IFTF's After Shock: How to Play

In addition to just jumping in and playing solo as an earthquake survivalist, here are some thoughts about how you might play IFTF's After Shock with others.

Beginning this Thursday, November 13, and continuing for 3 weeks, After Shock will simulate the landscape of Southern California after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake as if the disaster is happening in real time.

Through headlines, photographs, maps, and continual updates from After Shock’s grassroots reporters “on the scene” spread over Southern California, visitors to aftershock.net will experience the earthquake from the immediate aftermath of the initial 2 minutes of shaking, to the crucial 48-72 hours afterwards in which life-saving decisions still need to be made, to a massive aftershock that hits a now weakened region. Finally, the timeline of the After Shock simulation will accelerate to weeks and months after the earthquake, as Southern Californians shift from survival and recovery to rebuilding: lives, schools, businesses, networks.

How are you going to survive? Imagine your future now so you will be better prepared prepared for this inevitable future. How you are going to respond to a major earthquake in your city? Tell us your story by writing a scenario, uploading images, drawings or creating videos.

1. Join the After Shock Facebook group and the Twitter stream.
2.. Play as a Group: SURVIVAL to RECOVERY to REBUILDING
* Choose a group to play (2–10 people, or more) from your organization to play as a team project for the 3 weeks of game play
* Decide on a minimum amount of time to devote to playing, say an hour a week, to make it fun and realistic (create a competition in your group for best stories and solutions)
* Tell stories about what your organization is doing to address the disaster for individuals and for the company
* Start an After Shock discussion group focused specifically on your community or organization (for example, new ways your company/org can come together to assure that everyone has survived or has communication tools )
* Create a discussion to engage with new kinds of groups you don't ordinary work with to solve disaster-related issues
* Use your networks and preferred networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook to convene your peers in other groups/organizations in After Shock to start discussions on issues you all share
* Look for other institutional players you may not have worked with in the past to team up with

3. Play even though you are out of the CA region!

Imagine you have colleagues or loved ones in So. Cal:

1. How would you communicate with them?
2. How would you transfer support resources (money, water, health care)?
3. Tell you story about what is happening outside of the disaster region.
   

At it’s culmination, data will be collected and analyzed to help us understand how Southern California citizens might respond to this type of disaster and their degree of preparedness which IFTF will share in addition to key learnings form this project.

Be sure and watch the video at and game play starts Thursday!

IFTF releases the Future of Work research to the public domain

The Future of Work:

• Future of Work: Map
• Future of Work: Technology Foundations
• Future of Work: Perspectives

The Technology Horizons Program’s research on the Future of Work comes at an exciting time for the intersection of work and technology. Technology has become integrated into virtually every aspect of work. And because we spend so much time working, work really is the place where we most directly feel the impact of developing technologies. From collaboration to productivity; from new ways of approaching workspace design to the increasing ability to work from virtually anywhere; and from hiring and recruitment to new skill sets—it is a time of experimentation for companies and organizations as trends in technology converge to change what it means to work.

Trip to Johannesburg

In September, I took a trip to Johannesburg for work. I visited Pilanesburg Game Reserve and Soweto while there. My pics are here. A co-worker's are here. My pics are here.

Go visit!

The Sarah Palin Effect

Here's a great video from my pal Tom. Funny!

Why Mad Men the best show on TV

Last night, I finished watching the last episode of Mad Men (Season 1). The closing episode brought to light why it is the best show on TV.



This episode, which I was able to quickly find by using ffwd, took me back to 1976, to sit in my great grandmother's house and watch my grandmother's pictures of her trips around the country. At the time, it opened my eyes to the wonder of travel and was an initial connection to many of my distant cousins. I can still smell the popcorn and feel the hardwood floor underneath me.

You may not approve of the people in the show, but it is truly the best of TV. Watch it!

My longest international flights...part 2

I made another long international trip a couple of weeks ago (South Africa!), so I thought I would update my list of 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. 8130 miles: Washington, DC - Johannesburg, South Africa <-- NEW!
   
2. 5680 miles: San Francisco - Frankfurt, Germany
   
3. 5620 miles: San Francisco - Seoul, Korea
   
4. 5520 miles: Los Angeles - Nadi, Fiji
   
5. 5110 miles: San Francisco - Tokyo, Japan
   
6. 4760 miles: New York - Sao Paulo, Brazil
   
7. 4170 miles: Johannesburg, South Africa - Dakar, Senegal <--NEW!
   
8. 4080 miles: Miami - Sao Paulo, Brazil
   
9. 3970 miles: Dakar, Senegal - Washington, DC <--NEW!
   
10. 3210 miles: Miami - Santa Cruz, Bolivia

What is your longest flight?

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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?

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!]