Playful 2009 - Game Changing & Change Through Play - Katy Lindemann

8/8/2019 Playful 2009 - Game Changing & Change Through Play - Katy Lindemann

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Hi! Im Katy and Im a creative geek I work as a communications strategist at a

company called Naked Communications, and Im really chuffed to be here with such a

fantastic array of wonderful speakers.

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Confession time - despite what the programme says, this talk isnt actually about

robots. Well, ish.

I did a talk at Russell Davies fantastic Interesting 2009 conference a few weeks ago

about my favourite robots and why they were ace. The lovely Toby Barnes asked if Id

do a longer version for Playful, and I obviously jumped at the chance to be a part of

such an awesome line up.

But one maxim for Interesting is that youre supposed to talk about something that

isnt really about your job. And I am most definitely NOT a robot expert. Im just a

geek with a passion for robots. But at Playful youve got a day full of people who aretruly experts in their field. So Id feel like a bit of a fraud standing up here talking for

20 mins about robots.

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But actually what I do for a living involves trying to stimulate behaviour change. Im a

communications strategist, and in my job we do a lot of work with the government,

trying to encourage people to change their behaviour. Like trying to encourage peoplehave safer sex by carrying and using condoms. Or encouraging people to develop a

savings habit and improve their financial knowhow. Or encouraging teens to study

maths and science. Stuff like that.

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Actually some of my favourite robots are great examples of how something really

playful can actually stimulate a change in behaviour. Which got me thinking.

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Tweenbots was an art project by Kacie Kinzer at NYU which used playful robotic design to examiningthe random kindness of strangers.

She designed these fantastic tiny smiling cardboard robots that rely on the help of pedestrians to getto their destination.

The Tweenbots roll at a constant speed, in a straight line and are dependent on humans to steer themin the right direction to reach their final location (which is printed on a flag attached to the robotsbody).

And the results were pretty bonkers. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerousmissions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destinationassisted only by strangers.

Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, stuck against a curb, or became trapped in apothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal.

Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim theTweenbot in the right direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation.

One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to theTweenbot, You cant go that way, its toward the road.

Cynical urbanites were shocked out of their rushed, inward-focused, routines as they made their waythrough the city, by tiny smiling cardboard robots. They brought out the very best in people.

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This is a giant robot from the Japanese TV series Gundam - it's 18m high and weighs 35tonnes.

The Japanese are obsessed with robots. I think Japan may well be my spiritual home.

Patrick Galbraith, ethnographer at the University of Tokyo and author of The OtakuEncyclopedia: An Insider's Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan, says that no series is morebeloved than Gundam and makes a really interesting observation:

"In Japan, they skipped all that negativity after the industrial revolution, and really, what theyhave is technology and mechanics as the hope for the future.

"In Gundam, you see a young man get on board a giant robot, he reads a tech manual and hesays, 'I can fly this thing and save the world' - and in fact, he does.

"I think that hopefulness is what the Japanese see in robots."

He reckons that the playful and hopeful nature of robots like the one in Gundam elicited apositivity which totally gripped the Japanese.

Culturally, they became much more comfortable with innovative techology as part of theireveryday lives, and much more open to the possiblities of a positive future whichtechnological innovation would bring - creating a culture utterly obsessed with pushing the

boundaries of innovation.

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These werent specifically designed to change behaviour. They were designed to be

fun and playful. And in the case of Tweenbots to see what happened.

So lets think about what play actually is. Johan Huizinga was a Dutch historian,

cultural theorist who wrote a pretty seminal text in 1938 called Homo Ludens or

"Man the Player. He explores how essential play is to culture and society, and

argues that play is absolutely fundamental to the human condition and has

permeated all cultures from the beginning. Were born to play.

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Because playing is how we learn. Were all here because of the skills and knowledge

we learned through playing as small children.

But learning through play doesnt stop at childhood.

So how can we use playful design and playful experiences to actively encourage

behaviour change?

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Henry Jenkins talks about games as a gateway drug to learning and we all know

that games are absolutely brilliant at changing behaviour. The fantastic work that

Alice Taylor and Matt Locke do at Channel 4 Education is absolutely testament to this.

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But rather than looking at games as a structured and specific activity wholly designed

around play, Id like to think a bit more about the regular everyday stuff we do, and

how we can game real life make the everyday mundane things we do more likegames, and how this can change behaviour

One very obvious way is through game mechanics like scoring.

