JFDI – Page 8 – ɔimoɈɒ

SBRI

Last week I attended a presentation on the Small Business Research Initiative or, as it is known locally, Pre-Commercial Procurement. Much of this content is cribbed from Eoin McFaddens (of the Innovation Policy Unit in DETI) excellent presentation and description and enthusiasm for the project. Pre-commercial procurement for especially for SMEs For innovative products, processes … Continue reading “SBRI”

Pre-commercial procurement for especially for SMEs

For innovative products, processes or services
Contracts (procurement), no subsidy and no grant
In competition

Goal is threefold:

Solving public questions/concerns , e.g. waste management
Stimulating innovation among SMEs
Exploitation of public knowledge and technology

Exempted are:

Products/processes/services which are not new compared to the state of the art world wide
Projects which were already procured

This diagram captures much of the process. The identification of the Unmet Need, the provision of first stage pre-commercial procurement, the establishment of filters to help define exactly the right process and prototype. The entire process is geared towards deliverables, not hourly rates.

The concept hinges around “Unmet Needs” – areas of development which may not be fully developed locally and where domain knowledge is not present within the public sector.

This process will build domain knowledge within local industry as well as in the public sector, it is 100% funded R&D as it is a procurement and not a grant (and therefore is not subject to EU state aid rules) and in most cases the IP will remain with the company while allowing the public sector certain usage rights. The increase in domain knowledge should bring better products to market for the public sector company and increase competition for the best product.

The most important part here is the green box – full open procurement permitted by every company, even those that were admitted earlier in the pre-commercial procurement but which didn’t make it to later stages.

Examples where this has been used in the past:

Retrofit for the Future – Department for Communities and Local Government
This competition aims to retrofit UK social housing stock in order to meet future targets in reduction of CO2 emissions and energy use.

Keeping Children Active – East of England SHA
Looking for technologies which can help and motivate children to take more exercise, to understand and monitor the amount of exercise they are taking and to incentivise them to exercise more.

Synthetic Environments – Department for Transport
This competition explores the use of synthetic environments applied to transport, in this case, modelling and managing complex traffic situations on motorways

And to finish off, some links to related reports and web pages:

In Business: In At the Start

A StartVI-like service running in 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto – previous home of Paypal, Danger and Google. BBC iPlayer Link Related posts: Future of the Beeb? The Broadband Blueprint (re DETI Telecoms Consultation) iPlayer on my iPhone Streaming Video: who pays the cost?

A StartVI-like service running in 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto – previous home of Paypal, Danger and Google.

BBC iPlayer Link

Vocation

Dictionary.com: Vocation n. A regular occupation, especially one for which a person is particularly suited or qualified. An inclination, as if in response to a summons, to undertake a certain kind of work, especially a religious career; a calling. [Middle English vocacioun , divine call to a religious life , from Old French vocation , … Continue reading “Vocation”

Dictionary.com:

Vocation
n.

A regular occupation, especially one for which a person is particularly suited or qualified.

An inclination, as if in response to a summons, to undertake a certain kind of work, especially a religious career; a calling.

[Middle English vocacioun , divine call to a religious life , from Old French vocation , from Latin voc?ti? , voc?ti?n- , a calling , from voc?tus , past participle of voc?re , to call ; see wek w – in Indo-European roots.]

Thesaurus.com:

Main Entry: vocation

Part of Speech: noun

Definition: life’s work

Synonyms: art, business, calling, career, craft, do*, dodge*, duty, employment, field, game, handicraft, job, lifework, line of business, line*, mission, métier, nine-to-five, occupation, office, post, profession, pursuit, racket, role, thing*, trade, undertaking

Antonyms: entertainment, fun, pastime

I was reading The Top Idea in your Mind by Paul Graham and it was that which started to spur me on to my earlier blog post (Food for Thought).

I think everyone should search for their vocation; a type of work which moves them to more than just financial remuneration but also provides a deep level of satisfaction. Code4Pizza works because, like with The Top Idea in your Mind, it is not bogged down in money thinking.

