Ideate to Win

Bill Moggridge, Pioneer of Interaction Design Passes Away

A true legend of design, Bill Moggridge passed away on Sept, 8th 2012 at the age of 69.  After designing the first laptop computer, Bill pioneered interaction design, cofounded IDEO and most recently was the Director of  the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.  Here’s a wonderful video outlining his achievements and design methodologies:

I was honored to have a photo of myself collaborating with other Toy Inventors at IDEO included in his book, Designing Interactions.  While you’re there, check out the great video interviews of Bing Gordon, the founder of EA and Will Wright, the creator of the Sims franchise.

We’ll miss you dearly, Bill.

David Roche Speaks about Tolerance

I’ve come across an excellent video blog on the Harvard Business Review’s website by David Roche, president of Hotels.com.  He points out that people with strong advantages in the workplace might also have very strong weaknesses.  He points to creativity specifically, which is very relevant to my own thoughts.  I agree with David – tolerating individuals weaknesses often enable the more important strengths to shine through.  I believe it would be a diservice to them and to the organizations they work for to prevent them from achieving their goals by not tolerating their weaknesses.

David Roche, you are my hero!

You can’t copyright ideas…

I’ve been reading into the Zynga vs. EA lawsuit regarding the allegations that ’The Ville’ infringes on the copyright of ‘The Sims Social.’  What I’m learning is even though there are vast similarities, copyright infringement will be a difficult case to prove.  Ideas can’t be copyrighted, only the ‘expression’ of an idea.  This means, if I want to make a game about caring for digital pets, I have every right to do so.  But if I were to use the same content like sound effects, names and pet graphics of an existing game, I would be infringing on their rights.  However, it’s unclear just how different the content needs to be in order to be legal.

I’ve been following Dan Lee Rogers, a lawyer who posts on this subject and he’s pointed to a few prior cases of interest.  One being a case between Apple and Microsoft.  In 1994 Apple sued Microsoft claiming their Window’s Operating System infringed on the Mac’s user interface.  However, even though there were vast similarities between the two user interfaces, Apple did not succeed.  The court concluded that the expression of the idea of a user interface was standard to all operating systems.

Next, he pointed to the case between Atari and North American Phillips.  Atari sued Phillips since they believed K.C. Munchkin infringed on the copyrights of Pacman.  In this case, Atari won.  However, they won not because the mechanic or the layout was too similar, only because the Munchkin character had the same chomping animation and that the enemies were ghosts – just like Pacman.  It seems, if the character was themed differently like a frog and the ghosts were flies, there would have been no case at all.

There are a lot of accusation that EA made that are just not going to hold up in court.  However, I find the most incriminating evidence to be that Zynga used the exact same RGB values and total amount of choices for the character’s skin tones.  I’ve taken a look through Zynga’s other games, and none of which use 8 skin tones or any of these exact colors – it doesn’t appear Zynga could argue this was coincidence.

Could this be enough to prove a case of copyright infringement?  I have no idea.  Personally, the thought of “borrowing” something as simple as skin tones wouldn’t even cross my mind as a game designer.

A Tribute to Emma

On the morning of January 27th this year, I had gotten to the train station a little late.  As I was sitting waiting for the next train, I opened my personal email account on my iPhone.  Among the many spam emails I got, there was one disturbing email that caught my eye.  It was from my friend Emma’s father, and it was titled, “Sad News.”

Emma is a friend I’ve known since freshman year of college.  I had visited her in Arizona a few times and she visited me in San Francisco.  I had just spoken with Emma two nights before, and things were very grim for her.  She had been suffering from Multiple Sclerosis for a few years and had been unable to work for some time.  She had been an Industrial Engineer at Intel and her job meant the world to her.  Not only did she have to learn to live with this degenerative condition, this condition prevented her from doing the one thing she wanted to do – work.  For the months leading up to her father’s email, she had been battling her long-term disability carrier who had denied her claim for disability payments.  Without any income, she was flat broke and was going to lose her house – a house she was so proud of.

As I opened the email titled “Sad News,” so many things flashed through my mind.  But the worst of them was true.  Emma had taken her life.

There is a huge void in my life with Emma gone.  But what I’ve learned how to do after losing someone, is to remember them for who they were, cherish the times we had together and as difficult as this sounds – find something good from all of it.

