Fête - Fête

The summer is finally here as well as various summer events and parties. The week started at the sunny terrace of Merimakasiini. I was having a dialogue/presentation with Marjo Laukkanen about the possibilities of social media, online communities and game-like services for youth work. The Youth Department of the city of Helsinki already has Netari (online facility for the youth) at the Habbo world and now they are looking for ways to reach more youngsters via the net. We tried to highlight that online world is not a separate world from the everyday life but an extension and not all of the online worlds are alike. Some support anonymous real time communication, some services are a way to show off etc. We created a list of terms to highlight the contradictions (see the image). In the evening I joined the IGDA Helsinki crew meeting. I am excited to be involved in the activities and I'll hope to get a "lecture/presentation series" up and running this fall. The Finnish game industry is growing and maturing rapidly. There are a lot of knowledge to be shared and IGDA lecture series is a perfect way to share the findings and experiences. I really hope developers agree with me on this. We'll see.

One manifestation of the vitality of Finnish game industry is high level game releases. Bugbear and Housemarque were celebrating their newest releases FlatOut Ultimate Carnage and Super Stardust HD on Wednesday. Super Stardust HD is already out (for PS3) and FlatOut (XBox 360) is to be relased on June 22nd in Europe.

On Thursday I discussed about the Millennials and the changes in working environment. The event was organized by Youth Academy and we really had a great discussion. My key point was that young people are applying communication practises of past time into the working life. Blogs, wikis, P2P networking, Rating, Ranking and Reputation and openness are just a few issues companies should seriously consider as MeWe/Millennial/Y-generation is already utilising these possibilities in the working life as well. But companies still do not have clear ideas about the social media phenomena, they do not know how to look at blogs, should they control "P2P / viral communication" and what to do when youngsters do not care about hierarchies or official procedures but instead do things proactively and ask from online networks and friends instead of some "gurus". Forum Virium Helsinki organized nice barbeque party in the evening. And on Friday I chatted with Finnish A-Clinic Foundation. They are creating really interesting "Shadow World" service for youth whose parents are alcoholics. It is yet another novel kind of attempt to utilize social networks and game-like worlds to deliver an important message and enable trusty interaction with youngsters in a same situation as well as with experts. Wine Tasting party at the beautiful balcony of Suze's brand new home was a perfect ending for the week :)

As a final reminder for all you girlgames and game designers out there, be sure to register for SuperMarit Bombastic! See you there in September.