What an excellent animation of storytelling which can be used as a life lesson as well! Truly impressed! Picked up in Spillmakerlauget‘s skype chat.
Tag Archives: inspiration
A little inspiration from a designer
My wonderfully talented friend, Tini Malitius, sendt me this very inspirational talk by Tina Roth Eisenberg (Swiss Miss): The Power of Side Projects and Eccentric Aunts. I would also add that it’s also about the power of community and how important it is to surround yourself with smart people. Not to mention the acknowledgement that haters are gonna hate! It’s a very personal talk as she bases it on what she wants to teach her kids. It gave me the boost and inspiration that I needed, hope it does the same for you!
The Importance of Side Projects
http://typotalks.com/embed_video/s/131
Leigh Alexander on being a female game journalist
I just watched this wonderful keynote by Leigh Alexander on the challenges of being a female journalist and being labelled a feminist journalist because she writes about things such as computer games. She really gives a lot of her own personal experiences and I’m very thankful for that. I recognise a lot of what she brings up. It’s awkward, uncomfortable and a bit daunting being asked to have an opinion or a voice for an entire gender, speaking on behalf of all woman everywhere. I don’t even feel comfortable talking on behalf of female gamers. But Alexander is great at pointing out that we already have some wonderful female role models in the game industry out there and that we shouldn’t let ourselves be silenced for our gender or that the pressure of talking on behalf of a gender is too awesome. Her conclusion was absolutely great: “I believe that games can speak to more people than they already do and in order for that to happen they need all of our voices – they need you!”. Thanks Mathias Poulsen for recommending it!
The Story part 3
I’m determined to get my thoughts from The Story documented somehow, although a week has passed, I shall continue on.
7) I was late coming back after lunch and missed the introduction of Paul Bennun & Nick Ryan. This is a session I would have loved to be more prepared for. I didn’t know who they were and wish I’d looked them up and played their games before attending, because their story was astounding!
Their story was sound. Together they have created a game based entirely on sound called Papa Sangre (downloading now).
The Story Part 2
I’m sitting at the airport with bad internet connection – (I mean seriously! Why do they make this so hard?!) – but I need to get this off my chest before I get to Bergen, for I know that everyday life will distract me.
So where was I?
4) After a brief coffee break came the remarkably enchanting Karl James to talk about the wonderfully simple yet difficult skill of listening. Sometimes, if you just shut up you’ll hear remarkable stories that you never thought you’d hear. And what beautiful stories he had to share. Like the extremely powerful story of a rape victim he had been talking to. An extremely powerful woman who had worked through the grusomeness of being raped when she was 14. A man had snuck in the back door of their house and raped both her and her mother. Gruesome, right? Absolutely horrendous. But my tears didn’t start flowing until he told us that when they were supposedly finished, he forgot to stop recording and they stumbled upon something heartbreaking. The woman told him that she didn’t regret the rape – she had learned to cope with it, survived and it was a large part of who she was. But then she said something completely unexpected “I do regret what it’s done to my brother” – my eyes are welling up just thinking about her minor break down then. She began to cry and talked about how her brother had become completely secluded and was much more troubled than anyone else in the family. It was heartbreaking and a story seldom told or shared, but because Mr. James was so good at listening, we were given this precious gift. I completely agree. I’ve been thinking lately that I’m very good at articulating other’s feelings when they’re sharing them with me. In fact I take pride in being able to describe what they’re going through better than they themselves can. It makes me feel like an excellent writer and gives my ego a boost. This is totally wrong of me! Of course I should give them room to find the words themselves! I’m looking forward to discovering all the magical stories I will encounter.
Please listen here – I know they will fill my ears in the next coming weeks.
The Story 2011 part 1
So I’m on my annual (2nd year this year) pilgrimage to London. Why? The Story! This has got to be the most inspirational day (I hesitate to call it a conference) of the year. The Story is the brainchild of Matt Locke. As he says, he just wanted to create the conference that he really wanted to go to.
I was there last year, but was unable to rearticulate the pure joy that the day brought me. So much inspiration! This year – all I want to do is write about it. I haven’t felt so inspired to write in FOREVER! But that’s the whole point of this pilgrimage – to be inspired, hear new good stories and celebrate storytelling. I must admit that I feel exceptionally geeky travelling from Norway for the event, but it’s just so worth it. And after, I have the whole weekend to work on my inspiration and write in lovely London.
Margaret Robertson was the perfect MC for the event. She excused herself for only being interested in games, but her storytelling geek surfaced quite well. So I’ll do the talks chronologically:
Tracy Harwood
I’ve been hassling IT-journalists about getting involved with Ada Lovelace Day and now I’m sitting here on the day – completely rushed on my own contribution! Just goes to show – hassling people is a tricky thing to pull off respectfully
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So, in the spirit of Ada Lovelace Day, I would like to focus on Tracy Harwood.
We were so lucky this fall to have her visit Landmark in our humble city of Bergen, Norway for a lecture on Machinima. It was a pleasure to have her here and she inspired me (and dare I say, my mom) to keep living my life as colourful as possible.
Tracy Harwood is today a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University. She’s a professional marketer and has a PhD in negotion of buyer-seller relationships.
My women’s day thank you
It’s International Women’s Day again and time to do my annual thank you! Ada Lovelace Day is taking care of my greatfulness for women and technology – so this year I’m going to keep it on a very personal level.
In November 2006, Maren Agdestein organised a lunch where she gathe
red three women she had met that were writing or considering to write about computer games for their master’s thesis. Seen here on the right from the left: Marianne, Me, Maren and Hedvig. At that time we called ourselves The cHixOrs, not really thinking that we’d do anything more than just meet up every now and then for a chat about games and our academic interests. But I think all of us really enjoyed geekspeaking with other women. There was just something really uplifting, fun and liberating about it.
Lego is binary form
… and therefore is inherently digital. I like that! Great short, sweet and lovely presentation on Lego by Roo Reynolds.
My women’s day thank you
Since we’ve become such a connected society, I’ve noticed that my idols are more local. They’re reachable, and I may even have talked to them. Maybe its my age, but my idols aren’t billionaires (well – at least I don’t think they are) or global popstars – instead my idols are nearby, within my reach and guess what? They’re all women! I thought about this a few months ago and thought I’d save writing about it until this womens day. As my little tribute.
First off – by idol I mean a person that truly inspires me. It’s a person I draw strength from. I don’t want to be this person, I’m quite happy with who I am. But these people help me to strive for things I really want to do. I feel inspired when I’m around them or reading/hearing their work.
Remember What The Dormouse Said 