Monday, September 22, 2008

How to play IFTF's Superstruct game

From my colleagues...here are some thoughts about how you might play Superstruct:

• Play by yourself, or choose a team (or teams) of 3 to 10 people from your organization to play Superstruct as a team project for the six weeks the game will run. Players will probably need to devote a minimum of an hour a week to make it worthwhile, but if you can devote at least three hours a week, you'll get a lot more out of it. Give different members of the team different assignments, such as: 1) telling stories about what your organization is doing to address one or more of the superthreats; 2) starting Superstruct discussion groups focused specifically on your community (for example, new ways your community can come together to assure that everyone has safe Internet access in 2019); create a superstructure to engage with new kinds of groups you don't ordinary work with to solve the community dilemmas in 2019 and then personally invite people in those groups to join you--either people who are playing the game already or people you know in the community who might be willing to play.

• Use the superstructures as a way to engage the organizations that you currently support. Create a superstructure with a mission that you would like to see addressed, and invite your community/business groups or other participants to join the game and come up with new approaches to that mission, engaging the resources of other the SEHIs in Superstruct.

• Convene your peers in other organizations in Superstruct to start discussions on issues you all share. To get the most innovative thinking in your discussions, set them up the discussions in a way that invites input from the vast range of SEHIs who will play the game. If interesting ideas come up in the discussions, start a superstructure to test drive the ideas.

• Look for other institutional players you may not have worked with in the past. Many of IFTFs Ten-Year Forecast members are large corporations engaged in the food industry, the health industry, and the information industry. We also have a number of government and nonprofit members, like the CDC and United Cerebral Palsy, for example. Superstruct is a low-risk way to try out collaborations you might not have considered in the past.

• Use Superstruct as a "windtunnel" for testing your long-term strategies. Tell stories in Superstruct about how you've succeeded in your long-range goals in the challenging world of 2019. Then see how other players respond to the stories--how many "raves" you get for your stories or how they comment. The more compelling the stories are, with images or videos, the more likely you will be to get responses.

You can play the game with any name you choose, so you can be as public or anonymous as you want. And you can't really lose. Everything that happens in the game will almost certainly enrich your understanding of the dilemmas we face locally and globally--and of unique ways to collaborate to on a very large scale to address these complex problems.

Please feel free to contact me/IFTF if you have more questions or would like some hands-on help getting started in the game. We look forward to working together in the world of 2019!

Be sure and visit the video page now at http://superstructgame.org and game play starts on October 6.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

5 minute Geography Test!

Just wish they showed a map of the results when you were finished. Can you beat me?

81
Created by OnePlusYou - Online Dating

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Headed to South Africa on Thursday

I'll be there for a week for work. Headed to Johannesburg for the 2008 International of Science Parks conference. Traveling with a few co-workers...should be fun! Will visit a game park and Sun City while there.

Friday, July 18, 2008

IFTF is hiring: Community Leaders/Game Masters for Superstruct

The Institute for the Future is hiring five community leaders/game masters for the upcoming future forecasting game Superstruct.

It’s an eight-week position beginning September 8, 2008. You can be a game master from anywhere in the world (outside of US is okay; we will have players from all over the world, although primarily playing in English), and it will require ~ 12 hours of online work per week. You’ll work very closely with Jane McGonigal (Avant Game) and Jamais Cascio (Open the Future). This is a non-profit game with no commercial sponsors; the position comes with a stipend of $2500.

Skills required: Great forum writing skills; online storytelling experience (blogs, videos, photos, Twitter, etc.); curiosity about the future; some expertise in issues related to sustainability, global health, environmental or climate issues, global business, social networks, or anything else you think might be useful to solving the problems of the future. We're open to considering anyone with great writing skills and a desire to investigate the future! No technical skills required, just great Internet skills.

