Playgroup | Creativity through play

If you happened upon Facebook yesterday evening, you may have noticed some rather random looking status messages - colours. Trending topics are something we're used to seeing on Twitter - but for some reason, whoever started this trend (potentially cancer research?), decided to target Facebook - and possibly due to the private messaging capability (and the fact that most of private messages are just that, not a load of spam) . 

But it just shows you what people will do to raise awareness for a good cause - especially around exam time when procrastination is on the top of people's list of things to do! 

A private message was started, and spread incredibly quickly between female facebook users - asking them to put their status as the colour of the bra they were wearing - the fun of it being that the guys wouldn't be able to work it out - some guys even started to post colours in their statuses too, to try and work out what was happening.

So what do you think? Is this the first of many "trending topics" on Facebook - and would this work for other things? If executed slightly better, this could have generated thousands of page views for Cancer Research UK, or indeed any other cancer charity - and potentially lead to more donations. 

p.s. Thanks to Noemi Manalang for her beautiful illustration

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Interesting video from Brand Republic...

What do you think? They seem to have neglected quite a large segment of Facebook's users.... i.e. the under 24s

What would make you become a fan of a brand on Facebook?

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It's official. I got my invite from Google on Monday. Im a waver ☺. 

I've had a few days to play around with it now, and I have come to the conclusion that it is truly magnificent, and it will take over the world - IF everyone adopts it. But having a preview is really boring, and can't really be testing all that much for Google - because no-one has any contacts. 

I mean, I had invites, (which get sent out quite slowly), but everyone I invited didn't, so we can only talk to each other. Its even got to the stage that one person I spoke to once, about 4 years ago has tweeted me asking me to add them. But I'd never email them, so why would I wave them? 

Anyway. Google Wave. I don't know if you watched the 1hr20min Google Video on it, but I know haven't. I have, however watched a lot of little videos on all the cool stuff it (will) do. You can embed all kinds of nice things into waves, like sudoku puzzles (my personal favourite), maps (bit predictable, it IS google), videos, searches and yes-no-maybe boxes, somewhat reminiscent of Facebook events. You can add "robots" to your conversations, enabling twitter updates through Google Wave, live translating (why don't I have anyone I want to email in another country?!), and blogger updates (this looks pretty cool, but unfortunately I don't have a blogger blog).

But the thing is, I love google docs. I think they're entirely awesome. And to me, Google Wave just seems to be combining HTML emails with google docs - not this hugely amazing innovation it is made out to be, especially considering how long it's been trending on Twitter. And more people seem to know about Google Wave than know about Google Docs. Which is freely available - no long waiting list to get an invite, just go there, and edit things simultaneously. There's also a really cool video about love letters. 

In other words, don't hold your breath about when you are going to get your invite. It will be awesome, but only when anyone you ever want to email has converted to an @googlewave.com account. And I think that's going to be quite a while. After all, my grandparents only got their first email about 4 years ago. And email's been around for 40 years. Google's got a long road ahead. 

p.s. Thanks to RafaGarces for the google wave pic ☺

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The “Seas of Jargon” almost sounds like something out of an epic adventure – and maybe overcoming it is epic in many ways. Jargon is in place in a wide number of professions and situations – from management-speak to journalese, it is incredible how these extra bits of English can do incredible things to group dynamics. They’re almost “expansion packs” for English, but unlike for the expansion packs for games, you can’t just go out and buy them.

Jargon is used in groups to create a sense of identity and group membership; in a sense, jargon creates professional dialects. If you speak the speak, integration into a certain professional “local area” will be a lot easier for you – and if you don’t speak it, you’re pretty screwed. Just like if you walk into a professional environment in SE England with a thick Glaswegian accent, you are more likely to find it harder to integrate and make yourself understood than estuary-speaking locals.

Experts like to create jargon – it sets them apart – “I’m going to talk about aphorisms, therefore I am more knowledgeable than you lot over there that talk about sayings.” We’ve been up in Birmingham for a few days working on translating academic research into truly applicable and usable tools – and this jargon and complex language used in academia was shown to be a real issue and in a way, it might be this that separates academia from the real world – excluding Joe Public from research going on around the world.

Fair enough, sometimes some “posh” words are required when simple words just don’t cut it, but the majority of the time, jargon and Latinate language are used as it is expected in academia – just as management-speak is expected in a business context. If you can’t talk about TQM, USPs and kaizen, you’re seen as inferior. I think we should be more careful about what we say – research based on vocational applications should maybe try to move away terminology and language that excludes the very people who should be using it. Then we wouldn’t need projects like the exciting one we’ve been working on – it would make knowledge and research more accessible to all.

Unless you WANT to be exclusive, maybe try thinking about what language you use next time you’re in a cross-disciplinary context – after all, diversity is the key to creativity.

P.s. Thank you to Swami Stream for his beautiful sea photo 

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We are proud to announce that on the 24th September we will be hosting our next talk - around the importance of play in engaging the 16-24 market. 

