For Christmas as a teenager I would volunteer at our church to deliver fruit baskets to the elderly and shut-ins. The recipients were grateful and friendly. We spent time visiting with them and hearing their interesting stories.

One stop brought us to a nursing home. Two of the crew went in while we stayed in the van. Old faces appeared in the glass doors of the home. First there were one or two interested parties. But soon there were more.

They emerged through the doors. Like a zombie movie the seasoned citizens made their way steadily towards the van shuffling their feet slowly but with purpose. “Lock the doors!” somebody exclaimed. When the old timers reached the van, they grabbed the door handles and tried to get in. Then somebody up front rolled down a window and shouted “Go back inside!” A look of disappointment swept over their faces. They quietly crept back inside to the warmth of the home.

I didn’t realize until years later that our church van looked like the van that the home used to transport the folks to the pharmacy. For some of them it may have been their periodic escape from the comfortable but too familiar surroundings to a new and different environment. Or maybe they just wanted to get more drugs. I’m not proud that we disappointed some seniors that day. But there is a life lesson here: sometimes our assumptions are wrong but we won’t know unless we try.

photo credit: Ethan Prater

Technology changes quickly. Anybody who doesn’t revisit old assumptions and challenge their beliefs is doomed to fall victim to the tectonic movements in the industry we call paradigm shifts.

Innovations in computer technology do not happen in boardrooms where a few old men sit around a table chomping on cigars and make decisions for the industry. Change comes from the crucible of competition where ideas are loved, debated, abandoned, revived, collaborated and implemented.

A young engineer asked me how he could influence change. He was concerned his input would not be taken seriously. Here are five ways you can influence change in your organization esp. above your pay grade.

FUTURE PULL. We are creatures of habit. Even if the current situation does not work very well, it is comfortable and familiar. How many times have you seen folks fall back into old habits? Tim Hurson‘s books Think Better outlines the concept of future pull. In order to inspire change you have to appeal to people’s emotions. Give them a picture of the future so compelling that they must change. A well crafted vision can help escape the strong gravity of the past.

FIND CHAMPIONS. Champions are folks above your pay grade who can help guide your idea through the corporate gauntlet. In the beginning ideas are easy to dismiss. Tom Kelley points out in his book The Ten Faces of Innovation that the worst idea-wrecker is the Devil’s Advocate. This persona assumes the most negative possible perspective while searching for the downside and drowning the idea in negativity without considering an alternative. When your idea is getting flamed by the Devil’s Advocate you want a strong advocate that can step in. Your champion might say this: “Now hang on. We’ve watched our customers suffer with this for too long. A new idea might help them.” or this: “Why don’t we try a pilot project and see if this is something that can work for us”.

SMALL WINS. When assembling a complicated piece of furniture I usually have a moment of self-doubt where I question whether it will come together successfully. If your idea is big and takes too long to implement, it will fall victim to doubt and lack of faith. In order to keep your stakeholders engaged you need to demonstrate steady progress. One way to do this is with small wins. As parts of your idea are implemented invite everyone to participate in a demonstration of progress. Wins encourage wins. Note that I am advocating revolutionary change through steady progress and not suggesting incremental change by thinking small.

REMOVE BARRIERS. When a project grows past a non-trivial size its complexity may overshadow the productivity of the team. To continue to create value for customers two things must happen we must: 1) reduce project complexity and 2) improve team productivity. Traditionally processes are developed in order to reduce project complexity. In his book The Innovator’s Dilemma author Clayton M. Christensen points out these very processes are barriers to change. If you want meaningful change, then challenge processes that add complexity and hurt productivity. Ask questions such as “Is this meeting really necessary?” or “Does this documentation add value to our customers? Could the time be better used to make a great product?”

NUTURE A NEW CULTURE. Change is scary particularly when it is disruptive. Nurture a collaborative environment in order to reduce fear. Be bold and avoid analysis paralysis. Invite skepticism because it is a healthy response. And lastly, realize that nobody owns a monopoly on innovative ideas. Change can come from anyone, anywhere. If not you, who? If not now, when?

photo credit: *MarS

So you want to write a game. You fire up your favorite word-smithing tool and stare at the blank screen. As you glance around the room to draw inspiration there are questions you may be asking yourself. What makes a fun game? How are my players going to react? Why am I sitting here in my underwear?

