Do the children (or adults) in your life play Minecraft? My boys (7 and
9) are obsessed with this game. If you are familiar with it you know that the
game has very crude graphics that look like something from the 1980’s. There is
not a clear goal, you don’t really earn points or defeat the dragons. If you
aren't familiar with it, come out from under your rock! Microsoft just
announced plans to buy it for $2.5 billion. Yes, Billion. With a ‘B.’
Anyway, I have never grasped the appeal of Minecraft through
watching my kids play it, but when I heard about the Microsoft deal I became
even more intrigued about its popularity. I asked my kids what it is about this
game that made them so interested. Both of them responded with the same theme –
ownership. Although they actually said lots of other things, “I like that my
world can be however I want it; I like to know that I made it myself; I like no
rules in building; I like the flexibility and choosing how I play.” What they
are really saying is they have ownership in the game. And that is what drives
them there.
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| You are mine and I love you! |
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| Mine! |
Ownership is the ultimate motivator for someone to care. Do
you take more care of a rental car or your own? When you have ownership in
something, whether it’s an idea, a program, or a physical object, you think of
it differently and value it more than if it’s not yours.
Ownership elicits feelings of pride,
happiness, comfort and security.
So, in a few ways, MUSE is like Minecraft. You think that’s a stretch? It’s not really,
though. Listen friends, MUSE is yours. You have the freedom to shape it, to
grow it, to develop it. You can log in and “build your world,” as Minecrafters
would say. Logging in to MUSE can mean
attending a webinar, presenting a webinar, hosting a Community Peer Group,
participating in a JAM session, going to the International Conference, or even
just following the forum discussions.
With the newly launched website, you have more freedom than
ever to customize your profile and utilize all the interesting tools. I will
highlight one of those tools here because I continue to get questions about it.
The forums, or discussion groups, from the old site are now called the MUSE
Bridge. You can find the Bridge discussions by clicking on “Bridge Community
Discussion Groups” under the Community tab. Like this:
Once you’re on the Bridge
page you can view all the topics.
If you decide to post to a
thread, you have so many features to help personalize your experience. You can
view the posts if you are not logged into the website, but in order to post you
need to be logged into the website. This security feature keeps folks civil and
helps us to maintain a valuable and active community.
In the example below I am posting in the
Patient Portal folder. As you can see, the forum allows me to upload a document,
photo, spreadsheet, anything really that I want to include here. I can also
include emoticons, if I were so inclined (which I’m not). You can also create
polls if you have a situation where that would be useful.
So log in to the website and take a stroll through the cool
functionality. Make this yours!
And, as always, please let me know if you have any questions, comments or ideas.
Take care MUSE friends,
Alicia
