The Click Heard Round the World

Barack FTW 11/4! -- Why Gamers Should Back Obama

I think it's high time that people get past this notion of gamers as passive couch potatoes divorced from the world around them. I've seen gamers raise thousands of dollars for worthwhile causes like Penny Arcade's "Child's Play" charity and games for US troops overseas.  Gamers can be ardent defenders of Net Freedom or even protestors for Chinese nationalism.  Heck, they have their own blog devoted to politics.

That stereotype dismantled, here's my five reasons why gamers should back the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Barack Obama, for U.S. Guildmaster, I mean, President:

1. Obama Groks the Power of the Internet:  Obama gets that that Generation X and Y are using the internet as their entertainment center, their social hangout, and their primary source of timely information about the world. No, he didn't invent the Blackberry, but he does understand that the Gamer Generation connects with each other in substantially different ways than generations before.
2. Obama Defends Net Freedom: Obama understands how important Net Neutrality is. The ability of next-gen game developers to create online games depends on a vibrant and open internet environment, unfettered by artificially throttled and filtered access. 
3. Obama Knows We Need Broadband: Barack Obama believes that America should lead the world in broadband penetration and Internet access. And you know how sucky it is to play Halo over a sketchy internet connection.  We need cheap, fast wired and wirelesss broadband in every community in America.
4. Obama Supports Stronger Math & Science in Schools: America lags way behind the rest of the industrialized world in math and science aptitude in its high schools, which over time will lead us to have a workforce ill-prepared for the 21st century and less college students getting degrees in computer science and engineering.  That means less skilled coders and game developers in America. Which means that American games companies will lag behind Japan and Korea and other countries in the multi-billion dollar games industry.  Obama takes this problem seriously and wants to seriously invest in strong science and math educational programs from K-12 to university-level in America.
5. Obama Totally Pwns in Unreal Tournament:  He's the only player I know who can go head to head in a Scavenger against a Fury equipped with Berserk and come out ahead.  Talk about presidential.  (Ok, maybe I made that up. But I hear his Wii Bowling score is 278.)

If you agree that Obama is a "game changing" candidate for the Presidency, why not join the Gamers for Obama group?  And whoever you pick, don't forget to vote!

[Image: "Obama and McCain Go to War(craft)" by MOGS, used with permission.]

Open-sourcing the grantmaking system

My buddy Creech (Matthew Saunders) is working on a really neat proposal to the Knight Drupal Initiative to develop an open-source grant-making system using the Drupal CMS. I agree with him that there is a clear need for a more transparent, efficient and fair system for non-profits to apply for grant funding from grantmaking agencies.  I've been on both sides of the coin, as both a grantseeker and a grantmaker, so I know how frustrating and time-consuming the process can be.

In a previous job I was involved in a similar effort to create an online grant application system that was more transparent and supportive of the applicants and the selection panelists.  We were only partially successful, with various technical and political roadblocks preventing us from a more feature-rich implementation.  While a technical solution will not solve the various problems with the non-profit grantmaking culture, it can certainly help unpack the open up the process to groups that are often on the short end of the funding stick.

Please check out Creech's proposal and make suggestions so that he can refine and improve it.

Barry Joseph's career path: from tech geek to social reformer

Barry Joseph, the director of the Online Leadership Program at Global Kids, posted to the Huffington Post yesterday about how he got involved in youth-oriented digital media.  It's a very interesting read about how one person evolved in his career as a techie with a social conscience.

My first Spore creature: meet the Ferengi

I know, not very original name.  For my first creature in the game "Spore," I wanted to create a small, mean, carnivorous race of creatures.  So the name "Ferengi" just seemed to fit.  I have just formed alliances with two other lesser races, and now I'm on the trail of other Ferengi who have flown the coop for another nest, apparently.

I finally got my MacBook Pro upgraded enough to be able to play "Spore" this weekend and I've only been in it for a couple of hours now.  So far, it's a lot of fun just chasing around creatures and either eating or befriending them.  Customizing my Spore creature is easy-peasy and very entertaining. 

