Why Can’t Real Organizations Be As Collaborative As Virtual Games?
As Dave Pollard wrote last week
Some audience members volunteered these reasons why people love playing
these games: (a) to become a member of an interesting group, (b) to meet
new like-minded people, (c) to find an outlet for stifled creativity,
(d) to step outside one’s normal personal identity and ‘try on’ a new
one, (e) to master a challenge, (f) to do things anonymously they
wouldn’t dare do in real life, (g) to establish a personal reputation
and hence increase self-esteem. How many of these things do business
collaborations allow employees to do, and how could collaborations start
offering more of these attractors?”
Traveling the XP Days, I find many of these qualities in the community, except for being anonymous. XP Days Benelux saw many new session presenters this year, people roleplaying (things they normally don’t do) during the balancing act, people writing during the freewriting workshop (even those who normally don’t get around to writing) and at the end of the conference participants were happy and hopefully more confident.
So I’ve experienced real organisations, like the xp days, can be as collaborative as virtual games. I’m looking forward to visiting xp days london next Monday and Tuesday 
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