Your job will be to lead a team of players (at minimum, hundreds of players; more likely, thousands of players) in creating a collaborative online forecast of the year 2019. The forecasting will take place through wikis, forums, videos, blogs, Twitter, online comics, photo sets, and whatever else our players use to depict and talk about the future. You'll be reading and watching lots of player-created content, in addition to making your own content. You'll give the players feedback, and you'll synthesize and summarize the most interesting things in a short weekly story. You'll be moderating forums and wikis dedicated to solving a particular future-problem. You'll have to help your community manage a careful balance between "wow, the future might be scary" storytelling to "you know what, we might actually be able to solve this problem before it kills us all" optimism. Because the game isn't just about imagining the future. It's about inventing the future. This game is a kind of working prototype for the year 2019!

Each game master will focus on one of five "superthreats", ranging from a devastating disruption of the food supply chain, to a pandemic, to "global weirding" weather patterns to create millions of climate refugees. (Depending on your interest and area of expertise, we'll make sure you get the right topic!) In the two weeks before the game launches, we'll give you a crash course in the IFTF research that is guiding this game, so you'll be an expert on your area when the game launches on September 22, 2008.

To apply: Send a letter to Jane at superstruct@iftf.org explaining why you want to join us on the Superstruct team. Mention any previous experience as a writer, or thinking about the future, playing or making games, running online communities, or being an interesting person online. Include a CV or resume if you think it will help explain who you are, but most importantly, in your letter, answer this question: It's the summer of 2019. You are yourself, but 10 years in the future. Describe where you are having for dinner, what you're eating, and what you're thinking or talking about. How did you wind up there, compared to where you had dinner most often in the summer of 2008?


Superstruct! Play the game, invent the future.

This fall, the Institute for the Future invites you to play Superstruct, the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game. It’s not just about envisioning the future—it’s about inventing the future. Everyone is welcome to join the game. Watch for the opening volley of threats and survival stories, September 2008.

*

This is a game of survival, and we need you to survive.

Super-threats are massively disrupting global society as we know it. There’s an entire generation of homeless people worldwide, as the number of climate refugees tops 250 million. Entrepreneurial chaos and “the axis of biofuel” wreak havoc in the alternative fuel industry. Carbon quotas plummet as food shortages mount. The existing structures of human civilization—from families and language to corporate society and technological infrastructures—just aren’t enough. We need a new set of superstructures to rise above, to take humans to the next stage.

You can help. Tell us your story. Strategize out loud. Superstruct now.

It's your legacy to the human race.

Want to learn more about the game? Read the Superstruct FAQ.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Not the best email to receive from your phone company

From: Xiptel Support Services
Date: July 15, 2008 2:18:07 AM PDT
To: support@xiptel.com
Subject: ***XIPTEL SERVICE OUTAGE***

Monday evening XIPTEL's services were interrupted at approximately 6:40 PM due to a power outage at the Fremont, CA data center. When power was in the process of being restored, a power surge destroyed the primary and secondary firewall systems, which has continued the outage. Technicians and resources have been working through the night in an effort fix the problem. It is anticipated that service will be out completely for 24 to 36 hours, although we hope and are working to have it back sooner. As soon as we have further information we will communicate that to you. We apologize for the disruption and we are working to restore service as quickly as possible.
--
XIPTEL

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Superstruct! Play the game, invent the future.

[This post was copied from IFTF's Future Now blog]

This fall, the Institute for the Future invites you to play Superstruct, the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game. It’s not just about envisioning the future—it’s about inventing the future. Everyone is welcome to join the game. Watch for the opening volley of threats and survival stories, September 2008.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SEPTEMBER 22, 2019

Humans have 23 years to go

Global Extinction Awareness System starts the countdown for Homo sapiens.

PALO ALTO, CA — Based on the results of a year-long supercomputer simulation, the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS) has reset the "survival horizon" for Homo sapiens - the human race - from "indefinite" to 23 years.

“The survival horizon identifies the point in time after which a threatened population is expected to experience a catastrophic collapse,” GEAS president Audrey Chen said. “It is the point from which it a species is unlikely to recover. By identifying a survival horizon of 2042, GEAS has given human civilization a definite deadline for making substantive changes to planet and practices.”

