Playfish!

Have you got a Facebook account? Have you heard about Playfish? I bet many Facebook users must hear about Playfish, this social games company. :D

Small Introduction of Playfish Playfish is one of the world's largest and fastest growing social games companies, it creates games for people to play together using social networks and platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo!, etc.

How Playfish come across in the Learning Subsystem?
Environmental Interface Playfish's mission is to change the way people play games by creating more social and connected experiences. It does not like the traditional, standalone games play on consoles, your PC or on your mobile. More interactions are involved between you and yours lovely friends in Playfish games. You can share your experiences and fun with friends in both real and virtual world.

"I see social gaming as a new form of communication that is more interesting than e-mail and AIM [AOL Instant Messenger] in terms of connecting people together," says Playfish Chief Operating Officer Sebastien de Halleux. "It drives what we're doing and informs our decisions. We don't want to just stick our finger in the air. We want to create a new category."

Playfish scans the environment of the industry and discovers the new trend in the video games industry. So it launches a series of social games on the social networks. You know, Playfish gains large market place in the market, there are 50 million registered players enjoying Playfish games. Is it awesome?

Action/Reflection Subsystem Playfish always do research on their games, the Playfish team do hear the feedback from games players. They designed new and diversified games. Also, they keep developing the games features matching the players' needs. Not thinking of the bad sides of video games, Playfish launched its first game, "Who Has the Biggest Brain?", a kind of intelligent game.

[source: http://d2syub29v5lge2.cloudfront.net/web/playfishcom/press/games/biggest_brain/screens/15_large.jpg, last visited 30 Mar 2009]

With "Pet Society", players can decorate virtual spaces for their pets and give gifts to friends in the "Pet" town.

[source: http://d2syub29v5lge2.cloudfront.net/web/petsocietycom/downloads/wallpaper1_1024.jpg, last visited 30 Mar 2009]

[source: http://d2syub29v5lge2.cloudfront.net/web/playfishcom/press/games/pet_society/screens/01_large.jpg, last visited 30 Mar 2009]

[source: http://www.petsociety.com/?page=neighborhood, last visited 30 Mar 2009]

Dissemination and Diffusion Subsystem There is a Playfish team working on different areas, the team post well-developed knowledge base, troubleshooter system as the communication channels on the networks.

Meaning and Memory Subsystem Playfish aims to adding much more interactions into its games. Playfish creates different languages version for players as to balance the ideas fly forth and back between the Playfish team and the players.

As more and more players joining, now Playfish beats down its competitors and becomes the leader in the industry.


References:

http://www.playfish.com/

http://www.petsociety.com/

http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/26/facebook-favorite-apps-tech-personal-cx_mji_0826facebook.html

OL seminar

This week, Ms Waltrant Ritter came to our lecture and let me know more about Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning. Really thanks for her explanation; my "knowledge" grew more mature. :3

When Ms Waltrant Ritter talked about a learning place, I just wondered where are really my suitable "work" place (for the brain-workings). Of course, a quiet place like library would definitely be a good environment for me to memorize concepts or capture new knowledge from books. Learning under this atmosphere, my efficiency would be even better. But do I really need this kind of place for learning? Just like Ms Waltrant Ritter said that we can learn anywhere, anytime; I agree. A physical place is not a must for me to learn, instead, ongoing renewal capacity is more important. I love thinking but not referring to some kinds of "dreaming" or "day-dreaming". ;D

This giraffe is just thinking with an innovative idea, "Can I be a dragonfly?"
[source: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2327/2290858777_aed546b990.jpg, last visited 15th March 2009]

For me, I can really learn anywhere and anytime. Ritter mentioned a term of "Incidental Learning"; this word refers to those sudden cases triggering people to learn. Take this term, it is not difficult to discover Learning is really appeared anywhere, anytime. When I come to new situation, I am forced to learn no matter where I am. Remember something like "A-ha!"? :D When you are under an incidental situation, you are forced to get out some "A-ha!" ideas or you can get/learn new things. Sometimes, Innovation appears too.

During the seminar, I asked Ms Waltrant Ritter how people define a K-worker. She said K-workers should have self-desired learning capacity, continuous-learning attitude and K-maintenance skills. When she asked me "Do you want to be a K-worker?", I just guess I have all these abilities or not. ;p

Theory of Action

Under the theory-in-use, I would like to share my reflection here.

I believe that being responsible (Governing values) is very important to my daily attitude. I am responsible to finish tasks in time, have self-discipline, try my best to do things that are assigned by others, etc. (Action strategy) Therefore, my time management is good and I always get things done both efficiently and effectively. (Consequences for self) And friends trust me and love to rely on me. (Consequences for others)

Time on Single-Loop Learning and Double-Loop Learning

During my years in secondary school, I trained to be an athletics team member. When I was just a Form 1 student, I believed that running speed is only depended on the performance of the legs, it may not related to other parts physically.

For the first competition, I was not satisfied with the result and I felt with paralysis of my legs for a few minutes. I just wondered what should I do to improve. My trainer asked me to enlarge my strides. So I decided to change my strategy. But I was still believe running is related to the performance of legs only. Just like playing table tennis is related to hand movement only. Of course this stupid thought was just in my mind when I was a Form 1 girl.

The next competition came. At that time, I improved my skills but I thought it was not enough yet. This time, my trainer observed my performance in the middle-distance race and she discovered that I did not breathe methodically. She told me that there should be a beat in my breath which is "inhale-inhale-exhale" for running any long-distance events. As my trainer has lots of experience, I believed what she said. This time, I reframed the ideas in my mind. I believe that running speed is not only depended on the performance of the legs, it may related to other parts physically, for example, the breathing. It was not easy for me to alternate my habit at the beginning as the two situations are confronted. But after a period, I used to the new strategy and felt better after the events. :)


Here implies the case on Single-Loop Learning and Double-Loop Learning.
Do you understand? :D