Naive Questions vs. Stupid Questions

This one’s a quickie.

There are stupid questions – you know, things that with a tiny bit of work, you could get the answer to yourself. (The origin, no doubt, of the site Let Me Google That For You). Or questions such as… if I stick a fork in this light socket, will I get electrocuted? (Answer: yes).

No-one wants to look stupid. In fact, people will take great pains to avoid looking stupid. This is a really bad idea though – because it can get in the way of real progress. There are plenty of questions which could be answered twice as fast if you just let your ego go, and spoke up instead. This is the basis of putting together an egoless team – something practiced at Surreal, and at X-Ray Kid; the idea is to reduce that barrier, by encouraging people to talk and ask questions. If you get stuck? Go talk to someone! People get stuck all the time – there’s no excuse for sitting there and being stuck when you could fix the problem in five minutes instead of three days by going and talking to a peer – no matter how silly or stupid it makes you feel.

In fact, you’ll feel less stupid when you realize that you could have spent hours on it, and instead you found out the answer much quicker.

Now, there’s another kind of question which is very similar to the “stupid” question, but subtly different.

That’s the naive question.

Naive questions are great. You should ask them all the time. A lot of people get stuck thinking about the nitty-gritty details of a problem. While a naive question looks silly at first (and a good percentage of the time they are silly in reality), about 1 in 5 times, that question will make people stop, and suddenly reassess their assumptions.

It’s like a laser-guided can-opener that lets you jump straight into the middle of a problem. Worst case? Your assumptions get overturned. Best case? All of a sudden you’ve laid bare a fundamental issue.

It’s hard to figure out which is which – a stupid question or a naive question – so err on the side of asking anyway. It’s worth it, and allows you to perform miracles.

(In short, naive questions challenge assumptions and allow you to build models of systems. Do it often, do it early).

Fashion Prophecy: Complete! Welcome to the Depression

Back in March of 2008, I wrote this article:

http://www.accidentalscientist.com/2008/03/beards-and-skirts-and-sht-hitting-fan.html

Why did I write it? Well, believe it or not, it’s because I was pretty sure there was a huge storm coming. I noticed people around my office going for the bearded look – even people without beards. Heck, even I’d grown one again.

For the record, I’m so totally not immune to this stuff. I last had a full time beard around 2001. Just in time for the dot bomb. Around 2004, I shaved it off, and got my hair cut short and highlights put in.

Yep, I wanted to look risky, not safe.

I’m quite sensitive to these things, to be honest. I don’t know why, but I can feel the pulse of the economy whenever I’m tied to a moderately large company. Lots of little signals add up to one big gut feeling.

So cheers, beards. You are indeed the number one economic indicator. Now everyone – quick – shave them off and let’s party!

Why is the Bible written in Parables?

[This came out of a discussion I was having with someone online... it's a little out of left-field, so please bear with me].

The reason the Bible is written in Parables is fundamental human psychology, and keys into our unique ability to craft a long-term history for our species.

It's basic human psychology; you want to teach someone something? Wrap it in a narrative - it sticks much more than dishing out the facts ever will. In fact, if you make it a story about someone else, it gets an automatic authority that a story about you never will.

Humans like story. It's the way we passed on information from generation to generation for... well... generations. It's the only thing we had that would stick before we had the written word. So it's not surprising that the Bible is metaphorical; it has to be, otherwise it would have been washed away by the passage of time.

It's also why we like entertainment. From a socio-evolutionary perspective, humans who enjoyed telling stories, and listening to them learned how the seasons changed. They learned how to work with one another. They learned how to avoid childbirth when it was too dangerous. They learned how to work together. Any humans that didn't enjoy storytelling died out quite quickly because they had no method for long-term data storage.

The Bible in the form it was written, and Hollywood Blockbuster movies ultimately exist because of the same psychological trait. Metaphor is one of the most defining human traits we have.

Unfortunately, marketers now know how that machine works, and are fine tuning it. They can seed ideas, and they can seed desires with amazing effectiveness and efficiency. And we're soaking in it all the time.

