g. FarmVille
I was so bowled-over by encountering FarmVille, some time in 2010 & immediately started thinking how could we re-direct all that huge resource (creativity, passion, attention, time, money..) to REAL farms... like this one!
And the obvious answers started forming with that question.. which then in May 2011 I found is now being done in the UK, with the MyFarm project! Had to happen ... :)
This, together with the CrowdFunding research I've been doing in march-april 2011, and now with finding Jane McGonigal's amazing gaming inspiration .. combined to create this decision: basically to do MyFarm with our farm .. only better & in Spanish :)
tinyURL for this page .. http://tinyurl.com/68ayqf4
News
Research Blog
Have created a new Games Science page in our e-book, under Collective Intelligence, with the initial research I did ... here are some links tho.
On 13 may 2011 I saw this amazing video of Jane McGonigal (see below, the TED lecture)
Then, following links discovered the Social Chocolate Team - which has Jane McGonigal directing & Chelsea Howe, who worked on FarmVille, also on the team!
EVOKE is one game Jane's team developed in order to engage gamers into solving real world problems..
WorldWithoutOil is another amazing experiment in virtual action-learning! & my big question is ... How can we replicate that same creativity & enthusiasm but provide people with the basic permaculture design tools & systems-thinking skills so they can create at a much higher level?
Astounding Facts
The World of WarCraft wiki is the biggest wiki after Wikipedia, in the world. .. all done by people who play the WoW online game & want to share information about it ... wow!
Imagine half of that passion put towards writing our online Integral Permaculture e-book!!
This is nuts ...
The average western child will spend as many hours playing computer games as being in school, about 10,000 hours by age 21 .. which is the amount that supposedly someone needs to invest in order to become a virtuoso at something.
But what are they becoming virtuosos at, exactly? (question answered in Jane's videos..)
................................................
A brilliant lecture from Jane ...
This 45-minute School of Life sermon proposes a radically gameful way to get the most out of each day.
........................................................
jump-start 2 EcoBusinesses in 10 months, with crowd-designing!?
1) Organic Veggie Growing +
2) Organic Chicken & Rabbit breeding
Next Steps
Find collaborators on Gameful?
(first get my head together after learning about all this amazing stuff ...)
Basically so we can offer a really brilliant online experience for the users:
- how to really engage everyone,
- create a real sense of ownership
- foster strong relationships
- as educational as possible - of permaculture design not only gardening!
- be inspiring: get people to start growing some veg on their window-sill!
- leave open for wider collaborations, eg. with other farms, encourage more start-up eco-businesses
- promote a mini-eco-investment ethic !!!
- need to figure out what to film & how, what type of web, forums, interactive spaces to create, etc.
Need games-designer expertise for this!!
Can offer free hols to the Canary Islands in exchange :) And shares in the incomes eventually..
Combine with the Crowd Funding, started:
FundYu is encouraging us to finish our application, do intro video with Clara & Tere when they come to the finca next week, 17may11.
Done
put in Visionaries Group, on a Rotational Farming thread, in the Classifieds section & on my profile there..
The Challenge
We have a beautiful farm bursting at the seams with un-harvested fertility & the infrastructure all ready for two small & lovely EcoBusinesses to get going, growing organic veg & raising organic chickens & rabbits.
+
There are wonderful local unemployed people who could do this work, gladly, only they don't have the resources (kids to feed!) to put in months of work with no payment (that setting up your own business usually entails)
+
Our NGO (GaiaTasiri) is a great organization but quite stretched right now, resource-wise, with the launching of the new bilingual action-learning Integral Permaculture course + creation of e-Book to go with it AND the EcoVillage project ...
yet
these would also benefit so much from setting up the EcoBusinesses! If we could just employ two people for a year to set up these EcoBusinesses, we could get the show on the road no problem. Need 30,000€ to do this well.
SO
Now looking to combining the new (for us) discovery of CrowdFunding with an offer of educational farm-involvement for members (see below, the online farmers news)
but
try to really combine very well the kind of games-spirit that Jane McGonigal speaks of so eloquently, so encouraging people to OWN the experience & then do this in their own neighbourhood
scale-up!?
If we can find a way to, through this, collaborate with other farms in funding start-up businesses, that would be even more amazing...
Notes
4 things you need to FLOURISH (that games gives us most of) PERMA
P - positive
E - emotion
R - relationships
M - meaning
A - accomplishment, create something truly matter to society
The FarmVille Game
<< web
if you don't quite believe it ... as I didn't ...
& it's not the only one.. just the most popular one, these are others!
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National Trust's Wimpole Home Farm seeks Online Farmers !
Farmer Richard Morris says some 10,000 virtual farmers can vote
Continue reading the main story
A National Trust farm is to be run by online subscribers voting on which crops to grow and livestock to rear.
For a £30 annual fee, 10,000 farm followers will help manage Wimpole Home Farm, in Cambridgeshire.
The National Trust says its MyFarm project aims to reconnect people with where their food comes from.
It was partly inspired by the online Facebook game Farmville and follows the example of Ebbsfleet Football Club which is run on a similar basis.
Decisions about the running of the team in Kent has been in the hands of MyFootballClub subscribers since 2008.
Monthly decisions
Wimpole Home Farm, which is converting to organic, is currently commercially self-sustaining.
The 1,200 acre site is home to rare breeds of sheep, cattle, poultry, horses and goats and produces meat, eggs, wheat and oil seed rape.
Continue reading the main story
By influencing the work at Wimpole, our farmers will start to understand the effects and implications of their own decisions”
End Quote Richard Morris Farm manager
Subscribers will be expected to make key decisions on which crops to plant, which animals to buy and whether to put in measures such as new hedgerows to help wildlife.
They will be asked to make 12 major monthly decisions during the course of the year as well as other choices.
The options put to members will be within parameters dictated by climate, legislation, and the requirements of the environmental stewardship scheme which the farm is signed up to, as well as the heritage protection given to the estate.
The MyFarm website will feature video updates, webcams, information about farming and expert opinion and subscribers will also be entitled to a family ticket to visit the site.
'Real consequences'
The National Trust says it is the UK's biggest farmer with 200,000 hectares in production, mostly managed by tenant farmers, including lowland arable farms and Snowdonia sheep farming.
White Faced Woodland sheep are among the rare breeds on the farm
National Trust director general Dame Fiona Reynolds said the scheme was "all about reconnecting people with farming, giving them the chance to get involved with and feel part of the farming community and farming life and give them a greater understanding on how the food they eat gets to their shopping basket".
But she said she was sure that there would be some "wacky" ideas proposed by subscribers.
"We're entering into it very much as an experiment," she added.
Wimpole Home Farm's farm manager, Richard Morris, said: "MyFarm is Farmville for real. Real farming decisions with real farming consequences.
"By influencing the work at Wimpole, our farmers will start to understand the effects and implications of their own decisions."
The National Farmers Union welcomed the project.
Its president Peter Kendall said: "The National Trust's MyFarm project is an opportunity for a wider audience to see some of the competing priorities that 21st Century farmers have to manage."
- Pay someone else to pick your own 19 JANUARY 2010, CAMBRIDGESHIRE
Related Internet links
new Games Science page — May 14, 2011 7:59:15 AM