IKEA's new augmented reality catalogue

I know it is not the first of these augmented reality catalogues, but IKEA is the first that has made me want to download the app and try it out!

Book review: Reality is broken

A few weeks back, TED.com posted another talk by Jane McGonigal on practical applications of gamification - once again, it is not only the real life examples of concrete approaches to behaviour changes using the principles of game design in the "real" world, but also the deeply engrained positive message for the future that I really like.

The post reminded me that I had McGonigal's book, "Reality is broken" in the middle of my pile of "To read" books. I pulled it out and finished it yesterday. As indicated in my many previous posts on gamification, what I love about McGonigal's stuff is that it is so rooted in her desire to improve people's lives and is so "actionable" - the book is packed full of examples of how simple games applied in the real world have had immediate and measurable effects.

The book is well structured and is underpinned with lots of quality thinking about positive psychology, the roots of gaming in society and concepts of good game design (McGonigal is an academic as well as a game designer).

The one thing I would criticise is the length of the book - it could have been ~50-100 pages shorter and still covered all its points well.

Despite this small point, this is definitely a book worth reading if you are interested in affecting behaviour changes in fun ways!

Euro telcos: fiddling while the platform burns?

• Euro telcos: fiddling while the platform burns?
  It is difficult to argue with this aggressive analysis. that traditional telcos are not wholeheartedly pushing to change their business models in the face of declining voice revenues. I have to say I take a slightly more positive view; there is a huge amount going on in the industry around finally understanding and managing around the customer experience, and also about changing business models. In itself this is not enough to "save" the old players, but it is at least an indicator that the need to move is finally being recognised...

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Launching Excellence | Excellence Now by Tom Peters

• Launching Excellence | Excellence Now by Tom Peters
  I used to love Tom Peters (see also previous blog entry on Peters and Weick), but he has gotten a little stale. Nevertheless, his collection of "Best of" presentations is good stuff (if you can ignore the dreadful presentation style ;-))

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

McKinsey report on digital trends

• The next stage: Six ways the digital consumer is changing
  McKinsey report on digital trends. To summarize; social, omnichannel, gamification. Worth a read if you have a chance.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Incompetence & Twinstan's weekly roundup

Having just spent around 30 minutes trying to configure the Blog feed API in Diigo to revert back to a weekly feed I have decided to give up. Assuming it does not fix itself, I guess you will now have the pleasure of reading about the interesting links as I read them rather than once a week.

If it begins to feels like spam, I may switch off the feed altogether and shift to a new links tool (there are enough of them, after all!).

Let me know what you think.