Proof of Concept

Proof of concepts are often underrated, overlooked, and an incredibly valuable form of preparation.  Proofs are a way to test and idea and move on.  They honestly should not take long at all. And when your done, you should have better estimates and a better final product.

Underrated: 

Most managers are looking for ways to cut time down for the end product, so spending time on throw-away-code (and it is throw-away-code), is a waste of time and money.  

Overlooked:

Most developers want to just dive in to the code, and get their project done.  

Incredibly Valuable:

Have you ever finished a project and thought, "If I had this to do over, I would have done it all the same!"  BAH!  If you even make it to the end of a project, your typically thinking, "This is f****d up.  CHANGE ALL THE THINGS!"

Rules of a Proof of Concept: (according to Dan)

1) Determine a part of your project you have not built before.

2) Produce a project with no code.  

3) Race through it.  -  Yes, you read that right.

4) See how it feels.

5) Review.

6) Throw it away.

7) Repeat - Maybe.

So now I'll go over the parts in a little more detail.

1) Determine:

Its easy to think you understand it all, since you understand some of the base coding principals, but in truth, you are typically most excited about project ideas that introduce a challenge to you, something that involves learning at the same time as maintaining a comfort zone.  So another way you could look at this, is what are the most interesting parts?  That is probably a good sign that there is a bit of a challenge, something you want to try.  Try a proof first.

2) Produce:

Make a test project that does only the bare minimum to test the concept.  If it is adding to a larger, existing project, that's fine, but just build it in a copy.

3) Race: 

You don't need pretty code, you don't need the best style.  You need something quick to prove the concept, and nothing else.  How fast can it be testable, playable, pr

4) Feel:

While there are obvious technical things, does this feel good?  Did it feel complicated?  Now that you can try it, does it seem like it could be better?  This is the point to do a gut check and measure the parts that have no metrics.  Are you happy with the way it works?

5) Review:

From a technical stand point, what are some of the key take away's? Were there any changes to your original plan?  What information is needed for the architecture?  What communications, management and other methods are important to keep in mind?  Does it work with your existing plans for architecture?

6) Trash it:

Do not reuse this.  The practice is sloppy to give you a chance to try it.  This doesn't mean delete it.  You might want it to look back to see how you handled something.  

7) Repeat:

If it didn't work the way you wanted, don't just consider how you would do it differently.  Repeat this process with the new idea.  What happens if you make it through the new idea, in the real project, but find it has the same issues or worse?  And now its mixed in with your real code.

But if you are happy with the results, then you are good to go. 

Project: Codivore

Codivore is conference style training, done online.  Or as close as we can get it.  We are still figuring out details, and looking for ways to improve our initial ideas.  Here are a few we are starting with:

• Blogs/Articles with easier ability to add Unity Demos, so you can try out the samples we show you.
• Live Streaming Demonstrations, so you can ask questions during.
• Demonstrations to be available on blogs shortly after.
• Speaker updated content.  Hey, sometimes we find better ways to teach something.  
• AGILE Agile agile.  
• We will focus on an Agile approach to growing the content and feature.  
• Blogs first, but then seeking community feed back as we grow, and trying make this better and better.
• Many of our listeners will also be potential speakers, and really help shape the community.  
• All topics focused on Game, Programming, Education. 
• This will naturally spread out to smaller 

If you are interested in being a speaker, want to request a topic, or even recommend someone for speaking, please let us know.  

10% off MKE.NET Conference, Learn Unity 3D RTS's and More!

If you haven't registered yet, please do before tickets run out.  Get 10% off your ticket with this code: SAGMILLER10. http://www.centare.com/mke-dot-net-fall-2015/#register

I'll be running a presentation from 11:10 to Noon, in the room "Woodfield East" at the Country Springs Hotel in Pewaukee, WI.

This course is about Unity 3D, and will cover some highlights of creating an RTS in it.  Particularly, it will be highlighting some sections of my Lynda.com class, which should be available sometime in 2016.

I'll do my best to demystify some of the hurtles and show you that making an RTS is within reach.

The conference has a lot more than me.  Take your pick from other speakers and activities.  It will be fun, active and filled with people who use .NET.

Come and meet me.  If you have a copy of either of my books, I'd be happy to sign them  :D

Get 10% off your ticket with this code: SAGMILLER10. http://www.centare.com/mke-dot-net-fall-2015/#register

About Sean Young, the Creator of Magicite

Sean Young, a 23 year old indie game developer founded SmashGames when he was a freshman in college, and went on to create Magicite and now RogueLands.  If you haven't yet, you should go check out those 2 games in particular.

