Students in USA are messaging 3 hours per day!

I was surprised recently that big telephone companies like Vodafone and KPN (The Netherlands) didn't foresee the fact that apps could gradually make certain functions of their business proposition redundant. To name one example: texting / messaging. Since Whatsapp (do we still remember Budweiser's Wassup) telephone companies are loosing loads and loads of turnover...
And it must have been their biggest chunk of turnover if you take a look at this Infographic from OnlineEducation.net According to this research students spend 3 HOURS (on average) PER DAY sending text messages to each other...!!!

This is incredible, that's even more than watching TV!

I recently received a hand-written note from a guy aged 25... it was illegible and looked like the handwriting of my grandfather AFTER he died... If 82% of all students prefer to use digital tools to learn, why are we still not using games as a training tool on schools I wonder. Are teachers really that terrified that they will lose their jobs? I think teachers will become the admins of the future teaching playground, but that's another subject. For now, go check out this great infographic - and a BIG thanks to Lessie for keeping me posted on interesting shizzle for the peepz!

It's been two years!

It's been a while since I wrote a full article myself, but here we go again! - I am trying to do this every morning now starting today (although it is hard to find inspiration sometimes).

The past two years have been great. I wrote my first posting just a little over two years ago preparing myself for writing my book 'Laat met je merk spelen' which we have almost finished translating into English. The English summary is available at www.brandnewplayground.com

18 months ago I started my own company called BrandNewGame and since then I have been working on great projects for ABN Amro Bank (confidential), Air Cargo Netherlands, Dutch Customs, Schiphol Airport, The Port of Amsterdam and Holland Casino (confidential). All great projects where games were used to influence behavior in all sorts of ways. This is one of the reasons I wasn't able to write so much from time to time, but I am still very happy and very proud of the thousands of unique visitors that visit my weblog each year - I thank you for that!

If you have any comments or ideas for this blog, please share them by email, Twitter (@BartHufen) or on my group on Linkedin called BrandNewGame. Twitter probably works best as I get a lot of spam theses days by email.

Now, let's have a look at the Top 10 games of today (thanks to http://www.vgchartz.com)!

I must say I am still happily surprised that games like Wii Sports Resort, Wii Sports and even Zumba Fitness (10th place) are still selling well! This means women (mostly) are still using the Wii actively to do their workout at home in front of the TV, instead of going to the gym! I hear this a lot from friends around me.
Exercising for fitness by means of motion controlled games is something I describe in chapter 3 of my book. Here I show all sorts of cases how games can be used as a marketing tool, for instance to keep your staff healthy doing exercises! It was great to see that at Holland Casino, they stimulate staff to use the Wii at all their casino's to keep their staff in a good healthy state. Check these pictures of Holland Casino Headquarters...

As you can see it's not just women playing Wii Sports...

And this is me in an office with 'my Deal-or-no-Deal-ladies'...

I will try to post some more in-depth articles soon, but hope you appreciate my efforts! ;-)

SmartGate-The Game JUST WENT LIVE!

When I started writing the Dutch version of my book ‘A Brand New Playground’ (Laat met je merk spelen) and thought about how games could be used to achieve marketing objectives, the last thing I thought I would come across is the development of a game to support change management issues. Ironically this example was one of the first projects I was involved in when I founded my company BrandNewGame. Air Cargo Netherlands, Schiphol airport and the Dutch Customs approached IJsfontein (a Dutch gamedeveloper) to develop a game that would help them to improve cooperation between the parties in the logistic chain. I was personally involved as an advisor. Together with the client (Air Cargo Netherlands) we defined the overall goal for this project and game-specific goals.

The overall goal was for Schiphol airport to keep its international competitive position as a freightway to Europe.

To maintain this competitive position, Schiphol (and all parties in the logistic chain) needed to speed up the logistics process from intake to delivery. The overall workflow concept to increase efficiency, reliability and security was called SmartGate and involves e-freight, a series of licences and one Information System for all parties in the chain.

The three goals for the game where:

- Increase awareness for SmartGate

- Give insight in the logistic process

- Internalize the new working method

After a thorough analyses we came up with three game concepts that should gradually grow from easy and fun towards a more serious and intense gameplay. IJsfontein embraced this concept and successfully developed the games.

