the vc in me....

e-Mission has launched....

Back in 2007, I wrote a post about a concept I came up with at TED for a kids game called "critter crisis" to make a real impact on climate change.

I'm happy to report that a few years later I finally was able to get it off the ground (after various unsuccessful attempts at funding via foundations, nonprofits, etc) and am proud to announce it has launched on facebook as a social game for real world change - it's called e-mission - check it out!  

Its in "beta" right now as we are still working out the bugs, game mechanics, and friction to get people to take offline action while being online.  The user count is modest but many per unit metrics are promising.  We hope 2011 will be a breakout year for this game and this new genre of online games with offline impact.   

Its been a long road since i first had the idea.  My colleague Suzie Mogavero and I worked hard on the concept and tried to attain funding from many foundations and nonprofits but came up empty handed (ironic for a venture capitalist!)  Finally, we shared the idea with a visonary leader and now dear friend - nancy lublin of dosomething.org (of which I am now on the board - its the largest organization for youth to make social change) she loved it and took it on as a dosomething project.  With her team and other advisors help, the idea morphed into an online social game that feels more like a simulation (e.g. cityville) vs the original pet adoption idea (which we feel didn't have as much depth).   I was able to find a great games development team called Gettoutt to bring the game to life.  Gettoutt is startup that is pioneering a new genre in social games that combines real offline action.    The founder, alan wells, has a superb background as both a product manager at Zynga and an ecology major at UC Davis.  

With team in hand, we were able to secure funding from an unexpected source - the US Government!  The EPA's Energy Star division has fully funded the development and is our sponsor of the game.  They were looking for ways to reach young people with the message of energy conservation - especially to combat climate change - and recognize that online games are where its at. Big kudos go out to the EPA for trying something new and innovative to fight climate change!

A little more on the game....the idea is that you control a habitat (like a city in cityville) and our first habitat is a beach (which our 1000 Dosomething youth advisors voted as the most desired habitat) - where you buy and place plants and animals to make it a thriving ecosystem.  In order to earn more coins and experience and level up to get better plants and animals, you perform online actions (e.g. energy knowledge quiz's, read info on recycling), and ultimately offline actions that reduce carbon in the environment (e.g. change lightbulbs, lower your thermostat, walk to school, etc). All the offline actions are measured in actual carbon saved so we know the real world impact from the game.  We came up with a cool peer review to check the online actions - you upload a photo performing the action and get your facebook friends to vouch for you. 

The game mechanic includes "eco-tours" which bring in visitors and thus coins to your habitat - if it remains healthy.  The player must continue to take actions and complete missions as the environment is deterioraring due to increasing carbon levels.  The cool thing about an online game is that we can speed up and exaggerate the effects on the environment from increasing carbon levels - which helps people visualize the impact.

Its early days in this new category of "social games for change" and we haven't figured it all out, but I'm hopeful that the game will get better over time and inspire many other games like it.  Big thanks goes to all the people who have helped over the years:

James and Zem Joaquin (early inspiration and brainstorming and great networking)

Suzie Mogavero (full time leader working with me for six months)

Rich Gruenberger and DLA Piper team (early pro bono legal counsel)

David Perry (helpful game design ideas and connections in the game industry)

Bing Gordon (valuable feedback to Alan and I on game design)

Charlie Knowles and the Wildlife Conservation Network (great ideas around kids and animal conservation)

Hillel Cooperman (early concept work and naming with his firm Jackson Fish Market)

Chris Tacy (advice on design and networking)

Madeline Schroeder and the Mightyplay team (great early work on the concept and helping pitch media companies)

Samantha Skey (marketing wisdom - especially to youth)

Nancy Lublin (CEO of Dosomething who took on the project)

Aria Finger (COO of Dosomething who made it happen)

Alan Wells (CEO of Gettoutt and lead game designer)

Porter Felton (founder of Getttoutt and creative guru)

Cliff Boro (helped a lot on networking and ideas around kids)

Greg Tseng & Steve Sarner at Tagged (marketing promotion of the game)

Sophia Bush - star of one tree hill and environmentalist - thanks for the great video PSAs

Suzanne Segermann and Asi Burak of Games for Change (great networking and inspiration on this new genre)

The Energy Star program/EPA

and of course the entire Dosomething.org staff!

