Due to intense thinking/talking/eating, this week's Featured Friday Foto appears on Saturday. Hey, flexibility's a key to success today!
From left to right, we have Andrew Zolli (Pop!Tech curator and host this year), Steven Berlin Johnson (author of Everything Bad is Good For You), Edward Castronova (associate professor of telecommunications at Indiana University), and Ivan Marovic (founding member of Otpor, the Serbian student movement which helped overthrow Slobodan Milosevic.) Everyone in this group delivered informative and entertaining presentations on what, for me, was an excellent second day of Pop!Tech 2005. I'll be writing about them all, as well as Day Two's other presenters, soon.
For now, I just want to take up one small element of Marovic's presentation. What would you do after leading a movement like Otpor? We know that Havel and Waleska went on to take up the challenge of political leadership. So far, not Marovic. Instead, he's become involved with designing a massive multi-player online game called A Force More Powerful. The game is intended to provide players with the experience of developing and executing strategies for non-violent change. Marovic gave a brief demo of the game, which will be available in January.
Several things are significant here. First, Marovic (who also continues to work with Otpor and provides training at the Center for Non-Violent Resistance in Belgrade) is using a channel for reaching millions of activists, people who can learn the elements of effective strategy. Second, the "crossover" from the real world to the vitual continues. But, this isn't Ray Lewis bringing down Curtis Martin in Madden NFL Football; it's a protest leader using gaming to teach the tools of the trade. Third, the potential for practicing change strategies excites me. Much of our work at TrueTalk is helping people design and practice problem solving approaches. As game engines become more sophisticated and their situations more realistic, it will become more possible to use games to help business people try out approaches, gauge their effectiveness and evolve new strategies. Imagine a highly individualized game that would permit you to practice ways of influencing key decision makers in your network, each represented by an avatar realistically depicting every player's characteristics, down to their irritating habit of interrupting me when I'm trying to make a very important point...sorry. Anyway, you get the picture. Now, that's a game I'd like to play.
Off to another delicious breakfast here at the charming Hawthorn Inn.
Tags: Pop Tech Ivan Marovic
You just wait and see if I ever bother to interrupt you again.
Posted by: Connie Sartain | October 24, 2005 at 09:17 AM
You? Interrupt? When???
Posted by: Tom | October 24, 2005 at 09:31 AM