Week 1 – UXD Principles and Concepts

Preface - As of Jan 2019, I've enrolled at Kent State University, seeking a Masters of Science in User Experience Design. As such, certain coursework in the curriculum will require regular blog posts (reflections) of weekly learnings. This is the first of those posts. In reflecting on Week 1 in UXD Principles and Concepts, I …

Gamification is Poised for a Podcast-like Resurgence

Gamification Origins Gamification is a stupid word. I think at this point just about all of us agree on that. Yet despite the words silliness, the definition is important: the process of applying game-based elements to non-game activities. We humans have been trying to gamify non-game situations (at least knowingly, at scale, in business, according …

What is The Gen Z Frequency?

I was selected by publisher Kogan Page to read an advance copy of one of their upcoming titles, The Gen Z Frequency (scheduled for release on September 28). Over the last few weeks, I’ve worked my way through the text with relative ease. It’s a well written, fun book. In what I would now call …

My 2018 Personal Balanced Scorecard

Every year, I take a different approach to resolutions. Since 2013 I've crafted a personal balanced scorecard to guide my personal behaviour, and, hopefully, improve it. Most of this is pretty personal to me, but I'm happy to talk with anyone about it if you have questions. For the last few years, I've broken my …

Ankeny School Board Vote 2017 – Candidate Round Up

The Ankeny Community School District will vote the nominees to three School Board seats on September 12 (the second Tuesday in September per school policy). Since there's only a couple of days left to do your homework, I thought I would collect some of the disparate resources for Ankenians to make it a little easier …

Be Like Amazon, a Video Review.

https://youtu.be/NnyNH1GCPKc

What Can Video Game Design Teach Marketers?

It's more than the gamification buzz that's been thrown around. I'm a total nerd. It took me a long time to realize how big of a nerd I really am though. In high school, I was friends with people that played sports (when I did not). Being friends with "jocks" clouded my self-assessment accuracy, and …

PC Upgrade

Last month I decided it was time to do a new custom PC build. It wasn't much on the "budget" side, but I did already have a Nvidia GTX 1070 that I'd picked up last year, so I didn't have to worry about a GPU. Here's a capture from CAM of the system upon completion: …

Why I Believe Global Warming / Climate Change Science

the factors that convinced me of climate change

My Homelessness Video Script

Dialogue(conscious thought dialogue) 0:00 Good Morning Iowa, welcome to November! We're digging in to fall, the holiday season is nearly upon us, and so as we take a break from plowing through the bucket of leftover Halloween candy, it’s a good time for chit-chat I love Iowa. Were an amazing state, but even great states …