fun

Mary Poppins was full of crap

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MP151 Mary Poppins was full of crap

Ok, this has been bugging me for years. In Gamification, there are many things you hear again and again. It’s not about games, points are bad, intrinsic motivation is king. There are more, but the one I have an issue is a quote from that most famous of nannies (and most irresponsible in my mind) , Mary Poppins:

In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and ‘snap’, the job’s a game.

This is where I cry “Bullshit!”

At the point she is singing this, she is trying to convince the miserable children she is looking after to do some tidying. Rather than creating a game of the chore, she uses magic to make stuff fly around and put themselves away. Read More ...

It’s time for you to grow down a little

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One of the really obvious things that has come out of looking into play and fun, is how resistant us grown ups are to letting go and doing things that seem, on the surface of it, to be of no value.

I think it is time for use to grow down a little and learn to let go and enjoy moments of silliness, fun and play. Not everything has to earn you money or respect or power to be worthwhile. Sometimes you have to do things that are just done to may you happy – nothing more nothing less!

https://youtu.be/QsSMkN2iz5s Read More ...

Fun: It’s a funny thing really

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I am still in the process of researching fun – but it has been really interesting so far. If you have no taken my quick survey – please do, it will really help me!! – Fun Survey

The thing that is abundantly clear is that fun is purely subjective, what one person finds fun – others may think is a waste of time. The Oxford English Dictionary defines fun as

Enjoyment, amusement, or light-hearted pleasure
(http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fun)

In the study I have done to date, so far I have identified about 21 distinct things that people feel fills this definition for them. Read More ...

Easter Eggs and Gamification

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Now, before you get excited – this is nothing to do with chocolate!

Easter eggs in this case refer to hidden surprises and extras (just like an Easter egg hunt when you were a kid). They are aimed at people who like to explore (Free Spirits) as they reward people for just looking around and digging a little deeper than some others.

In games (and actually even in serious software like Office), Easter eggs have been around for a really long time.

An Easter Egg doesn’t have to be hard to get too, Disney’s Aladdin had a lovely nod to Mickey Mouse for the more eagle eyed amongst its players. Read More ...

Have a Batman break to keep motivated.

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Last Friday, I began a little experiment – Batman’s big day out.

It was the start of a series of little bits of fun I will be capturing and putting up on social media, following the story of my little LEGO Batman figure.

Now, the point is I wanted to have a bit of fun on my Friday and possibly bring a little to my friends along the way. A question that came up though was

“Have you no work to do?”.

The answer was – of course I do. However, the total time take on Friday to do this was about 30 minutes. As I work with a VDU, I am meant to have a break every hour. If I smoked, it would be acceptable to take 45 minutes or more a day for smoking breaks. So is 30 minutes of something that I enjoyed, kept me motivated, was creative, brought joy to others and helped increase social media traffic for me that day a bad thing? Of course not – and I am not giving myself or anyone else cancer having a Batman break! Read More ...

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