to school, friends and to you. So how do you fulfill your parental role while being a part of a culture as Zappos, asking you to check in your full time, ethics and soul into the company?

Or maybe it’s a culture created by and for dinkies or at least childless employees and there should be other companies in the society building culture by, with and for parents… and everyone else who is not willing to check in his soul to a company.

It is much more fun to go to work when believing in and embrasing the goals and when being a part of the company, but at the same time it’s easy for this kind of culture to become a cult – a religion - creating new goals and ethics over time that everyone follows out of pure social validation. In my mind it is sound and maybe even human to be precautious to that kind of traps. At the same time as I adore the described Zappos culture and philosophy, it is always scary when groups become strong and powerful. Powerful cultures got power over the group and over others.

More thoughts from Tony Hsieh’s book Delivering Happiness

Soulsearch and Risktaking deliver happiness

There are some parts from Delivering Happiness that I'd like to keep close to heart and that I hope that I will be in position to apply on my own employees sometime. It's Tony Hsieh about him starting to put the company’s core values on paper:

I thought about all the employees I wanted to clone because they represented the Zappos culture well, and tried to figure out what values they personified. I also thought about all the employees and ex-employees who were not culture fits, and tried to figure out where there was a values disconnect. (s155)

I find this a wonderful way to review oneself, the one you want to be and the one you are.

And about one of the company’s final core values Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded:

We want everyone to not be afraid to take risks and to not be afraid to make mistakes, because if people aren’t making mistakes then that means they’re not taking enough risks. (s168)

I love taking risks, and I love people taking risks. How boring everything would be with only safers.

Bad stories are making you even less successful

Reading Zappo CEO Tony Hsieh’s ’Delivering Happiness’ most of his philosophy sounds sound and impressive, but there are also some things that fret my mind.

Your culture is your brand

It’s what we often believe and say in this time of transparency, and I guess we who don’t run a huge organization also embrace it while those who do run an organization often seem scared and unprepared. It’s what would give power to the people. The idea is that any employee or customer can spread a negative experience to thousands of others and the effect would be disastrous.

But we are not there. Customers can repeatedly report a bad experience of a service and yet, if the pressure from friends, media or oneself is big enough, they keep coming. For how long I don’t know, but the companies who don’t put the user experience before the money are many – and they stay alive. In my mind they would probably have been far more successful if they set the values the other way around, but yet, they can be mighty as it is.

Even more evident is that it is still very hard for employees and ex employees to spread the word of a negative company culture. It just doesn’t look good to slander your employer. As an employee you look disloyal, disturbing and obstinate. As an ex employee you appear phased out, bitter and gossiping. In both situations you are probably looking for a new position and would much rather be associated with adjectives such as change forward, courageous and innovative – so you better just say something like I cannot fulfill my personal goals within this organization.

It still feels as people just don’t like to think of big successful companies as bad organizers – how could they be successful if they are not doing it right all the way? Nobody want to hear of the bad stories.

Kärlek ettor och nollor

Jag var på kärlek ettor och nollor i veckan, inbjuden som del i en jury i en speltävling på högskolan i Karlshamn. Vi träffades sex deltagare från olika delar av arbetslivet för att enas om några vinnare som skulle belönas med ett stipendium för att få chansen att producera färdigt sina spel under sommaren.

Det var snabbt tydligt att det var tur att vi inte behövde utse en vinnare allena utan kunde ge fyra olika projekt den gyllene chansen. Vi hade under månaden som gick tittat igenom tolv olika projektidéer, några med prototyper, andra utan, och värderat dem utifrån innovation, game play, grafik och möjlighet att slutföra spelet på 10 veckor. Kvar hade vi nu de sex spel som vi gemensamt hade gett högst värdering, och skulle välja bort två av dessa. Tur var det, för jag tror det hade varit omöjligt att komma överens om en vinnare med flera 25-30-åringar i teamet. Jag är både glad och ledsen över att jag inte snart ska fylla trettio. Ibland är det bra att inte se några alternativ, utan tro benhårt på det man tvärsäkert vet är sanning, men ibland är det oerhört frustrerande och energikrävande. För det mesta är jag lyckligt vetande om att det är underbart att lära sig nya saker varje dag.

Ja, vi kom i alla fall fram till att två kommersiellt tydligt gångbara klassiker och två innovativa mer osäkra kort alla kommer att spendera sommaren med att förverkliga sina spel. Jag känner mig rätt säker på att vi får se både Bloody Trapland, Morphball, Sjörök och The Shine of a Star på Steam till hösten.