According to Chen, the latest GEAS simulation harnessed over 70 petabytes of environmental, economic, and demographic data, and was cross-validated by ten different probabilistic models. The GEAS models revealed a potentially terminal combination of five so-called “super-threats”, which represent a collision of environmental, economic, and social risks. “Each super-threat on its own poses a serious challenge to the world's adaptive capacity,” said GEAS research director Hernandez Garcia. “Acting together, the five super-threats may irreversibly overwhelm our species’ ability to survive.”Garcia said, “Previous GEAS simulations with significantly less data and cross-validation correctly forecasted the most surprising species collapses of the past decade: Sciurus carolinenis and Sciurus vulgaris, for example, and the Anatidae chen. So we have very good reason to believe that these simulation results, while shocking, do accurately represent the rapidly growing threats to the viability of the human species.”

GEAS notified the United Nations prior to making a public announcement. The spokesperson for United Nations Secretary General Vaira Vike-Freiberga released the following statement: "We are grateful for GEAS' work, and we treat their latest forecast with seriousness and profound gravity."

GEAS urges concerned citizens, families, corporations, institutions, and governments to talk to each other and begin making plans to deal with the super-threats.

###

This is a game of survival, and we need you to survive.

Super-threats are massively disrupting global society as we know it. There’s an entire generation of homeless people worldwide, as the number of climate refugees tops 250 million. Entrepreneurial chaos and “the axis of biofuel” wreak havoc in the alternative fuel industry. Carbon quotas plummet as food shortages mount. The existing structures of human civilization—from families and language to corporate society and technological infrastructures—just aren’t enough. We need a new set of superstructures to rise above, to take humans to the next stage.

You can help. Tell us your story. Strategize out loud. Superstruct now.

It's your legacy to the human race.

Want to learn more about the game? Read the Superstruct FAQ.

Superstruct Now

Get a head start on the game. It’s the summer of 2019. Imagine you’re already there, and tell us a little bit about your future self. Where are you having dinner tonight?

Post your comments and/or read others on the original post.

IFTF is hiring 2 PHP gaming programmers...help us make a game!

The Institute for the Future is looking for two PHP programmers to help build our first ever MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER FORECASTING GAME. Players will work together to forecast the year 2019, and the game focuses on real-world threats to the survival of the human species.

Basically, it's an exciting and save-the-world kind of project. Join us!

Here's what we need:

FRONT-END: A WEB INTERFACE PROGRAMMER who can build highly interactive web pages in PHP and work with the game design team to spec the design and with the graphic design team to implement the design. UI Flash skills are a plus.

BACK-END: A DATABASE PROGRAMMER who can work in PHP. Tasks will include integrating web forms for capturing blog posts, setting up forums, doing simple surveys, computing survey results, and feeding results to graphic displays. Drupal knowledge is a plus.

Both positions are short-term positions that start immediately and are expected to last through September. San Francisco/Bay Area individuals are preferred, but remote work is possible. Salaries commensurate with experience.

This is an opportunity to work with a game pioneer and a world-renown non-profit research institute to help address the problems we face as a global society over the coming decade. We expect this game to be groundbreaking and receive a lot of attention, not to mention extremely fun to work on.

Interested? Send Jane an email and tell her about yourself and your experience - write to jane @ avantgame dot com!

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Facebook...you make no sense

Yesterday, I received an email from Facebook indicating that IFTF had been granted Network-status. It took a while for IFTF to be listed in the network directory and after finding it, sharing my work email, and confirming my email, I was presented with the following information:


My question...why send the email to me/create a network for my employer in the first place?

Saturday, June 21, 2008

2008 Taste of Howell Mountain

I am headed to the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena this afternoon for a wine and food tasting and a silent/live auction: 2008 Taste of Howell Mountain. Pics and an update later!

[Update: won two silent auctions! Not even close on the live auctions, though. Are top bids (what we would pay for) were often at or below the starting bid. Pics will have to wait as I dropped my camera into some water.]

