And now for something completely different...

I had the opportunity to attend a student convention on campus last year. It was one the geekiest events I've ever attended and one of the best things was the pop-up shops all over campus. I had so much fun browsing and adding games to lists and buying stuff, but one game in particular stood out.

Dino Dude Ranch: https://www.letimangames.com/dino-dude-ranch.html 

It's a kid's game for learning how to manage resources and start to learn how to prep for more complicated games. The store only had one copy for ordering and I forgot to put my name down. Tagging here so I remember to go shop for it again! 

Christmas Ice Breaker

I was asked to come up with an activity for a holiday party at work. There were going to be around a dozen people in attendance.  So the 12 Days of Christmas seems like a logical solution. Here are the questions I developed (I work at UB which is why there are a few work related questions included):

• On the first day…. Tell us about any memorable first day…. Of work, of school, at UB? 
• On the second day…. What is your favorite duo? Batman & Robin, PB&J? 
• On the third day…. Since “tri” means 3, tell us your favorite food or place to eat and why we should “tri” it. 
• On the fourth day…. Imagine it’s the 4th of July. Where are the best fireworks? 
• On the fifth day…. What’s your favorite memory of a golden summer day? 
• On the sixth day… There are 6 foreign campuses affiliated with UB (Singapore, Japan, Canada, Poland, China and India). Which one would you want to visit? 
• On the seventh day…. What’s a perfect weekend like? 
• On the eighth day … 8 looks like infinity…. If you had all the free time in the world where/what would you do with it? 
• On the ninth day… The niners are in San Francisco. How far west have you traveled in the US? 
• On the tenth day… Remember 5&10 stores? What’s your favorite candy? 
• On the eleventh day… Honors (and hobbits) enjoy elevenses…. Are you a coffee or tea drinker (and if tea what kind)? 
• On the twelfth day … What is your favorite part of December and why? 

Here is how I presented the questions:

 

I wrote the questions in the font Harrington, printed them to be the size of the holiday themed tape, taped the question around a candy cane and added the number. We went in the order of how they were selected. It sparked a lot of conversation among staff ranging from their teens to adults with over 30 years experience at UB.

I thought it went well anyway :)

If you decide to use this idea, please let me know. I'd love to know if it got used someday!

Facebook

So, yesterday facebook changed everything again. Annoying. Most of my friends reacted negatively too. Couldn't find things I normally scanned in the morning, lost the train of the feed on several occasions etc.

Interestingly my college aged son wondered what the big deal was. He has the updated feed but didn't care about it. My high school daughter didn't even notice, but then again she only uses FB on a mobile device.

Which got me to thinking. Why was I so annoyed and they so unaffected? My guess would be that they share everything with their friends. I don't.

I started sorting into two main groups over a year ago, people I actually know and acquaintances. The acquaintances got sorted into a group that locked them out of the details of my life. We could message one another, we can play games together, they can invite me to their events, but they couldn't see the pictures of my kids. I also used the lists option to sort my feed, my preferred method was to view status updates and I hid the feeds of many of the games, groups I was asked to like etc. When it was time to play Cafe World or Mafia Wars (yes, I got sucked into those games by my kids and I still play) I could sort the feed for game updates and send gifts etc. I was very happy.

Now, facebook has sorted all my friends for me and the feed lists option appears to be gone. If I click the FB games list, I don't see my friends there who play games with me, only the acquaintances. I have to click several places now to see the info that used to be at my fingertips. From a work perspective, I am concerned that the pages I promote will get buried... that we won't be "top news" cause we publish in waves of info and our fans might not see the info we do share.

This afternoon there was a press conference explaining why all of this is so great. Honestly, it just feels like a targeted advertising demographic grab. If I am forced to sort all of my friends into all the categories in which I hold them, Facebook learns a little bit more about my likes. And someday the ads will be more personalized. Honestly, if I wanted to sort everyone into groups I could use google plus :)

So, if you are as fed up with facebook as I am, come find me on google plus. I've already got the circles started over there. I won't leave facebook, too many friends and family there, but I don't think I'll spend the time curating my peeps the way FB wants. I'll just figure out how to view the basics and play the games. And continue to try to keep my private life private.

Empire Avenue

Well, empire avenue... a new "game" around "social media" where you trade your friends to boost influence. A lot of highered folks are joining, so this might become a useful tool for work for chatting about topics and "meeting" like minded individuals. It also combines information from other SM accounts (like twitter and facebook) to give scores (like Klout). What I can't tell is if this will be a turn off to people who join later (when it gets more expensive to connect to people in your portfolio) or who don't want to connect their personal accounts to a business account, or who find it distasteful to be "trading" peers.

It also feels a bit like a pyramid scheme... once you connect and get all the connection "eaves" then the only easy way to get more capital is to bring your friends into it... and again, people get more expensive as more people buy them... not entirely sure how this model will scale up.

It has been fun to collect the badges :) I never was a girl scout so that part is new to me... and safer than foursquare. But more invasive than any zynga game, so I'm unsure how long I'll play this one. It will all depend on if the work component stays fresh and current.