Vi visste förstås inte ett dyft om varken projekten eller deras grundare, men kanske var The Shine of a Star allra roligast att se vinna då det var två förstaårsstudenter. Hade jag varit dem hade jag blivit grymt peppad och lagt ännu mer fokus på att bli en sjukt bra speldesigner under nästa år på skolan.

How to Perforate Stones

How do you perforate stone? I want to Do It Myself and not ship it across the Atlantics!http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Find more of Jenny Hooples wonderful nature pebble jewelerys at Etsy.

Tom and Jerry no longer for kids

There is a debate in Sweden going on about gendered kids' magazines, and seriously - the girly pink magazines on one side together with moms' health range, and boyish blue magazines on the other side next to the motorings??? It is thereby obviously so that Tom and Jerry is no longer for kids but for boys and moreover Bames is clearly a girls' magazine???

Start small - make change

So today I was invited to speed coach 29 particpants from Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon and Sweden in the Young Leaders Visitors Program at Swedish Institute. It was five very intense hours where about 15 different projects were presented to me in five minutes each, expecting a ten minutes feedback. These are probably the most passionate and engaged social entrepreneurs in the world, and it was this passion more than anything else that rested to my conclusion and reflection of the day.

It striked me that it is common that those who are passionate about their cause tend to see an online application from one perspective. They build an idea on a need - to upload or create something, or to get some information for example - while there are almost always at least two perspectives, two target groups - those who upload and those who are going to enjoy the uploaded content, those who read the information and those who would like to add information. To create a full experience not leaving any of these two users disappointed you have to see the needs from both sides. What will the visitor experience when looking at the uploaded content, and how can she/he take it further? What does the visitor expect to happen when uploading her/his content?

My relation to the Internet is almost presumptuous. All of these online projects presented can be reality. Anyone who has this much passion will be able to offer it as a gift to the user and the user will engage back in return. Clearify to yourself and others what your driving forces and words of values are and stay stick to them in every little decition to mediate them to everyone around you. Most webbsites, applications and communities can not offer this personal passion. If you love your one and only user and care for him/her - she will tell her friends and you will soon be more.

Start small - make change - grow big - make big change.

Master of Recycling

I'm dreaming of a recycle app that
- points out all and the nearest Recycling stations
- lets me check in when recycling so that everyone sees how good I am
- gives me points for recycling and displays the best recycler every week/day/year
- includes a competition of the most used station to indicate the good behaviour of the entire community I live in, and preferable list all recyclers who check in at this station making our good work progress
- lets me send in photos at poorly maintained stations

I want to become the master of recycling!

Gamification a model of Pedagogy

I found this useful blog on gamification some time ago. It's Michael Wu, Scientist of Analytics who sorts the gamification concept out to us.

I realized long ago that gamification and my knowledge of Pedagogy are very close connected and with Wu's conclusion below this connection is well formed.

So why do game mechanics/dynamics have the magical power to turn boring chores into desirable activities?

1. Game dynamics use positive feedbacks (e.g. points, badges, status, progression, customization, surprises, social factors, etc.) to build up the users’ motivation.
2. They increase the perceived ability of users by making difficult jobs simpler and more manageable; either through training/practice or by lowering the activation threshold of the target behavior.
3. Game dynamics place triggers in the path of motivated users when they feel the greatest excess in their ability. That is, triggers that prompt the user for action are designed to bring about the convergence of motivation, ability, and trigger all at the same moment.

The target of gamification and pedagogy are the same, and as pedagogy only have a target and not one model, gamification is one pedagogical model.

Reciprocity

Om någon ger oss något vill vi ge något tillbaka. Då är det smart att ge något näst intill orimligt. Mottagaren kommer ge så mycket som möjligt tillbaka. Två killar som helt gratis ger 24 timmars engagerad och engagerande debatt och underhållning, får riktigt många timmars deltagande per person tillbaka. Kan man så tittar man och peppar och deltar.

24 hours

24 hours med Ronnestam och Trendspanaren

SVT är så fast i sitt TV-uppdrag. Det är lite synd när det finns så många nya förutsättningar för public service. Gratis deltagande antingen på plats eller hemifrån soffan med datorn, twitter och någon bildtjänst i molnet. Det är bara kunskapen som är hårdvaluta.

En sådan här kväll konkurrerar lätt ut TVn en fredagkväll. Jag kommunicerar med både publiken och programledarna, jag kan fråga vad jag vill, jag nämns i bild, jag ser vilka som är på plats i lokalen - fast jag är hemma i min villa i förorten själv med tre små barn.

Johan Ronnestam och Göran Adlén vågar prata om sånt de är bra på och tycker är spännande 24 timmar i sträck livesänt. Det är generöst och det ger ett självklart utrymme för fel (ingen kan vara helt felfri 24 timmar i sträck!). Då vågar vi tittare/deltagare engagera oss - lika generösa och orädda tillbaka.