Emma was a sweet, sweet woman.  Always willing to help her friends in need, I mean, really help her friends in need and was one of the most ambitious people I’ve ever met.  She taught me how to wear my hair big and curly – like a real jersey girl!  I cherish memories of her laughter and her warm smile.  I cherish the memories of living next door to her in college and her bickering about playing Shaggy on the stereo too loud – this soon became ‘our song.’  I cherish the many, many nights we hit the town (or really, college apartments) and that one night we ended up too wasted to feel the bruises from falling down together in front of the corner store.  She understood things about me that no one else ever will.  Most of all, I cherish the deep conversations we had and the reassurances she gave me to stand up for what I believe in.

In my blog post How I Became Creative, I mention that my story of Emma had not yet been written.  Now that I’ve been writing this blog for a couple of months, I realize I have my story.  I’ve found the something ‘good’ that has come from all of it.  And it’s a very good thing for me – it’s this blog.  Emma was a great writer – both her parents were journalists and that carried on with her.  In fact, whenever I write quotes, I always think of her – she taught me the proper usage of the punctuation!

So Emma, I dedicate this blog to you and I thank you for giving me the reassurance to keep going.  I love you and will miss you always.

Amazon’s Jump into Social Games – Living Classics

Yesterday, Amazon released it’s first social game – Living Classics for the Facebook platform.  Here is a promotional video for the title:

The premise of the game is very interesting and well thought out, the player is searching through old storybooks to find a family of foxes.  Since the stories are well known classics like Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and King Arthur, it’s easy to jump right in.  However, the game has taken the ever-popular Hidden Object genre of casual games and dumbed it down a bit too much.  Instead of finding “hidden” objects from a list, the player must click on objects that are “moving.”

The moving objects can be anything from a hat wiggling, a light blinking to a leaf blowing.  They are typically minimal wiggle movements and not full animations.  I find this mechanic to be too simple to be fun and does not have enough meaningful challenges for the casual adult.  Having to keep my eyes tuned to movements detracts from the premise of the game – instead of enjoying the pictures from these awesome stories, I find myself zoning out just to look for wiggles.  Plus, it is time-based so I want to do it as fast as possible leaving no time to take in the artwork at all.

In traditional hidden object games, the player is often looking for objects that are needed to complete certain tasks tied towards advancing a story.  Living Classics doesn’t take advantage of the strong story elements in this way and I’m a little disappointed.

It does seem like a younger audience would enjoy the mechanics of this game – perhaps ages 3-8 played along with their parents or grandparents.  Since Facebook is ages 13+, I wonder what Amazon is trying to do with this title on FB.  I could certainly see this working well on the Kindle Fire however – but might need some finessing to get the UI usable for this younger audience.

Clinically Creative, Part 3

Many talented people suffer from Bipolar Disorder – those depicted in this post have or are thought to have had Bipolar Disorder.

To follow up on my blog series, Clinically Creative and Clinically Creative, Part 2, I’m posting about how to accommodate individuals with Bipolar Disorder in the workplace.  After all, Bipolar Disorder is a double-edged sword – it can make people unusually driven and creative at times yet completely disabled at others.  In fact, Bipolar Disorder is proven to be one of the most lethal mental disorders and is the 6th leading cause of disability in the world.  By helping them overcome the disabling aspects of their illness, it seems we’ll all benefit from their unique talents by allowing them to achieve their full potential.

In the US, most people with Bipolar Disorder fall under the Americans with Disabilities Act.  This act serves to protect any person with a disability from discrimination and also has specific regulations around accommodating individuals in the workplace so they can have equal employment opportunities.

The first step is for the employee to disclose their disability and ask for accommodation – without this the employer has no reason to accommodate the employee.  Seeking accommodations seems to be a unique challenge for a person with a mental disability.  Mental illnesses carries an unfortunate stigma, and revealing that one has Bipolar Disorder can leave them open to covert discrimination.  You can never know why your boss picked someone else for a promotion over you…  the laws are only so good.

Employers can help battle the fear of stigmatization by proactively creating a workplace which makes people feel comfortable to disclose their disorder in the first place.  The more the employer puts forth an effort to make people come forward with accommodations, the more it looks like they are actively committed to avoiding discrimination and the more likely the disabled employee is to disclose and become a more effective worker.  Plus, employes without disabilities will likely feel they are working for a fair and trusting employee.  Some ideas on how to do this:

• Tell every job candidate that the company values all employees whether they have a disability or not.  And that accommodations are available if requested.
• Announce at company meetings or send out memos that describe the benefits of accommodating employees with disabilities to all existing employees.
• Provide clear instructions on how to request an accommodation and what the employee can expect the process to look like.
• Reassure them that any disclosure will not lead to negative job reviews, reduction in job status and will remain completely confidential.

