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Deleting items within a repeat loop - is that safe?
tempel April 11, 2016, 8:24pm #1
I am adding scriptability to my Mac program and ran into a typical programming issue that I don't know how AppleScript is supposed to deal with. I hope someone here can tell me how it's supposed to work:
Consider the program having objects (elements) of class "person". I like to delete every person whose name is "bob". I am using this code:
repeat with p in persons
tell p
if name is "bob" then
delete p
Now, when I run this loop, Applescript interates over my program's Person objects by using their index. When my program is asked to delete an item, the item is selected by its index that was given at the start of the repeat loop. When my app deletes that item, the following items the program manages will get their indexes adjusted down by one.
But Applescript keeps using the original indexes, i.e. it does not adjust its index for the deleted items. Which makes the loop fail eventually because Applescript asks my program for indexes that are out of bounds after the deletions.
Now, how is this supposed to work correctly? I can imagine several things:
It's a known issue with Applescript and has to be worked around in the script, e.g. by iterating backwards or by using other means to reference the to-be-deleted items (such as first collecting all candidates into a list using references, then deleting them by their refs or IDs - not sure what of that should work).
AppleScript expects my program to handle this somehow on its own.
My program must not allow such objects be accessible by index at all, but only by ID. I hope that's not the case as it would affect performance badly, I'm afraid.
Marc_Anthony April 12, 2016, 12:50am #2
Hi. Use get to solidify the references.
tell application "Contacts" to repeat with p in (get people)
if p's name is "bob" then delete p
Shane_Stanley April 12, 2016, 1:00am #3
tempel:
It's a known issue with Applescript and has to be worked around in the script
Correct. But a scripter would instead expect to be able to say:
delete every person whose name is "bob"
tempel April 12, 2016, 10:10am #4
Marc Anthony:
That would still lead to the same problem for my program.
But the responses so far suggest that my deletion loop is not entirely unusual and is expected to work, right?
So the problem lies in the way the Cocoa Scripting engine talks to my program, making the wrong references. I will ask on StackOverflow for help, I guess that's the better place for this kind of question.
Nigel_Garvey April 12, 2016, 10:14am #5
It's a known issue with Applescript and has to be worked around in the script .
It's not so much an "issue" as a natural consequence of the way things work.
repeat with p in persons sets up a repeat in which p will be an index reference understood by the owner of persons to some element in that group. The set-up includes finding out how many such elements there are so that the repeat knows when to stop. During the repeat, the script goes through its processes and the owner of persons (if it's not the script itself) goes through its processes. It's a matter of managing the communications between them so that they tell each other the right things at the right times.
To the application, of course, everything's a one-off. It's only aware of its current state and of any individual commands it receives. It has no sense of the script's progress, no memory what it's just done, and no idea of what will come next:
INCOMING: How many 'persons' do you have?
APP: (Counts persons.) Three. (End of story.)
INCOMING: What's the name of your first person?
APP: (Locates first person. Extracts name.) bill. (End of story.)
INCOMING: What's the name of your second person?
APP: (Locates second person. Extracts name.) bob. (End of story.)
INCOMING: Delete your second person.
APP: (Locates second person. Deletes it. Performs housekeeping.) Done. (End of story.)
INCOMING: What's the name of your third person?
APP: (Tries to locate third person. Finds only two.) Ungh?
Edit: The above dramatisation's just to illustrate the application's limited interest in what's going on. The information exchange may actually be implemented differently in reality. Whatever the precise details, the problem's still an indexing mismatch between the fixed, self-incrementing repeat and the shrinking data set to which it's applied.
. e.g. by iterating backwards or by using other means to reference the to-be-deleted items (such as first collecting all candidates into a list using references, then deleting them by their refs or IDs - not sure what of that should work).
These are both effective strategies if you're going to be deleting a number of items in an application. Iterating through them backwards means that deleting one of them won't change the indices of the yet-to-be-checked items in front of it. Getting a list of references to the items and iterating through that instead guarantees a collection of fixed length and references in fixed slots. Items may be deleted in the application, but the references to them in the list remain unchanged. Obviously these references mustn't be index references, but applications usually return id or name references to their items.