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Iain Tait did an awesome talk at last years Playful all about high scores and their

importance in the world. So I dont want to repeat what he said, mainly because he

did a much better job than I could ever do.

But a playful integration of high scores into everyday life, outside of specific

structured game play, is still an amazing way to change how people behave, and in

particular to get people to do things they dont want to do.

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Like cleaning. Doing the housework is really crap and its hard to get the motivation to

get off your arse and do the vacuuming. Theres an immediate benefit of not living in

a shithole that SHOULD motivate us to get off our arses and get stuck into thecleaning, but were simple creatures and there are generally lots more fun things we

could be doing other than housework.

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Sorry, I had to get another robot in. The Japanese (obviously) have come up with a humanoid robot tolend a hand with housework.

It kicks the arse out of the roomba when it comes to robot-assisted housework.

But until weve all got house robots to do the cleaning for us, well probably have to think of anotherway to get us to do the cleaning.

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So until then, turning cleaning into a game isnt a bad way to go. At last years

Gamecamp, Justin Hall bemoaned the fact that he gets rewarded in game play, but

doesnt get the satisfaction of such rewards in his everyday life.

Which is exactly what Chore Wars is designed to do you earn experience points

for completing household chores the more points, the more you advance in the

game, hence the more housework you do, the more youre rewarded.

Simples!

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Take another behaviour. Like trying to encourage people to drive more efficiently to

reduce their fuel consumption.

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So yes, youve guess it. Turning it into a game is a pretty effective way to encourage

this behaviour.

The Fiat Eco EcoDrive captures relevant data while youre driving onto a USB stick

which plugs directly into your car. You then upload this data to your computer and it

gives you detailed information about how efficiently youve been driving, including

the CO2 emission level for each trip, and analyses your driving style to provide tips

and recommendations on how to modify how your drive to get a better score and

reduce your CO2 emissions (and save money on fuel to boot)

Whats pretty cool is that it encourages you to beat your own scores you can setyourself a CO2 reduction target for a specific journey or over a set period of time. And

like a Nike+ for driving, the Fiat EcoDrive website lets you compare your scores with

other Fiat drivers to try and beat them to get the highest score, and become the most

efficient driver as well as visualising the collective impact of your high scores in

reducing carbon emissions.

Pretty nifty.

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Getting diabetic kids (and indeed big kids) in the habit of regularly checking their

blood sugar is quite a tricky one. Like doing the housework or driving more efficiently,

you know what youre SUPPOSED to do, its just actually doing it thats the problem.

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Hence the Bayer Didget tries to turn blood sugar monitoring into a game. Its all about

the high scores.

The Didget is a glucose meter that plugs directly into a Nintendo DS, and rewards

consistent testing habits with points which can then be used to unlock new game

levels and customise your gaming experience (like purchasing extra items in a given

game). You earn points through regular daily testing, and get bonus points the longer

you stick with the testing regimen over time and for scoring within your target range

for your blood sugar level.

As Mr Forsyth said, points mean prizes. And to encourage a regular behaviour, gamingmechanics and tangible rewards do the job very nicely indeed.

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But actually, despite how great game mechanics like scoring are in encouraging

behaviour change, I dont actually think its ALL about the scores

(Sorry Iain)

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Maybe its just about making stuff more fun in the first place

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And yes this is a shameless excuse just to use a picture of a kitten with a lime on his

head in a presentation. I mean, you cant really go wrong with a funny cat picture,

right?

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Fun iswell, fun.

Raph Koster wrote an awesome book called A Theory of fun for Game Design which

Im sure lots of you will be very familiar with, which examines what fun actually is,

what makes things fun, and why its important.

Fun is stuff thats enjoyable.

Its about giving you a boost and stimulating your physical pleasure receptors.

And, crucially, its the means by which we retrain our brain to learn new patterns of

behaviour.

So actually, if we want to encourage behaviour change, and get people to do things

they wouldnt otherwise do, or even want to do, isnt it just about designing playful

and enjoyable experiences?

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Trying to engage young people with politics is hard. More than ever young people feel

disenfranchised, like politicians dont care about them, dont want to listen to them

that theres no point trying to make yourself heard.

