Kenazart, experience designers

Here a preview of my upcoming novel.

To me a novelist is the ultimate experience designer, out of the most commun technology, you can find out there these days, the author can get you to cry, laugh, feel heart broken, have you hope and fear... for a fictional character.

The other thing, I find amazing, is how one person can sometimes make such a big difference. It's not like a film, it doesn't take hundred of people and millions in budget to get the product to exist.

My research in how emotion emerge, has taken me into studying the anatomy of best-selling novels and blockbusters. One thing, leading to another, I thought, why not me, could I also create a whole new world, characters that you love, others that you hate, could I make people laugh, wonder, hope and fear for my characters... could I get people to trade a few nights sleeps for a fabulous adventure in another universe? Could I create a fiction that make you glad that you have a 5 hour train ride? Could I write a book that there is "no way" you are going to forget home?

Anyhow, I don't know if readers will feel all those emotions, but I do know that I really enjoy the proccess of writing it. It fascinates me how I'm starting to really love some of my characters.

The other day, I was re-reading the lastest chapter, conscious that I still hadn't written the rest. If I had turned the page, there was nothing to be read. Yet, I felt the urge, the compulsion to read what was coming next. Cool, hein? :-)

I sit down twice a day on my computer, with now the same desire... to find out what's coming next. I spend bus ride and any available minute of my time, creating metaphores and situations I could be using in my book.

I have challenged myself to write it in English. After Google define and translate for synonymes and spell checks, let me introduce you to my new friends:

Both of them, help me find the appropriate words, cultivate diversity amoung my vocabulary.

Having this project, makes me more aware of how others write. I feel like, just by having this project, I improve my writing skills. I have a nephew who is going to spend a few days with me on vacations, I'm going to try to have him write his own story. I bet his spelling is going to improve way faster than with normal class.

My other, best friend in this project is the website 750words.com but I'll write a whole post describing how wonderful it's been to me. And for that website, I have to thank a tangible friend, Nathalie Magniez, the nut grinder of information.

My goal is to have it finished and edited by Sept 1st, 2010. Here is the official countdown:

Here is an abstract of the talk given by Jane Mc Gonigal, great and dynamic talk : This is the face of someone about the make an epic win in World of Warcarft.

As Malcolm Gladwel demonstrates it in its lastest book Outliers: The Story of Success, if you spend 10000 hours doing something you develop super capacities.

Online they learn that:

• they are happier by working hard than just sitting around.
• they trust that other people will want to play with them.
• they know that the system will only challenge you to complete a mission that is just hard enough for their capacities, so they've grown optimimic that they will succeed it, if they try. So they instantly try.
• there is a grand meaning to what they are doing.

She claims that some gamers have a 'I'm good in games face' but a "I'm not good at life face". In life, do you get challenges that are perfectly measured to your skills? In life, do you get constant positive feedbacks?

Even a "rational" economist says that we are witnessing an exode to online games. Online games, the promised land, of acheivable challenges, crowds willing to help and move toward the same goal, constant appreciation of what you're worth in the game and an opportunity to save the world, even if its a virtual one.

Rich of those observations, Jane McGonigal with a team at the Institute For The Future has conducted several experiments, designing online games that would save the real world:

• http://www.superstructgame.org/
• http://www.urgentevoke.com/

I teach, every now and again, a Law & copyrights program at the IIM a multimedia school that trains student to become multimedia project managers. They will work in video game production, advertisment and communication, 3D animations...

My goal was to have them ALL be careful about the images and music they would use in their productions as they all have a tendancy to take the first Google image content and ignore copyrights.

I knew that lectures are good, especially when they are filled with examples but are easily forgotten.

So I decided to create a mix of the socratic method and a good old game show.

I believe you can learn very difficult things very easily if it's fun. And moving your body actually helps in the memorizing process.

So I had the students, pick an elaborate question about copyright and multimedia, do research, write a post with the answers and write quiz questions about the material they had found. The official quiz questions were released for them to practise on. Here our 117 quiz questions about law and copyrights in multimedia (in French).

Some of the questions where :

• is Patricia allowed to show YouTube videos of Friends extracts on her blog?
• What are the 2 legal requirements that you have to put on every websites in France?
• As a magazine can I use a photo published under Creative commons (cc-by) without telling the author?
• ...

After 4 days of research and practice, we had our official Bamboozle game. Here is the receipe:

Separate in class into teams. Put the buzzer between them. Get them to be the buzzperson in turns (to have them all moving).

The first team that hits the buzzer gets to talk. When they are talking, the entire team, has to have one foot up. Otherwise the other team can "bamboozle" them and take their turn. Just by repeating the right answer, the second team gets the point.

Should the team do something creative while answering, they would get bonuses points. Those bonuses point get them to counter a bamboozle or get them 2 minutes on the web to research the answer.

This year, teams came up with various jumps, songs, little dances, air guitar...it was fun.

The first team that reaches 10 points, wins. Their answer have to be argumented.

The second part of the game is the champion tournament. Have both team elect their "champion". The champions are asked flash questions. The answers of those flash questions can only be "Yes, go for it" or "No, that's in your dreams, darling."

Make sure, you give trophies, in a very pompous way, to all winners.

I heard a student say : "the funny thing is that even if you don't want to learn that day, you learn anyway."

I wanted to thank the IIM for the support, especially Livia and Céline for the scotch tape. I also would like to thank all Tic Teams and all Tac Teams for their good spirit and energy.

:-)