Shane's mentioned a 'whose' filter, as in delete every person whose name is "bob". This is great (if the application supports it) in that it saves the scripter having to think about a deletion strategy, there's only one communication exchange between the script and the application, and the application can work its way through the items without having to go back to the beginning each time. However, it does place the onus of making decisions based on values on the application itself " something it probably won't originally have been designed to do. The applications I know are very slow thinkers in this respect and can take a very long time to complete such commands. The best strategy for speed is usually to get the application to dump all the necessary information to the script in bulk " which is normally quite fast " and to let the script do the thinking, communicating with the application again only if the application needs to change something:
tell application "My Application" to set {theNames, theIDs} to {name, id} of persons
repeat with i from 1 to (count theNames)
set thisName to item i of theNames
if (thisName is "bob") then
set thisID to item i of theIDs
tell application "My Application" to delete person id thisID
There's nothing wrong per se with index references to application objects. But they have to be treated with caution when objects are added or deleted and, as shown above, it can be more efficient to deal with a list of relevant values than with the objects individually.
Edit: I was forgetting repeat until .:
tell application "My Application"
set personCount to (count persons)
set i to 1
repeat until (i > personCount)
if (name of person i is "bob") then
delete person i
set personCount to personCount - 1
set i to i + 1
Nigel, are you saying that I cannot expect my example code to work? Because I am using the wrong way to address the objects to be deleted? But why isn't AppleScript telling me so, then? You say AS is using indexed addressing there, but I am using objects in the loop, so I don't even see the indexes. I could understand your argument if I used indexes but when I say "delete that object I give you", I would expect that it's clearly understood and that not some other object is wrongly identified.
So, this repeat loop with referencing objects and deleting them the way I showed in my script is actually a conceptual and fairly hidden issue with AppleScript that Apple never addressed and expects the users to figure out themselves?
Or is my example wrong in a way that it should not even work at all, meaning I've made mistakes defining the vocabulary?
BTW, could someone explain to me why this doesn't compile:
repeat with x in cities
delete x -- Error: Can't get item 1 of every city
Whereas this does:
repeat with x in (get cities)
delete x
Should both work? (If so, then my code must have a bug).
I wonder if it has to do with the fact that this won't run, either:
set thelist to {"a", "b", "c"}
repeat with x in thelist
delete x -- Error: Can't make "a" into type specifier.
How does one do that?
StefanK April 12, 2016, 11:42am #7
As Marc mentioned in the first answer you should always use the
repeat with anItem in (get items)
syntax, because the get statement captures the references.
Consider also that anItem does not represent item 1 of items directly but a reference to item 1 of {item_1, item_2, … item_z} which is a big difference.
Cocoa Scripting is supposed to handle the control flow automatically.
The implementation of the KVC methods is basically for performance reasons.
Hi Stefan (I've also asked this question on SO, BTW: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36571009/cocoa-scripting-indexed-array-acess-kvc-and-deleting-elements-not-working-tog).
Are you saying that what I do should work? I am still confused about whose fault it is that my example doesn't work right, i.e. that it keeps indexing the wrong items. Is that an inherent issue with AS, a bug in the scripting bridge or an issue with my own code?
To make it clear:
repeat with anItem in items
delete anItem
will throw an error, because the array runs out of bounds.
deletes all items without error because the get statement captures the references.
That is normal AppleScript behavior for many, many years and does not affect how you implement your classes and properties in Cocoa Scripting.
tempel April 12, 2016, 11:52am #10
I've made a test program which has a list of cities (stored in a NSArray, which Cocoa Scripting can directly access, without me using any special accessors for indexed access or removal). Even this simple program still shows the same issue.
get name of every city
get name of x
get cities
And here's the log:
tell application "AppleScriptable.debug"
--> {"London", "Liverpool", "Berlin", "Munich", "Frankfurt(M)", "Paris", "Rome"}
get every city
--> {city 1, city 2, city 3, city 4, city 5, city 6, city 7}
get name of city 1
--> "London"
delete city 1
--> "Berlin"
--> "Frankfurt(M)"
--> "Rome"
--> error number -1719 from city 5
What we see here is that the loop uses item numbers like Nigel explained, and that these item numbers get out of sync once items get deleted.
