Let’s say you’re at a dinner with 20 people, and there’s one piece of cake left. Who gets it? Normal social graces usually result in that last cake being split between the few who begrudgingly admit they would like it..as long as no one else really wants it more…

But this kind of “who can be more selfless” behavior gets under my skin. Sometimes, I wish everyone could feel comfortable enough about saying “Yes, I want that last piece of cake, and if you all got up right now and I was the last one at this table, I wouldn’t think twice about eating this cake. But since you’re all here, and you all feel the same exact way as I do, we need to find a fair and equitable way of dividing this cake.”

Because that’s the real truth of the situation. But instead, this becomes a subtle jousting match, where you’re never quite sure who is being how honest. All these little personality calculations start going on, most without us really being conscious of them. Yet they are going on. For each person who says they don’t really want it, we take into account that person’s past history of “politeness”, that person’s history of eating like a pig :), or of watching his/her weight, etc, etc.

Without going into every one of those little calculations (because that’s not what I’m here for today), the end result is that no one wants to stick their hand out too far beyond anyone else’s, for fear of breaking some rule of inconsideration, of dispoliteness, and because there is ’something to be said’ for making a small ’sacrifice’ now (i.e. i do want the cake, but I’d be happy to let you have it) because it can have a more meaningful, more symbolic, positive effect on your relationship with that person/those people.

But end of the day, the result is that the person with more smoothness forgoes his/her share of the cake, and the person who might not be as aware of subtle cues - or simply doesn’t have the chops to ease his way towards a nonchalant avowing of the sacred cake - gets the cake. And the person who actually does get what he wants - i.e. the cake - feels like he has lost something else, something not entirely tangible, but somewhat more important.

Ok so I think I’ve described this situation enough for you to a) recognize it and b) realize I think it sucks donkey butt. The initial gut reaction could be “c’mon it’s a frikkin piece of cake. NOT a big deal. If you want it, just take it. Plain n simple” But the truth is that the subtly intricate social dynamic DOES exist, and just ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. It needs to be addressed head on, ‘attacked’ so to speak, in order to get PAST it, rather than pretended into non-existence.

So here’s my proposed solution, the essence of which is for the unspoken, fear-based dynamic, to be transformed into a simple-yet-strategic game. Here’s one game option. You could have another idea, and if so, please share it in the comments area below.

RULES: Everyone picks a number between 0 and 100. In silence. And writes it on a piece of paper, or just types it on their cell phone. Then everyone reveals their numbers. The person with the lowest number is the one who gets the cake.

BUT it’s not that simple.

If you have the lowest number, and the next highest number is 10 or more than your number, THAT person “wins”, or, at least, you are disqualified. For example, let’s say you chose #4, and the next highest number is #15… you’re out. And if the third highest person is, say #23, then the person who chose #15 wins gets the cake.

Here’s a ‘real world’ sample of how this first rule plays. 5 people playing the game. Here are the numbers they chose:

4, 13, 15, 30, 32

In this case, the person who chose “15″ wins, because the “ten” rule knocks out the “4″ and the “13″

VARIATION #1: So let’s add another dynamic. In addition to the “distance of 10″ knockout rule, lets say that any two numbers which are consecutive get knocked out.
So if the five chosen numbers are
4,5,7,9,10
The #7 wins, because the other four all get knocked out.

Similarly, if the five chosen numbers are
3,5,6,9,11
The #3 wins because it’s the lowest number ’still standing’

And to show both knockout rules at the same time, here are another five chosen numbers:
3,14,15,18,38

In this case, #3 gets knocked out because of the “Distance 10″ knockout rule. #14 and #15 get knocked out because of the “Consecutive” rule. #18 gets knocked out by the “Distance 10″ rule. So #38 wins, even though it’s the highest number. Yum. Death by chocolate.

Oh, there’s a third knockout rule, which is another “Distance of 10″ rule, except that if you’re the highest number and you’re more than 10 above the next person, you’re knocked out. This is to put a leash on cherry pickers who, in a more crowded game, might just opt to choose #100 and hope that tough vying for the top spot results in mass carnage. With the usage of this third knockout rule, the previous example would have resulted in #38 losing as well.
What If…
This then leads to the question: “What if everyone gets knocked out?”

I was toying with a rule to govern who wins when everyone is knocked out, but then realized that the real POINT of this is to transform the aforementioned social knot into a fun game. So if everyone gets knocked out, you play another round. The more rounds you have, the more fun it becomes, because, eventually, people start exhibiting patterns, faking, bluffing, strategies, reading subtle cues, etc… essentially all the social detection skills people used in the unspoken awkward game, now people can freely and openly “compete” with each other, and whoever actually gets the cake can be celebrated as the winner.

