Whether you're a game player, a designer of any kind, or someone who wants to know more about design, The Rules We Break will open your mind to creative and thought-provoking approaches to design. Play through more than 20 hands-on, real-world games and exercises to explore how people think, how games and systems work, and how to move through a creative process. Everyone can learn from game design: interaction designers and software developers, graphic designers and urban planners, kids in after-school programs and university students studying design. This collection of interactive games and exercises is designed to help you consider new ways of approaching productive collaboration, creative problem solving, analysis of systems, and how to communicate ideas, providing skills you can use in any discipline or situation. These real-world exercises are designed to be played on tabletops, as playground-style physical games, and via social interactions with others in person or online. A wide range of entertaining, thought-provoking games, exercises, and short essays grow in complexity over the course of the book, from 20 minutes of play to design projects that last for days or weeks. Award-winning game designer Eric Zimmerman invites you to play your way through it all, learning about play, systems, and design along the way.
Honest and full of heart, this clever contemporary romance debut deftly combines utterly relatable family drama with all the sweetness and uncertainty that comes with falling in love. Rule #1: Don't get attached. Amber lives by strict rules to survive her mother’s love life: Always keep your eyes on the horizon and never get close to anyone connected to Mom's boyfriends. But after they move in with Kevin, the latest of her mom's “soul mates,” the rules become increasingly difficult to follow. Kevin’s daughter, Cammie, keeps acting like Amber’s friend, even though she’s definitely not. And Jordan—star basketball player, hottest boy in school, and Cammie's best friend—keeps showing up at the most inconvenient moments. Amber has reasons for every one of her rules, and following them is the only way to protect her heart when her mom inevitably moves on. But as she spends more time with Kevin, his daughter, and especially Jordan, she starts to wonder if the rules might be worth breaking this time. Chosen by readers like you for Macmillan's young adult imprint Swoon Reads, Rules We're Meant to Break is a charming, heartachingly real story of family and young love by debut author Natalie Williamson. Praise for Rules We're Meant to Break: "Vibrant and funny and completely relatable. ... The perfect read for anyone wanting to be swept away." —Danielle Stinson, author of Before I Disappear "Rules We’re Meant to Break is one of those young adult contemporaries that I truly resonated with... What an amazing debut! I cannot wait to see what Natalie Williamson writes next!" —The Write Kind of Love
“This book actually breaks the rules just by existing. This much sheer coolness should not be allowed in one volume!” —Jordan Sonnenblick, bestselling author of Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie In Break These Rules, 35 favorite middle grades and young adult authors—including Kathryn Erskine, A. S. King, Matthew Quick, Sara Zarr, Gary Schmidt, and many others—speak directly to their readers and advise them to break the boundaries of conformity. In moving, inspiring, often funny essays they take on many of the powerfully inhibiting, often unspoken “rules” of adolescence, such as Boys shouldn’t be gentle, kind, and caring; Thou shalt wear Abercrombie & Fitch to fit in; You must be a jock or a nerd--you can’t be both; and Girls should “act like girls.” It is often through reading fiction that kids start to question such restrictions, so who better to speak to them directly than their favorite novelists? The book is focused on encouraging students to break rules in their own lives—a prospect many teens and tweens will find thrilling and fresh. Luke Reynolds has taught middle and high school English in Connecticut and Massachusetts, as well as composition at Northern Arizona University. He is the author of A Call to Creativity and Keep Calm and Query On.
New York Times Bestseller How women can make it to the top by adopting the new rules of leadership Women hold just 11 percent of the most senior-level leadership positions in U.S. Corporations—a number that hasn't changed in over 30 years. How can women break through? Break Your Own Rules distills the six faulty assumptions (or "rules") most women follow that get in the way—then delivers the correlating new rules that promise to clear that path. For example, the old rule of "Focus on Others" must be replaced by "Take Center Stage," "Hard Work Will Get You There" must yield to "Be Politically Savvy." "Play It Safe" must give way to "Play to Win." "Ask Permission" must be replaced by "Proceed Until Apprehended." Features the results of over 1,700 interviews with executives in Fortune 1000 companies, as well as the authors' new research and ongoing work with over 5,000 professional women Showcases previously-untold stories from high profile women including Ann Moore (CEO, Time Inc.), Susan Ivey (CEO, Reynolds American), Cathy Bessant (Global Executive for Technology and Operations for Bank of America), Lynn Ford (CEO, ING Solutions), and more Reveals what it really takes for any woman to succeed at the highest levels Foreword by Sharon Allen, Chairman of Deloitte This hands-on guide is for women who are ready to transform their assumptions and join the senior ranks of American business.