I listed the dictionary and thesaurus entries above because I find some of them curious. The thesaurus equates a vocation with a “nine-to-five” and considers it the opposite of “entertainment, fun”.

And this is wrong.

Your vocation is your fun. It’s your reason to get up in the morning. I am reminded of a few lines from Stop All The Clocks by W H Auden:

…my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

This is your vocation, your calling, an irresistible summons. It’s the one idea that you can’t get out of your head in the shower. It’s the thing you think about as you drive into work, what you muse about as you push the trolley around the supermarket, what you doodle when you’ve a paper and pen and you let your mind wander.

JFDI

Food for Thought

The title of this blog post is the most accurate description possible. It’s not every day that you are inspired by something, especially not what would be called a “industry move” but sometimes these items can inform you of really cool stuff that is happening out there and that’s where you can find inspiration. I’ve … Continue reading “Food for Thought”

The title of this blog post is the most accurate description possible.

It’s not every day that you are inspired by something, especially not what would be called a “industry move” but sometimes these items can inform you of really cool stuff that is happening out there and that’s where you can find inspiration.

I’ve been playing with Code4Pizza for a while now. Code4Pizza is founded on the idea that people are essentially good – a pretty wacky idea.

codeforpizza is a nonprofit idea to encourage young techies to build their own careers by providing computers, mentoring, internet access, learning materials and pizza. CodeForPizza is initially based in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Now, so far we’ve managed to attract some of the best and brightest of Northern Ireland’s indigenous tech sector and they’ve worked on processing bus and train data with the help of Translink and I’ve been putting together some more projects which are essentially for the public good.

So, what inspired me today?

Former IFP head, Michelle Byrd, has been named co-president of Games for Change, a global advocate for making and supporting digital social impact games. Byrd will serve along with Asi Burak, who recently joined Games for Change as Executive Producer and was previously co-founder of Impact Games, creators of the “PeaceMaker” and “Play the News” platforms. Byrd and Burak will work together on the strategic vision of the organization and will jointly oversee all programmatic initiatives. Byrd will take the lead on institutional relationship and partnership efforts, along with fundraising, business affairs, financial management, and communications strategy, while Burak will take the lead on curation, development, and execution of programs and services “to raise the production, quality and influence of social impact games, and serves as a spokesperson for the organization.”

This organisation, Games For Change, tackles the real world problems of human rights, public health, poverty, the environment, global conflict and the economy.

I started Code4Pizza for similar reasons and my plans for a gaming company are also similar – bringing the impact of designers and developer grey muscle to some of the work needed for lasting social change.

I am somewhat encouraged by the ConDem’s BigSociety ideas

The plans include setting up a Big Society Bank and introducing a national citizen service.
The stated priorities are:

Give communities more powers

Encourage people to take an active role in their communities

Transfer power from central to local government

Support co-ops, mutuals, charities and social enterprises

Publish government data.

The opposition are obviously opposed and there are fears that it is just a smokescreen for proposed cuts and a swathe of privatisation but the release of government data and the empowering (and presumably funding) of charities, social enterprises and co-operatives is a good thing.

I’m not 100% sure that there will be adequate delivery of this without organisations like Code4Pizza. You need to have a group of folk who are lighting the path for others by creating initial projects to start things off. These pathfinder projects need to have their own impact as well as building a framework for others to participate. You need buy-in from local educational establishments (to provide an unending supply of placement students (across many disciplines) to provide the heavy lifting and also provide themselves with experience and a portfolio which they may choose to bring to an employer or establish their own business.

Food for thought. Code4Pizza feeds people, entertains them for an evening with good company and has a social purpose. It serves to provide a focal point for community development and social engineering. It ticks the boxes of digital inclusion and entrepreneurial spirit. What a bloody brilliant idea. Maybe Martha Lane Fox will come over and talk to us.

I’m toying with the idea now of turning it into a proper social enterprise. I’d like your views. And your help.