[Update 2: camera was saved after weeks of desiccating in the refrigerator. Here they are!]

Thursday, June 19, 2008

My longest international flights

I made a long international trip a couple of weeks ago (Italy!), so thought I would list my longest international flights. The best website I could find is Web|Flyer's MileMaker Mileage Calculator. (Please let me know if there is a better site.)

Here they are (apologies to those who prefer to use kilometers!):
  1. 5680 miles: San Francisco - Frankfurt, Germany
  2. 5620 miles: San Francisco - Seoul, Korea
  3. 5520 miles: Los Angeles - Nadi, Fiji
  4. 5110 miles: San Francisco - Tokyo, Japan
  5. 4760 miles: New York - Sao Paulo, Brazil
  6. 4080 miles: Miami - Sao Paulo, Brazil
  7. 3210 miles: Miami - Santa Cruz, Bolivia
In September, I will likely be going to South Africa...and if I get the DC to Cape Town leg...that will be 7930 miles! The big daddy of them all is Newark to Singapore: 9520 miles!

What is your longest flight?

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

New IFTF report: Smart Infrastructures: Computational Resources to Burn

There is a new addition to IFTF's public library. From the Technology Horizons Program is the report, "Smart Infrastructures: Computational Resources to Burn"

Over the next 15–20 years we will overcome limits in availability of our computational resources. While today, high-performance computing applications are mostly limited to capital-intensive industries like petroleum exploration, aircraft and automotive design, and pharmaceuticals, over time these capabilities will migrate to mass markets and eventually into the hands of consumers. In this world of abundant computing, our interactions with computers will no longer be constrained to laptops, desktops, and handhelds. High-powered computing capability will be embedded in our physical environment, in living things, medicine, walls, furniture, garments, tools, utensils, and toys. We'll be able to interact with information in place as naturally as we interact now with physical things, which will become increasingly less passive, and more active. In short, the computation revolution will have huge impacts on daily life, workplaces, and in many industries. In this memo we review the fundamental technologies driving exponential growth in computing resources and some of the likely applications in areas such as entertainment, gaming, health, and communications.

New IFTF report: Sensory Transformation: New Tools & Practices for Overcoming Cognitive Overload

There is a new addition to IFTF's public library. From the Technology Horizons Program is the report, "Sensory Transformation: New Tools & Practices for Overcoming Cognitive Overload"

Information overload has become a cliche. We use the phrase half-jokingly to describe the stress associated with the onslaught of media that digital technology has unleashed on us. The sobering reality is that we ain't seen nothin' yet. The vast majority of new information technologies are either built for data acquisition (e.g., sensor networks and camera phones) or information dissemination (e.g., blogs, RSS, location-enhanced media, and aware environments). The suffocation of endless incoming e-mail demanding immediate response, the twinge of guilt from falling behind on your RSS feeds, dread about a TiVo hard drive full of unwatched shows these are all just a teaser for what to come. No matter how many computers surround us, collecting, aggregating, and delivering information, we each only have one pair of eyes and ears, and more importantly, one mind, to deal with the data.

Friday, April 25, 2008

STIRR Deal Hacks (and STIRR Birthday!)


STIRR Deal Hacks (and STIRR Birthday!)
  • Wednesday, May 14...6-9pm
  • Bistro 412
  • 412 Emerson Street
  • Palo Alto CA
Join other founding teams and investors for STIRR's first Deal Hacks.

STIRR Celebrates It's 3rd year with a twist. This time we bring you two of the best early stage investors in the spotlight for Deal Hacks. Each VC will be sharing personal stories from the the investment side of the fence. They'll be available afterward for group Q&A.

Year 3!

This event kicks off STIRR's 3rd year. We'll be clebrating by returning to the site that started it all back in April 2006: Bistro 412 (formerly F&A's). The venue has a beautiful back patio and we've reserved the whole space just for STIRR.

