Let’s say you’ve developed a Microvertical hypothesis, and you’re starting to recruit people who fit that description. Now your job is to write and conduct Screening Interviews, and learn more about who these people are, and how they react to your core value prop. At this stage, the questions you ask – and how you […]
Recently I wrote about the connection between successful innovation and a strong MicroVertical. Today I’ll outline a 5-step plan for finding articulate, qualified early adopters who can help you bring your project to life. I affectionately call this Operation Find & Delight. Step 1: clarify your product/business goals and constraints Take a look at your product vision, business […]
Yesterday I wrote about the connection between successful innovation and a strong MicroVertical. I got some great feedback – including @dantobias complaining about the word MicroVertical itself 🙂 He has a good point. Why introduce new jargon? Simple: Useful Shorthand for framing a problem. Microvertical is shorthand for “enthusiastic early adopters who WANT and NEED your product or service, and have […]
Many innovative products and services will be launched this year – yet only a handful will survive and thrive. Why is that? Why do most fail, while others go on to mainstream success? What do teams who manage to create successful innovative products and services have in common? It’s a complex equation, of course – […]
Recently, a local Mom emailed me to ask if her son Bobby could come over and get a Minecraft tutorial from my daugter Lila (age 7). Apparently a bunch of kids had been bragging about building Minecraft treehouses and chicken farms at recess, and Bobby wanted in on the action. When he came over, Bobby […]
photo credits: “The Joys of Showing Rough Work” at USC Game Lab Happy New Year! 2014 is off to a great start. Our design studio Shufflebrain develops smart games and services that make the world a better place – and we’re blessed to live in a time when opportunities to fulfill that mission abound. We’re kicking off the […]
I love frameworks. I love discovering, developing, and sharing frameworks. As a designer, they help me do my job and improve my craft. In the late 1990s, I designed Web communities for eBay, Mplayer, Rock Band, The Sims, and Ultimate Online. Out of that experience, I developed a design framework to help teams understand the dynamics of community-building, […]
Designing static, linked web pages is a dying profession – the future is about designing systems When I was transitioning from UX to game design, I designed the interface for Cyberpark/Sierra Online – my first large-scale social gaming platform. Working alongside game designers taught me how to design a social interface with complex interacting systems. […]
Happy New Year! I hope that 2013 is off to a good start for you. I’ve been heads-down busy with great projects — completed a tablet coop game design, started working on a crowdfunding project, and giving an Coop game design workshop internally to a large, international AAA games company In my world, coop is […]
When you think of a game, what springs to mind? Do you imagine winners and losers? Levels and leaderboards? Vast landscapes to explore? Friends gathered around a table? People working together achieve something bigger? In game theory, there are two basic types of games: zero-sum games where players are opponents, with clear winners and losers – […]