When I asked about how things have changed because of having successful games on the market:
"Game development has changed my life because it has given me freedom. I can be my own boss, make my own work schedule, and go to bed whenever I want! I'm truly thankful to have found something that I love doing and I see myself making games for the rest of my life."


He started getting into programming during college, and I asked him about balancing college and projects:
"... balancing school and game development is really hard. Often times during class I would find myself drawing concept art and writing out pseudo code for game mechanics, neglecting any lecture that was going on. I would suggest to others to not be like me and stay in school, because putting all of your eggs in one basket can cause a ton of stress. It is always good to have a back up plan!"

In my experience, I have met many people who found college to be a hindrance.  I would add my own 2 cents here.  If you know what you want, take the best route to get there.  If college doesn't look like the right choice, it probably isn't.  Some people, like Sean, learn best by just doing.  Its best to have advisers who have "been there and done that".  I have an article focused on issues with colleges you can read here.  If you can't find good advisers or you don't have a good plan, then college is your best bet.

Nearly every game developer would offer this advice, "Start small".  Sean is no exception.  When asked about advise for other developers starting out, he offered this:
"... please start out small. Everyone has a great idea for the perfect game. Everyone has a dream game that they will eventually make one day. But it is important to start out with small and manageable ideas before tackling anything too huge. I know a lot of game developers who have too high of ambitions for their first game, which leads them to getting discouraged and ultimately ends their game developing career. Start out with small simple games and be sure to finish them."

Sean's first game was called Backyard Zombies, and "it sucked".  (his words)  Despite that, he pushed it into the NOOK App store, Google Play and Apple's store.  This game that "sucked" was pulling in almost $100 a day.  This allowed him to drop the job he had at that time and focus on game development.

While this won't happen with all games, keep in mind, that even a small game has the potential to earn enough of a living that you can do this full time.  Get your faster ideas out to the market now!

He completed "10 crappy-to-somewhat-decent mobile games before creating Magicite".  Magicite was a different beast all together.  Being much larger, it meant a long time before introducing a new funding source on the market.  So Sean did what many game developers do these days.  He turned to KickStarter.com.  

His kickstarter was a shining example of success.  He originally asked for $1,000.  He received over $16,000.  I asked him about what he did to achieve these numbers: 
"For Magicite’s Kickstarter, it was really hard to get noticed. Every day I had to spam the Kickstarter link on forums in order to get just a few views a day. It is really hard when starting out but as long as you keep on trying it will pay off!"

If you were hoping you could just post an idea to KickStarter, and make a fortune, you're wrong.  Sean and many other articles and discussions on KickStarter success talk about how there's a lot of work in marketing the campaign.  Many will start with a pre-campaign party, trying to get an initial group hyped up and to share it.  In Sean's case, he brought it up on forums every day.  


His second major release, RogueLands, just completed it's KickStarter, another major success, having received 2100% of his original $1000 request.  RogueLands is still in development, but you can find out more on the KickStarter.  He told me about the Kickstarter for this one as well:
"Roguelands got a lot of help from Magicite’s fan base when I launched the Kickstarter. I just posted a link to the campaign to everyone on Steam, Reddit, and social media sites which got me a ton of attention. And I was lucky enough to get staff picked which helped a tremendous amount!"

Finally, we had also talked about the differences of working on a small and larger project, and how he was able to stay motivated.
"Magicite was a huge jump from the previous mobile games I had made. I think there is a much bigger expectation for PC games than mobile games, especially if people are going to be paying $10 for it. So I had to realize that Magicite wasn't something that I can whip up in 3 months. I suppose the hardest thing was sticking with the project and fighting the urge to give up. This is why I suggest to new developers to start small, and finish your games. Had I started right away with Magicite, I probably would have never released a game yet due to being discouraged!"

I hope this has been inspirational to many readers.  It doesn't take a lot to get started in game development.  Go make your game now!

Ninjaball? Cause I can. :)

So this post isn't about Technology, but I still figured I would share it.  I used to call this Ki Ball, and the idea was to have a person with a weapon at either end of a racket ball court, hitting the ball back and forth trying to hit targets behind the other player.  While the game never developed, I still practice it, and I'm looking for ideas to turn it into a game.

Questions:
1) How could this game be played out?  What rules/challenges?
2) Dangers?  If a weapon is accidentally thrown, that could hurt.  Even taking a racket ball to the face after a good hit from nunchaku would hurt a lot.

