Post Milan Roundup

Things have been crazy lately with the term wrapping up and the ICIS conference. My main reasons for going to the conference was 1) to get in touch with IS researchers, 2) to see old friends, and 3) to get more people interested in this little thing called games research. The poster session went well and I made some very good contacts for future game research. I am so excited!

Very few people at the conference were working on games at the moment but many people said that games and gamification was the "hot new thing" when I mentioned my work. Many also mentioned that people are getting into gamification research right now. Who knows? Maybe in the next two to three years more game research work will become mainstream in the IS community

Coincidentally, signs of this change occurred when I was at the conference. A list of game researchers on Twitter was compiled and released last week. Check out the list to find other people doing cool work. Also the Special Interest Group on Games and Game Design Research passed its first round of approval! I should leave the country more often!

Milan itself was quite interesting. I didn't have a chance to really explore the place until the last day but there was no way I was going to Italy without getting a pizza. It was easily the best pizza I have ever had and it was just at a local cafe.

So in a few days I will give you an idea of what to expect in the New Year and a wrap up of my thoughts on this whole blogging thing so far.