Well the other day I fell across this webinar: ”Social Cognition: Why People Are Social Animals” It’s since been ripped off the site I found it but… 

… it looks like its where I want to land with what I’m trying to say at the moment. I want to arrive at the ‘why’ we are the social reason. I want to know the ‘why’ of things, Because it tells me if I’m on the right track… and I don’t think this is any different than anyone else’s needs. 

It makes me think of a feedback loop, and in a social setting our conversations and interactions are guided by the kinds of social feedback we receive in that social setting. This is cool, but the social stimuli, aka feedback, are voluminous. We’re talking about glances, body language, language itself, facial expression, and at last the melding of all these things together. 

This is a fantastic tangent, but I think it really helps to envelope the complexity of what a real and true social engagement is and how lacking it still can be in the age of social media to simply ‘get connected’ and this is the challenge for designers to overcome. 

How do you re-create the ‘social’ in social media. 

There should be no question that boxes are at the top of the charts of all time favorite toys for children. I walked outside the garage yesterday looking for the kids and stumbled upon them with a neighbor,  rolling ‘another’ neighbor around in a large box that was in the garage.  And then they took turns getting in the box. Watch a bit of it here.

As I was recording this schmorgashborg of fun I couldn’t help but be struck by how simple it really was, and yet how complex. 

The box itself is a simple thing, but the imagination that drives how the box is used is complex. Imagination drove someone to get in the box, close it up, and roll it end over end! 

Simple and loads of fun, evidently. 

I think the element of Imagination is the essence of a fun game mechanic. Perhaps put a different way, a game mechanic that allows the player to explore their imagination, or leaves enough to their imagination that the mechanic takes upon itself more meaning than just a simple box. 

I find myself listening to people talk and speak, and I find value in it. 

It helps me to practice my own rhetoric too.

Building rhetoric is awesome. 

I’ve been having some fun mucking around with eventmachine lately.. it’s really cool tech.

I had a go at implementing a basic Comet server below.

Start it up, browse to http://127.0.0.1:8000 .. telnet to 127.0.0.1 8001 and start typing lines to broadcast to browsers.

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stoweboyd:

The world of business is being re-contoured by the new realities, like ubiquitous connectivity, genius phones, Air/iPad, and the rethinking of ‘offices’.

Alison Arieff, Rethinking the Office Workspace, Part Two

Herman Miller is still selling cubicles, to be sure, but can also read the…

mrgif:

I survived NYC earthquake of 2011.

Let me tell you a story…. 

I was on the phone with my aunt and I was telling her about my new company Social Deviation, and I was trying to explain to her my choice for the company name, and then the game idea I had. Well. As I started talking I felt all the excitement build and then before I could stop I was on this verbal train wreck into a brick wall of silence on the other end of the phone line when I finally found myself taking a breath of air.

Damn. I hate silence. 

And then came the. “Weelllll…..” reaction. 

Double Damn. 

Alright. Epic Fail on two counts, I made a miserable attempt at a Unique Value Proposition, and butchered the delivery. It was way too long, way too chaotic and I failed to breath.

What did I learn?

1. I should start with someone in the right target audience? Yup!

2. I should practice more? Yup!

3. Oh, and I should write the darn thing down. You betcha…. !

the-r-evolution:

ITV Reporter: Is rioting the correct way to express your discontent?
Young Londoner: You wouldn’t be talking to me now if we didn’t riot, would you?
ITV Reporter: …
Young Londoner: Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was…

It sometimes happens to me that I find myself talking about something and then talking and talking without really hitting the point on the head. Well, I did that in my last post on ‘Social’ Mechanics, which was admittedly no more than an impassioned rant.   

What I really wanted to say was “What on earth are social games going on about, unless they are giving people something to be social about?” The London Riots have given people more substance to talk about in the last 24-48 hours than all of social media games combined.

How do games engage?

So, I just finished reading a blog by Tadhg Kelly that resonated with me on a different matter, but lead me to this; Social Games don’t really focus on the social they focus on the measurable engagement premise, Tadhg speaks about. By and large I’m frustrated with that. I want a 'social’ game. Not a game that is geared toward the achiever, explorer, or killer for their engagement. I want a social game, with those aspects.

What I am articulating is (And I think this is the untapped driver for all social games and many social applications) this:

“People need a reason to be social!”

Put another way “Games need to give their Players reason’s to be social about what they are doing in the game in an engaging way!”

This is something of a problem. Its like the twitter and facebook issue, that many people I know have. They just don’t have anything 'witty’ to say. So they choose to say nothing at all. This is irony. You joined, a social application, to…. what?  

I think the gap between adoption and the social wall flowers, is that they don’t know how to dance OR more to the point, are too embarrassed to dance. So, I ask, what are their reasons to be social? 

What ARE the social reasons that games give to people to be social inside the game themselves? Not just outside, where they can invite new users, and gift stuff, and crow about their achievements… again, not the social quadrant of the bartle test in my frank opinion, but reason for social Interaction inside the game? 

I can’t think of many outside the normal rudiments of communication, chat, group, private message, etc. But these were all rough elements of any decent or indecent MMORPG. Why don’t we call them social media games?  Lets at least give credit where credit is due! They at least did a few things right! More so than the new breed of games built for engagement with a *insert tone of derision* 'mouse’. 

This is my prediction:

The game that integrates the right mix of 'reasons’ into their game pla…er engagement model will become the standard for social media games and MMO’s for that matter too.