Tillägg:
Efter sex timmars sömn vaknade jag följande morgon och det första jag tänkte var 'hur har de det nu?'. Sjukt fräscha, fokuserade och engagerade såg de ut med fem timmars diskussion kvar. Det gick ju inte att lämna dem mer än nödvändigt i upploppet. Någon som är så engagerad måste ju fortfarande ha mycket kvar att säga och utröna. Eventet blev en fängslande upplevelse istället för en sänd debatt.

Computer paperwork by Julien Vallée

Again this kind of paperwork interpreting digital 3D art in real life that I love - by Canadian Julien Vallée

got stuck with Haunted Manor Lord of Mirrors

I got hooked this weekend by this pretty hidden object story, Haunted Manor: Lord of Mirrors. It made me realize how the game doesn't have to be hard to solve at all.

Haunted Manor is just about the same game as Drawn. It satisfy me almost only through magic and mystic illustrations while the game leads me along all the way and I just do what it tells me to do. I'm supposed to find hidden objects to achieve keys or other required objects to open up new rooms or drawers and to find new hidden objects. I get the aha-feeling again and again but it really doesn't require anything from me... and yet I like it. Or maybe therefor I like it.

I got so hooked I payed 50 kr in the middle of it to be able to continue...

iCarly vs. Shaun the Sheep

Swedish kids younger than 7 years old are devoted to public service children’s TV-channel. There is not really any competition. The public service is the only provider of programs for children from 6 am to 8 pm in Swedish. Other Swedish channels broadcast programs for children an hour at most in the morning and one in the evening. Then there is Nickelodeon and Disney Channel dubbed to Swedish and broadcasting all day, BUT with commercial breaks and other hidden agendas.

Swedish parents choose public service for their kids, produced especially with Swedish children… and Swedish parents in mind. I do, and everyone I know do too. Overall this means programs that are for example gender neutral and diverse and that we think are suitable for kids. There is obviously a gap in the commercial alternatives and what parents want for their kids that public service fills up.

When the kids turn 7 they get the power to choose themselves, and most often they switch channel to Nickelodeon. They think of public service as fun and exciting, while Nickelodeon is considered to be more cool (though also fun and exciting). I’m not sure this tells me very much. Kids say that any program they watch is fun, no matter what the content is.

I tried at home to ask my Nickelodeon watching 7-year old girl to explain why she prefers Nickelodeon. My personal guess is that it presents cool girls and boys (not grown ups, but not kids) and their social relations. It has some sort of romance and what to come mystery about it. I cannot come to think of any specific word that would represent all this to a 7-year old girl and my test object replies – because it’s more fun. It is also self-chosen and completely free from obligations and expectations. Is it fun only maybe?

Then I try ‘What’s the most fun program on the public service channel?’. ‘Shaun the sheep’ she answers and in that battle iCarly is apparently the winner.

My 9-year old has left TV completely since about a year. It’s all the Sims, moviestarplanet.com and Stardoll to her. And to her friends. They are not interacting online yet, but they play it together either several girls by the same computer or via phone. Yet most of the hours she spends alone decorating her virtual suit or creating a movie.

With the immense and immediate popularity of iPad and iPhone amongst very young children the commercial opportunities within the edutainment business is growing fast. Finally we see high quality both fun and educational productions for kids available at very small costs. How much timespent will these alternatives steal from traditional TV for the younger children? How will the needs for and requirements on public service change with that? And the older kids, will they ever return from the computer?

GreenGoose might change habits

I hope the GreenGoose game platform idea is as good as it sounds. It looks as simple as a merge of a set of different sort of step counters and a progression display.

I guess the easiest way to change habits would probably be to gamify them. Often you really don't want to change mentaly though it make sense in all other aspects. You tend to cheat as long as no one is watching you. Most people hate to see themselves fool themselves though and a game easily makes this more visible. Still you can cheat and this is what the counting sensors will avoid. The thing I like the most is that it seems all flexible - you set up your own tasks and goals.

Anyone with bad habits to change that can test it for me, because I haven't time enough to try it out...

The games from the basement are still great

I hate that we've got the basement full of cardboard containers packed with games and consoles, games from the early 80's until today. I'd love my partner to sort them all and arrange them so that the family can play them, learn some history and have fun. Instead they are only bulky.

