CrapHammer

A Story about Quality and Quantity

There are numerous articles exploring the extraordinary pressures agencies increasingly find themselves under.  I'm most interested in those with an intent to identify emergent traits or opportunities for the "agency of the future."

In a recent article of this milieu, Charles Frith looks at what transmedia and the Black Swan bring to how agencies create the ideas and the products, if you will, to meet their clients' needs.

What pleasantly surprised me about Charles Frith's article (really, NOTHING should ever surprise me about Charles at this point) was his explicit focus on quantity vs quality.  Sadly, some of his readers didn't get what he was trying to say and a couple posted comments calling for better quality control in the agency.  Exactly what Charles was arguing against.

I've recently been reading the wonderful tome on Sketching User Experience by Bill Buxton and he referenced a story I found most poignant to this topic.  I posted this story in comment form to Charle's article.  As this story has informed a lot of my facilitation work, I wanted to share it here as well.  I am paraphrasing from memory.

The story is about a ceramics professor who allegedly divided his advanced class into two groups at the beginning of the term. One was to be graded SOLELY on weight. The other on the quality of a single pot of their selection.

So one group just had to surpass a certain specified volume target. The other had to determine how to best achieve as close to "perfection" as possible in one single pot.

As you may have guessed, the volume group got higher grades. This was to be expected, as they had clear and known measurement criteria - volume. What was a breakthrough was that when the professor looked at the final pieces created by the volume group, they also scored significantly higher from a quality point-of-view (ie: they made way better pots as well.)

Two things I look for in stories such as this one are the context and the intent. This was a class where everyone DESIRED to make or learn how to make great pottery - exceptional pottery, even. Had this experiment been run with random people, the results may have differed.

So both desired the same thing, but one group was given the freedom and the necessity to explore through quantity of ideas.  I find it very interesting that the second group COULD have explored through quantity but it was not expressed as a mandate and they suffered as a result.  I believe there are lessons in this for those of us who design the operations side of agencies.

It was interesting to see a comment on Charles' article saying that volume equates to low-cost crap. I believe, like Charles, that the opposite is actually the case. Before I get flamed, do understand I am no advocating that crap be the goal, rather only that people be freed (and even forced) to fail for out of this can come brilliant work of a quality unmatched by any other method (IMO).

The Future of Physics (basic mechanics)

I was dreaming of a world where kids fought with their parents in order to spend more time learning physics.

Only it's not a dream.  It's here today and it is called "Little Big Planet" (only for PS3).

Little Big Planet is a most amazing experience.  There are no guns, wars or shooting people in the head (though there are plenty of explosives and deadly items).  It is a game where you create your own little "sack person" and you run him through a series of mini levels.  What makes this game unusual is that these mini-levels are created using the tools every user has access to.

[awesome embedded video above]

We build our own worlds or levels and then share them with the community to play.  They can be devilishly hard, beautifully sculpted or just a crazy fun fast rocket car ride someone thought up.

The most important thing about this game is that there is no logic.  There is no ability to program the system like most map editors "if X happens, then trigger Y".  Rather, you can program things, but only by mastering basic switches and general mechanics.

I spent a good couple of days chasing down and inspecting logic gates built out of wood, switches and simple sensors.  Users of all ages had created, modified and adapted these switches in an almost dizzying array of approaches.  Here is one of my favorite collections made out of wood, joints and two switches.

Danny Hillis built a computer out of tinker toys at MIT.  Today, kids are learning to build crazy things like calculators and random generators out of very similar materials using this multi-player console game.  And they are fighting their parents to spend more time playing, learning and building.

Here is a video that shows an insane random generator built out of switches and magnets.

Here is another video of how to build your own gravity defying vehicle (it climbs any surface and can jump between surfaces.)

Here is the best part.  This game incorporates something very akin to the creative commons license.  When I build a level, I feel compelled to give away prizes for other people to win when they play my level.  So I have a choice: give away things I have found or build my own prizes.  Often, I will give away something cool I created in the level they are playing.  The rights management part means I can choose whether someone can edit the creations I give them and whether they can pass them on (use them as prizes in their own levels).

Did your brain explode?  Mine did.  The users are creating the levels.  And the users are creating the prizes.  The users are also tagging and voting up the levels.  This is the future of massively multi-player games. And it's insanely addictive.

Most console games don't hold my attention for very long.  I get frustrated and tire of all the levels after a week or so.  Some of you may have noticed I haven't posted in quite some time.  I have to admit that I have become totally addicted to this game, as have some of my friends.  I am working on a level right now where a giant baby chicken is trying to find his blood hungry mother.  For the life of me, I can't get the wobbly boards to behave so I'm now watching tutorials on YouTube by other LBP creators.

Today I found myself logging in to see how many people had played my last level and what they thought of it. I love my blog, but let me tell you, LBP is a much cooler drug and I actually find it fascinating how it is opening up my creativity in how I can design forever more complicated and interactive items with nothing but basic mechanics.

I have to go, I have an idea for the baby chicken that involves a "double AND gate" made out of wood.

Image Sources: gamesweasel, Phil149, Mike Schmid