Life Game Project

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Welcome to 2011

Monday, 24 January 2011 12:45

Happy New Year and welcome to 2011! Well, 2010 was an interesting year for the Life Game Project. We achieved a number of really good things. My favorites are:

The release of the LGP video. Thanks to everyone who gave their time for this, especially thank you to Reuben Pillsbury who was the creative brains behind the video and produced the video. Awesome Reuben!!
Relaunching our website in Joomla which has many in built features and a strong development community that will allow us to advance the site. More on this later.
Forming an agreement with Brian Lawrence and the Ark to provide tech logistics to LGP.

As well as the good things we have achieved we have learnt a lot about how to not make substantial progress as a self managed community. We have really struggled to turn inspiration for LGP into forward momentum. Ian and I have taken advice and thought about why this is. Our conclusion is that there are two really important things currently missing from LGP:

Clarity about what people who want to support LGP can actually do, rather than a general invitation to exercise your passion in an area that supports LGP.
A central point of contact as the "Go To" person who coordinates all LGP activity.

What does this mean for 2011?

It means we have 2 key initiatives for the beginning of 2011 that we believe will allow us to accelerate our progress in 2011. These are:

Help bridge the gap between inspiration and action by continuing to develop www.lgp.org.nz - with the priority on ‘gamifying’ it to provide clearly defined tasks, quests and roles for LGP volunteers to undertake.
Appoint an LGP Manager as the central point for all things LGP. We see this as a part time paid role with the primary responsibility to support and coordinate all LGP volunteer and community activity. If you are interested or know someone who would be brilliant at the job please contact either of the LGP Co-Founders; Owen McCall or Ian Howard. Be warned; after an initial period one of the responsibilities of this role will be to source the funding for this key role.

So here’s to 2011 and here’s to LGP taking better steps towards supporting New Zealand becoming a place where everyone is safe and loved.

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In the Beginning .....

Saturday, 20 November 2010 06:48

Welcome to the Life Game Project and the LGP Blog. This first blog entry is a reprint of a column I wrote for the CIO magazine and can also be found on www.cio.co.nz. Enjoy.

Last year I was invited to breakfast at the Takapuna Beach Cafe by a friend of mine. The purpose of this breakfast was to introduce me to Ian Howard, a friend of his. I turned up to the breakfast with no particular expectations however the conversation we had at the cafe that morning has changed my life’s priorities and I hope it may change yours.

During our conversation Ian and I discovered that we had a number of core beliefs in common. The most important of these was that education has the power to make the difference in peoples lives. When we say education we do not mean formal education, or at least, we do not mean only formal education. What we mean is the process that people go through to learn new skills and capabilities. We also share a common belief that most people, and when I say most I mean virtually everyone, is fundamentally a good person and that the reason they make bad choices is not because they are bad people but because they do not know any better. That is, they have not learnt the skills they need to be able to make a better decision, often because they have never had the opportunities to learn these skills.

This meeting took place a couple of months after the CIO conference last year. It was during my participation in the CIO conference that I realised that corporate New Zealand throws out enormous quantities of perfectly good IT equipment in the name of life cycle management. Since this revelation I had been thinking about how could I use all that IT equipment to support my personal vision and the vision of my family to “support New Zealand as a place where everyone is safe and loved”. I dropped this into the conversation with Ian.

Ian’s response stunned me. “Games” he said. “The answer is obvious, reuse that IT equipment to play games.” He then proceeded to lay out for me his view of the current state and the future of computer games and the role they can play in supporting people in how to make appropriate moral and ethical choices in life. Learning requires two things. Engagement and appropriate content. Games have engagement so all we needed to do was find games with the right content and we were onto something.

The result was the Life Game Project was born. A lot has happened since this breakfast. Too much to tell in this column however a little high level information for you. Our purpose is:

“Supporting New Zealand as a place where everybody is safe and loved by harnessing the power of immersive games technology to foster the development of life skills and positive lifestyle choices.”

Our current goals or BHAGs to borrow a phrase from Jim Collins are focused on 3 key things:

Create a self managing framework for the New Zealand IT Industry and Educationalists to engage with and connect New Zealanders with today’s immersive games experience to teach skills in fun and sustainable ways.
Delivering more LGP Projects.
Commissioning two immersive games for our Communities and for sale

All our goals are important however Ian and I are committed to this being a self managing movement, or community effort. We take our inspiration from the likes of Wikipedia and believe this to be the best way to make a difference in our communities in the long run. We would rather focus on utilising the passion and enthusiasm of our community than building a cost structure that must be fed!!

There are many many ways that you can contribute to LGP and I do not have the space to go into them all here. You can however get more information from our website http://www.lgp.org.nz/ and you can contact us through the website to let us know what you are passionate about and how you would like to contribute. Also check out our video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEug1iLZEC0 or search for Life Game Project on YouTube).

At the beginning of this column I warned you that this was a blatant attempt to move you to give back to our community. I would love it if you choose to do this through LGP however if this is not for you then I encourage you to find your passion and do that as your way to give back to our community.

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Working Sessions

Monday, 20 September 2010 13:22

A lot of work goes on behind the scenes with the various Teams putting time and energy into making sure The Life Game Project runs smoothly and stays in touch with interested partners, communities and contributors.

Below are some candid shots of the ConDev and Website team at work. To find about more about what was being discussed, make sure you attend the 6th Gathering (see above).

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Congratulations to Clubhouse 274

Friday, 03 September 2010 02:43

The Life Game Project congratulates its partner, Clubhouse 274, on the launch of their Computer Clubhouse Connected Community Project by the Prime Minister, John Key.