SDC.Game - A new Chapter in Game Development

Meetup.com costs money...  Quite a lot for how little it actually does.  So why have a dozen technology meetups in the area, when the user base is the same for each?  So after meeting up with the current organizers of the SDC in Naperville, I'll be merging the Warrenville Game Development Meetup into the SDC as SDC.Game.

I'll be running SDC.Game, but there is so much cross over between the different groups, that it really just makes sense to have 1 larger group, with more activities.  The SDC has nearly 1400 technology professionals.  We are also open to merging in more meetups in the area.  Does your group focus on coding?  Then consider joining us and grow your member base.

Get more coverage for your meetups.  And for our members, it means more talks and activities will become available.  And also more focus groups.

Learn Unity & C# Take 2

Sunday, November 1st at 12:30 PM,  will be part 2 of the Learn C#/Unity class.  

If you missed the first one, that's OK, you can still join in!

You can find more details here on the SDC Meetup site: http://www.meetup.com/SoftDev/events/224881029/

SDC & Warrenville Game Dev Combined Unity Class turned out well.

The Event Links:
 - http://www.meetup.com/SoftDev/events/224880708/
 - http://www.meetup.com/Warrenville-Game-Dev-Design-Meetup/events/224585189/

A great turn out, somewhere between 40-50 people.  Aside from some technical difficulties (Powerpoint likes to push split screen, So I had to keep switching it back to duplicate when showing unity work, and this may have messed up the presentation recording.  (to be discovered later)

After the meetup, Joel (who runs the SDC) and I were talking about the idea of me melting the Warrenville Game Dev meetup into the SDC.  We would just have another SDC meeting each month, but focused on game development.  And possibly bring in others.  Why have 20 meetups in the area with less than 50 people connected, when we could just join forces, and get a larger audience.

What do you think?  At the moment this is just a consideration, one I think I'll do.  But by all means, add your two cents.  Even if you haven't attended one of these meetups yet.

 - Thanks!

Good Turnout at the Veredus Unity Meetup

A bit of a late post, but I recently presented at Veredus, in Chicago, on Unity 3D, and how to get started.  http://www.meetup.com/Veredus-Chicago-Technology-Social/events/225209417/  (only 9 RSVP'd on Meetup, but many RSVP'd from other channels)

The turn out was around 30-40 people, for a 2 hour presentation.  I introduced how to use the environment, how to tie in Visual Studio, how to add physics and create scripts for projects.  Its a lot of fun presenting.  I'm finding that getting a second projection  screen would probably be valuable.

My projector can get a excellently large/bright picture but I had to shrink it down so it would fit on the screen.  If I get a longer screen, it won't fit in my car, so I'm looking into options now to extend it.  Any recommendations?

Referenced by Pannam Imaging

Pannam Imaging did an article on the Top Traits of Successful Product Designers and Engineers.

In this article I was one of the referenced experts and spoke on the value of AB Testing and the fact that designers can't guarantee how well something will work.  Then it goes in to how many designers/engineers will follow Agile principles to deal with that.  I.e. Embrace change, build expecting it.

You don't need to be a designer or engineer to get value from Agile.  Go read the article:

http://www.pannam.com/blog/top-traits-of-product-designers-and-engineers/#Sagmiller

November 14th, Learn about RTS's in Unity 3D @ MKE DOT NET

I'm officially a speaker at the MKE DOT NET conference in Milwaukee, WI on Saturday, November 14th.  The topic?  Real Time Strategy games in Unity 3D.  

MKE DOT NET

If you've been following this blog, you've seen my RTS work for Lynda.com.  I've completed an RTS for a training course and I'm working on improving it now.  That course will cover  multiple AI players, battles with explosions, unit and building creation, mini map, unit/building actions, unit/building information, resources, and more.  

As a taste of what is to come, I'll be speaking about the journey of creating an RTS in Unity.  The choices I made, the general order of creating things, how I was able to simplify areas down and of course, *some* of the code.  There will also be open Q&A.  

This course was a tall order, how to get an RTS broken down into not only 4 hours of coding, but 4 hours of teaching, so the viewer understands why we are coding and tips & tricks along the way.  The challenges were big, but the payoff has been great.  