Tickets: http://dealhacks.eventbrite.com

Who should attend?
  • Founding Teams of launched Internet, Mobile, Enterprise, Software related BioTech and Cleantech
  • VCs
  • Qualified Angels
  • Top level engineering talent
  • Press (must qualify for pass: press@stirr.net)
Who shouldn't attend (these folks bring us down):
  • No deal finders/middlemen
  • Non-investing advisors (aka 'Advisory Capital')
  • Unrelated consultants, service providers, tourists
STIRR's mixer events are designed to bring together the founding teams of early stage startups and later stage entrepreneurs. The events are created and hosted by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. STIRR events are never PR stunts or sales pitches and we never sell/rent our email lists.

Some of the venue and food cost have been graciously sponsored by:

Sun Microsystems - http://www.sun.com/startup

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Why I won't upgrade my SUV's Navigation System

Last year, I bought an SUV (2007 Honda Pilot) and choose the Navigation System as an add-on. This added ~$2,000 to the cost of my vehicle. Even knowing that they made a huge margin on the nav system, I am quite happy with it. What I didn't ask about at the time, was upgrades to the system (new points of interest, new roads, upgraded features, etc.). A mistake.

The vehicle had been making a funny sound when I gently accelerated, and as the 10,000 mile mark had passed, I thought that a check-up was in order: oil change, rotate the tires, top off the car juices, etc. & also have the sound looked at/fixed. When I dropped off the vehicle, I also inquired if a Nav Update was available. A hesitant look and a quick response was given, "you'll have to speak to parts, they can tell you." It didn't seem to important to me at the time to do this, so I didn't. I went to work and returned around 5pm and all was in order (the sound was fixed, too!).

Today, while speaking to a colleague about nav systems (he just got a Dash Express), I queried him about updates. We googled and quickly found this site that show you if an update is available. One is...but only to dealers...and at a cost of, get this, $191 + tax. I called them for clarification. It will be available to consumers in July at the same price. Now...what do I get for this upgrade? Here's the list. Coverage was expanded (in places that I probably won't be driving to)...and here are the full list of new "features":
  • One way streets (indicated with arrows on the 1/20 mile scale - turn on in Icon Options - "Other icons")
  • Loss of male voice prompts (voice prompts revert to female - regardless of previous setup setting)
  • Additional brand icons for restaurants, motels and other POIs
  • Updated maps and POIs
I don't know about any of you...but how is this upgrade worth $191 + tax?

Tele Atlas...do you have an answer? (For those that don't know...Tele-Atlas is the supplier of this data to Alpine USA, the maker of my nav system.)

IFTF's next conference: The Future of Making: Making the Future

Here is what IFTF is up to next! Should be a fun conference!

The Future of Making: Making the Future
2008 Technology Horizons Spring Exchange, May 4-5, 2008

We are on the verge of a transformation in how products are designed, manufactured, and distributed. The entire supply chain is undergoing reinvention and the impact will be felt not only by manufacturers but by individuals, households, communities, even entire regions. Driven by the need to innovate faster than ever before, green aspirations, and a quest for authenticity, new paradigms for "making things" are emerging. The introduction of cheap 3D printers, the growth of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture, the rise of ad hoc manufacturing, and the popularity of collaborative communities around ideas, designs, and R&D all point to how the future of making may play out. What will these new models for making look like? Who will be the new makers? What role will your organization play in the new production chain and what will it mean for how you relate to your customers?

We will begin the exploration by immersing ourselves in the at the third annual Bay Area Maker Faire, a massive celebration of DIY culture taking place at the San Mateo Expo Center on May 3 and 4. Sponsored by MAKE:, the DIY technology projects magazine, the Maker Faire is packed with "weak signals"—projects, methods, and people that can give us glimpses of the future of making. After our Sunday at the Maker Faire, we will gather the next day at a nearby hotel to make sense of what we've learned. IFTF's Technology Horizons team will present the new Future of Making Map, a framework for thinking about this transformation. Joining us will be a handful of future-thinking, passionate experts who will help us understand how to navigate a future where making itself is being remade.