7 Rules You Were Born to Break is an exploration of 7 rules we unconsciously obey and the power of breaking them. This book reveals the secrets of a professional misbehaver who turned his passion for mischief into a successful career as an internationally renowned entertainer. In his rise from the streets as a juggler, jester and busker, to the banquet halls of the corporate elite as a headlining comedian, Rick Lewis faced the 7 hidden rules that oppose our fulfillment and success. Lewis guides us through the silent shadows of our rule oriented society through his performing stories, illustrating with warmth, humor and passion the unwritten laws that disempower us and which we must break to claim our birthright to excellence. Celebrities and a break-dancing dwarf, Santa Claus and CEOs, may never have shared a stage so equally as they do in Lewis's inspiring and remarkable tales. From the top of his twelve-foot unicycle Lewis shows us how we can rise above mediocrity in our day to day lives and give our greatest hopes, aims and visions a fighting chance. Today Rick Lewis is a world-class corporate entertainer, comedian and speaker who has appeared at events attended by the Clintons, the Prime Minister of Canada, Bill Gates, the international board of Mastercard and upper management teams for Fortune 500 companies all over North America.
An impassioned look at games and game design that offers the most ambitious framework for understanding them to date. As pop culture, games are as important as film or television—but game design has yet to develop a theoretical framework or critical vocabulary. In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman present a much-needed primer for this emerging field. They offer a unified model for looking at all kinds of games, from board games and sports to computer and video games. As active participants in game culture, the authors have written Rules of Play as a catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games. Building an aesthetics of interactive systems, Salen and Zimmerman define core concepts like "play," "design," and "interactivity." They look at games through a series of eighteen "game design schemas," or conceptual frameworks, including games as systems of emergence and information, as contexts for social play, as a storytelling medium, and as sites of cultural resistance. Written for game scholars, game developers, and interactive designers, Rules of Play is a textbook, reference book, and theoretical guide. It is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a solid theoretical framework for the emerging discipline of game design.
Forget about building a business—businesses fail and fade into oblivion. Start a revolution instead. James Watt started a rebellion against tasteless mass market beers by founding BrewDog, now one of the world’s best-known and fastest growing craft breweries, famous for beers, bars, and crowdfunding. In this smart, funny book, he shares his story and explains how you too can tear up the rule book and start a company on your own terms. It’s an anarchic, DIY guide to entrepreneurship—and a new manifesto for business. After spending seven years on the high seas of the North Atlantic, James Watt started BrewDog craft brewery in Scotland with his best friend, Martin Dickie. They didn’t have a business plan. All they had was a mission to revolutionize beer drinking and make other people as passionate about craft beer as they are. They’ve succeeded. Within a few years, BrewDog was huge—a world-famous craft brewery with beer bars around the globe and hundreds of thousands of fans. Those fans became literal backers of their business with the introduction of an unprecedented crowdfunding movement, Equity for Punks. And in rewriting the record books and kickstarting a revolution—James and BrewDog inadvertently forged a whole new approach to business. Business for Punks bottles the essence of James’s methods in an accessible, honest manifesto. Among his mantras: · Cash is motherf*cking king. Cash is the lifeblood of your company. Monitor every penny as if your life depends on it—because it does. · Get people to hate you. You won’t win by trying to make everyone happy, so don’t bother. Let haters fuel your fire while you focus on your hard-core fans. · Steal and bastardize from other fields. Take inspiration freely wherever you find it— except from people in your own industry. · Job interviews suck. They never reveal if someone will be a good employee, only how good that person is at interviews. Instead, take them for a test drive and see if they’re passionate and a good culture fit. Business for Punks rethinks conventional business wisdom so you can go beyond the norm. It’s an anarchic, indispensable guide to thriving on your own terms.