So, it seems that this is indeed an issue with AppleScript and not with the scripting engine or my code, right? But that contradicts what Stefan just wrote above. I will test this with Apple's own example code (Sketch) after I've gotten some lunch.
BTW, curiously, "delete every city" does not have this issue.
tempel April 12, 2016, 12:06pm #11
Update: I think it just came to me.
I was confusing the access to the array with the access to the actual object. I must keep those separate. Currently, my code mixes both up and that's causing the problem. So it is a bug in my code, which is a relief because I should be able to manage that.
But it also reveals an issue with the Cocoa Scripting bridge because it doesn't handle this correctly when one stores the actual items in an NSArray ("allPersons") that the bridge directly manipulates, because then the scenario I just showed in my previous post will occur.
Nigel_Garvey April 12, 2016, 12:26pm #12
Nigel, are you saying that I cannot expect my example code to work? Because I am using the wrong way to address the objects to be deleted?
Yes. In a repeat like repeat with p in persons, where a person is an object in an application, the value of p is an index reference into all the application's persons " eg. item 1 of every person of application "My Application" " not an individual reference to one of the persons. Since references are resolved each time they're used, every person of application "My Application" will return a smaller set after each deletion.
tempel April 12, 2016, 1:24pm #13
Nigel, is there a way to write the script without using an item counter (the way DJ Bazzie Wazzie shows) to make repeat work with deletion?
I mean, can I reference the objects in a way that won't use indexes? I know I can address items by ID, but how would the actual code look?
Only because I'm implementing scripting support doesn't mean I'm good with AppleScript
Alright, I've solved the problem and can happily say: It's indeed been my code's fault. After a simple fix which I've explained here (http://stackoverflow.com/a/36575728/43615), the repeat - delete loop works now as hoped. No need for cludges such as using a helper list or counting the indexes on your own!
Thanks for all your comments, it helped me understand some concepts better. It also shows that there's still a lot of misunderstanding even amoung the more experienced AS users, it seems
To explain, what was happening: The fact that the items were enumerated by their item numbers is not inherent behavior of AppleScript but actually controlled by my program. When Applescript asks my code to return the elements of "every person", I do include a so-called object specifier that tells AS how to address the objects later again. I had used the default code that would return numeric index specifiers, which worked just fine for all this time before I added support for deletion. By now changing the object specifiers to identify the elements by a unique ID, the issue got resolved: Now each item is addressed by "person id X", and since these IDs are managed by my code in a way that does not affect their order, this solves the issue.
So, any time you encounter an app specifying its elements by item number, yet supporting modification of the element set, may be making the same mistake and should therefore be considered a bug in that program as it will lead to the deletion dilemma expressed in this thread.


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Gamers say they're earning more money on Facebook's streaming platform than on Twitch and YouTube
Kat Tenbarge
Samantha Lee/Business Insider
Gaming is a $120 billion industry, and live video game streaming constitutes a growing slice.
Twitch pioneered the idea of a game-streaming platform, with YouTube and Microsoft's Mixer emerging as its major competitors.
Now, Facebook Gaming is coming out as a force of its own, and streamers who have switched to Facebook's platform have noticed they can get more subscribers quicker.
Through its "Level Up" and partner programs, Facebook gives some of its live gamers access to multiple revenue streams, and creators told Business Insider they're making more money than they were on Twitch and YouTube.
As an industry, video games generated $120 billion last year. If the gaming industry was a country, it would rank within the top 100 GDPs in the world.
And not only does that industry involve people buying video games to play themselves, but there's also a rapidly growing subset of the population that watches other people game via streaming platforms - and they pay them, too, like you might tip a piano player at a bar.
The dominant platforms for video game streaming are Twitch, owned by Amazon, Google's YouTube, which has a dedicated video game streaming section, and Mixer, owned by Microsoft.