It seems people with Bipolar Disorder have different accommodation needs based on the uniqueness of their disorder or  the circumstances of their position.  There is no one-size-fits-all accommodation which can help employees perform their functions.  Sometimes, the employee may not even know what can be done to help them, I imagine that can be a very scary situation to be in.

However, there are resources on the web which can help the employer and employee find suitable accommodations.  In fact, there is a whole section on the Job Accommodation Network devoted to Biploar Disorder.  I’ve also found a great article from someone who suffers from Bipolar Disorder on how to help – www.bipolartoday.com.

On his blog, Daniel Bader, Ph.D. points out some common Bipolar obstacles and ways to help:

• Accommodating therapeutic needs by allowing time off for treatment
• Flexibility in work schedule to allow the individual to work when they’re most productive
• Frequent feedback and positive reinforcement – Bipolar people have a hard time reading into how well they are doing and if their work is approved.  A few minutes once per week may be all they need to avoid unfair judgement of their own work.
• Crisis prevention plan – a plan put in place ahead of time which can include providing a phone number to someone who can help in a time of need.

In summary, helping individuals with Bipolar Disorder overcome the disabling aspects of their condition may enable them to let the positives of their condition shine so they can achieve things beyond anyones imagination.  Let’s help them win their battle – let’s fight the stigma by becoming more accommodating of individuals with disabilities!

A Fond Farewell from an Unlikely Partner

About 4 years ago I took a Project Management Certificate course to improve my leadership skills.  At 25 years old, I was likely the youngest in the class with 40 being the average age.  Our final project required us to pair up with a partner – I happened to become partners with a man who appeared to be about 60 years old.  It was certainly an odd pairing – he was more than twice my age!  Nevertheless, he did a great job of making this out-of-place young girl feel welcomed and respected.

I managed to end up on his personal email list and have received a few emails from him over the years.  This week he sent an emotional farewell email to his coworkers announcing his retirement from the company he had worked with for most of his life.  I was honored to read his advice and I’ve taken it to heart.  I will repeat it here for all of you:

One of the major things that I have learned in my tenure is that in every effort communications is key. There is always an element of missed communications that causes or exacerbates every issue. Good communications are an integral part of every successful effort, from planning through completion, from the smallest migration to the mega-project. Good project leaders are good communicators, and demand that the people they direct display those qualities as well.

If there is anything that I would say to everyone it would be to constantly improve your communication skills. Listen to yourself. Improve your delivery. Pay attention to what others are saying. Model yourself after the best communicators you know. Put yourself in situations where you need to practice your skills. And, don’t stop. Keep working to improve those skills.

In my line of work, I rarely come across a retirement farewell since the people I work with tend to be young.  In fact, the thought of retirement has never even crossed my mind.  But now I wonder, what is the one thing I will want to say when I retire?  Whatever it is, I hope it will inspire someone just as much as his has inspired me.

Clinically Creative: Part 2

After writing my blog post Clinically Creative, I starting thinking about how mental illness can actually create an advantage in some people – the advantage being strong creative abilities.  I remembered the movie Phenomenon – in the movie, John Travolta’s character transforms from a man with ordinary intelligence to one with extraordinary intelligence and superhuman powers.  It turns out John’s character is suffering from a rare form of brain tumor which has been activating his brain cells in unusual ways.  When I first saw this movie years ago I wondered, “Perhaps something like this can happen in real life?”

I’ve learned that Bipolar Disorder has the strongest link to creativity so I decided to research into the condition further.  I learned of one of the facets of this condition called hypomania.  Hypomania is a less severe form of mania  where the person becomes goal-oriented, fast-thinking and working, and has an inflated self-esteem.  I’ve also read a bunch of articles on how beneficial hypomania is for entrepreneurs and how some VC’s even test for hypomania when evaluating them:

The New York Times:  Just Manic Enough

Business Insider:  Isn’t “Hypomanic Entrepreneur” Redundant?

Forbes:  Blessed are the Hypomanic

And then I found this series of brain activity images showing the difference between normal and hypomanic states – as you can see the hypomanic brain is amped up!