Third Presidential Debate: Subliminal Message Counts

So, my favorite phrase is back: New Direction (see previous blog post). This phrase is a favorite of those who like to play in the subliminal playground, because it's an attention getter. Say it fast, and the brain trips over whether it's "New Direction" or "Nude Erection".

So let's see the tally shall we?

In tonight's debate, McCain said it 5 times. Obama said it twice.

Other tricks:

Handed to McCain on a silver platter was the "quote someone else" trick. This is where you quote - say - Joe the Plumber - because it doesn't matter what you say if you're saying that someone else said it. The message comes from you still, and it sinks in in the same way, but it bypasses the bullshit filter because you're not asking people to believe you - you're asking them to believe someone else. However, the end result is the same thing - the message is delivered.

Needless to say, Joe the Plumber came up a lot in the talks as a foil for McCain's arguments.

Obama played back a little by bringing Warren Buffet into the fray.

McCain then went on to talk about tax rates. US corporate tax rate? One of the highest in the world at 35%! (Never mind that a study came out yesterday which shows that most US corporations don't pay ANY income taxes). He then went on to talk about Ireland, where the tax rate is 11% (insinuating that this is commonplace). In fact, this is one of the lowest in the world - although a little higher than Uzbekistan and Serbia.

Ireland also is a little different here in that in Ireland they have a 25% Value Added Tax (kind of like a sales tax). Their payroll taxes are higher than in the US. (16.75% vs. 15.3%). And income tax in Ireland ranges from 20-41% - whereas in the US it's from 0-35% (federal) and 0-10.3% (state).

As for the actual US Corporate tax rate? That's actually between 15-39% (federal) and 0-12% (state). Of course, again, most US corporations pay 0% in income taxes.

The average corporate tax rate world wide is in fact 25%. The lowest is in the British Virgin Isles, Nepal and the UAE - all of which pay 0%. Most "1st world" countries are sitting at about 30%.

I've been to Ireland. It's mostly green hills.

(OK, so this whole bit isn't subliminal, but it still bugged me).

I could go on, but frankly, I'm really annoyed by the whole debate. Grrr.

Dino Rossi Campaign uses Subliminal Messaging

Dino Rossi is running for Governor of Washington State right now. Watch the ad though... there's something funny going on here.

Did you catch it? I assure you, there's a subliminal message in there, about 15 seconds in.

What is it?

The woman providing counterpoint to his soundbites is saying "Dino Rossi: A New Direction".

Anyone who has studied subliminal advertising will recognize this phrase. Try saying it fast, and you'll get it - Dino Rossi: A Nude Erection.

Of course, the Democrats were also using this phrase back in 2006. And it has a long history with the Speed Seduction crowd. (Seriously, click that link back there - it's handy training if you want to make sure you don't get manipulated. It'll tell you what to look for).

Note that they're not showing you the phrase - they're saying it. It only works when said; there's ambiguity there otherwise.

These are phrases to look out for, which are designed to affect you on a base, emotional level and bypass your critical brain, to get you to do what other people want you to.

You might want to do more research on this... these sites should get you started:

Pick Up Guide- How to Lay Girls Guide - Speech patterns and how they're used to get you thinking a certain way...

http://www.pickupguide.com/layguide/quoting.htm - How quoting someone else's words makes your message easier to swallow...

Here's an important one - Anchoring - http://www.pickupguide.com/layguide/anchoring.htm - or, how people can get their message across via multimodal sensory techniques. (eg. Touching you on a shoulder when they say something nice, so that every time they touch you on the shoulder, you're expecting them to say something you'll like).

The politicians are getting smarter, and they use all of these tricks against you. Please, arm yourself against them, and think for yourself.

ps. I know that most of these links are from speed seduction sites, but seriously, that's the easiest place to learn about it. Once you read a few of the examples - no matter how you feel about why and how they are applied - you should get an idea for how pervasive this stuff is in advertising, marketing and sales. And it'll drive you batty because of it - but at least you'll be much more immune than the average person who doesn't know the techniques.

What makes games fun?

It's an interesting question. A better one, though, might be... what makes play fun?

Bet you've not made one of these since you were a kid...

