Eric's Blog (until a better title comes along...)

Remember "Movies on a Stick"?  Well, it was recently suggested to me to reach out to one of our Client Services directors (VP?  I can never keep their titles straight...) to see if he had any ideas for how we could collaborate on a video for our monthly Movies on a Stick video.  I was excited that I would even be considered for such a cool project!  So, my friend Jason and I went to brainstorm and storyboard a video with the Implementation Team. Working with a group of almost complete strangers for the first time is always an interesting experience.  It's always an adventure in observation to discern who the leaders are, who the nay-sayers are, who wants to try something crazy, and who has a mountain of interesting props at home (fortunately, this group had one of those!). Things got off to the usual hesitant, halting start, with the first five minutes or so spent hemming and hawing, trying to figure out what this whole "video thing" was all about.  I'm

I've got gamification on my mind right now.  I am currently in a manufacturing environment at work, where games are often something that most people don't think they have time for.  I disagree!  There is always room for a bit of fun! Intro First of all, what is gamification?  Gamification is the application of game elements or mechanics to a real-life situation to encourage results ( Webster's def , Wikipedia's def ).  The biggest takeaway from that definition is that you are trying to make something happen.  If you are just making a game out of something that happens anyway, why have a scoreboard? Gamification is all over the place, so it's easy to find examples from which you can lift your own ideas.  Here are a few you may have tried/seen/copied: Khan Academy - Here you can get a badge for watching a certain number of videos Codewars - Sort of ninja-themed.  Coders earn "kyu" (experience points) to boost their "honor" as they comp

So, a few weeks ago my wife and I went to FedEx to have them spiral bind one of my wife's family history books that her mom wrote.  I'm always a little surprised that stores like FedEx and UPS can stay in business because I rarely send packages, and I just assume most other people don't either.  Anyway, when you go in there they have several other services: a copy machine, greeting cards, and books.  It was there that I found the book, " Steal Like An Artist ", by Austin Kleon. By this guy >> I don't really know what makes a book a New York Times bestseller.  I don't think I've ever read a bestseller before it became one, and even if I had I probably couldn't have predicted its future success.  I'm not really part of that community.  But after reading "Steal Like An Artist", I feel like I'm just a bit more connected with the creative community around me, and I'm using what I learned from it to connect m