Yes, I have been there. I have written three live action role playing games (LARPs) and collaborated on a few more. I have also drawn inspiration from others, such as Tom Javoroski of BYOV and Ron Faltus of SLUGS, both of whom have generously discussed their writing with me. All of this experience has given me insight into some great ideas that you can use to make your game great.

BREAK THE GAME INTO ACTS. Start your game with a introduction. Typically this includes reviewing the rules and giving safety instructions. Then, set the narrative. Prepare and read a statement that describes the setting. Here’s an excerpt from Kobolds on a Plane:

Rival Kobolds disguised as the famous Kobold chef Emerald and his kitchen staff visit your cave. The sneaky bastards arrange a cooking demonstration where they take your entire clan by surprise capturing you in a huge wooden cage. While dining on your clan leader in an epic-level BBQ and contemplating tasty new recipes for their Torg Foreman Grilles(tm), a strange Gnome arrives. He is Phil T. Olaf, an entertainer and entrepreneur. In exchange for two pairs of shiny boots, a bag of cheesy doodles, three Atomic Squash T-Shirts and a yummy Human baby, he acquires all of you! His plan is to transport you to a human zoo where you will be caged and put on exhibit as a rare type of prairie dog.

You are prisoners aboard Olaf’s Gnomish airship, the Pike Maiden. Most of you have managed to claw through your crates and chew your way through the dunnage. You are ravenous and angry (well, that’s normal). Find a way to escape your captivity while managing to live.

Next, consider breaking your game into three acts. The first act is set up. Players are learning their characters and discovering the sandbox which you created. The second act introduces conflict and raises the game to its climax. Players have overlapping and conflicting goals. Throw in some plot twists but make sure they make sense in the universe you have created. The third act resolves the story and the player’s story arcs. Make players aware of time constraints to allow them time to complete their goals.

End the game with a wrap-up. Players enjoy discussing their characters and exploits. Ask them to give a post-mortem but not to give away other character’s secrets. Sometimes the character’s perception and the game’s “reality” are different. Here is an opportunity to reveal character’s true motives. Characters may not know the truth about the story until the wrap-up.

LARPS ARE SOCIAL. When I wrote Kobolds on a Plane, most characters belonged to a tribe. But I gave characters selfish goals. I expected players to work alone and socialize with others when it helped meet their goals. That is not what happened at all. I watched as players united as a tribe to find common tasks to accomplish and then split off occasionally for their specific goals.

I have learned that humans are social animals. That is why we live in cities and towns and not in hovels equally spaced apart jealously protecting them like red-winged blackbirds. Great games group players into clans, tribes, organizations, classes, agencies, allies and opponents. Give the group a reason to exist and explain their shared goals. Whether the player chooses to betray them is their choice.

For the next game, Tabriz School of Magick, I gave the school four houses into which the players were assigned. The houses entered three different competitions for the house cup. Some of the funniest moments of that game took place when the players creatively collaborated.

HAVE A BOX. The author Kurt Vonnegut does not like suspense, but your players will thrill at a mystery. Unlike a written story where the author gives you a guided tour of his fantasy, LARPs exist for players to explore and change. Introduce a mystery box or a strange artifact into the game. Maybe the character who possesses it does not know its true nature. Let the players puzzle over it. What’s in the box?! Then wait until the third act to let them find out.

USE THE PAWNS. How boring would chess be if every piece was a queen? Do not make every character in your game a super spy or an über bad vampire lord. Provide a variety of different characters and strive for balance.

Chess pieces are a good metaphor for types of characters. Consider that there are six different chess pieces:

• Pawn – Pawns are expendable foot soldiers who may, if her actions are brave, be promoted to a Queen. They are the soul of the game and defend each other against more powerful enemies.
• Rook – Rooks move in straight lines. They are governed by systems of rules and laws. Although they may be predictable, they pack enough muscle to survive getting into trouble.
• Knight – The knight’s unique movement makes them the least predictable. They are sneaky and capable of balancing out deficiencies of their group.
• Bishop – Bishops are the smart ones. They most often end up where they are least expected. But it is impossible to win a chess game with only two bishops.
• Queen – Queens are the most powerful and versatile type of character in the game. They hold great potential to sway friends and enemies alike.
• King – Kings are leaders who encourage loyalty and teamwork. They are capable of bringing people together and coaxing the best out of them.