(sorry if i left anyone out - do let me know!)

 

So, do your part and play the game and reduce some carbon...spread the word!  

Reccomended Movie: The 11th Hour

As you know from previous posts, the social cause that I am spending time on these days is Climate Change (see the Critter Crisis post for why and what i'm doing about it).

I recently saw the screening of 11th Hour which is a new documentary from Leo DiCaprio and Directors Leila Conners Peterson and Nadia Conners.  I highly recommend the movie to those that are skeptical or simply interested in the issues facing our planet Earth.  Inconvenient Truth does a great job using the star power of Al Gore to lay out a compelling case for Climate Change.  11th Hour is different in two ways.  First, it provides the audience an overview of the many problems facing Earth - not just climate change (e.g. overpopulation, overuse of land, deforestation, etc) - the meta theme is overuse of our resources.  The second difference is that almost half the film is dedicated to the solutions that are being worked on to address these issues -  the audience leaves the theater with a sense of hope and motivation vs fear and helplessness. 

The downside of the film is that it is done in a documentary style that is very informative for the "intellectuals" of our world but is missing the story arc and characters resulting that's the hallmark of cinema to make it a mass market success.  That said, this is a good start in bringing it all together and perhaps will inspire more film makers to blend characters/storytelling to get the message to a wider audience.

I'll leave you with a great concept from the film -  we are wrong to say our planet is in crisis when its the human race which is at risk - the earth will do just fine in the long run without us....

How We Can Change Climate Change

Given my busy life, I try to to make time to impact at least one important social issue.  There are lots of important problems in our world but I believe the most pressing is Climate Change (often known as Global Warming).  I won't spend much time here teaching or debating the issue as its pretty widely known (look at the EPA site or Wikipedia for relatively unbiased info or watch the Inconvenient Truth from Mr. Gore).

This is a tough problem to tackle as it has a relatively slow impact on our planet which doesn't affect our daily lives at the moment ('the frog not knowing it's slowly boiling in water' analogy is appropriate) and meaningful progress requires the actions of millions across political, geographical, and cultural boundaries.  Finally, humans (especially older ones) are creatures of habit - and habits are hard to change.

I believe one way to spur change is to appeal to those in a position of strong influence to adults, to those who we care about enough that we would change habits to be a good role model - that group is our children.  If we can get children to become aware and then care about climate change and its impact on their world, they may be able to cause change in every household on our planet.   Despite popular culture portraying kids as silent in the household, their voice is heard by parents and they can influence through our hearts like no other.

The hard part is making the issue of Climate Change real and interesting to kids.  I believe the answer is to put a face on climate change and use emotional appeal.  The face is in the form of the tens of thousands to potentially million species (many which are cute and somewhat cuddly) that will be endangered by climate change (check out a great article from National Geographic explaining this).  The idea is to have each household and/or classroom "adopt a critter" that is endangered, learn about the animal, establish an emotional connection, understand why they are in danger and go to their parents with a list of actions they can take to make a difference to save this animal - and the world (e.g. changing energy consumption, engaging in the political process, etc).

This idea came about at a great conference I attend yearly called TED which offers inspiration from people presenting great ideas - such as Al Gore around Climate Change and EO Wilson on biodiversity and species extinction.  The community of people attending TED makes it really special as you can find someone else that is passionate and a leader in making things happen.  My friend (and former CEO of Snapfish competitor - Ofoto), James Joaquin, is a fellow TEDster and working wih me on the plan - he has given a great moniker to our idea - "Critter Crisis".   We welcome your ideas and thoughts in making Critter Crisis a reality...

I believe the millions of children in the world are a catalyst to combat this crisis and they are also the group that will be impacted most by climate change.  I truly hope we can leave this world a better place for them...with their help.