Business Lessons from sucessful entrepreneurs and business leaders: LunchLearning.com

Reading time: 4 - 6 minutes

Total Video Time: 29 minutes 26 seconds

Dr. Werner Vogels (@Werner on Twitter) is the Chief Technology Officer of Amazon.com and one of the key drivers of innovation within the company. As a result of his experience developing Amazon’s systems, he is regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on scalable systems. With the natural expansion of these systems being “Cloud Computing,” it’s no wonder Dr. Vogels is an expert in this area as well.

What is “cloud computing” though? The term is still being defined, yet one doesn’t have to look too far from scalable systems to see the common elements. For example, instead of having immense databases and records administered locally, cloud computing seeks to shift everything you’ll allow it to, to a distant server maintained by another party—”the cloud.” Systems no longer have to be designed for peak capacity or go obsolete in several years time. Many of the limitations that were once inherent in operating computers are lifted. It is the transformation from computer capacity being a finite commodity to an infinitely available utility.

Vogels begins with a brief exploration of what cloud computing is to him and Amazon and what is capable within the cloud, moving on to note that the true beauty of the cloud infrastructure is that the people using the systems, not the designers, are the ones pushing the limit and developing new and innovative uses.

The wonder of cloud computing is that it has the potential to transform many industries not only from within, but by outside influence as well. OnLive (@OnLiveGames on Twitter) is a recently established company founded by Steve Perlman to allow entry-level computers to run the latest games at top quality. The secret is in utilizing processing power elsewhere and simply streaming the resultant video to your computer. Taken to the extreme, this results in the ultimate thin clients: computers that do nothing but go online, accessing content elsewhere.

No new technology is not without its drawbacks though! Frank Gillett, vice-president and principal analyst of Forrester Research cautions us that due to the incredible potential of cloud computing, the hype is overblown right now. The changes that will be brought about are very real, but it is important to view things with a judicial eye and not be drawn in by the new buzzword.

Think of the past, envision the future!

Reading time: 4 - 6 minutes

Total Video Time: 28 minutes 20 seconds

Today I want to switch things up a bit and present a person who used savvy business skills to turn her dream into a reality. That person is Felicia Day and If you’ve ever played an online RPG or if you know which color kryptonite makes Superman go crazy then you probably already know who I’m talking about. If you you’re asking, “What do rocket propelled grenades have to do with video games?” or “There’s more than one color of kryptonite?” that’s OK, let me explain my point. Felicia has done a fantastic job of marketing her popular web series The Guild to a niche group of…well, for a lack of a better term, nerds. The Guild is a show about six online gamers who must band together online and offline to help keep each other out of trouble. Whether she knows it or not, Felicia used smart business sense to create a show that caters to the needs of her niche. Here are just a few ways Felicia turned her zeal for online games into a successful business venture.

1. Passion - This is the most important part of making a business successful. As you watch as she explains the origins of The Guild, it’s easy to see that Felicia truly loves her craft.
2. Customer Service (the fans) - Felicia knows who her fan base is and knows what they want. In the video she describes how using a web series format was perfect for reaching her target audience. Even the interview at BlizzCon, a huge gaming convention, shows that she knows which events are important for circulating information to her fans.
3. Realistic - She works within her budget and doesn’t try to spread her self too thin when it comes to costs. In the interview, she discusses how she filmed in her house to minimize the overhead.
4. Growth - Felicia has a successful show on her hands and she knows that if she wants to grow her brand she needs to expand her footprint. Her cross platform content like The Guild comic book and The Guild music video insures that her brand will stay fresh and appealing to her current fans and attract new ones.

For those of you not familiar with how the gaming industry works some of the video’s content might be hard to understand. Don’t focus so much on the specifics, but focus on the big ideas; like the energy and drive it took to create a show from scratch or how Felicia answers every question with enthusiasm indicating her love for the subject matter. I hope this video will inspire new entrepreneurs and perhaps invigorate old ones to follow their passions.

Happy learning and Game On!

