Serious Fun - Lift Asia 09, Sept 17-18 Jeju Korea

Following on the success of last year's Lift Asia, the call for participation has gone out on Laurent Haug's blog for this year's installment in Jeju September 17-18.

Don't worry, it won't conflict with the Chuseok period of expensive chaotic travel to and from Korea. According to the Lunar calendar, that period is set to happen October 3rd this year. (Unfortunately, conflicting with Gaecheonjeol (or, National Foundation Day)! Korean friends have complained to me that the calendar is all black in 2009 with no -red- holiday dates).

For those of you familiar with Lift on the Europe side, Lift Asia provides an opportunity to engage with the realities of a different locality with regard to technology, innovation, and sociocultural transformation--something for which Asia features ever more prominently.
The prices for getting to Korea will be decent around that time, along with their registration fee which is extra nice for startups/NGO/students (200,000 KRW... whatever that equates to in your neck of the woods). For more information, check out the Lift Asia 09 website.

Ignoring everybody - the PhD edition

In the last stage of my doctoral program, it seems the only books I manage to read cover to cover these days are self-help of one sort or another. *Though, they aren't the trashy paperbacks in the PopPsych section of a bookstore, but rather based on actual methodological studies checked out from my university library...*

While in Korea, I started following Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid) on Twitter after coming across his blog, gapingvoid. I enjoyed his flippant commentary via psychotic cartoons about anything, nothing, and the universe primarily because I was experiencing a sort of field psychosis and he seemed to be the only one feeling my pain. Or some such. He's just come out with a book titled, "Ignore Everybody: and 39 other keys to creativity". Here's a review on it. He can get kind of crazy on twitter, but at least he owns that craziness with a healthy contempt for almost everyone. And it's not the usual fare of soppy name-dropping insipid narcissism that makes me un-follow.

In doctoral studies, our admission into programs, and so much of our evaluation thereafter emphasizes "original contribution." And yes, I did say that whilst making the quotation signs with my fingers. In pursuing this research, one is left feeling quite intellectually alone at various points in the process. Not all the time, but even amidst the most kindred of spirits, one's research is one's own, ultimately. Lonely wolf, or bored sheep, right?

Given this state of mind, what I did want to share so much as to blog it was one of those -lists- that we all know and love, about conventional (and not so conventional) wisdom on keys to creativity, which served as the basis of the book. Things like, "Ignore Everybody." Given the situations of some I hold near and dear who are reckoning with today's job/economic/whatever climate, I recommend a good hearty read of this entry... and hearty it is.

GDC Canada 2009 Event Round-up

Here's a summary on Gamasutra of the first annual Game Developers Conference Canada, which took place last week here in Vancouver, May 12-13.

There was a general focus on higher-budget games for the first GDC Canada -- reflecting the output of many Vancouver-area developers like EA Canada, Relic Entertainment, Next Level Games, and Radical Entertainment, all of whom had representatives at the show.

2009 GDC Canada's relatively small size gave it an intimate feel, although the keynotes by Don Mattrick of Microsoft and Drs. Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka of BioWare saw fully-packed rooms.

There also are links to all of Gamasutra's session coverage from the two days of GDC Canada, including both keynote addresses:

• Microsoft's Mattrick Talks Distinctive Days, Pioneer Spirit
• BioWare Bosses Talk The Future Of Storytelling
• Next Level's Tronsgard On The Anti-Crunch Manifesto
• Rogers On Determining Studio Value To Publishers
• EA Montreal's Schneider Gets Disruptive On Army Of Two
• What Game Developers Should Know About Windows 7
• Researcher Chandler Talks Creating Emotion, Belief

via the Serious Games Source.

LOGIN 2009 Begins today

The LOGIN 2009 conference takes place at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront from today May 11th to May 14th.

From the website: LOGIN is the conference for leaders and innovators of the online game industry. This annual conference hosted in Seattle each May brings together industry leaders to discuss, collaborate, and share advancements about technology, design, business, community and legal areas of online game development.

LOGIN 2009 features three and a half days of online game development lectures, panels, and roundtables, renowned local and international industry speakers, facilitated networking activities, parties, keynote lunches, meetings and an exhibition area. The conference has an international attendee list of more than 500 of the most influential, forward-thinking leaders in the business of online game development.

If you aren't already there (and I know some of you are), I recommend taking a jaunt to Seattle this week!

What to ask your ethnographer

I wanted to share an article Ethan Whitehill recently posted on the Ethnography Forum via LinkedIn, answering some questions many in the business world have been asking:

1) How do you know if ethnography is the right approach for your research?
2) How do you know whether you have the right ethnographer?

I thought you might find the featured article in this months Alert! Magazine interesting and wanted to pass it along. In “Ethnography: How to know if it’s right for your study...” Two West Inc.’s Chief Anthropologist Gavin Johnston and Melinda Rea-Holloway address the issues many market researchers face when deciding whether ethnography is the best approach to solve a business problem.
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In the same article by Johnston et al, I found this succinct list of 9 questions/answers to ask an Ethnographer if you're looking to bring one onto a project. Indeed, ethnography is very much about one's training/practice/judgment and having the package to make good research decisions based on such.

Nine Questions (and Answers) to Ask an Ethnographer

The following are a number of questions every ethnographer should be able to answer.

