Read and finished Brenda Laurel's book "Utopian Entrepreneur" today.

How this relates to me:

I had to skim the parts about video games and girls, which admittedly is most of the book. You could see this as one of the age-old questions, like what to do with the Palestinians, or you could have my prespective. I grew up perfectly happy playing Atari games of all kinds, liking some and not liking others. I don't think any games were customized for me, but I clocked in as many hours as my brother nonetheless. As an adult I glommed on to sims, civ, and then starcon2 which no game has measured up to since. I missed the doom and quake thing mostly because I was working, not because I was a girl. Reading this book was like going skiing - skidding down the hill and then then something important occurs to me, such as:

1) Stories have to be intrinsically bad for you in order to be popular

2) The stories must appear to be free of values, of preaching, they must be value-neutral. Not to say they must not have values, it’s just that the values must be ordinary.  

3) The stories must be no more work for the viewer than watching TV. No choose your own adventure, no build your character, just pure entertainment delivered in a timely fashion.

4) Most of the action of the stories will take place in the viewer’s imagination, before the next update. Same as Starbucks, where most of the enjoyment of the coffee comes from the break itself, getting something to closure first, the walk, the walk back, of being “not at your desk.” This is the experience I want to deliver digitally. I won’t be delivering the experience so much as providing a catalyst for it.

5) If this story was the viewer’s real life, and the message on their phone was a real message, what kind of thing would they look forward to during the day to the level of distraction? Messages from loved ones (not static but dynamic relationships) top the list.

6) Consider that branding my product is the same as “fan-ding” to coin a stupid term. Fanding is to create a group of fans that do their own work to define the brand. See these fans as partners, as sponsors to less initiated customers. This concept is in direct opposition to #3 and needs to be carefully balanced.

How this relates to everyone:

Great checklists on the topics of research, design, and business. Provided here in truncated form, read the book for the whole story.

Research Steps:

1.      “To find out…” (not “To prove that…”)

2.      Photo audit your subjects

3.      Take your conclusions and turn them into actionable statements

4.      You are here to learn, and “learning” does not happen unless you disagree with the information.

Design Checklist:

1.      Think “transmedia”

2.      Build worlds, not just stories

3.      Create a foundational narrative (backstory)

4.      Provide for rituals (familiar scenes to loosen up the viewer really)

5.      Support community formation (an email list is not a community)

6.      Give people roles and ways to create personal identities

7.      Build plausible little stories to illustrate different ways to encounter the world

Business Checklist:

1.      Act like a leader

2.      Trust yourself

3.      Be the vision-keeper

4.      You are not the CEO (You don’t need to be the boss in order to be the creative leader in your company)

5.      Make sure your CEO has time to run the company

6.      Insist on being a member of your board of directors

7.      Your board must be active business partners (=investors) and at least one non-investor successful professional in a related field

8.      Understand the economy of your business (the value, the recurrences)

9.      Be a realist

10.  Avoid an adversarial relationship between marketing and product development

11.  Live healthy / work healthy

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