I think that’s all for now. Play and see how it goes. I’ll do the same.

                 

Isn’t it about time that NYC movie theaters offered a VIP option?  For an extra fee (could be yearly/monthly membership fee or just a higher price per ticket), movie goers can reserve seats in a movie theater.  There’s nothing earth-shattering about this idea; we’ve all seen it done in many other businesses.  But seeing a movie in NYC (and I’m sure other places as well) has become a pain.  You have to get to the theater BEFORE the previews in order to get a good seat, so you have to sit through the PRE-previews, then sit through the actual previews.  I would gladly pay more money, if i knew I could stroll into a movie theater 1 minute before the actual film starts.  I could save about 30 minutes per movie.  Since I see a lot of films - and often like seeing them in the opening weekends (crowds=fun) - this would flat out save me both time and aggravation.

I’m sure there are ways to implement this which would be ineffective, inefficient, and annoying, but other ways could be perfect.  Maybe just redesign the whole movie-going experience and make it completely a reserved-seat method, like in concerts and theater.  The theater could have a two-tier system, where x-amount of seats are allowed to be reserved, and the rest are general admission.  Why not?  Seriously.  Just as long as you leave the option for people to not HAVE to pay extra for the reserved seats, no one will be hurt, and people can pay more for the added convenience.  In certain situations, I sure would.

                 

Currently MySpace is ranked #6 by Alexa.  This one idea could increase their reach by a significant %.  A huge portion of myspace users (I dont know how many) browse in order to find new music to listen to.  Each artist on MySpace can upload 4 songs into their MySpace Player, and visitors can listen to a person’s music.

Here is the idea:  MySpace should create a downloadable player.  Each time I arrive at a musician’s MySpace page and I like their music, I can “add this song to my playlist.”  In this way, I could build up a library of music specifically from MySpace.  It would be like a MySpace radio of sorts.

From a user perspective, this is super, because it would allow users to listen to their “new-found favorites” even when not directly engaged with MySpace.com.  I could, for example, be listening to my MySpace Library right now while writing this blog entry.

From a musician perspective, this is duper, because it would allow them to become ‘regulars’ in people’s ears, instead of just being sampled while on the actual MySpace.com.

From MySpace’s perspective, this is both super and duper, because they would immediately increase their reach and their potential influence.  First of all, by having thousands upon thousands of MySpace Players downloaded onto people’s computers, they have a hugely increased reach for advertising, while the associated hosting/server costs would be a small percentage increase (i.e. the MySpace Player can download encrypted music files so the songs are not streamed from MySpace’s servers).

Second, by having exact statistical data on which musicians users like, they can build up a recommendation system, by which users who opt-in to ‘new recommendations’ can be given offerings of new musicians who match the user’s implicit musical preferences.  Ok, I think that was wordy.  I’ll say it again:  “I can tell what you like by what you’ve chosen to listen to, so I can give you more music based on what I can tell you like.”  (You get my point, I’m sure).

Well, that’s it.

If I was in charge of MySpace, I would implement this immediately, I would make it my primary objective, and if all current programmers were busy with other stuff, I’d hire new ones tomorrow.  So if you work for MySpace, get this idea done.  If you know someone who works for MySpace, show em this link, and tell him/her to get this idea done.

                 

There’s this whole thing going on in the NYC School system, where parents want their kids to have cell phones in case of emergencies, and say it’s a security threat that the school wants to ban cell phones from school.  The schools argue that cell phones increase distraction and cheating.  Here’s one article on the subject.  Here’s an article from last month describing a lawsuit that parents are bringing against the school, and this is an excerpt from that article:

“[The lead lawyer said that] the cell-phone policy, in effect since 1988, is illegal and unconstitutional because it interferes with parents’ rights to oversee their children’s safety.”

Here’s my position:  I don’t care which side is “RIGHT” or “WRONG” - My take on it, is that there is a solution which can equally and directly solve both parties complaints.  I have called the school board to try and offer this advice, but never got a reply back from anyone.

Here it is:  There are cell phones which are designed specifically for parents to give to their children.  It has roughly four programmable speed dial buttons, and NO DIAL PAD.  The point?  The phone can ONLY call the four numbers which mom and dad have programmed into it.

Why is this solution so simple?  It absolutely, 100% addresses the parents’ concern over security and ability to communicate with their children, while at the same time absolutely, 100% prevents students from sending text messages back and forth to each other.

Here is one such example:  The Verizon Migo - I’m sure other carriers have similar solutions.

Folks:  Just agree to make these phones the only ones allowed in school, and we can all get on with our lives, stop clogging up our airwaves with the complaints, stop wasting tax dollars defending this lawsuit, we have a solution at our fingertips, lets use it.