There's a lot of psychology being worked on right now on why games are fun, but some of it is common sense. Here's a quick laundry list I put together of what's fun and why.

• Are you emotionally engaged?
  That's fun... or at least, it's engaging. It makes you feel something.
• Are you narratively engaged?
  (Do you want to see what happens, or how the story ends?)
• Are you physically engaged?
  Are you pressing buttons and getting feedback? Are the buttons consistent? Is there room to learn a new motor skill?
• Are you learning?
  Learning is fun, provided that there is feedback and reward.
• Are you projecting?
  Do you feel attached to the character you're interacting with? (eg. move your mouse to the top of the screen, and smack it there. You'll feel a little psychomotor feedback, as if the mouse is "sticking" on something. That's projection. It's what lets you feel the tip of a screw when you're using a screwdriver).
• Are you learning new projection-related skills that are unlike things you do in everyday mundane life?
  eg. Rolling things up in Katamari Damacy, jumping 3 stories in Crackdown, dreaming about tetris blocks, creating Portals. You can tell if you're doing this right, because you'll look around your mundane everyday world, and think about how to do those things within it...
• Is there direct feedback in the system? Are your actions connected directly to the actions you see on screen? Are the consequences mostly immediate (ties to physicality) or long term (ties to narrative).
• Are you competing with another player, human or otherwise?
  Humans are competitive animals, and a lot of play in animals is to lay down the rules for territory and battle.
• Are you collaborating with another player, human or otherwise?
  Humans are societal animals, and a lot of play in animals is to lay down the rules for cooperation and collaboration.
• Does it provide a change in state for the player, preferably into a "flow" state? (eg. Rez/Geometry Wars/Zuma = Trance/Flow state) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

Ultimately, a fun game requires:

• Feedback - actions have consequences, preferably immediate (unless narrative)
• Progressive induction - that is, start easy, get progressively harder. Challenge the player - but at a rate appropriate to them so that it causes frustration, but not too much.
• Rewards - doing something cool must provide a reward.

Fun may or may not require:

• Narrative engagement
• Physical engagement
• Emotional engagement
• General learning
• Competition
• Collaboration
• Projective learning
• Induction into "flow" state

... but usually a fun game will require at least one or more of these ancillary categories to provide depth and engagement. The most powerful of these are Flow, Projective Learning, Competition and Emotional/Narrative engagement, in roughly that order. And they're also that difficult to attain, in that order.

That's my take on it anyway.

Examples

Note that I'm only listing the dominant traits of these games. For example, Crackdown has a small narrative element, but it's really really small - certainly nothing compared to GTA4's storyline.

Panzer Dragoon Orta - a game which involves a lot of General Learning (to get the patterns right), Physical engagement, a smidge of Narrative engagement, and some gorgeous graphics

Rez
Physical engagement, General Learning, Induction into "flow" state

Crackdown
Physical engagement, General Learning, Competition & Collaboration, Projective Learning

Indigo Prophecy
Narrative engagement, Physical Engagement, Emotional engagement, General Learning

Portal
Narrative engagement, Emotional Engagement, Physical Engagement, General Learning, Projective Learning

Project Gotham Racing
Physical Engagement, General Learning, Projective Learning, Competition

The Suffering
Narrative Engagement, Physical Engagement, Emotional Engagement, General Learning

Schizoid
Physical Engagement, General Learning, Competition, Collaboration

PacMan
Physical Engagment, Projective Learning (hugging the walls), Induction into "flow" state, General Learning

Rock Band
Physical Engagement, General Learning, Projective Learning, Collaboration

So what's the Upshot?

If you're designing a game, see if you're missing any of these elements, and try to figure out how to get them in. You don't need all of them, but most games will involve some kind of General Learning (ie. they're not totally random because that's unfair - even Minesweeper won't let you click on a bomb on your first move) by default. Identifying which elements of your game correspond to each of these categories can also help you to refine those experiences.

How to Build Team Morale and Cohesion by Goofing Off

The Surreal Gameplay Programming Team's Friday Meeting, July 2006. From Left to Right; John Cuyle, Lance Dyson, Matt Lauritzen, Joe "The Robot" Sola. Sola's Mom could not be reached for comment.