I want him in the Game until he dies playing. End of Line.

In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain we see an example of Playbor, as through salesmanship, Tom Sawyer convinces others to do his work for him and enjoy it. Playbor Playbor is a term I got from Wired but as you can see, it’s a widely used neologism which covers social participation, self-expression … Continue reading “I want him in the Game until he dies playing. End of Line.”

In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain we see an example of Playbor, as through salesmanship, Tom Sawyer convinces others to do his work for him and enjoy it.

Playbor
Playbor is a term I got from Wired but as you can see, it’s a widely used neologism which covers social participation, self-expression and the ideology of play in order to derive value. In truth the social aspect is easily present in events like Code4Pizza where smart developers and designers get together to build something. This is work but it’s enjoyed. There’s a very strong social element both in the cheer and good company but also in the end results which, for the most part, have a public service benefit as well as a possibility of commercialisation by the participants.

Games as Life
I’ve mentioned this before but Jesse Schell’s talk at DICE2010 illustrates the ‘gamification’ of life. Adding gaming elements to everything causes people to participate more and provides a reward mechanism which may only be worthless points but can be integrated into multiple levels of society.

E3 2010

Games for the Greater Good
Jane McGonigal’s TED talk on how we can use the millions of hours spent in playing games to solve tough world problems is another excellent example:

The game industry has spent the last 30 years optimizing two things: how to make people happy and how to inspire collaboration on really complex challenges…
Games support happiness … by giving us more satisfying work or concrete tasks that we can accomplish…. Studies have shown that playing a short game — having something concrete that you can accomplish — actually gives you the motivation, energy and optimism to go back and tackle real work.

Games as Loads
But when you’re asking someone to do this work, you’re putting a load upon them. Writing computer code is a tough mental activity and it’s surprising that some people do it for fun. But then some people do crosswords or Su Do Ku for fun as well as are these also not tough cognitive loads which must be managed? How can they be fun?
UX Magazine touched on this with this article:

A traditional human factors concept is the idea of loads. A load refers to how much work you are requiring. In human factors terminology, we talk about cognitive loads (thinking, memory), visual loads (perceiving, noticing), and motor loads (keyboard, mouse, pointing). When you are designing to make something easier or simpler, you want to lower these loads.
…
If users are trying to get a task done, then lowering the loads is what you want to do. But interestingly, when you lower all the loads you are also lowering engagement and entertainment. Think about gaming—a game is interesting and engaging because it creates loads on the user. Some games require good motor control, so they have a high motor load. Some games require visual acuity, and they have a high visual load. Some games require you to think or remember, and they have a high cognitive load. And some games increase more than one load; they might be both cognitively and visually challenging, for example.
…
So when you design for engagement or entertainment you might not want to lower all the loads.

Funemployment
I think we all should be striving for Funemployment – The condition of a person who takes advantage of being out of a job to have the time of their life. I’m not saying we should all give up the day job and mooch off the state handouts but we should be working towards a time when we are able to use our leisure constructively. To do what we want to do. I’m lucky enough that the work I’m doing now is not a million miles away from the work I was doing before they hired me to do this job. In the future I want to be employed for less hours but work for more hours – if you understand my meaning.

So, for the remainder of 2010, I’m going to be working to find ways where I can increase the amount of high value fun stuff in my life and reduce the amount of low value unfun stuff. And I’m happy to work with others to figure out what this all will turn out to be.

Going Live

LiveNet is a project by Mencap to help “children and adults with learning difficulties and their carers to use ICT to improve health and wellbeing, gain access to information, connect with their community and help achieve their full potential” OpenLiveNet aims to involve the wider tech community in Northern Ireland in the production of some … Continue reading “Going Live”

OpenLiveNet aims to involve the wider tech community in Northern Ireland in the production of some of these solutions by providing MenCap with some much needed technical expertise, some development muscle and to provide something of a “many hands” approach to the aims of the project as well as much needed awareness in the wider community.