Starting in January 2018, Facebook threw its hat in the ring, too. And the largest social media network in the world is already proving to some of its creators that it might be the most viable streaming service yet.
Screenshot/Facebook Gaming
The Facebook Gaming homepage when accessed on a desktop.
The most recent viewership statistics from April, May, and June of 2019 show 153,000 active streamers on Facebook, while Twitch had almost 3 million active streamers in September. Twitch still dominates for both hours watched and hours streamed, compared to YouTube Gaming and Mixer.
Facebook Gaming can be accessed from the platform's left sidebar on a desktop or via the menu on the Facebook app. Plenty of recommended live streams pop up immediately, with some of the most popular games being "Pokémon GO," "Apex Legends," "Grand Theft Auto V," and, no surprise, "Fortnite."When you start watching a live video game stream, especially one that's recommended to you by Facebook, there's usually an option to give the streamer "stars," with each star equal to one cent (100 stars for $1), or to become a paid subscriber of that streamer for $4.99 a month.
These revenue streams are similar to the ones on platforms like Twitch, but multiple streamers who talked to Business Insider said it was significantly easier to build a streaming audience on Facebook.
Those who are partnered with Facebook, giving them access to revenue streams, also suggested they could make more money on Facebook than on other gaming platforms.
Video game enthusiasts can make their entire living using Facebook Gaming revenue streams
The most prominent video game streamer, who capitalized off his Twitch fame and was later recruited to Mixer, is Tyler "Ninja" Blevins. At his peak, he once made $500,000 in a month for playing "Fortnite."
Anthony Helm, 23, was enrolled at West Virginia University when he decided to follow in Ninja's footsteps. So he dropped out of college and started investing all his time and money in streaming "Fortnite." That "turned out for the better," Helm told Business Insider.
Helm plays "Fortnite" for 10 hours a day - four hours in the morning, and six at night - and was able to get "partnered" with his page "Helms World" after just three and a half months of regularly streaming. Currently, he sits at more than 100,000 followers and makes a very comfortable living off Facebook Gaming alone.
"Growing as fast as I did didn't come easy. I put a lot of time into my work, and it does get a little boring at times, but it's my passion," Helm said. "[Partnering] was a major accomplishment, everybody's aspiring to become one. It was life-changing."
Screenshot Facebook/Helms World
Helm, 23, streams Fortnite using a green screen, so that it appears he has immersed himself into the game.
There are two ways to get access to Facebook Gaming's revenue streams, and both require Facebook to actually choose you. The first is the "Level Up" program. Those newer to streaming can "Level Up" by creating a special creator page and streaming gaming content for at least four hours over two days within a 14-day period. They also need 100 followers.
"We select people after watching them stream a little bit. We put our stamp on creators who fit our community," Vivek Sharma, Facebook's head of gaming product, told Business Insider. "We do have a huge demand for this thing. The numbers change every month but there's a long queue of waiting to get into the 'Level Up' program."
Leveling up gives you access to stars and subscription features. Partnering is more intense, and Facebook hand-selected some initial partners for the launch of Facebook Gaming and has offered a pathway to it for creators since.
Partners have a manager who works for Facebook, get additional financial support (an actual reliable paycheck), and are testing out features like ads and custom sticker packs for their fans to use. Partnered creators sign a contract, which involves a non-disclosure agreement, and agree to a streaming quota.Read more: Ninja's move to Mixer brought more streamers to Microsoft's platform - but not more viewers
The "Level Up" and Partner programs at Facebook are similar to those found on other game streaming platforms, especially on Mixer, which has a similar review process that holistically looks at a streamer's quality, as well as a set of metrics that have to be passed.
Twitch also has a two-step program, like Facebook, with "affiliates" at the lower level, followed by partners. Similarly, to become an affiliate with Twitch, a streamer has to amass a certain number of streaming hours within a 30-day period and have a certain number of subscribers. There is a human review process to pass Twitch streamers on to the upper tier.