Today something hit him and he rememberd the old PS2 including at least 200 games, when we arrived at our summerhouse. We started with fantastic Ulala in Space Channel 5. This was one of the first games that supported my ideas on what kind of games many girls like. It's that short that it is not stealing too much undeserved time. The idea to collect more hip friends saving the world is a fun story and a great alternative to visualize progression without points, levels and badges. Graphically it's colorful and it clearly embrases a pink party attitude. I had forgotten completely. I'm happy to be reminded.

Now time for Soul Calibur (my girls are still happy about the mega cool female characters though I think they could be a little more well dressed, and our boy fances Voldo for some reason...'I'm really good' he shouts out...)

CSR låter roligt, utvecklande och effektivt

SvD skriver idag om att upp emot hälften av alla chefer i kommun och landsting går i pension de kommande 10 åren och hur viktigt det blir för dessa arbetsgivare att jobba med sina varumärken för att locka kompetens.

I samma tidning intervjuas (H&M's CSR chef angående företagets hållbarhetsarbete. Jag tänker att de vänder den mest tänkbara kritik de kan få till sin fördel genom att jobba aktivt med problemen.

Jag har tidigare alltid tänkt att det inte spelar mig någon roll huruvida företagens hållbarhetsarbete främst är en strategi för att främja varumärket eller för att rädda världen - arbetet blir ju gjort och det är det viktigaste, men på sistone har jag ändrat mig. Det räcker inte att bara tala om att man arbetar för hållbarhet. Alla måste arbeta för att alla andra också ska kunna bli bättre. De måste dela med sig av kunskapen om vad de gör och hur de arbetar. Målet måste vara ett mer hållbart arbete för alla för att resultat ska uppnås.

Kommun och landsting är för mig idag lika med tråkigt, icke utvecklande och ineffektivitet. Ska de locka mig ska de skapa varumärken med ett gemensamt mål om hållbarhet på alla fronter vilket för mig låter roligt, utvecklande och effektivt.

Traditional and adorable paper sculptures

It's interesting how the asian origin makes just a little more sense and story to the art - how a culture and traditions takes new forms in several aspects in these most adorable paperwork or paper sculpture from Cheong-ah Hwang alias papernoodle (buy them on Etsy)

I want QR-codes for my bills

While opening 50 envelopes with a sharp pen, transfering hundreds of long numbers from my bills into my online bank account, I'm starting to dream of the day when I get them sent to me by email - all in one - and I grab my phone and just screen the QR-code for them - and it's all done in a second.

Hasbro do a LEGO

Hasbro is according to USA Today about to release a new line that is compatible with Lego. Kre-O starts with Transformers characters Optimus Prime and Bumblebee and is not going for the evident opportunity to catch the huge target group that LEGO has forgotten - everyone who is not into big machines and tough power. I'm still dreaming of a site with building instructions created by users where we would probably see hospitals, schools, nurseries, amusement parcs, alice in wonderland accessories and more and more...


More from me on LEGO...

(o)Intresset för hållbart företagande

Idag har jag tittat närmare på det svenska intresset för hållbart företagande. Min första tanke var ’tjejer’. Någonting säger mig spontant att kvinnor generellt sett är mer intresserade av hållbart företagande än vad män är. Varför det??? Mjuka värden, svårare mätbara lönsamhets- alternativt vinstmål, önskan att ge och inte bara ta, ett generellt hållbarhetstänk med barnens framtid i fokus. Taskigt… jag känner ju massor av killar som också pratar om sånt, men det känns ändå som att det för många män tillhör den privata sfären och inte den professionella. Mycket riktigt är över 60% av Miljöpartiets medlemmar kvinnor.

Tidigare på morgonen lyssnade jag på studenters presentationer på Handelshögskolan och där slog det mig att just ekonomistudenter borde vara en av de mest intresserade målgrupperna.

De företag som attraherar kunder som ett resultat av sitt arbete med hållbar utveckling, det är de som kommer att vara ledarna i morgondagens ekonomi. De förtjänar att lyftas fram och inspirera övriga, säger Erik Hedén på IDG.

Då borde ju de blivande ledarna utbildas i frågan kan man tycka. Till min stora glädje hittar jag ett magisterprogram i strategiskt ledarskap för hållbarhet på Blekinge tekniska högskola i Karlskrona. Och 425 uppsatser taggade CSR/hållbarhet, nästan alla avslutade förra året! Framtidshopp! De unga vet vad som krävs i den snara framtiden. Hmmm... en STOR majoritet av dessa är skrivna av tjejer. Det brukar betyda att det blir ett nedgraderat fokus... mindre värdefullt ju fler tjejer som intresserar sig. Hoppas det är grymt kaxiga tjejer i nästa generation chefer!