I really hope to see you all there.  Register early for cheaper tickets.

http://www.centare.com/mke-dot-net-fall-2015/

Free: Learn C# & Unity in Warrenville, IL Sun Oct 4th

(Update, this will be in Naperville now, as I have agreed to combine this meetup with SDC (a group with 1370 members) so we might have a very active meetup this time.  :) http://www.meetup.com/SoftDev/events/224880708/ )


I'm teaching again, and this time its for anyone local to Warrenville, IL.

Learn Unity, a popular 3D game engine and also C#, one of the top languages for business and game programming.  Its meant for beginners, though if you already have experience in any kind of game development or programming, it will just make it easier to learn.

Come by and try it out.  I'm hosting this for free at the Warrenville Public Library.

http://www.meetup.com/Warrenville-Game-Dev-Design-Meetup/events/224585189/

Lynda RTS Update 6: Wanna try it?

There are bugs in this version, and the AI is SUPER AGGRESSIVE.  One bug, if you have something selected that is destroyed, then you can no longer select anything else.   (I'll fix that in pass 3)  It is highly unlikely you will defeat the AI.  if you do, PLEASE SEND A SCREENSHOT.  I would love to see that.

http://az806498.vo.msecnd.net/general/Unity3D/LyndaRtsPass2/index.html

The odds are against you...

Hold Shift to select multiple things.  Only the last item selected gets actions.  Right click on the map to send selected drones to that target.  refresh the page to start over.


Keep in mind this is only intended to be a starter.  It shows how to build the AI, but there is very little AI in it.  It shows how to do the tech tree, but there is very little tree in it.  By all means, I would love to get your comments on what improvements I should add to it on Pass 3.

Since I am creating this for Lynda.com, it will be a training guide for people with C# knowledge and some Unity to learn how to create RTS games.  What is most annoying or needs improvement.  I need your feed back to make Pass 3 better.

 - Thanks!

Lynda RTS Update 5: Explosions, Battles, Pass 2 complete.

(and another angle)

Buildings are blowing up, Units are blowing up, sparks and smoke everywhere.  Effectively, the game is complete.  (For these parts of the tests I have map hiding off.  I.e. I can see them all, which allows me to test the world and AI)  Here is a video of that happening.

No sound as usual.  :)

Lynda RTS Update 5: AI Complete...

So I've finished the AI for the RTS.  At least as much as I had planned for the AI section(s).  The AI can choose between doing nothing, creating a base, creating a drone and sending a squad to attack.

After having let the AI run for a few minutes, I looked back and found it had developed a large base (about 15 bases) and had about 30 drones sent in to attack player 1.

On the mini map, you can see that the red player has expanded to cover about a third of the map.  Battle code is not in place, so it pretty much just swarms and multiplies.

The AI is a weighted list, that is evaluated about every 0.5 seconds (editable) and has a confusion of 0.   The confusion makes the AI less smart, at least less smart than it was programmed.

The AI code is a little more complicated than I would like, so I've already evaluated I'll take a third pass at the project, to help simplify it further and clean up the architecture a little more.

Assets Request:  I'm still hoping for a couple models to replace what I have.  If anyone is up for it, I would be happy to showcase your portfolio in the training videos.
 - Check out this link for more details.

 - Thanks!

Lynda RTS Update 4: Buildings and Units are in place!

In preparation for my RTS class for Lynda.com, I've been working up different features.  In this case, I finished the ability for drones to add Command Bases.  And then for Command Bases to add more drones.  They cost, you have to have enough credits to buy them, and command bases start earning credit.

Please keep in mind, that as I'm building this, its not just haphazardly assembling the pieces.  I've been developing, redeveloping and refining every step of the way to keep the code small, simple, and easy to teach in isolated segments.  When this is done, I'll have a really solid Unity class that I hope will be really popular.

Again, if any designer is interested, I could use some better graphics/models.  :)  I could really use a far better looking 2D HUD, a drone, though the drones not too bad and a command base, which I *really* want to replace.  So far I've created all the artwork myself.  Finally figured out how to pain in blender (sort of) and extract the art work with the model (also sort of)  :).

Presenting on Unity at Veredus Group, Chicago

http://www.meetup.com/Veredus-Chicago-Technology-Social/events/225209417/

I'll be giving a presentation at Veredus in Chicago, on Wednesday, September 23rd at 6PM, covering an introduction to Unity 3D.  In the presentation, I'll reproducing a simple physics based game, commonly known as Hasbro's Jenga (tm).  The address is 200 N LaSalle, Level 3, Chicago, IL

The demo will show how to navigate Unity, take advantage of existing features (such as physics) and how to tie in C# code.

