Friday, June 24, 2011

Kids as Creators, Not Just Consumers

At the ReadWriteWeb2WAY Summit held in New York June 13-14, Andres Monroy-Hernandez, a PhD Candidate at MIT and creator of the online community around the programming language SCRATCH asks, "how can we empower kids to be builders and makers?"
READ THE ARTICLE HERE.

Watch ReadWriteWeb2WAY Summit



Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Games For Change June 20-22 2011, #G4C2011

NOTES
There are some inspiring people working to change the world with games that create social action.
The Games For Change festival site calls them the "most socially conscious and geekiest do-gooders in the gaming arena".
Watch the lovely geeks here on G4C2011 LIVESTREAM.
You can read The BLOG here.

A nice @STORIFY of Jesse Schells' keynote here by @devonsmith.
#socialMFA

CLOSING KEYNOTE: Prior to starting Schell Games in 2004, Jesse was the Creative Director of the Disney Imagineering Virtual Reality Studio, where he worked and played for seven years as designer, programmer and manager on several projects for Disney theme parks and DisneyQuest, as well as on Toontown Online, the first massively multiplayer game for kids.
FOLLOW: @jesseschell

sets up a PEACE VS WAR opinion scorecard:
PEACE= catharsis, control, no more race/language barriers?, see others POV
WAR= violence comes easily, desensitation to violence, videogames train you to kill, humans inherently racist?
Talks about how Sesame Street allowed him access to diversity.
Books referenced: Grand Theft Childhood, A Theory Of Fun by Ralph Koster, The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman

He also played this video of Fred Rogers defending PBS to the US Senate. Very touching remarks about the importance of acknowledging chlidrens' feelings.



JUNE 22, 2011
LIVESTREAM BLOGGING:
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN FUSIONS by Diane Rees here.


JUNE 21, 2011
PANEL/Games and Cultural Spaces:
Live Blog Notes from Games for Change by Amy Sample Ward
The speakers for this panel were Tracy Fullerton-Electronics Arts Game Innovation Lab, Ruth Cohen-American Museum of Natural History, Elaine Charnov-The New York Public Library, Jason Eppink-Museum of Moving Image, and Syed Salahuddin-Babycastles
Read her BLOG notes here.
FOLLOW: @amyrsward moderates a #4change #commbuild chat each month
Next: July 21st, 2011
archived chats here.




Monday, June 20, 2011

Social Commerce

"According to the 2011 Social Commerce Study from Shop.org, purchase behavior fueled by social media is on the rise:
  • "42% of US online adults follow a retailer via Facebook, Twitter or blog
  • Average US adult follows 6 retailers; and does do primarily for special deals (58%) – other top reasons were for new product news (49%) and to participate in promotional contest and events (39%)
  • 28% of Facebook users have purchased something online via a Facebook link"
It all makes sense, of course. We all should be able to purchase products and services in the same stream where we recommend them (or warn people off). Or put another way, if recommendations from family and friends are amongst the most trusted sources for purchase decision then putting those recommendations right on the store shelf makes sense." - John Bell, The Digital Influence Mapping Project
YOU CAN READ THE ARTICLE HERE.


"Inevitably, Facebook will play a significant role either by embedding storefronts in the social network or by connecting Facebook to every sell-point available." -John Bell

READ "The Key Trends in Social Commerce" by Lauren Fischer here.

EMOTIONAL BRANDING

I like this presentation from the folks at VisceralBusiness.com.
You can follow Anne McCrossan (@Annemcx) a founding partner and "tribal linchpin type and TEDster who lives in Wimbledon." 



I really dig the music too.