Last week I was invited to join an impromptu jam session. So I packed up my Gibson Les Paul and amp and went to a garage in Belleville. I joined two guys playing a Fender Squier Stratocaster Bullet and a Charvel both of whom were much better than me.

As cigarette smoke circled around me it reaffirmed my career decision as a software engineer where I work in a smoke-free cube. Also mastering musical instruments takes time and practice and does not pay very well.

Many of today’s aspiring artists create music in isolation in their basements. But music used to be a community activity. People used to gather on porches and in parlors to sing and play music together. For all of the collaborative power of the Internet nobody has mastered a system that allows people to easily make good music together.

At times we got to be quite loud. We got attention from folks walking and driving by. At one point a neighbor walked in. I thought for sure he was going to tell us to keep it down. “I have a drum set,” he said. “Next time you get together let me know. I’ll bring it by if you’d like me to join you.” The spirit of social music lives indeed.

ReadWriteWeb has an article on non-traditional databases. It does a good job of explaining the good and the bad aspects of developing to a key/value database.

Among the bad is the lack of integrity support in key/value databases. I am not convinced this is a huge issue. I have seen production relational databases that do not have integrity constraints.

Data that violate integrity constraints cannot physically be entered into the database. These constraints don’t exist in a key/value database, so the responsibility for ensuring data integrity falls entirely to the application.

Legacy database systems require a data modeling process. Actually I see this as a downside. Typically as a project matures, the data model changes often. This requires changes to both the model and the supporting code. Key/value databases move the responsibility to the application and eliminate the time it takes for the modeler to update the model, change the database schema and communicate these changes.

One of the other key benefits of a relational database is that it forces you to go through a data modeling process. If done well, this modeling process create in the database a logical structure that reflects the data it is to contain, rather than reflecting the structure of the application.

Lastly, the author points out the multi-tenant limitations Google and Amazon put in place to prevent one user from overloading a non-traditional database in a shared environment.

Key/value databases are usually multi-tenanted, which means that a lot of users and applications will use the same system. To prevent any one process from overloading the shared environment, most cloud data stores strictly limit the total impact that any single query can cause. For example, with [Amazon’s] SimpleDB, you can’t run a query that takes longer than 5 seconds. With Google’s AppEngine Datastore, you can’t retrieve more than 1000 items for any given query.

What do you think, friends?

photo credit: -Renegade-

This week at work we got vending machines. Friends, if you were like me, you don’t much think of just how those vending machines stayed stocked with chilled beverages and salty snacks. But seeing its sign glow caused my mind to race back to the time when I stocked vending machines. In fact I was part-owner of a vending machine route for a few long days.

My father has a business named Snakman. He owned a dozen or so machines. My mother took over the business when he passed away. I helped her stock the machines, inventory the business, pull together the records and count the cash that came in. I will never forget what hard work taking care of those machines was. Fortunately we sold the business to a local business owner. With joy I returned to my life as a software engineer.

Allow me to share a story from one place on the vending route. There was a house for mentally challenged folks. I smiled at the director as she asked me to only stock the machines with decaffeinated soda. While I filled the machine a man appeared in the doorway. He wore a captain’s hat and clutched an empty pipe. I wondered what he was thinking as he silently watched me. When I closed the machine back up, he left without a word.

There ya go, captain, enjoy the 7UP!

photo credit: Stéfan

For this Valentine’s Day I do not have a valentine. This blog entry isn’t going to be a love story. I certainly don’t want to kiss and tell. So I’m not going to write about any old flames. I’ll write about a crush, which I can safely assume all of us have had.

In high school I was in a data processing class typing at a console. From next to me came a strange sound that I can only describe as a whooshing sound that folks make when with their mouths when they’re bored. I turned to find the source was Jadwiga, our French foreign exchange student. I laughed because it was completely unexpected. She looked up and smiled.

When we finished our work, we started talking. Back at our desks she talked about a physics class she took. She produced a copy of a test she had taken before coming to America. The pages were filled with mathematics that were as foreign as the French in which it was written. I wouldn’t understand that math until my freshman year in college. She was a beautiful oracle showing me my future in a language I couldn’t comprehend.

I realized that she was at least a couple years older than me and definitely smarter than me. Of course I developed a crush on her. Thanks Jadwiga for the friendship and for inspiring me to expand my knowledge of math and science. I hope you have found happiness in your life. And, I wish all of you have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

photo credit: Andreanna Moya Photography