If you've ever tried talking to an average teenager, you may have noticed how hard it is to engage them in conversation. Surprising as it may seem, 16-24s have not lost this age-old skill, simply go about it in a new, fresh way. 

In our talk, We'll take you step-by-step through:

 - Why we need to talk to the new generation in a slightly different way
 - How to hold a conversation
 - What this means for designing user experiences
 - How social media can be used to keep this conversation going
 - And why play is integral to all of this

There are limited spaces, and as it's part of London Digital Week we expect it to be popular - you'll need to RSVP to catherine@playgroup.com to reserve your place. 

We look forward to seeing you there. 

Time: 9am for a 9.30am start

Place: Shoreditch House

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We've signed up to 10:10 today, a project to get the UK to commit to reducing carbon emissions by 10% by 2010.

Along with a shiny new environmental policy, we're trying to green-up Playgroup as much as we can - http://www.marinesoutheast.co.uk/ 10:10 shows our commitment to this.

So far, we've got rid of all of the bins under our desks (resulting in quite a few people throwing rubbish on the floor, forgetting I'd nicked their bin), and in August we managed to cut our printing to only 1/3 of the average we've had since February this year! We've also got a new (recycled) scrap paper tray, and we're monitoring our electricity usage closely. 

If you've got any more ideas for us, let us know, any hints are great. 

So what are you doing? Find out more about 10:10 here. 

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On Sunday, I went out to dinner with my lovely housemates; we've just moved in together and all come from quite different backgrounds, so it was good to actually get a chance to get to know each other. We found a really cute italian restaurant around the back of a citroen garage in Islington, which I would definitely recommend.

Anyway, of my 3 housemates, one runs a bar, one is a medical student and one is an IT guy. I've always liked Channel 4's "The IT Crowd" (although, mostly because I like the idea of a vampire-esque Noel Fielding living in the server room) and the attitude of Moss & Roy is rather amusing - it was great to hear the opinion of an actual techie to see how he views all our computer woes. Playgroup is, of course, predominately Macs, so our IT problems aren't nearly as extensive as your regular Windows-based office, where my housemate works.

But still, you know when you call an IT guy and they immediately take a look at your computer (be it remotely or in person) and remark "Oh yes, I know what's wrong", then spend 10 minutes fiddling around until it's fixed? Well apparently, more often than not, they don't have a clue, but just fiddle around with things until your computer seems to work. 

In his book, Play , Brown remarks that just as IT guys fix computers because they're happy to fiddle about, kids often learn computer systems faster than adults because they aren't afraid to try stuff out and see what happens - whereas adults are worried that they'll do something wrong ( check out page 101-102). 

And this is definitely true. Everything I know how to do on a computer is through trial and error (except learning how to eject a CD when I first got my macbook - this is something that they appear to have left out of the manual, as if its obvious, which it totally isn't. Seriously, why does a line with a triangle on top mean "eject"?!) 

Thanks to my brother, I had photoshop on my computer when I was 14. By the time I was 15, I could get rid of my braces, whiten my teeth and get rid of spots in pictures of me and my friends (yes, we were quite vain 15 year-olds, mostly due to the fact that our pictures were appearing daily on our ever-changing myspace and piczo accounts), having never had anyone show me what to do.

It really is amazing how useful "Help" is on the majority of programs. My mum asks me countless questions about how to do things, and all I do is look it up in help or google it to find out what people have written on forums - it's very rare that I can't find the answer; I am my mother's IT guy. 

So next time you think you need to call the IT guys down, have a play first, and see what you can figure out for yourself (and try a little googling). If it does all go wrong, and you can't fix it, thats when you call the IT guy, so that their superior playing ability (and maybe a little bit of skill) can be put to use!

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Ok, so I've now been at Playgroup for 7 days - That's approximately 3,150 minutes working so far. And it hasn't felt like nearly that much. 

I've walked approximately 14,700 steps to get to work, in 4 different pairs of shoes. I've drunk around 4 litres of water from the Playgroup water cooler, had 5 cartons of orange juice, and 2 cans of diet coke.

I've been introduced to 7 projects, been to 3 brainstorming sessions and met 16 of the lovely people who work here at Playgroup. I have 12 things on my to-do list, which seems like quite a good number, I have already lost 1 pen, and I have read 1/2 a book on play. 

All in all, I have had lots of fun so far, and upon discussing with a friend over cocktails tonight our roles in our respective jobs (he working as a client manager at a bank, myself here at playgroup) we came to the conclusion that Playgroup is pretty much perfect for me, and being an Excel hound is quite suited to him. Mostly due to the fact that at Playgroup I have an iMac, and people don't look at you strangely when you have cupcakes as your background instead of the classic green windows hill.  I have also learnt that when you mention a "swiss ball" in conversation, people think you are talking about profiteroles, not the big bouncy things we have in the office, which can end up with rather confusing yet amusing results. 

If you add up all the numbers in this post it comes to 17,898 and 1/2 . Which is a testament to the fact that I can do maths, even though I can't read analog clocks. 

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