What’s the end goal here?
The creation of user interfaces and software which are easily learned, provide meaningful feedback and can help provide an improved quality of life for individuals with learning difficulties and their carers. Such as (but not limited to) these:

new models for web-based social network creation, interaction, identity and privacy
mobile apps which will help with development of independence, communication and personal safety
touchscreen applications to help with communication, creativity, learning

This project, plus my interest in the presentations by Jesse Schell at DICE 2010 and Jane McGonigal at TED were a primary influencer in my ideas for Alien Salvage. The company, which I announced a few days ago aims to create experiences which align with much of this – with the additional remit of compelling design for the wider community as well.

For OpenLiveNet we still need some technical experts and development and design brains to help shape the future. There is a commercial angle on this and savvy individuals will be able to see the opportunities here. If you’re interested, enter your details on the OpenLiveNet page or drop me a line.

The first meet-up I plan to hold in July if you’re interested.

What UX can (and cannot) learn from games.

Just add points? What UX can (and cannot) learn from games View more presentations from Sebastian Deterding. Related posts: Games: Giving Credits Where They Are Due All I needed to know about games… Musing on the communication of culture 16 things…that take 50 years to learn

Just add points? What UX can (and cannot) learn from games

View more presentations from Sebastian Deterding.

They Make Games

Of course, they don’t make any yet, but they will. And I went for the retro Battlezone-type graphics because I have zero skill with Photoshop and Illustrator any more (never mind not having a copy that would run on Snow Leopard) so my varied tweets last night are generally about finding folk who can put … Continue reading “They Make Games”

The aim of the company (as you can tell from the Twitter profile) is to apply game-like experiences in mobile, mhealth and e-learning. I’ve a heap of ideas in this and my next steps will be to start to put together people who will be important to the development of the company.

Alien Salvage will be contributing to the Digital Circle-initiatived BLOC54 collaborative network focussing on the Games Development Industry in Northern Ireland.

Drive

This presentation was being re-tweeted a few times. It’s on the subject of what motivates us. Ten minutes long. Watch it and then come back to me. OK? So, as long as the tasks are manual, mechanical and don’t require much brain use, more money means better performance. When the job requires thought, more money … Continue reading “Drive”

This presentation was being re-tweeted a few times. It’s on the subject of what motivates us. Ten minutes long. Watch it and then come back to me.

OK?

So, as long as the tasks are manual, mechanical and don’t require much brain use, more money means better performance.

When the job requires thought, more money generally means poorer performance. People need to paid enough so that the question of money isn’t on the table – otherwise you’re demotivating them. You have to provide other methods to motivate.

I’m not going to explain more. You’ll understand it all if you took my advice and watched the presentation.

Sponsor my Daughter. Please.

My 8 yr old daughter Meggan is joining the Race For Life on Sunday in aid of Cancer Research UK. Meggan lost her beloved Granny Elizabeth to cancer a couple of years ago and it affected her deeply. She ran the race (around Stormont Park) last year and she’s ever so keen to run it … Continue reading “Sponsor my Daughter. Please.”

My 8 yr old daughter Meggan is joining the Race For Life on Sunday in aid of Cancer Research UK.

Meggan lost her beloved Granny Elizabeth to cancer a couple of years ago and it affected her deeply. She ran the race (around Stormont Park) last year and she’s ever so keen to run it again.

Help Cancer Research UK by sponsoring her.

Cancer Research UK is the world’s leading charity dedicated to beating cancer through research. Our groundbreaking work into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer has saved millions of lives. Survival rates have doubled in the last thirty years and we have been at the heart of that progress. But one in three of us will still get cancer at some point and our vital work, funded entirely by the public, will help ensure that millions more people will survive.

Main Entry:	vocation
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	life’s work
Synonyms:	art, business, calling, career, craft, do, dodge, duty, employment, field, game, handicraft, job, lifework, line of business, line, mission, métier, nine-to-five, occupation, office, post, profession, pursuit, racket, role, thing, trade, undertaking
Antonyms:	entertainment, fun, pastime