Reading time: 3 - 5 minutes

Video Time: 38 minutes 6 seconds

Today, I want to focus on Sid Meier, the Director of Creative Development for Firaxis Games. Sid realized the potential video games have for teaching and capitalized on it. In the video Sid presents Civilization, a game he helped create, as an example of how games can be used to educate. In Civilization the player jumps into the role of all powerful leader and gets to decide how he or she wants to build a society. You start the game as a small settler town, but by the end of the game you could be colonizing space. As your society grows throughout the ages, you begin to compete for resources from neighboring nations. How you choose to interact with these nations determines whether you’re an enlightened pacifist society, a war mongering nation, or anything in between. The game essentially becomes a giant economic and history lesson that lets you see if you have what it takes to create an empire that can withstand the test of time.

Sid presents how he took his video games from just being pure entertainment to a rewarding learning experience. He begins his lecture by stating that people don’t like to be taught, but they like learning. Sounds like a contradiction, right? Well, he’s right in the sense that people are not always receptive to being told what to do or how to do it. Sometimes the best way to learn is to do it for yourself and video games give the player the opportunity to do just that. When something, like history, can’t tangibly be manipulated video games can be an excellent learning tool. Sid talks about the importance of choice when it comes to cultivating a desire to learn. Everyone learns differently and Sid shows how presenting information in various ways allows people find a learning style best suited for them. He also believes that to engage an audience, the mode in which the information is presented should be entertaining. No one is going to learn anything if they’re not paying attention.

So how is this relevant to the business world and not just students? It’s easy if you think of it in terms of on the job training. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had my fair share of training meetings where the trainer droned on and on about a topic and the only thing I learned was that I could draw a really cool fire breathing dinosaur. The techniques Sid uses to create a more rewarding educational experience for his gaming audience can be applied to creating more effective and dynamic training sessions.

Training doesn’t necessarily have to involve a video game. Training can take the fundamental aspects of learning that Sid mentions and use them to present the information in a way that is appealing to the audience, creates an interactive environment, and allows the trainees to learn at their own pace. I hope you enjoy the presentation.

Happy learning and Game On!

Reading time: 4 - 7 minutes

Total Video Time: 33 minutes 38 seconds

Today I want to talk about Rock Band Network (RBN) and how bands can use this amazing new tool to market themselves. However, before you can understand RBN you need to know about Rock Band the game. Whether you’ve heard about them or not music games like Rock Band have become a huge phenomena in the gaming industry. Rock Band allows you live out your childhood fantasy of becoming a rock star without those pesky addictions that have ruined the lives of so many of rock’s icons.

Here’s how the game works, you are given a set of peripherals in the shape of guitars, drums and microphones. Each peripheral, except for the mic, has colored buttons. You can grab up to three friends and pick a song from Rock Band’s music library and start playing. As you play the game you will notice colored bars scrolling down the screen at the same speed as the beat. Your job is to press the corresponding colored buttons on your peripheral at the same time the colored bars pop up on the screen and voilà, you have just learned the basics of Rock Band.

Rock Band comes complete with a large selection of songs already on the game, but you have the option of downloading more songs to expand your music library. You can choose to play songs from legendary bands like The Beatles, Metallica, and Iron Maiden or choose from more current bands like Fall Out Boy, Weezer, and Bon Savants…wait, who was that last one? This is where RBN steps in and lets indie bands like Bon Savants convert their music into tracks that can played on Rock Band. This is a huge, like I said in my previous post the video game audience is large and expanding. This is a great opportunity for indie bands to present their music to people who otherwise would not know they existed.

Bon Savants is one of the first bands to take the jump into this new form of music distribution, but I hardly doubt they will be the last. In their video blog they explain how RBN works as well as the difficulties they faced while converting their tracks into sound files for the game. Unfortunately, Bon Savants has not finished making their Rock Band tracks so their video blog is incomplete. To finish the lesson, I supplemented Caleb Epps’ presentation and tutorial about RBN. Most of Caleb’s first video reiterates what Bon Savants talked about except Caleb presents RBN from the developers perspective. If you’re impatient like I am you can skip to 3:37 of Caleb’s first video and pick up where Bon Savants left off. Caleb rounds out the tutorial by explaining how to polish the finished tracks and market the the music on RBN.

If you’re like me and are interested in learning more about Bon Savants check out their website here at http://bonsavants.com.

Hope you enjoy the learning and Game On!