Filling in a petition isnt that sexy. You have to be pretty motivated in the first place to

get involved with a campaigning organisation. So how do you encourage young

people to engage with politics, and to have their say (and be listened to).

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Well, trying to make politics cool is one way. MTV get celebs like good old Puff Daddy

to support their Rock the Vote campaign to encourage young people to register to

vote. Its been going for years.

Thats one way to do it. But it still doesnt give young people the sense that they have

a voice. And lets face it, theres no real immediate payoff.

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Enter the Voicebot - a playful project created by Sidekick Studios for the youth

volunteering organisation V. Its a writing robot, connected to the internet, that seeksto deal with issues of democratic deficit and political disengagement.

The brief was to create positive perceptions of young people and get their voicesheard. Using The Voicebot, young people were able to say what they cared about

(through a 140 character message uploaded via the V website) and these messageswill be written out, word by word, in real time, inside the Houses of Parliament.

Encouraging teens to believe that their voices will be heard is hard.

But a playful experience helped. It's a playful ways to encourage young people tomake themselves heard. It's a lot more fun than writing to your MP, that's for sure.

And in doing so, it created an open, direct channel of communication betweenBritains youth and government - creating a voice for an under represented segmentof the population

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Obviously obesity is a huge issue and so trying to encourage people to exercise is a

huge issue.

Also, be thankful I couldnt find a high-enough-res picture of Mr Motivator for this

slide. That much fluorescent spandex is too much at any time of day..

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Obviously information is important. But to be fair, for most of us, its not that we

dont know we ought to be eating more healthily and doing more exercise. Its just

that were crap at actually doing it. So advertising messages only really go so far- its a

lot harder to get us to actually change our behaviour.

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But making stuff fun goes a long way.

Dance dance revolution got kids (and grown ups) who hated exercise, to start moving.

Schools across the US have started to include DDR as part of their PE curriculum. In

Norway its even been registered as an official sport.

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And after making a TV ad which slagged off video games as the root of childhood

obesity, the Department for Health has now agreed to partner with Nintendo to make

Wii Fit a core part of their Change4Life health & fitness drive.

And sometimes its just about making the everyday stuff fun. Like taking the stairs.

This particular example Im about to show you is from a an awesome initiative called

The Fun Theory, which is actually from Volkswagen (bizarrely enough) looking

specifically at how making things fun can help change behaviour. Im sure lots of you

have seen this, as its been doing the rounds (and indeed, posted on the Playful blog,

which meant I was half tempted to take this out of the presentation, but thought Id

keep it in just in case any of you had missed it, and because I really really liked it)

I should also point out that the actual idea in this film isnt actually a wholly new idea,

Chris OShea has written about lots of other similar ideas on his blog at PixelSumo.co,

which I highly recommend you check out - so its not entirely groundbreaking. But it

does show very vividly the amazing difference that making something FUN can make:

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Or recycling like exercise, we know we SHOULD be doing it, but we just arent so

good at actually DOING it.

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Obviously making it easier for people to recycle has an enormous effect. If the

infrastructure is in place and its easy to do, that makes a huge difference,

But the infrastructure has improved, weve got more frequent doorstep collections

and bins everywhere and were still not recycling anywhere near enough of our

household waste.

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Rewarding people is one way. Companies like Recyclebank try to incentivise recycling. Its been going in the US fora few years and recently launched in Maidenhead for its first UK trial.

Recycling rates in one of the first neighborhoods that RecycleBank served rose from 7% to 90% in a matter of

months.

George Osborne has said he believes the carrot approach (paying people to recycle) is more effective than thestick (fining them if they dont) and has claimed the Conservatives would look to implement this as part of theirenvironmental policy.

No doubt its more effective, giving people a tangible and meaningful reward but it still costs money andeffectively requires an ongoing investment. If you stop paying, will people stop recycling?

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So how about making it more fun? Obviously this isnt scalable for the mass market in its current form, but its aninteresting idea and it works.

This is another idea from the VW Fun Theory guys making recycling fun:

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So, I hope this little wander has given you some food for thought I know Im

preaching to the converted, you guys all recognise the power of play.

If we could inject a little more fun into everyday life, the possibilities for what we

could change are incredible.

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Thanks very much for having me have a terrific day!

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Playful 2009 - Game Changing & Change Through Play - Katy Lindemann