Gallup presents the remarkable findings of its revolutionary study of more than 80,000 managers in First, Break All the Rules, revealing what the world’s greatest managers do differently. With vital performance and career lessons and ideas for how to apply them, it is a must-read for managers at every level. The greatest managers in the world seem to have little in common. They differ in sex, age, and race. They employ vastly different styles and focus on different goals. Yet despite their differences, great managers share one common trait: They do not hesitate to break virtually every rule held sacred by conventional wisdom. They do not believe that, with enough training, a person can achieve anything he sets his mind to. They do not try to help people overcome their weaknesses. They consistently disregard the golden rule. And, yes, they even play favorites. This amazing book explains why. Gallup presents the remarkable findings of its massive in-depth study of great managers across a wide variety of situations. Some were in leadership positions. Others were front-line supervisors. Some were in Fortune 500 companies; others were key players in small entrepreneurial companies. Whatever their situations, the managers who ultimately became the focus of Gallup’s research were invariably those who excelled at turning each employee’s talent into performance. In today’s tight labor markets, companies compete to find and keep the best employees, using pay, benefits, promotions, and training. But these well-intentioned efforts often miss the mark. The front-line manager is the key to attracting and retaining talented employees. No matter how generous its pay or how renowned its training, the company that lacks great front-line managers will suffer. The authors explain how the best managers select an employee for talent rather than for skills or experience; how they set expectations for him or her — they define the right outcomes rather than the right steps; how they motivate people — they build on each person’s unique strengths rather than trying to fix his weaknesses; and, finally, how great managers develop people — they find the right fit for each person, not the next rung on the ladder. And perhaps most important, this research — which initially generated thousands of different survey questions on the subject of employee opinion — finally produced the twelve simple questions that work to distinguish the strongest departments of a company from all the rest. This book is the first to present this essential measuring stick and to prove the link between employee opinions and productivity, profit, customer satisfaction, and the rate of turnover. There are vital performance and career lessons here for managers at every level, and, best of all, the book shows you how to apply them to your own situation.
"A Rule Is To Break says: Go ahead and throw your best self a party! So glad it exists."—Kristin Hersh, Throwing Muses "After encountering the lively little anarchist in John and Jana's delightful A Rule is To Break, I will always remember the playful little devil with a mind of her own. A children's book on anarchy seems somehow just right: an instinctive, intuitive sense of fairness, community, and interdependence sits naturally enough with a desire for participatory democracy, self-determination, and peace and global justice."—Bill Ayers, author of To Teach: The Journey in Comics and Fugitive Days Simply celebrating childhood: the joy, the wonder of discovery, the spontaneity, and strong emotions. . . . Wild Child is free to do as she pleases. A Rule Is To Break: A Child's Guide to Anarchy follows Wild Child as she learns about just being herself and how that translates into kid autonomy. It presents the ideas of challenging societal expectations and tradition and expressing yourself freely in kid-terms that are both funny and thought provoking—it even functions as a guidebook for adults to understand what it is to be a critically thinking, creative individual. Wild Child is the role model for disobedience that is sometimes civil. John Seven and Jana Christy's previous collaboration The Ocean Story won Creative Child magazine's 2011 Creative Child Award Seal of Excellence and was shortlisted for the 2012 Green Earth Book Award.
From USA Today Bestselling Author K Webster, comes a steamy contemporary romance box set of all five books in the Breaking the Rules series! Jackson. Jordan. Bray. Thad. Five steamy-hot contemporary romance novels that follow the deeply flawed, but fiercely loving alpha males who break all the rules for the women they can’t live without. Broken. Wrong. Scarred. Mistake. Crushed. This interconnected series is full of emotion and intense heat to keep you flipping pages until the end. *** Includes the entire Breaking the Rules series: Broken (Jackson and Andi’s book), Wrong (Jordan and Pepper’s book), Scarred (Bray and Olive’s book), Mistake (Thad and Opal’s book), and Crushed (Jackson and Andi’s happily ever after novella). ***
