Define our creative center: razor and slogan

[tannerwelsh]

Criteria: create a terse, inspiring, and actionable creative center to anchor our design efforts and clarify the product to all stakeholders. Expressed as a razor and a slogan.

This comes from Electronic Arts' notion of an "X", which I found in Game Design Workshop:

The X is the creative center of the game. It is also an alignment tool—aligning the development team, marketing, advertising, and customers so that you can communicate the value of the game to each party in terms they understand. Electronic Arts’ Chief Visual Officer, Glenn Entis, describes the two parts of an X as “the razor” and “the slogan.” The razor cuts—it allows the team to determine which features belong and which do not. The slogan is catchy—it allows marketing and players to determine whether or not this sounds like something they want to do. For example, the razor for the original Medal of Honor was “GoldenEye set in WWII on a PlayStation.” Entis felt this was a great razor because it allowed the team to decide what features the game absolutely needed. It was not a great slogan, however. The slogan that went on the box was, “Prepare for your finest hour.” While this was a great slogan, it would not have helped drive the creative process at all.

Originally appeared as a comment here: https://github.com/LearnersGuild/learning-os-blueprint/pull/23#issuecomment-183006175

Principles razor

In order for an issue to be marked as passing, the proposed solution must be aligned with our principles. Check off the principles that this solution is consistent with.

• [ ] Cultivate a learning community.
• [ ] Prioritize scale over quality
• [ ] Align incentives
• [ ] Build a team game
• [ ] Trust people's intentions and potential
• [ ] Enable self-organization & self-determination
• [ ] Map feedback loops
• [ ] Optimize for agility
• [ ] Simulation not preparation
• [ ] Sustain the tension between individual and collective gain

[tannerwelsh]

First pass at creative center (and example of form for successful submission):

Razor:

Scaleable and radically original autonomous team learning adventure.

Slogan:

Learn better. Learn together. Make the path.

[shereefb]

estimate 3? wow tanner. You're an optimist :)

[dunethomas]

Slogan:

Time to Level Up Your Life.

or perhaps just

Level Up Level Up Your Learning

[dunethomas]

@tannerwelsh I like "team learning adventure." Autonomous team learning is confusing, IMO. Scaleable learning adventure... these words carry a lot of useful description. I like them. I've also been thinking of LG as a kind of "Talent Farm." (Alas, farms don't strike a sense of "adventure.")

[shereefb]

High expectation, high support learning community

[WillGrant]

On Tuesday we also came up with the idea of a "Flashlight" -- tools that shine a light onto the areas we are not seeing. It seems a game can afford to miss things -- and can patch later -- but we need to catch big gaps early/before we set sail because of the finance model. Slogan, Razor and Flashlight?

[shereefb]

A self organized learning community, the evolves and grows exponentially.

[shereefb]

Learnvestors. A community of learners, that invest in themselves and each other.

[dunethomas]

I'm finding myself often thinking of ideal players as "self-driven collaborators" and LG as an "Accelerated learning environment for self-driven collaborators."

[omoju]

Time to Level Up

I like this as a slogan.

Learnvestors. A community of learners, that invest in themselves and each other.

Who are the "learnvestors"? LG hub, the Pod members or both?

"Accelerated learning environment for self-driven collaborators."

This seems closer to nailing the intent, but too meaty. I like the level up slogan a lot.

Ohhh, what about learnovators? for LG hub

[jeffreywescott]

For the slogan, I'm feeling the "level up" stuff, assuming we make a game with levels.

Learnvestors seems more related to FDR than LOS, IMO.

The razor is hard. I've racked my brain trying to encapsulate our "foundations" into one sentence ... and failed.

[dunethomas]

LG is fostering a learnivation movement. Creating learnvironments. Something really fun about this. I'm not thinking of it as a Razor or Slogan, but it's an interesting technique for communication. We should be careful not to "smurfize" it, but creating mashups of the word "learn" is fun and playful while also very suggestive of the novelty of what LG is doing. Making up our own word communicates that "this hasn't existed before." Got my mind churning on this one, Omoju.

[shereefb]

Razor: We design, steward, and invest in self-organized learning communities

[shereefb]

Slogan: Level up together

[jeffreywescott]

Is "designing, stewarding, and investing" part of the game?

The razor cuts—it allows the team to determine which features belong and which do not.

[shereefb]

Nope. It's more of a razor for the whole company!

Having said that LOS doesn't just concern itself with the game. it's game AND player support.

So maybe: We design and facilitate self-organized learning communities

[cherinebadawi]

Facilitating something that self organizes seems a bit contradictory. Unless we mean facilitate in its 'to make easy' sense.

How about the not so sexy but simple and clear: we design, support and invest in self-organized learning communities (in service to a dignified livelihood for all)

I also like "A community of learners, that invest in themselves and each other." I think the each other part is an LG differentiator.

And yes to Level up together, if the game has levels.

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 5:02 PM, Shereef Bishay notifications@github.com wrote:

Nope. It's more of a razor for the whole company!

Having said that LOS doesn't just concern itself with the game. it's game AND player support.

So maybe: We design and facilitate self-organized learning communities

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LearnersGuild/learning-os/issues/161#issuecomment-183549144 .

Cherine Badawi, M.A. Curriculum Design and Facilitation www.thrivetrainings.com C: (510) 207-0105

schedule a meeting with me: calendly.com/cherine