Företagsinkubatorer hittar jag några stycken, t ex bic factory och innovationsbron. Coolt – några spelare har förstått att det är en bra väg att få fart på det hållbara företagandet, ge hjälp, information och stöd i starten, innan det är för sent.

Och så är det några företag som dyker upp, men ganska få namn ändå tycker jag. Det är Polarn o. Pyret, H&M, IKEA, Eon, Middagsfrid och Axfood (Axel Johnson AB) som syns flitigt i sammanhanget – för att de har jobbat på sin image, för att de är pionjärer inom hållbarhet och värnar om vår jord eller för att de har förstått att det kommer att innebära problem för företaget förr eller senare om inte åtgärderna påbörjas nu, tänker jag misstänksamt. Polarn o. Pyret ser en tydlig önskan hos sina kunder att kunna handla miljövänligt åt barnen - konsumentkraft!

Några få tidningar dyker upp i sökningarna. Miljöaktuellt på IDG, Miljö&Utveckling, Energi&Miljö och Bonniers CSR i praktiken. De är ju konkurrenter till varandra förstås, men borde ju egentligen samarbeta… att skapa medvetande kring hållbarhetsfrågor är ingen tävling utan en mission.

Det finns också några konsultbyråer som erbjuder sina tjänster till företag som vill förstå hur de ska kunna förbättra sitt arbete för hållbarhet. Relation Capital Parnters, Verksam, Esam, och CSR guiden. Dessa konsultföretag är antagligen högst medvetna om att om de bara håller ut ett litet tag till har de snart en större business.

Där det ändå kryllar lite av aktivitet är hos myndigheter, kommuner, institutioner, stiftelser mm.
Framtida Handel är ett dialogprojekt, en frivillig överenskommelse mellan regeringen och ett antal företag, kommuner och regioner. Syftet är att åstadkomma en hållbar handel med dagligvaror till år 2025.
Miljöstyrningsrådet bidrar till hållbar utveckling genom att stödja företag och offentlig förvaltning i deras miljöarbete på strategiskt och kostnadseffektivt sätt.
Tillväxtverket ska stärka regional utveckling och underlätta företagande och entreprenörskap i Sverige.
VINNOVA är en innovationsmyndighet med mål att öka konkurrenskraften hos forskare och företag i Sverige.
Hållbar utveckling Skåne är en partipolitiskt obunden ideell förening med syftet att främja dialogen mellan olika aktörer i regionen. Föreningen verkar för att utöka kontaktytorna och skapa nya mötesplatser för sina medlemmar och andra intresserade.
CSR Sweden företagsnätverk som fokuserar på företagens samhällsansvar och samhällsengagemang och kunskapsutbyte
Svenskt näringsliv är företagens företrädare i Sverige vars mål är att Sverige skall återta en tätposition i den internationella välståndsligan. De bygger en bred intressegemenskap kring värdet av företagande och företagsamhet och vill öka förståelsen för företagens verklighet och för bästa möjliga villkor för att verka och växa.

Många aktörer arbetar för ett hållbart företagande och ändå är det rätt tyst om ämnet. Det kanske är viktigare att titta på vilka som inte är intresserade istället...

Tillägg: att den här posten kommer upp allra högst i googlesökningen på 'intresse hållbarhet' bekräftar kanske funderingen

Social network games challenges

Yesterday I met a group of studens from the current Media Manegement course on Stockholm School of Economics. Robin Teigland has challenged them to study value networks and we narrowed the task down to an area per group. One group is challenged to analys the Turkish market and another will focus on the impact and risks of the Facebook and iPhone/iPad dominance. I thought it's good they focus on what's now and tomorrow instead of what was yesterday. There are many questions, but very few answers...

Turkey is an interesting market when it comes to social media due to their Facebook presence. At least 70% of their technographics have an account (I have seen higher figures before). Is it possible to break in to Turkey without using Facebook as the platform?

Facebook filters what is accessable on their platform both by the age limit, rules on gambeling and other american ethic ruled content. Will we be stuck with Farmville gamedesign forever?

iPad and iPhone are offering new habits of gaming - you can play social games where ever you are and will soon not have to sit by your computer - why would you then? How are the present flash-based online social games going to compete with new portable game offers?

For example World of Warcraft had their name very stable on the map even before the Facebook era and some of these games have made themselves social also outside the computer. These phenomenas seem hard to break, they have managed to keep their community outside Facebook through being something much more than only an online social activity. Is it possible to introduce a social game outside Facebook again? Is it only possible by adding a real life experience on the game maybe?

PS3 Games - E3 2011 - Guitar Hero 5

Pay for Minecraft if you like it is one story of success.

Read about social StarCraft in Swedish by Simon Sundén.