I don’t want to give away too much of how the game looks, but basically you see an airport which you have to manage from a ‘helicopter-view perspective’ with all parties involved in the logistic chain. In the first game you can only ship goods (red and green) from shipper to handler to – eventually – load airplanes and increase your score. Red cargo (and red trucks) means that something is wrong. Either the information about this shipment has not been delivered in time, information on the airway bill might be illegible, information might be missing etc. The variables that influence the red or green status of cargo will be more detailed in the next games. The goal in the first game is to fly out as many planes as you can, (loaded from top to bottom to increase efficiency) and to keep your warehouses as empty as possible (Just In Time management).

We started this project early 2010 and the first game is almost finished now. Starting the 6^th of January 2011 the game will be playable through www.smartgatethegame.nl and I’m really looking forward to the response.

This is just an example to illustrate how games can help to achieve marketing objectives, in this case even support change management issues within a branch.

‘A Brand New Playground’ will show you how games can be used as a marketing tool and how to build brands in the digital era. We are talking about the era in which people have transformed from passive consumers to participating players.

This is an impression of the room and the crowd!

And me ... ;-)

Games for Internal Branding: Microsoft Silver Line Society ARG

Microsoft used an Alternate Reality Game to encourage players (employees) to increase cooperative working. The puzzles had to be solved by working together before the 7th of december....

The strength of the execution lies in the fact that both virtual- and real-world elements have to be combined to achieve all goals... check the films to learn more!

Games to support change management problems

Today my dear client Air Cargo Netherlands (Aniek) and I held a presentation at the Marketing Information Event 2010 at the World Forum in The Hague (Den Haag ;-).

IJsfontein GameWise, Atos Consulting and BrandNewGame have teamed up to develop a great game containing loads of e-learning elements in a series of three stunning games of which the first is soon to be released.

It all started end 2009 when Air Cargo Netherlands, Schiphol airport and the Dutch Customs approached IJsfontein GameWise with the question how a game could support their goals.

We sat down with them and decided to go into an 'analyse-fase' to determine if - and if so - how games could help to achieve their goals. Soon we discovered that this would be a really cool project and we have been working on it the past year, doing interviews with all the stakeholders within the logistic chain surrounding Schiphol. After the interviews BrandNewGame developed the first ideas which gameconcepts could be effective for their specific needs. IJsfontein is nearly finished developing the first game and I am very proud to have been working with them on this FANTASTIC project!

The presentation below will explain more about their specific situation and will give you insights how games can be used to achieve marketing goals.

Games for Change Management - SmartGate the game

View more presentations from Bart Hufen [BrandNewGame].

The gametrailer for the first game is stated below:

Games to help organizational transitions and as a training tool

We are currently working on a real cool project for Air Cargo Netherlands, Schiphol Airport and Dutch Customs.

To support an undisturbed flow of goods and speed up delivery times, the three parties mentioned above came up with a concept called 'SmartGate'.

It basically comes down to a combination of a central database containing all digital data necessary to accompany cargo from A to Z and an integrated process in which all parties work together and provide information upfront (in-time) and complete.

If shippers (like Philips or ASML for instance) send all the information necessary to inform Customs in-time and complete, the risk analysis can be done upfront and cargo can be cleared and marked 'green' before it even arrives to the airport. Some cargo (explosives for instance) need to be checked anyhow, but sharing information within the logistic chain is the first step towards an integrated process.

Together with GameWise, BrandNewGame has analyzed the logistic process and defined a game concept to increase awareness of SmartGate and internalize the required future working method.

The plan is to create a central game-dashboard where players login (check screen dump) through their web-browser. After they are logged in, they can play through the logistic process on a virtual airfield where they encounter various mini-games at each step in the process. These games will give insight in specific challenges and dilemma's. Eventually the games will train the players which information is essential for specific cargo shipments, how completeness and sharing of information will improve the flow of the process.

Hope to inform you soon about more cases, BrandNewGame and GameWise are also working for a large international bank and the port of Amsterdam.

America’s Army Extremely Effective Recruitment Tool - Technology

America’s Army Extremely Effective Recruitment Tool - Technology: "'30 percent of all Americans age 16 to 24 had a more positive impression of the Army because of the game and, even more amazingly, the game had more impact on recruits than all other forms of Army advertising combined'."
Below some more screenshots to show you what the game is about.

Or go to: www.goarmy.com

America's Army 3 downloadable from June 17th!

If you wish to download the latest version of America's Army go to this link and experience what it's like to be in the US Army yourself!

[Please note that we do not support war or violence in real life whatsoever!]


America's Army

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America's Army - Most successful advergame so far...

[Dutch only - sorry] Cool results on the most successful advergame so far - America's Army by David Nieborg

Presentatie David Nieborg V02

View more OpenOffice presentations from mfredactie.