Find the Future!

I'm at the NYPL main library! It is 4am! This is super cool but I am fading. Only a few hours to go!

It has been an amazing night though.

I feel like I'm in a gigantic large study hall with 500 passionate nerdy students!

The game works like this--

We are on different teams both working on the same goal.
1. We need to find items and scan them on our phone. This unlocks something online.

2. Now we answer the prompt that ends up being text for our book!

I unlocked Virginia Wolfe's diary. She committed suicide so is that why I was asked to imagine and write about the best day of my life?

Another fun one was a jazz related piece. Then we were asked to rewrite one sentence in 10 ways!

The game is downloadable on your smart phones.

The library is going to continue to have 100 amazing items (ranging from The Declaration of Independence to Malcolm X's briefcase)!

More info here

http://exhibitions.nypl.org/100/

I really feel my brain slowing down but other highlights are

1. The onsite book binder.

2. The tour of the library stacks which is usually closed to the public.

3. The personalized postcard from the future that was written in relation to our entry.

4. The variety of intense ppl (typing away to meet deadlines) and quirky ppl (attacking the cheese platter in the break room).

5. The fact that I get to pull an all-nighter in the library!!

6. Jane McGonigal is super cool and genius enough to imagine a game like this!

7. Getting to break normal library rules :)

Find out what we are up to by following the #findthefuture hashtag on Twitter

Photos to come!

NYPL visit

In anticipation of the Find the Future game, I took the library building tour with a bunch of other eager Find the Future players. It was actually my first time going into the Steven Schwarzman Library (the big iconic one in Bryant Park) and I realized I really should have gone sooner!

We had an awesome tour guide who couldn't speak very loudly so she had a very endearing come hither motion whenever she wanted us to come closer. I learned the entrance,the Astor Room, was made entirely of marble. Also learned that the library has the original Winnie the Pooh animals and a copy of the first Gutenberg Bible in the US. More iconic items will be on display in a few weeks because the library is celebrating 100 years!

More about the 100 years here

http://exhibitions.nypl.org/100/?hpfeature=3

The main reading room was also really impressive! I loved the sky murals and the high ceilings! I was so tired after the one hour tour that I managed to take a short nap on one of the reading room tables :) In San Francisco, they are very good at kicking you out if you fall asleep in the library so I guess NYC has a different policy or they are understaffed.

Epic Wins!

I learned about epic wins from this talk below!

http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

This is a great TED talk. Jane McGonigal is leading the NYPL Find the Future game.

Essentially, she believes the world can be a better place if we can harness the skills we gain from gaming into solving real world problems. She is definitely right about people wanting meaningful engaging hard work, which explains why active players of World of Warcraft spend around 22 hrs/week on the game.

She identifies 4 things that gamers gain from gaming

1. Urgent optimism - knowing you can get to an epic win

2. Blissful productivity- engaging hard work with a positive end result

3. Trust and cooperation- often working in teams to accomplish missions

3. Epic meaning- believing and working towards a greater goal

So if you can harness all 4 of these qualities into solving issues that plague the world, that would be pretty incredible.

And for those of us who haven't had a good engaging game to play, Jane McGonigal also shares a historical story the town of Lydia, in Greece, where 2500 years ago there was an 18 yr famine and to help people cope with famine, their king had a day where people could eat and a day where people would play games to take their minds off the lack of food.

Here's the story below,

"According to Herodotus, after 18 years the famine wasn't getting better, So, the king decided they would play one final dice game. They divided the entire kingdom in half. They played one dice game, and the winners of that game got to go on an epic adventure. They would leave Lydia, And they would go out in search of a new place to live,leaving behind just enough people to survive on the resources that were available, and hopefully to take the civilization somewhere else where they could thrive.

Now, this sounds crazy, right? But recently, DNA evidence has shown that the Etruscans, who lead to the Roman empire, actually share the same DNA as the ancient Lydians. And so, recently, scientists have suggested that Herodotus's crazy story is actually true. And geologists have found evidence of a global cooling that lasted for nearly 20 years that could have explained the famine. So, this crazy story might be true. They might have actually saved their culture by playing games,escaping to games for 18 years and then been so inspired, and knew so much about how to come together with games, that they actually saved the entire civilization that way."

I think it is very impressive to identify qualities and skills in one area of life and try to apply to a wider swatch of life. That stuff is really interesting to me so I'm going to continue with writing about what I learn about gaming this week.

I can't ignore gaming anymore

I've almost always ignored video games partly because of lack of access and partly cause of lack of interest and I will probably continue to limit the games I play online, on Facebook, and on consoles but I and can't ignore this phenomenon of bringing gaming mechanics into our real lives.

I was recently accepted as one of 500 players selected to play the NYPL Find the Future game! I actually applied because I read about it on someone's twitter feed and thought it would be so cool to spend the night at the museum and try to write a book together through a scavenger hunt!

Jane McGonigal who wrote, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, is running the event and the title of this book is intriguing especially for someone who hasn't been an active gamer. Part of me does think of video games as escapist and a waste of time but I like Jane's answer and want to read her book!

NYPL: Some think gaming is escapist. Can games change the world?
JM: That’s the biggest misperception. Gaming is productive. It produces positive emotion, stronger social relationships, a sense of accomplishment, and for players who are part of a game community, a chance to build a sense of purpose. I’m interested in bringing this mindset to our real lives and efforts to tackle the world’s most urgent problems, from curing cancer to slowing climate change.

http://www.nypl.org/blog/2011/04/01/jane-mcgonigal-and-nypl-present-find-future-game

I think it is really interesting to try to find a way to bring the best of gaming into real life. I look forward to reporting on how it goes for me and 499 others on May 20th!

If you are interested in learning more about gaming mechanics, give this link here a read. It is what convinced me that our world already has plenty of game dynamics in it-- we just don't describe it as such.

Monday Musing- Find the Future at NYPL

I love libraries! I vividly remember my dad calling me away from the playground swings into the library(hmm this may be quite representative of the rest of my childhood--just kidding! I had time for both! Still do! :) ) to sign up for a library card when I was 5 yrs old. I loved the summer reading program prizes, chatting up librarians, and even joined San Francisco's public library teen council.

I'm in NYC now so I use the NYPL branch near Grand Central. It is really easy for me to drop by during lunch to grab a book that's arrived on reserve. I'm not the only one who has made the library a life-long habit. The lines to check out books during the lunch hour are usually at least 5 people deep (thank goodness for self-check out!).

So here is the link to a pretty awesome, National Treasure-esque game that the NYPL has set up.
This is their description of the Find the Future game.
"It is the first game in the world in which winning the game means writing a book together – a collection of 100 ways to make history and change the future, inspired by 100 of the most intriguing works of the past."


Whoa! The chance to stay overnight in the library and write a book together with 100 other library nerds and also explore the underground stacks of books in a iconic NYPL branch?! How can I sign up?!

I just have to complete this daunting statement below

"By the year 2021, I will be the first person to..."
140 characters only. I assume this is so they can tweet some of our answers.

I'll post my answer on April 21st but hopefully you might also decide to try and play the game!