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:
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.
