I'm skimming Rollings and Morris's Game Architecture and Design: Learn the Best Practices for Game Design and Programming.  I've always loved the challenges behind game design. The creative storytelling and experience design appeals to my arts and letters side. The modeling, simulation, code craft, rendering, networking etc. appeal to my inner geek. Some of the hardest work, the best in software, is done by game makers.

I have a lot to learn.

As a kid I took apart games for the Univac (written on punch cards and paper tape) and for the DEC RSTS and RSX operating systems. I learned lots of algorithmic thinking and six or seven different programming languages.

Infoworld caught CTOs learning from gaming technology. The cover package: CTOs learn to play a rich-media game.

• Enterprise Play: 

The gaming industry is a cauldron of technology innovation as companies heartily compete for billions of dollars in revenues from devoted users. But what's more, enterprise CTOs are taking notice of technologies coming out of this maturing "adolescent" industry. Game developers and publishers are solving complex issues amid a proving ground for technologies that can solve real-world problems -- making advancements in collaboration, peer-to-peer networking, and data delivery. Gaming is getting serious.

Gamers demand speedy data delivery, complex and realistic graphics, and interactive computing -all delivered seamlessly and via a variety of channels for a variety of platforms. In short, they want the best of what information technology can provide. And as gaming industry spending is expected to reach nearly $12 billion in 2002, according to Framingham, Mass.-based research company IDC, the incentive is there to provide it for the ever-growing number of gamers.

• Playing the broadband market shows enterprises learning about peak download management from gaming firms.  

• Entertaining links interviews a VP at EarthLink about their response to gaming traffic (peering), streaming (caching), wireless (keeping options open).

• Chad Dickerson writes "The show must grow on."  

As IT delivers more of the infrastructure for business communication, the CTO's role as orchestrator is increasingly critical. Whether the "show" is a streaming video news feed from Afghanistan on CNN or a Webcast auction from DoveBid, many of the IT requirements are essentially the same: thorough capacity planning, near-100 percent uptime, carrier redundancy, and delivering a high-quality customer experience.

Enterprises adopt late. All this coverage is of biz buying mature tech; technology the gaming biz piloted 2-3 years' ago, that the pornography business has evolved for a decade.

I'm excited by the innovations in work process, look and feel, gameplay, game balance, player cooperation, characters and plots, planning and software engineering.

The X-Box may become the enterprise PC replacement product in two or three years. Imagine how fun, how social, how gripping we can make tools for work! No, I mean it!

[a klog apart design]

So klognets are little ad-hoc communities in blogspace. Suppose you want to support and nurture them? What do you do?

Sift Online Communities Insider posted these key roles and tasks to the Knowledge Board's Communities of Practice SIG.

Amongst the key roles of the community management function are:

• A visible custodian of the user's experience on the site
• A focal point for the creation and development of both content and functionality
• A driver for 'added value' content and services
• A source of leadership, standards and 'netiquette'
• A pro-active stimulator for interest, engagement and participation
• A co-ordinator of partner relations, contributions and offerings
• A public champion for the site
• A strategic thinker capable of visioning, planning, reviewing, measuring and developing the community

Depending on the nature, role and audience of your community, the tasks associated with community management can be individually identified:

• Strategic planning
• Content management
• Member relations
• Value creation
• Event scheduling
• Partner relations
• Driving revenues

More details on each of the tasks, enough to create a job description.

As klognets are embraced by project management culture, project workers will step into these roles and do this work. Expect a variation of this description to become a project communication checklist.

[a klog apart community]