This will be one of the last BREW videos, so we decided to go for the longest embedded video on a website, ever. Today’s video is 45 minutes of Matthew Bellows’ innovative panel discussion “Networked Games: It’s Not Easy, But It’s Possible”. The panel was set up as a networked game and it worked. We had little communities set up where everyone in the community had a different role. Your job might be to push the discussion forward, keep it on track or be a little tangential. In the end, you collect points for doing your job and redeem them at the end for an amazing prize: a sticker. Matt said he was considering a better prize and I’m still wondering where it went. Bentley maybe?
Just a bit of background to make this video slightly more comprehensible…
After years of moderating, participating and attending panels, I wanted to shake up, if not destroy, the way that panels are done at conferences. So for this session, I rolled out the first version of an MMOCPG: Massively Multiplayer Offline Conference Playing Game.
First, I divided the audience (about 50 people) into three groups, called Towns. We had between 8 and 12 people per Town.
We then distributed Role cards to each audience member. These cards gave each audience member a Role, brief instructions, and serve as their scorekeeping card.
The roles, and how they earned points were:
Crafter: Suggesting something new to the group
Disenchanter: Stopping someone from acting on a bad idea
Copybot: Finding a good idea to copy
Oracle: Getting to the heart of the matter
Seer: Steering the conversation towards future implications
The panelists all played the role of “Wise Men”. We had no women on the panel unfortunately. They journeyed from town to town, stayed in each for about 10 minutes, imparted their wisdom, answered questions and discussed Networked and Cross-Platform games with the townsfolk. Wise men earned points by Learning Something New.
Everyone kept track of their own progress through the game on their scorecard.
The game ran as follows:
1. Intro and Rules (5 minutes)
2. Divide into towns. Each town chooses a mayor (3 minute)
3. One or two Wise Men arrive in each town
4. Discussion on the topic. Players score themselves. (8 to 10 minutes)
5. Wise men move to the next town. Town meeting to discuss questions for the next Wise Man (2 minutes)
6. Goto #3 for three rotations.
7. Mayors report (9 minutes).
8. Optional debrief on the game (outside the room)
My hope was that by shifting the standard format of a panel around a bit, we engaged the audience in a fresh way, encouraging them to participate and actually learn. A big reason that people come to to these sessions is to interact with the panelists. This format provided that opportunity in a dynamic and fun way, while still maintaining reasonable boundaries for the panelists.
Thanks for clearing this up Matt. I remember you were saying you might continue this format at another panel. I’m saving my Level 1 Oracle sticker so you better have another session. I’m looking to get Level 99!