Looking forward to the next big evolutionary leap of my creature!

Face-to-Face vs. Videoconferencing and Virtual Meetings: increasing the emotional bandwidth

Seeing some of the enterprise-level distance meeting and videoconferencing technologies at the Web2.0 Expo recently, I've been thinking about what sorts of lessons should be taken away for running effective and emotionally engaging meetings in virtual environments. 

Here's some of my thinking on the matter...

My map of how I got to Global Kids

Today at Global Kids, as part of an orientation for new staff members, we did an exercise where we had to draw a visual map that represented five incidents or moments in our lives that led us to come to Global Kids.  Here's the map that I drew.

It starts in the upper right corner, which represents me in grade school in small town Pleasanton, California.  At the time, I felt like the only "foreign" kid among a mostly white student body, the kid who was from a country that nobody had ever heard of, who ate different foods, spoke a different language, who didn't fit in.  It was mostly a fearful and anxiety-filled time for me.

This early experience led me to have compassion for outsiders of various stripes later in life, whether it be refugees from Guatemala or homeless vets in Los Angeles. 

This was just the beginning of my circuitous journey that led me to work at Global Kids...

My twitter feed

This is what my friend Josh says that my average Twitter feed is like.

MacArthur announces $2 million Digital Media & Learning competition

The MacArthur Foundation announced recently that they are launching the second round of their Digital Media and Learning Competition, in collaboration with the University of California, Irvine, Duke University and the virtual network HASTAC. Global Kids' RezEd project was one of 17 projects awarded a DML Competition grant last year. This year's competition for the first time will invite applications from young innovators aged 18-25 and international applicants for the first time.

An open-to-the-public grant application process is very new to MacArthur.  This is a rare opportunity for virtually anyone to apply and potentially win a grant from $5,000 to $250,000!  I particularly like that they are including an online forum where potential applicants can "post their ideas, solicit feedback, offer their services, and connect with other applicants and potential collaborators."

Applications are due Oct. 15, 2008 and winners will be publicly announced in April 2009. For more information and to apply, go to http://www.dmlcompetition.net.

Comcast spanked by FCC for violating Net Neutrality!

Yes, I am days late on this, but I still thinks it important to blog this up.  The cable company Comcast on August 1st got cited by the Federal Communications Commission (which is chaired by a Republican) for violating the principle of Net Neutrality. 

Specifically, the FCC found that

"Comcast Corp.’s management of its broadband Internet networks contravenes federal policies that protect the vibrant and open nature of the Internet... Comcast had deployed equipment throughout its network to monitor the content of its customers’ Internet connections and selectively block specific types of connections known as peer-to-peer connections." 

Comcast was essentially punishing its subscribers for using P2P networks like Bittorrent by blocking their use of this application, without any evidence of copyright infringement or other criminal activity. 

This is a huge win for defenders of Net Freedom.  You can help keep the momentum going in the drive towards the United States having a firm policy in favor of Network Neutrality by signing the Save the Internet petition. I just did.

Giving virtual props to the Global Kids webmistress Joyce

Here's a short video of me "giving" a crystal stone over Skype to my Global Kids colleague Joyce (aka "Rhiannon Chatnoir" in SL), as a way of showing respect and appreciation for her work at GK.  For those that don't know, among Joyce's many other hats, she is the webmistress and Web2.0 guru for the Online Leadership Program at Global Kids. She does an amazing job of being "present" to the rest of us despite being geographically distant and volunteering whenever we have tech needs, whatever the time or personal resources required.

This was part of a cool team-building exercise that the Global Kids staff did on Tuesday where we were all presented with two crystal stones.  One of the stones we were to keep for ourselves to give ourselves respect for our own work, the other was to be given to another staff member you want to show respect to.  Two of my OLP colleagues Joyce and Meghan work remotely, so they were not able to participate in the exercise.