1. Is my project a good fit for ethnography?
Your ethnographic provider should be able to determine whether ethnography is a good fit based on your business objectives, timeline and budget.

2. What methods are utilized during ethnographic fieldwork?
Ethnographers utilize a combination of multiple methodologies, but should always mention participant observation and inductive interviews.

3. How long do ethnographic projects take to complete?
It depends on the scope of your project, but a really fast ethnography will take a few months. If a provider tells you otherwise, they aren’t doing ethnography.

4. Do ethnographers have a discussion guide like focus group moderators?
Yes, however each ethnographer has a different style of inquiry, and will not repeat verbatim what is in the field guide.

5. What is the ethnographic analysis process?
Ethnographers should be able to explain their analytical process and this description should include a reference to social and cultural theory.

6. What is the difference between videography and ethnography?
Videography is story-telling through video. Videography may capture the moment, but lacks the rigor of structured research.

7. What qualifications should ethnographic fieldworkers have?
They should have an advanced degree in a social science discipline, such as anthropology or sociology. They should also have a wide range of field experiences.

8. How do ethnographers learn ethnography?
They learn the basics of ethnography in graduate school and through hands-on experiences in the field. To become a practitioner requires understanding of social science theory, research methods and research design.

9. How can I be sure I can use the results from ethnographic research?
A good ethnographer will work with you to plan a research project that is designed around your business objective. Therefore, sampling, data collection and data analysis will all be guided by the end goal. A good ethnographer understands the difference between interesting and actionable findings.

Gavin Johnston is the chief anthropologist of Two West Discovery & Design
Melinda Rea-Holloway is the CEO and founder of Ethnographic Research, Inc.

"I thought you'd blog more in the field..."

Was what one of my friends quipped to me over lunch last week. This was regarding the level of blogging whilst doing my dissertation fieldwork in Korea. Believe you me, I was at times somewhat disconcerted that I wasn't revealing something interesting every day, or that I wasn't one of those journalistic sites for the 'latest and greatest from Korea' as it were.

Then I thought to myself, well that's not what I have been using this blog for, even before I left for the field. These issues have been bandied about by those in my circle but I will rehash them here: that the blog has transformed for its -purpose- in one's media ecology in light of recent innovations such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. The latter two I use more for stream-of-consciousness type-things... and those of you who followed me while I was actually there know that. Both require membership/authorization to some degree, while the blog is a very public site. This is going to change the dynamics of my use, and it did. So, that was the medium question.

As for other reasons, as anthropologists commonly talk about, "anthropologists were notoriously private when it came to talking about their field experience." Here is a great post, complete with lots of yummy links attesting to that from Rex at Savage Minds. I would add my own story to the entry, in that when you're in the field:

• There is simply too much going on in your head, the field, others, etc to really blog anything of worth. Certainly not every day. After all, is what you're observing in the culture really what you make of it? Enough to be confident in your re-presentation (that same day)? Probably not.
  
• The field is an emotional roller coaster. You are not at -home-, nor are you anywhere you can really escape so whatever is blogged would likely be pretty ugly or something you regret later. Honestly, there are moments of levity, and there are some dark, dark times. Ask anyone who has done this type of physically/intellectually/emotionally (not to mention financially!) invested ethnographic fieldwork. Things not fit for public consumption on a blog on the fly, imho. Perhaps twitter/fb where one is relatively sure of who may be reading it and relatively confident about context.
  
• Confidentiality concerns. There tends to be so much one does off the record that it takes time to form coherent narratives that do not violate the trust of one's informants. That is (and was) a high priority for me. So yes, the gems are being excavated... and they must be analyzed and polished to be anything one is proud of.

Anyboos, my surface parcel of worldly possessions just arrived for me in the mail from Korea. 4 weeks from Seoul to Vancouver. Not bad eh?

Can we ever go paperless? Mobile devices and the perception of attention

The goal to go paperless, in this -day and age- still eludes many, including myself. It's not for lack of technology however, because the means exist at our fingertips whether it's a laptop or handheld device.
Some recent encounters, and my acquisition of an iPhone have led me to believe that unless you're busy scribbling musings down on honest-to-goodness-paper... there is the perception that one's attention is divided in things like seminars, lectures, etc. This is not to say that one could not be doodling or writing down ultra-deviant thoughts on said paper, but the cultural norm still seems to be (at least in more intimate settings) that paper = politeness.
Example: Because I was on the go that day all I had to take notes with at a talk was my iPhone. So, I was taking notes (really!) the entire time with the device. While it isn't my first choice for data entry, my fingers are small enough that it wasn't a terrible thing to do so. After the talk, my good friend (the person giving the talk) said he noticed I had a 'relationship' with my phone during his talk...
I then realized that the talk was intimate enough for him to notice my medium for notetaking--only he perceived that my attention was divided between him and my -TEXTING-.
I was mortified--that probably he and everyone else in the room thought that I could be so inconsiderate as to text the WHOLE TIME throughout his talk. Totally not the case.
This is a widespread thing that I am bringing up here: people tweeting during class, laptop usage for taking notes (but actually playing WoW) in lectures... is it any wonder why no one would believe I was actually ONLY taking notes?
So, this brings me to the question--can we ever go paperless, when we have these multitasking devices that make one's direction of attention ambiguous? Must it continue to be the domain of pen and paper to send the message of "yes, you and this discussion have my undivided attention"?
Can we (should we) get past this technocultural perception?