Mr Hyde's Other Notebook

"And there's cricket on the radio"

The cricket is in full swing at the SCG,  Australia vs South Africa. I'm content this year
to listen to the expert commentary team on ABC radio and catch the highlights on TV later.

Was delighted to hear this morning that the SCG have recognised Fred "The Demon Bowler" Spofforth
with a large bronze statue that was unveiled at the ground. He is not as well known as he should be and this may well help rectify that.

Many years ago I bought the famous Vanity Fair image of Fred at auction and have always had it on display somewhere around the house.

This is going to be HUGE! - SPORE

As some of you know, I have a strong interest in the development of massive multiplayer games. In fact I set up Australia's first commercial Play by Mail company, Chameleon Games, back in the early 80's. Yep, mail was the medium for the collecting of turns from hundreds of players. Computers still processed the moves and the results were posted back out. The good old days before we all had modems.

I no longer have a commercial interest in this field, though I watch with fascination it's growth and development and sometimes play a bit if time allows.  Huge successes such as World of Warcraft and Second Life and the multiplayer aspects to many other commercial releases grew from these beginnings.

Two recent games are listed here. Both intriguing and both available free.

Launched just a few days ago the first downloadable demo of the SPORE game is now available.

http://www.spore.com/

It's a large file ( 200 meg) but it's bound to start appearing on Magazine cover discs soon which will save you time.

This will be huge. After just a few days the one millionth creature has already been designed.

Obviously the full game will cost to buy, but the Creature Creator module is a fascinating and brilliant piece of work.

The multiplayer aspects to the full game are also clever. You will not be playing actually against other players but their creatures and input will factor into your "world".

On a completely different level Track Mania satisfies the need for speed.

Your car races at terrifying speed around incredible tracks.

Race against the clock, design your own tracks or play online against 30 other players scattered around the world.

Crossing the Ditch

I mentioned my fascination about the 2 young Australian's paddling across the Tasman sea in a Kayak several times over the last few weeks. Well, yesterday they made it safely ashore in New Plymouth to a rousing reception from about 45,000 people. Absolutely brilliant.

What's fascinating to me was the way the support forum took on a life of it's own as followers of the pair became a community, a family, sharing the ups and downs of the trip and contributing stories, laughter and tears. A great live example of the current buzz words "social media" and web 2.0.

Almost there!

Just a few more days paddling and  James & Justin, the Rats of the Tasman will hit land in New Zealand after their epic paddle from Australia. I've been following this every day since Day 1 right  here.  They are now on Day 57. That face tells a story. What a great example of Technology, Teamwork and Determination this adventure has been.

Zurich Football & Trivia

As long time readers of this Blog know we do a lot of work in the Financial Services industry. One of our clients is Zurich and we were thrilled to be asked to run a Corporate Trivia Challenge for them last month.

The Trivia Challenge is something we have done exclusively for Corporate Clients for the last 7 years. It can easily be themed, have custom questions to reinforce learning or as this night was, just pure fun.

The faces on the winners in the photo below sum it up pretty well and the other one is me goofing around with their display. Zurich is of course a sponsor of The A League.

Modern Day Adventure

I've lost count of the number of times I've been back and forth across the Tasman Sea, the treacherous stretch of water between Australia and New Zealand.  Mostly by plane, sometimes by sea, but never by kayak.

If you want to be part of an amazing modern day adventure visit the two guys attempting the crossing right now. The website below has many interactive components, a forum, map , photos and podcasts. I've been following along since day 1 and they are now at day 35 , just over half way. For the last two weeks they have been trapped in a giant eddy, but thankfully have just pushed through, it seems.

Australian media outlets have largely ignored this story till now, but I'm sure as things quieten down over the next two weeks it will pick up.

http://www.crossingtheditch.com.au

Warning. Once you start following this, you'll be hooked and inspired.

creative cricket thinking

I mentioned that I had had a chat with the legendary Australian cricketer Steve Waugh last week at the AFA Conference. This photo is from the final day he played for Australia at the Sydney Cricket ground. I was lucky enough to be there for that final Test, a most thrilling experience.

Steve mentioned something quite interesting in his talk about Creative Thinking and that was a meeting he had had with Edward de Bono. It was a nice example of Reversal Thinking. He had explored the premise that if cricket was a game of trying to get more runs than the other team, why then if one particular player is scoring very slowly, why should you try and get him out at all.

This of course works in the short versions of the game but not really so effective in the full Test situation where there is a requirement to bowl the other side out twice. However, a great example of challenging our assumptions about the tactics we can use, reversal thinking and more than one approach, all topics I like to explore in my workshops.

(Hmmm, I wonder if I can still get tickets to the upcoming Sydney Test?)

"soccer football, football soccer" ????

I grew up reading "Roy of the Rovers" and dreaming of playing center forward for Liverpool, but actually only made it as far as playing left back for Kelburn Primary school with a rather dismal record. But I've always held a fascination for the "World Game".

So it was a great pleasure to meet Australian Soccer legend Frank Farina and interview him live onstage at the AFA Conference last week in front of 450 people. Frank was great to interview and our talk covered a wide range of topics, including his career highs and lows (and there have been plenty of both), the rise of the A League, women's soccer world wide and of course his prediction on how the Socceroos will perform in 2010 World Cup.

Big thanks to my friends at Zurich for sponsoring the night and to Professional Photographer Steven Pam  for permission to use his copyright photo.  www.smartshots.com.au