Time for Radical Change

One thing that struck me while listening to Obama’s State of the Union was that we have a huge opportunity not just for incremental change but for dramatic change. What I was inspired by was the challenge by the President to do the obvious things to try and support the economy  AND take on big challenges. Most presidents would be completely focused on the economy to the detriment of everything else. Obama is hitting all the bases and is calling for major changes to fundamental systems that will also lead to economic health in the long run.

This is a time when many people and politicians are too scared to make a move and ultimately this just contributes to our economic issues. Instead we should be considering taking on the big challenges that face us that we’ve been ignoring that could ultimately turn things around. I think Obama is taking advantage of his political capital and the willingness of the American people to push more of this kind of thing through and should continue to do so.

One example is healthcare reform. The thought that by changing healthcare we could both save corporations and individuals money AND fix a very broken system that no one has been willing to take on is transformative. This is a bold idea — make a radical change to a broken sector of the economy when the common wisdom says hunker down and ultimately help to solve the systematic challenge. The environment is another obvious area that Obama is taking on that could solve two problems at once — create new industry around what will ultimately save us from climate change.

Hey I’ve got one — legalize marijuana to keep non-criminals out of jail AND create an entirely new sector of the economy!

Do Nothing Day

My family decided to have a “do nothing day” today. We put on our pajamas and didn’t leave the house all day. We mostly played Wii together — Paper Mario and Boogie. Boogie was an especially big hit with the whole family. Even my wife who NEVER plays games grabbed the controller and spent almost an hour with it. Watching this was a reinforcement of my belief that the masses are the place to be when it comes to creating digital entertainment. I like the idea of creating things that anyone can pick up and play.

Boogie has a little something for everybody — you can compete either in Karaoke or DDR style competitions. There are virtual items to win and unlock and the characters are flexible enough that you can build an alien, a hip hop guy, or a hot babe as an avatar. The only problem I found was that all of us were able to finish it today. We all got good enough that we could play the hardest songs and still achieve gold status — this includes my non-gamer wife and my 7 year old daughter. It could really use more achievement and more challenge. Even though I really had fun playing it, I’m not sure I NEED to ever play it again.

The learning here for FlowPlay is that we’ll need to come up with enough end game quests to keep it interesting for the mature players. We’ll also have to pay a lot of attention to the life span of the characters — when do we award habitat, transportation and other milestones at just the right moment in the player’s lifecycle.

I’m going to give this another shot!

OK, so my first attempt at this petered out after 4 posts. I’m going to try again and keep it simpler — it became too intimidating to pontificate on virtual worlds and sound smart. I think I’ll open it up to a wider discussion to give me more to talk about.