So just how do you get a team together, keep them working together, keep tensions low during high-crunch periods of time, and just generally make sure they rock the house?

I've got a secret little trick that I figured out while I was managing the Gameplay Programming team at Surreal. (Actually, I discovered some of this while managing the Tools Team, but I refined and codified it when I moved to Gameplay).

We moved to an Agile project management method (kind of based on Scrum) at Surreal in October 2005. Now, people have varying thoughts as to whether or not it was successful or not - but that's for another post - but the upshot of it was that we ended up having two Gameplay team stand-up meetings a week.

One of the things I did early on after moving to the Gameplay team - given that we had two meetings a week - was to look at exactly what those meetings were doing for the team. It ends up that really, the meetings had several purposes:

1. To update the status of the team for Production, which we were already tracking in another way anyway.
   
2. To update the team and keep them apprised of what each other were doing. Kind of a forced exchange of information.
   
3. To provide an opportunity for people to exchange information and ideas.
   

Now, 1) we were already doing via email, and 2) was good, but kind of out of scope for a 15 minute stand-up meeting (it'd expand the meeting for one). 3) seemed like a great thing to me, but needed more flexibility.

By this point I was already doing 1 on 1's with each team member, once a week; these were working well, and mainly I was using them to allow for private conversation about things that were bugging each team member, and to resolve inter-personnel issues, find out what was blocking them and so on.

And of course, Summer hit. And we were in crunch. Again. (We crunched all the way through the previous summer on Suffering: Ties That Bind... I was working 14 hours days on weekdays, and 8 hour days - sometimes longer - on weekends for three months).

Now, Summer in Seattle is a gorgeous time. After spending all winter under oppressive gray skies, everything flips and Seattle becomes one of the most gorgeous places on the planet.

I'd be damned if I was going to miss it again. So I decided to start a new practice.

Summer at Golden Gardens in Seattle - Seriously, it's what makes the rain worthwhile.

The Friday Gameplay Team Meeting

The Friday Gameplay Team Meeting was something I instituted at Surreal, and it works great for keeping your team together, focused and happy. It's now an institution at Surreal - even though I've not managed that team for over a year, which shows some of its staying power.

Instead of two Scrum meetings a week, I cut it down to one formal meeting, and one informal meeting (where I'd take notes if necessary; later we modified this so that notes weren't necessary at these meetings - I'll cover that later). The informal meeting was at 2pm on Friday afternoon, downstairs on the grass field outside the building. (The grass field no longer exists; which is ok, because we're no longer at that building). People were encouraged to bring beer (Friday at Surreal is Beer & Pizza friday). The meeting itself? 30 to 60 minutes long.

Over time, the meetings evolved to include a short soccer kickaround during the summer and early fall. These stopped at the new building because there's no field nearby, so we just meet out on the deck which overlooks the Puget Sound. The beer's still there though.

People swap notes and kick around ideas (and, I guess, soccer balls). They talk about the movies they're going to see, what's cool on TV, cool games they're playing (including ours), maybe a bit of what they're working on, and life in general. There's lots of joking around, a little bit of teasing, and usually very animated conversation. Some people (with nasty bad habits... er... like me) smoke.

It all seems very much like just an organized excuse to goof off. That's because it is. But if you dig a little deeper and look under the hood, there's some very specific reasons why I do it this way.

The Inner Structure Of The Goof-Off Meeting

This isn't actually a Gameplay team meeting - but it's what one looks like in the new building (it's held right here on the deck, and usually there's that many people there. And the two people on the left (Darci Morales, Surreal Producer, back to the camera, Matt Lauritzen, Gameplay Programmer Extraordinaire, in shades) are usually there too. This photo is actually from the Surreal 2007 4th of July BBQ on the deck at work, where we got fantastic views of the fireworks show.

There are several key reasons for holding a meeting this way.

1. It Gets People Away From Their Coworkers

Games development is a pretty high stress environment, and I wanted to make sure that my team had a place that was safely away from potentially prying ears and eyes of their coworkers, so that they could feel comfortable discussing anything they wanted to - including the things that other people in the company are doing that are bugging them.

