Play at Work: How Games Inspire Breakthrough Thinking
Games and game design are all around us, from crossword puzzles to computer games to Wii and Xbox. But games permeate our lives in more subtle forms, too, like Powerball lotteries, eBay, social media sites, and even the mileage and rewards points that we win. Games provide feedback loops that stimulate dopamine, rewarding the brain’s pleasure center, but playing games can also improve our reaction time, ability to multitask, and creativity levels. Investigative journalist Penenberg examines how games can be used to modify behavior, train surgeons and military personnel, aid physical rehabilitation, transform boring repetitive tasks into fun, and even harness the computing power of human intelligence across the globe to digitize old books and translate the entire Internet into other languages. Learn how cutting-edge companies are embracing game integration to make workers more satisfied, better trained, and focused on their jobs. Penenberg’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Forbes, Wired, Playboy, and Mother Jones. He may be best known for unmasking Stephen Glass of the New Republic for journalism fabrication in 1998 and is currently a journalism professor at New York University. --David Siegfried