“An advisory board is a body that provides non-binding strategic advice to the management of a corporation, organization, or foundation”
I read that on Wikipedia, and I thought: “Hey, there’s no doubt that CounterPlay needs a lot of advice to evolve and improve. Why not ask a group of smart people if they want to be on a CounterPlay advisory board?”.
Time passes by, and now I’m incredibly happy to announce that CounterPlay has suddenly got an actual advisory board (very serious stuff, I know), and looking at the names of the people who agreed to join makes me feel humbled and proud.
First I asked Zuraida Buter, because I can think of nobody who so consistently covers and supports game development and playful culture around the world. She’s (almost) always on the go, visiting festivals & conferences, giving talks, documenting and playing. If it’s inclusive, quirky and playful, she’ll be there.
@zoewi @BernieDeKoven Hehe, yeah, just read that. I would like to add "play evangelist"; Is that – evangelist – a bad word now?
— Mathias Poulsen (@mathiaspoulsen) October 2, 2013
Oh, and her Vines. Don’t forget the Vines:
Then I thought of Alex Moseley, who was (also) an early supporter of CounterPlay, is engaged in all kinds of playful experiments, and who likes to make people play with Lego during his talks. How could that not be a good match? A bit of info about just one of Alex’ many interesting projects:
Behind the scenes at #fote14 here is @AlexM11 and I being interviewed about our #SenateSecrets game: https://t.co/q5lA0PSTzY #gamification
— Katie Piatt (@katiepiatt) October 8, 2014
Few people have described more accurately the spirit of CounterPlay than play scholar Miguel Sicart in his most recent book, “Play Matters“, so why not ask him?
"Games don’t matter. [] we are the fools looking at the finger when someone points at the moon. Games are the finger; play is the moon"
— Mathias Poulsen (@mathiaspoulsen) October 11, 2014
"a call to playful arms, an invocation of play as a struggle against efficiency, seriousness, and technical determinism" – @miguelsicart
— Mathias Poulsen (@mathiaspoulsen) October 11, 2014
While the advisory board is (also) about strenghtening the international perspective, I think the local dimension should be represented as well.
For that, I asked Stine Liv Johansen, who’s a researcher in the intersection between play & media. She’s an important voice in arguing that kids don’t stop playing because of digital media, but that play just takes on new forms (and exploring new forms of play is central to CounterPlay, as you probably know by now). She also frequently reminds us, that play in & of itself is important & valuable:
https://twitter.com/StineLiv/status/521938935308894208
Oh, and playgrounds:
https://twitter.com/StineLiv/status/521671939333832705
As with all things CounterPlay, expect the advisory board to be in perpetual beta, ever evolving. I’ll be back with more about these wonderful people soon, and I hope we’ll be able to do a hangout on air before long.
For now, please just give a hand and a warm welcome to this amazing group.
To Zuraida, Alex, Miguel and Stine – thank you. It truly means a lot!
[go_portfolio id=”advisoryboard”]
[If this leaves you thinking “why can’t I be a part of shaping CounterPlay” – don’t worry, because you certainly can. Head over here, write us, go to Twitter or join the Facebook group.
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