This is normally a 1 on 1 subject, but this also allows the whole team to voice what's derailing them - without fear of retribution. (And if you institute something like this, it's important that there will not be retribution. Handle the problem there and then by explaining the other side of the issue - as their manager you should understand the other side of the issue; if you don't, you're not doing your job - or by promising them that you'll look into it. Don't bear grudges. Don't throw blame. Don't be quick to judge. If people are bitching about something, there's something to it).

2. It Gives Them An Opportunity To Vent

Related to #1... unlike regular meetings, this meeting - and I told my team this going into it, and repeated it regularly - is meant to be a "stitch and bitch". And yes, they should. It's healthy. But keep it in check, and address misconceptions where you can.

For example, one issue that comes up regularly near the ends of projects is the fact that programmers don't like getting bugs filed against them for content issues. They hate having to help Designers fix content that (they feel) should have been set up correctly in the first place. The job of the lead in this situation is to remind them that hey - guess what - designers aren't programmers. Part of your job as a programmer on a game team is to help the designers get their job done - and occasionally, that means holding their hands. Because god knows, they get to deal with our bugs all the time ;-)

3. It's Not An Office Or A Conference Room

There's a mental gear shift that happens when you get a team out of the office. This is why Marketing & Sales guys get to have expensive off-site retreats in ski lodges all the time. Well, no one pays for the geeks to ever do that (or if they do it's rare, or reserved for upper management), so this is the closest thing you can do without having to explain it to the Finance guys.

When you're out of the office, you can let your guard down, and let politics go by the wayside a little. You can be more objective about your work, and you can be more creative because you're removed from the issue. The creativity part is a big one - it gets your team's juices flowing.

The moment the conversation turns to the game you're working on - and it will, because most of the team spends nearly every waking moment working on it or thinking about it; you just can't turn that kind of passion off - you're going to get a torrent of ideas that will blow you away.

Take a notepad with you - there's gold in there.

4. It's a Friday

Yep, you knew it was coming. Part of the idea of goofing off is to goof off. Just a little bit. It's Friday, people are already thinking about the weekend anyway. This just codifies it as something that's okay to do.

Why would you want people to goof off during work hours?

This is a team that's going to go through hell and back for you. They're going to put off doing their taxes, their laundry, and their utility bills because they're at work at 9pm on a Saturday night trying to get the game out for its next milestone. They need to work together as a cohesive unit. Everyone needs to know what everyone else is working one. You need to know who's stressed out the most, and who's got a low workload - and this is a way of letting that work auto-balance itself. People will and do offer to help each other out during these meetings. But they'll only do that if they trust, respect and are friends with each other. (You can of course force it yourself and shuffle the workload for them, and you should do that as well, but this way they all feel like they're all in it together).

Think of it like being in the military. You're the Sergeant of your platoon. They're your men. What does a platoon do during downtime? They hang out. They build camaraderie. They become friends, and turn into a close-knit, well oiled fighting machine. And that's all you can ask from a team - have that, and you've got the best team in the world.

But you're not in the military, so they're going to go home after work. So do it at work instead. And give them a place to relax while at work - seeing each other day in day out, it's something your team needs. It's therapeutic.

Equipment List

What do you need for a successful Friday Meeting like this?

• At the very least, the lead should have a notepad & pen for taking notes of issues that come up, and ideas the team generates.
• Beer (and nonalcoholic beverages)
• A Soccer Ball if you've got somewhere to play.
• Your Producer. Make sure your producer gets invited to these meetings - your producer is not the enemy, and as long as you've told them why the meeting is structured the way it is, they should see the benefits. It'll make them a part of the team as well.

Conclusion

The Friday Meeting (or Goof Off Meeting) is an excellent tool for building team morale and cohesion. It's also great for getting information on the team's status in a way that isn't formalized, allowing you to fix problems before they become real issues.

It's now a part of Surreal tradition (at least for the Gameplay team), and has been successful enough that when programmers move to other teams, it's one of the things they miss the most about the team. That's ok - we let them come along to the meeting as well if they have time. In my ideal world all of the teams would have one meeting a week that was like this - it really does help.