If you are ahead of the curve, you could also check out my Lynda.com course on Unity 5 2D Procedural Terrain.  In November, I'll be presenting on Real Time Strategy games in Unity 5 in Milwaukee, at MKE DOT NET.

Lynda RTS, with the maps completed

I've been preparing the course for the Lynda RTS. I've simplified the map work down to about 7.5 minutes of class time. VERY easy now. I'm using the navigation and camera controls to move around in this video.



I'll be developing and simplifying the info panel at the bottom center next.

Unity 5 2D Procedural Terrain is Live!

I've been working with Lynda.com to produce an online training program for Unity 5, focusing on a light weight, real time infinite 2D terrain system.

 

Click here to learn all the tricks for making this yourself.  :)  The terrain has a form of biomes, animated water, cities being laid out with paths and neighborhoods.  you can even walk into some of the buildings which each have unique layouts in this never ending world.

Best of all is that this world is not generated in "chunks" like mine-craft, where you stand there and watch as pieces of the world load up.  No, in this case, the entire area around you is generated in real time, so you don't have to wait.

Cities are one of my favorite parts, because you can see how to get roads and pathways through it with ease, and give towns more natural feels from what is pretty random in nature.  Above is an example where I bumped up the ratios (something doable from the IDE with this project) so lots of cities are built up.

It doesn't matter how smart you are

Brains ≠ followers.

It doesn't matter how great your idea is, if people don't listen.  I remember earlier in my career, thinking I had the best ideas (some were good, some were not) and was endlessly frustrated when no one wanted to use them.  It took years to realize that people seldom follow new ideas.  That you have to get them interested in following you, just as much as the idea.

Having incredible skills as a programmer, salesperson or even an accountant is really only the start.  You have to have interpersonal skills, or EQ.  You have to be able to listen to others, and make sure they know you are listening.  Then present your idea, when you know it will help them.

How do I stand out in a crowd?

You could be one in a team of a hundred, or a vendor in a saturated market.  How do you stand apart from the others?  Here are a few ideas.

1) Be an expert.

What is the field?  Do you know it well?  Do you know what your customers are looking for?  How well do you know what your customers want?  Make sure you know this inside and out.  Nothing makes you stand out less than just being a store clerk with no direct expertise in what you sell.

But it doesn't matter how much you know if know one knows you know.  (that's a lot of knows)

2) Be Visible

What would your customers pay attention to?  Who would they follow?  Is there anything out there that a customer can find on you? Do you have a blog, a vlog or are you an active member of a forum often perused by your target customers?  Below are some great places to get visible.

 - Linked In: Like a business card and Rolodex on steroids.  Create awareness of your abilities and expand your reputation.  Generate leads.  Listen and gain insights to what customers are looking for.

 - Twitter: Do you have regular updates?  Blog posts?  Use Twitter to announce new new blog posts.  Don't have some new event going on?  Just mention some useful fact or opinion on a product or feature.

 - Content Forums:  Forums, or Message Boards exist for pretty much every field and industry.  Some good, some not so much.  Do some research and find out which forums are most popular.  Get involved, not by just posting about what you sell, but ask questions to make customers think.  I.e. "What is the biggest challenge your face with [blah] vendors?", "Which system for [blah] do you prefer and why?"  Just get conversations going.   - Listen to posts.  Be helpful on questions.  Just include in your footer & profile, that you help people find solutions.

Back to the RTS in Unity via Lynda.com

When I first adopted the Unity 3D game development platform, I had decided to target an RTS.  Actually, it was split up into 3 games: city builder, strategic battle planner and tactical combat.  For various reasons (including a house fire leaving my out for 3-4 months), the project fell apart.

But taking what I've learned over the last two and a half years, and my recent class with Lynda.com on Unity 5 2D Procedural Terrain (to be published soon), I'm taking on another RTS project.  This time, the simplest RTS I can produce.  Originally, I didn't even have a map in its basic features, but I've added that anyway.  (most of it at least)

This is all going to be part of my next Lynda.com course.  The title isn't finalized, but for now I'm calling it "Unity 5 Real Time Strategy Games".  I've been working hard not only to make something that works, but simplified to make it fast to build and easy to follow.

So far, I've been generating all my own models, which actually seem to be working pretty well.  If a designer was so inclined, to create two awesome buildings and a unit of flying unit of some type, then post those on their portfolio site as Public Domain (so I can use it in the class) I would be happy to visit your site to download and use it during the course.  :)

Why I'm starting this blog

I really need a central place to post everything.  Yesterday, I was contacted by different places about 3 different speaking events, requesting me to present on tech in general, an intro to Unity 3D and a walk through of Unity for creating RTS games.

