Kooperation mit brainfloor.com – open Innovation

Es ist nie leicht Unternehmen, bzw. Unternehmer zu finden, mit denen man auf einer ähnlichen Wellenlänge unterwegs ist. Dank Philipp Fuchs, der BrainCue inzwischen seit einiger Zeit mit verfolgt und unterstützt, haben wir denoch ein solches Unternehmen gefunden.

Zusammen mit brainfloor.com – open Innovation wird BrainCue in Zukunft projektweise näher zusammenarbeiten. Hier geht es im besonderen darum interessante Projekte mit Hilfe der brainfloor.com Plattform zu entwickeln und Input dank der ‘Intelligenz der Masse’ zu generieren. Wir dürfen gespannt sein was alles fruchtbares aus dieser Kooperation entsteht. Ich werde hier bestimmt immer wieder das Eine oder Andere posten. Bis dann, Roman

Quest: How would you gamify SETI…BrainCue has a cue…

This is a guest article written by BrainCue.

Gamification is definitively a buzz-word for 2011. For all reader that aren’t familiar with this subject:

1. Gamification means ‘the use of game mechanics & rewards for non-game applications in order to increase engagement and loyality. 2. There’s the potential for adding fun at boring activities and using gamelike activities to solve bigger issues.

BrainCue is a german start-up and it’s in the game of developing game-layers for different business sectors and branches. Just recently BrainCue stepped over a brainteaser that was announced by Gamify and SETI.

Task: How would you gamify SETI? You can find further information here.

Our approach: First focus on the experience the „players“ will have, and focus on the business objectives secondly.

So, we thought about a game that’s already

Vibram five fingers – Part II

Concerning the big success of my first article about my vibram five finger – shoes I decided to write this second article.

There’s everytime a rumor around when I’m around and wearing my Vibrams. People are stealing a peep, whispering or just smiling. But more and more there are some that ask about them. What are they for? Are these sailing-shoes? Do you use them for climbing? And of course after three years of being an exot every time I’m leaving the house with these shoes there’s nothing anymore that can shock me. Even the question of a little child that came up to me and aksed quietly if I’m disabled. I like the fact that children don’t care about the way they are asking. But unfortunatley, questions that are open and straightforward aren’t very popular within our society. So that’s something that’s thriven out of our children and so often our kids loose the courage to ask. As well as in this situation. The mother criticized her child in front of everyone even after I’ve told her that there is absolutley no problem with that kind of question from my point of view. But it was to late. The kid already broke out in tears.

I love these shoes. It’s like walking barfoot but without steping into dirt and without being concerned about sharp stones or something like that. It’s a great work out for even the smallest muscles within our feet.

I just can recommend to try it out. In the meantime there is a huge variety of different vibram-models available. So you can find something for every occasion

How Location is Changing the Way We Work

Gastartikel by Audrey Watters 

With the Internet has come a new breed of worker: the telecommuter. A business owner, employee, or freelancer, someone who telecommutes is able to work from home rather than from a designated office building. According to the latest American Community survey data, about 2% of Americans – some 2.8 million people – say that their home is their primary place of work

„Der Trick ist, seiner Zeit zwei Jahre voraus zu sein“

Ein Artikel aus dem Tagesspiegel vom 10.04.2011 mit dem Autor des Erfolgsbuches „Where Good Ideas Come From“

Ideen entstehen nicht auf Knopfdruck oder auf Konferenzen, sagt Blogger und Schriftsteller Steven B. Johnson im Gespräch mit dem Tagesspiegel. Warum duschen beim Denken hilft und wie Fehler einen weiterbringen.

 

Mr. Johnson, auf dem Umschlag Ihres Buches „Where Good Ideas Come From“ sieht man eine stilisierte Glühbirne.

 Ist dieses Bild Ihren Theorien zufolge nicht völlig falsch?

Stanley McChrystal: Listen, learn … then lead

In his inspiring TED talk General Stanley McChrystal talks among other things, about the problem of being a leader how was used to do other things and to use other technology than the people he’s leading now.
I think that this problem is like an omnipresent layer that can be put on every situation, industry and company on this planet. So, listen to this and try to associate it to your surroundings…can you see certain parallels to your surroundings?
Please leave a comment and tell something about it. Thx.

Design Wants vs. User Needs

Heute einmal ein Guest-post von northernarmy.com, der es einfach mal auf den Punkt bringt. Den Perma-link findet ihr hier: http://northernarmy.com/2011/03/design-wants-user-needs/

Design Wants vs. User Needs
I try to make as much time for events as I can, to meet interesting people, to listen to people with different points of view and to generally squeeze as much juice out of my mind grapes as I can. One of the events I always enjoy, and I’m not just saying this because I happen to organize it, too, is Social Media Breakfast Ottawa.

Since we started the event, we’ve intentionally strayed away from social media because while there’s a lot to be said about social media, there is only so many times you can hear it. As a result, we’ve tried to draw from a different group of speakers with varying backgrounds to shape how we think about digital marketing in general.

Today’s speaker – David Nicholson – spoke about game theory, and the “gameification” of business. It was a great talk with a lot of interesting tidbits, but as is usually the case, the most interesting moment of the talk for me came over dinner the night before.

While discussing the new landscape of game development, David mentioned that online game developers are spending huge dollars on data analysts to guide the development of their games. For giants like Farmville or Frontierville, the entire job is to take a loss leader (the game) and generate money through virtual goods, which means that creating the best game dynamic in the world, the best new level, the best twist on gameplay doesn’t matter in the least unless it drives the desired action. If your users don’t use it, it’s a waste of time, plain and simple… even if you think they should use it the way you lovingly crafted it for them.

Think about how we create websites – how we create experiences – for our users, our customers, our members. More often than not, we create based on how we want people to use our site, rather than how they actually use it.

The reason is because humans are hard-wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. It feels good to make the logo bigger, to add more calls-to-action and make sure that there are lots of links to our website in all of our emails, but how much does that actually move the bottom line?

Conversely, poring over data, challenging our assumptions and listening to our customers is hard work and can tell us we’re doing the wrong thing, that we don’t understand what our users want, and make us feel bad and bad at our job.

The trick is that the games industry relies on these changes to directly impact the bottom line. They don’t get paid unless their experience generates the right behaviour to make dollar signs happen. Marketing is closely related to the bottom line, but the path from A to B is far more circuitous, so we’re much freer to indulge our marketing id, and ignore the marketing superego who’s just begging you to spend a little more time looking at your analytics.

Before you can create great design, you need to know where you want it to lead, and how you’ll know when you get there. You can choose to be finished anytime you like – the question is whether you wait until you’re happy or until your users are happy.

The surprising truth about what motivates us…

Wikileaks…

Zum allgemeinen Gerede über WikiLeaks, hier ein interessantes Interview mit dem Gründer.

Nur eines dazu: Mit all seinen eventuellen Risiken über die Veröffentlichung von geheimen Informationen – weshalb die Regierungen in Wirklichkeit ein Problem damit haben ist, dass sie keine Kontrolle mehr darüber haben. Bei den klassischen Medien ist das ja einfacher. Das ist jedenfalls meine Meinung.

Announcement…

Mit einem überraschenden Erfolg startete BrainCue seine offizielle Tätigkeit. BrainCue ist die konsequente berufliche Umsetzung meiner Tätigkeiten der letzten vier Jahre. Während ich bisher meine Freunde und Kollegen mit Freude unterstütz habe, kristallisierte sich nach und nach eine Zielgruppe und eine Marktlücke heraus. Wie ich diese nun gedenke zu bedienen?
Die Beta-Version von BrainCue: http://bit.ly/byMLbc