Explain Gold Farming to Your Grandmother
Unpacking the Zeitgeist is an amusing post about World of Warcraft (WoW). In it Sci Fi Author Charlie Stross attempts to explain to someone from 1977 how Gnomes dropped from the sky in the shape of a URL advertisement in WoW. He unpacks 30 years of assumed knowledge (what is the internet, what is a PC, why do people play games dressed up as furry animals?). As Raph Koster noted this represents pre-traumatic stress disorder as we contemplate what this means for 2037.
Think of the ingenuity and focus it took to pull this stunt off. The intellect behind it is creative, transgressive, technical, and funny - all at the same time! Where are we teaching these skills in today's classrooms? Talk about your 21st Century Skills.
As a side note I happened to be wandering through Ironforge that day on my toon (Embir - Level 70 Mage on Stonemaul). I was stumped when I happened upon the neat piles of gnomes in front of the bank. It was only later that I realized what I'd seen.
If none of this makes any sense to you I highly recommend that you engage with games and gamers. Blizzard announced today that over 9 million people worldwide are now active subscribers to World of Warcraft. A whole culture has emerged around these gaming communities. Tapping the elements of that culture that tap into 21st Century Skills - and there are a lot of them - would make a huge difference in schools. (This will be the subject of a later post.)
But it can't be learned by reading about it - GO PLAY!
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This is the new home on the inter-tubes of Headway Strategies. This site has been running in beta mode for about a month and the final switch is taking place today.
What will be more interesting is when these types of systems can be used to evaluate educational practices by looking across multiple districts at large data-sets. Most districts in the US simply are not large enough generate solid statistical data and most of the current efficacy research in this arena focuses on a few classrooms at a time. We move forward doing the best we can backed by anecdote and social science. There have been some
Picking a good target market is a balancing act. The smaller your market the higher your odds of success in targeting specific needs. However, that has to be weighed against the financial objectives of the business. You can’t get so small that you define yourself out of a job! Think of this as two forces that are inversely proportionate. Your goal is to find the right balance point.
On a sail there are dozens of tiny strings, tell-tales, woven into the fabric that show how the wind is moving across the face of the sail. This allows the sailors to trim the sail for optimum performance. As a metaphor this works perfectly for the concept we are after here. We can’t see how our customers think, but we can observe decisions they have already made to get a sense of it.
In the end the way you define your target market should be unique to your business but it should go much deeper than superficial indicators. Your goal is find a group of customers who are thinking about their challenges in ways that make them particularly open to the solution that you are offering.
The conference has about 350 attendees and is an interesting mix of academics, teachers, and some business types. The agenda is so rich that it choosing sessions is agonizing.
"The dirty capitalists trust our children more than the schools to learn complex language."
Cell phone ettiquette check. This morning on my outbound flight I cleared security and headed for the bathroom. For the second time in two weeks I encountered that most noxious creature - the guy who thinks it is appropriate to chat away on his cell phone while taking care of more personal business. 
I hope the fellow in the bathroom had a learning moment after he walked out and thought to himself - “gosh I guess that was kind of inconsiderate, better not do that again.” But then again, no matter the technology we’ve always had boors in our midst. Next time I’ve resolved to just hit the flush button repeatedly in range of his microphone.
The real trick would be to combine accountability with recognition. For example - a school couldn’t be labeled Needs Improvement unless the state also found some things that they were doing right and recognized those things. And yes - there are plenty of recognition awards for teachers. But, in a state like Texas maybe 500 out of 290,000 get recognized each year. If your school fails - everyone looses their jobs. It seems disproportionate.
Lee Wilson is President & CEO of PCI Education in San Antonio. He has spent two decades in the education business at Apple, Chancery, Pearson, Harcourt, and Headway Strategies.
This blog covers strategy, products, marketing, and sales issues for technology and print publishers.