Next time I'll talk about team morale, and I'll explain how I try to show the team that I appreciate their efforts.

Beards and Skirts ... and Sh*t Hitting The Fan

   

 
Good Economic Times - Illustrated

Believe it or not, fashion can demonstrate exactly how well a company, or a country is doing. It's a phenomenon called The Environmental Security Hypothesis. Here's how it works.

During good economic times, statistically, men will prefer blondes. Skirts will go up - literally. They'll get so short you could... well... read a girl's license plate. Men will go clean-shaven. Both sexes will prefer people with big, wide, trusting eyes. Everything's happy in the world, and (as a guy, I really appreciate this), girls will be wandering around showing more flesh than a gynecologists convention.

Why?

Well, I'm not personally sure on the hair color. Brunettes? You're economically immune. Huzzah! Red-heads? Well, the study I was reading didn't actually cover red-heads. Consider yourselves a force of nature unto your own not bound by the space-time or the economic continuum.

 
Harsh Economic Times- Illustrated

Bad news for the blondes though. In harsh economic times, all of the sudden the pendulum swings the other way. Men prefer girls with dark hair. Women prefer men with beards. (Actually, men prefer men with beards too, and by that, I don't just mean bears - that goes for hierarchies of men in society too, not just men who... well.. enjoy other men). The smaller your eyes are? The more attractive, and the more friends you'll have. Even though you have little beady eyes.

It's not just beards either. Anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists and economists have all turned to that bastion of persistent cultural data - Playboy Magazine - and studied the measurements of the girls within. (I'm sure they also read the articles). The result? In times of economic strife, men prefer taller, heavier and older girls with smaller tits.

 
Playboy Magazine: The choice of anthropological
socioeconomic psychologists everywhere

I've seen this myself. We're entering a recession. We've got about a hundred people in our office - mostly young men. Statistically, according to the studies, you'd expect the preference to shift by about 3-4% towards wearing beards.

Guess how many people grew beards over the past 6 months, since the economic downturn started to really pinch?

Yep, that's right. 4 people grew beards, right in line with the study. Or got more scruffy at least. One guy has been growing a moustache since October, and he still hasn't shaved it. He looks like a 70s (the era of stagflation, Carter) porn star. That's dedication.

I Know What You're Thinking

What can you do with this information? How can we make this useful?

Well, on a micro level, look around the company you work for. Are things going well? Or badly? What does your gut tell you? What signs can you see?

How To Tell If You're About To Get Laid Off, or if the stock market is about to crash...

• Assuming you work in an industry where you're lucky enough to see women, did any women in your office get breast reduction surgery recently? Or get taller? Or both?
• Has anyone dyed their hair from blonde or brown to black recently?
• How many guys have grown beards, or grown scruffy, 80s-style George Michael stubble? (If the reason is not that the woman or man in their life is driven wild by the facial hair, count them as subliminal converters)
• Bring copies of Playboy into work. Are the models as old as your mom? Are any of the models your mom? If so, we might be experiencing economic hard times. (Or at the very least, your mom might be).
• Has anyone switched from glasses to contact lenses, giving them the "Mr. Magoo" effect where their eyes are now just tiny dots? Lasik counts.

Things Not To Do If You're CEO Of A Company And Don't Want To Freak Out Your Employees

The Unexpected CEO Beard:
A Serious Business Faux Pas

As a leader, there are certain expectations you have to uphold. You're not allowed to hold all night hooker and blow parties unless you invite most of the senior staff.  You may only have three reserved parking spots at the office for your variety of expensive sports cars, even if two of them are registered in your wife's name for tax reasons. You can't blow the morale budget on that nice set of golf clubs you saw in the Sharper Image, with the built in GPS tracker in each golf ball.

Most importantly, before calling a random all-hands meeting, you must not - under any circumstances - suddenly start sporting a full beard. Especially if you didn't have it the last time any of the staff saw you. Even stubble is out. There's a reason the bad guys in the mirror universe in Star Trek all had goatees, you know.