I am also thinking of writing a book. The games I am mapping, inventing, developing with the clients I would not call Knowlegdge Games, but Experience Games.
Rino

You mentioned this in your visual thinking for writers seminar but I hadn’t had a chance to look it up. Thanks for the link! At first glance it looks like a wonderful and thoughtful essay. I will give it a read.

Thanks for stopping by, Austin!

Have I ever sent you this article by the cartoonist Dylan Horrocks, “The Perfect Planet: Comics, Games, and Worldbuilding”?

http://www.hicksville.co.nz/PerfectPlanet.htm

I read it in undergrad and ever since I’ve been obsessed with worldbuilding as a way of approaching art.

Your sketch shows the steps of the creation of a piece of art: the artist imagines the world, he creates the world, then the viewer or reader enters the world, explores the world, and leaves the world.

Good stuff.

– Austin

Maybe in the book we can explore this idea of the games people play in meetings today and how more explicit game mechanics can improve people’s enjoyment of, and productivity in, meetings.

Host mode noted, I like that.

A good game has participants who are willing to engage and not wander out of bounds, cheat, or generally bring down everyone else- they’re good sports. Games are voluntary activities; you can’t coerce play.

The host is a role that can be formal or informal; this is a person who knows the game and assumes any needed organizing or governing activity. They teach newbies how to play (usually without consulting instructions); they show up as the banker, the dealer, the DM, the facilitator. They’re the ones who get the games out of the closet and set them in motion.

The host role is critical in making knowledge games work in a business environment, where turning skeptics into willing participants is no easy task. Of course, we could just continue to play the defacto games of today, which often include favorites such as “jockey for position” “chime in to demonstrate value” and “last word.”

I threw in the Wittgenstein reference just to let you know I’ve been paying attention 😉

You noted,

“I do think all games have goals but I am not sure that necessarily means that all games can be won or lost. Especially in the category we are calling knowledge games, the game ends when the players can agree they have achieved some meaningful objective.”

I see the point relating to win/loss, though I wonder if the sense of gaining something from the experience vs. thinking it a waste of time doesn’t parallel the distinction. To some extent this point overlaps Aaron’s note about setting up “success” so that those playing the game leave with a sense of gaining something worthwhile.

The games I’ve played that fit in the knowledge games category usually require an accompanying narrative experience in which the world where game play occurs is explained. This was why I made the initial point about narrative experience.

Whenever I’ve taught organizational communication courses I always use some variant of Demming’s Red Bead experiment to demonstrate the difference between hiearchical authority, systems dynamics, and processes in quality measurement. Even though most players “get” the point of the game through the play itself, understanding the significance of the experience to their own workplace always involves narration and storytelling.

An overview of Demming’s game is here,

http://www.redbead.com/docs/expressindia19111998.html

Forgot to include a link to the “Cash Flow” game for anoo is interested:
http://www.richdad.com/store/ProductDetail.aspx?id=1