I have other blogs, such as Warp Wars, Learn Build Play, The Casual Board Room, and other articles and training's at various sites.  I'll work on tagging to keep things in separate areas, but there is so often useful carry over that I finally decided to create this one repository.

I'll be moving articles from other posts to here, I.e. the earlier dates than 8/25/2015.  :)

JS Help: Automatically point all external links to new tabs...

I was recently tasked with going through a site with around 50 pages to set a target of _blank to any external URL.  (one page had 240 external links)  Instead of going through the manual work of stepping through each CMS entry and CMS content part to find and change these, I added a short script to the foot of the site.  This is not a perfect duplicate, but its pretty close.

[Copy/Paste slows learning...]

This depends on JQuery and FontAwesome.  

Part 1: 

 - Waits for the document to complete.  (document ready)

Part 2: 

 - get the current URL that is constant to any links within this site.  

Part 3:

 - JQuery gets all the 'a' tags, and for each of them gets the 'href' tag.

Part 4:

 - if the href begins with "http" (an external link) and does not part of this site

 - - Then Add a target of _Blank to that link.  

Part 5: (optional)

 - w/FontAwesome, append an external icon to each link.

Lynda Course in Design: Unity 5 2D Procedural Terrain and Living AI

So I've recently been approved as an instructor for Lynda.com, and just had my initial course syllabus approved.  A 2D Infinite terrain AI.  I've worked with a variety of terrain systems, both 2D and 3D, limited to singular maps, and infinite expansions.  Back when I worked with XNA, I developed a terrain engine that requires very little work, no tileable textures, and develops rich terrains.

I did a few experiments to import the engine into Unity's 2D tile system, and had excellent results.  I'll be building the class around it.

The smooth infinite terrain is only the first 30-45 minutes.  Then we'll also cover biomes, cities, caves and building interiors.  We'll also cover techniques for balancing and managing the expense of saving vs the expense of AI processing.  I'm still working out some of the details now, but so far, I'm pleased with how easily everything is applying in Unity.

Anyway, this probably won't be ready to record for another month, and possibly another month of editing after that.  So hopefully by August it will be ready.

Look before you leap.

In the book, "How the Mighty Fall" by Jim Collins, he studied and compared Top-Ranking companies against Top-Tanking companies, and the stages that were identified.  A very insightful read over all, but I wanted to point out how Innovation does not mean Success.  Just because something is new doesn't mean it will work.  

http://www.epicfail.com/2014/12/08/never-stick-your-face-into-unknown-holes/

In the book, Jim talks about how many companies try all sorts of new things, and seldom do they work.  The companies that tended to dive after completely new and unproven strategies did poorly.  As the image shows, look before you leap.  Many of the most successful companies would take small, low risk leaps.  (Testing the water, so to speak) And then after successes, increase their foot print slowly.

Its a valid concept that applies to large businesses, large projects, or even putting your face in a hole. :)  But it also has to do with everyday life, and every day tasks.  We can try completely new things, like skate boarding (for those who haven't skate boarded before) but we don't start by jumping off a 40 foot X-Games Ramp on our first day.  If we do want to get there, we start by just getting on the skate board at all, and then gradually increase the difficulty and danger.  With tasks, start looking at what you can improve.  Try new things.  But don't completely change everything at once.  Slowly improve, throwing out things that impede your success and increasing the experiments that improve your capabilities.

Start meetings with Creativity and an Open Mind

If you are worried about a meeting not getting the creative genius you know your team has the potential to be, consider starting it with a funny video.  There are many articles and scientific studies that show how Creativity and Problem Solving skills are increased after humor.  PBS had an article on it.  But you can just search google for "Using Humor to become creative" for all sorts of evidence.





Save the Bros, an incredibly well designed, viral marketing video from Organic Valley.  The first time I saw it was in a meeting at work.  It was going to be a long meeting, stretching late into Friday evening, and we needed to be very mentally active for it.  So we spent the first 3 minutes watching this video.  The rest of the meeting, at least for about 2 hours was very mentally active, showing excellent problem solving and creative skills.

If you are a team leader, and about to start some potentially difficult meeting, and you want your team more attuned to goals, creativity and problem solving, I would recommend to do something out of the box and show some funny video like this at the start of a meeting.  (perhaps not all, but at least the ones anticiped most difficult)