I’ve also been reading books and articles on mental health websites target towards teaching people with Bipolar Disorder on how to use hypomania to their advantage, for example:

Psychology Today:  The Four Secrets to Being Hypomanic Successfully

Tom Wootton:  The Bipolar Advantage

Kay Redfield Jamison:  Touched with Fire

Lastly, I found a TED talk by comedian, Joshua Walters who refers to his Bipolar diagnosis as a mental skillness, not illness.  The talk has over 650,000 views:

Joshua Walters:  On being just crazy enough

So, to answer the question I had after seeing Phenomenon those many years ago – yes, it does appear there is such an illness which has the propensity to cause superhuman-like abilities.  And the illness is Bipolar Disorder.

Clinically Creative

In my research into creativity, I came across an interesting article - Creativity, Evolution and Mental Illness.  It’s chock full of jargon, difficult to get through but really insightful.  I thought I might summarize it to include the most relevant info in a more approachable way – hopefully I do it justice!  Here goes:

Creativity is the production of new and useful ideas and is closely linked to the group behavior of the person who holds the idea.  The need for social testing of the creative product contributes to the creative potential in individuals.  Creative people show risk-taking and novelty-seeking tendencies. This gives them greater independence and unconventionality but often leads to emotional instability.  Therefore, creative individuals are prone to mental illnesses.

Van Gogh painted Starry Night while in an Asylum at Saint-Remy in 1889.

Many studies show mental illness among creative people is significantly higher than in the general population.  Bipolar Disorder has the strongest connection to creativity.  Characteristics that favor creative achievement in bipolar individuals:

• Emotional reactivity which gives them greater sensitivity and insight
• Lack of inhibition enables unrestrained forms of expression and they are less limited by social norms
• Sensitivity and lack of inhibition can make them warmer and friendlier enabling them to spread their ideas with greater ease

The bottleneck in cultural evolution is the capacity for innovation.  Bipolar disorder endures through evolution because it is linked to creative abilities important for survival.  Groups with creative personalities acquire an adaptive advantage which maintains the integrity of the group even though an individual is subject to depressive breakdowns.

The creation of new ideas requires combinations and transformations of old ones.  People with Schizophrenia tend to allow unusual associations which result in irrelevant elements being included in their reasoning – this often becomes too overwhelming to them.  Creative people have the ability to utilize these same unusual associations without becoming overwhelmed.  They can bring together these unique elements to create innovative new solutions.

Therefore, madness is linked to creative genius.  Creativity is a group outcome and requires social testing.  And, groups with individuals who make unusual mental associations can take advantage of this even if the ability is a maladaptive trait.

My Thoughts as a Game Designer

I agree wholeheartedly with the article’s thoughts on creativity being dependent on groups – specifically because I believe ideas need a place to breed through collaboration with others and the most novel ideas really need user testing to validate them.  I also believe in the value of diversity in teams, refer to my bog post on women in games for more details!  But, learning how conditions which may be defined as disabilities actually enables more creativity in teams makes me value diversity so much more.

My Recommendations to You

For the person who wants to become more creative, I’ve derived this article to mean:

• Let yourself loose and worry less about what others think of you.
• If you know someone with strong creative abilities (even if they might be maladaptive) learn how to cultivate their creativity for your benefit and realize they might be able to “see” things you don’t.  Be nice to them

For the person with creative yet maladaptive traits, I’ve derived this article to mean:

• Find a group of people who are supportive of both your creative abilities and your maladaptive traits.
• Realize people may not be able to “see” what you see and therefore you must learn how to sell your ideas to them in a way they can respond to.  Be nice to them

Laugh a Little!

Sometimes things don’t quite work out as intended.  Take the case of Bananamal – he’s a Tiny Zoo Friends animal who was inspired from a cute little banana costume for my dog.  The artwork is brilliant, and the animation is brilliant as well.  However, click on him you’ll see my concern…

Somehow this animation got through our rigid implementation and testing process without raising any red flags.  Coming from the toy industry, I’m particularly sensitive to inappropriate material in children’s games and I was quite nervous about this one!  However, it was late on a Friday night and we were in a pinch.  With no time to rework the animation, I gathered advice from about 15 different folks around the office.  They urged me to give little Bananamal a fair chance to shine!  So this little guy got to meet the world and he couldn’t have been happier!

Bananamal has become a legend at TinyCo and always gives me a good laugh!