Affiliates unlock some monetization features, while partners, who have even more subscribers and stream even more hours, get full access to an advertising revenue percentage, a tipping token system, a "bounty board" of tasks with monetary rewards, subscriptions, and an opportunity to use Amazon affiliate links.
On YouTube, to make AdSense money, a channel just has to pass a set of benchmarks. Most creators on YouTube never speak to a live person or go through a live review process concerning their channel. YouTube relies on an automated strike system both before and after monetization is enabled to assess whether a channel is adhering to community guidelines.
"We're happy to see Gaming creators succeed on our platform and are continuing to invest on YouTube. It's exciting to see all the video platforms committed to the Gaming community as it's great for the ecosystem overall," a spokesperson for YouTube told Business Insider in an emailed statement.
Sharma said that Facebook Gaming was a natural transition for its platform, which has 100 million active users that participate in more than 30,000 gaming-dedicated groups on the social media network alone. That huge audience, combined with the nature of Facebook's platform, has been an asset for streamers looking to start their careers in live streaming.
Streamers told Business Insider that Facebook's platform makes it easier to build a big audience and make more money
The best aspect of Facebook for video game streamers is the size of its pre-existing audience. Every streamer who talked to Business Insider emphasized that being able to share streams into gaming groups and onto their own timeline made a huge difference in being able to build an audience.
"I have a lot of people in my community who don't even play video games," Timmothy Havlock, a partnered streamer who goes by "Darkness429" and has more than 550,000 followers, told Business Insider. "They found my content on Facebook and they really enjoyed it and they liked the community so they stuck around."
Havlock was a member of the first incoming class of partnered streamers and began live streaming on Facebook in February 2018. Facebook recruited him from Twitch, where Havlock said he was able to reach 160,000 followers in four years of streaming. On Facebook, he went from 0 followers to half a million in the first year alone.
Screenshot Facebook/Darkness429
Havlock, 29, streams "Destiny 2: Shadowkeep" for his audience of over half a million people, around 600 of which are tuned in to this specific stream.
"I'm making more money on Facebook than I did on Twitch. I don't know if that's because I'm hitting a different audience, because I'm hitting people who are at work, in their mid-20s to early 30s, and these are people who have somewhat disposable income," Havlock said. "I think people are more generous on Facebook than they were, for me at least personally, on Twitch." Of course, most streamers on Facebook aren't making any money, unless they're using third-party revenue streams like Patreon or accepting donations through PayPal. A Facebook streamer who goes by "Its Noob" on the platform and has more than a quarter of a million followers told Business Insider he's still waiting to get into the "Level Up" program.
Streaming the game "PUGB Mobile" is his full-time job, which he does 8 to 12 hours a day, so he's eager to get into the "Level Up" program so he can start making money through Facebook itself. He said he doesn't understand why he's met the eligibility requirements listed publicly but hasn't been invited to the program yet.
Read more: Professional gamers reveal the best things about their profession
Its Noob uses a multi-streaming service to air his gameplay on both Facebook and Twitch at the same time, but he said his Facebook audience is significantly easier to grow.
"It's so difficult to get followers if you didn't start early," he said of Twitch.
Part of the reason Sharma says Facebook seems to be cultivating a more generous community for its streamers is because people tend to use their real identities on the platform and that in turn makes the community healthier.
"Creators often tell us that the communities feel a lot more welcoming than other platforms, partly because they're used to being in this mode of being on Facebook and hanging out and talking with others and sharing on their timeline and feed," Sharma said. "We kind of already have the foundation of a healthy community on Facebook and creators notice that. "
Facebook is continuing to expand its partner program to more streamers, and it plans on debuting new products
Sharma told Business Insider that over a third of the Facebook Gaming creators who benefit from revenue streams had their first experience with live streaming on the platform.
As new streamers "Level Up" those creators might not be able to compare their experience to Twitch or other platforms. But one current streamer, who has had a long career on YouTube, thinks Facebook is the most promising competitor.
Zack James, 29, first built a following on YouTube ten years ago with his channel OutbackZack and has since started his own animation company. His Facebook page "Yo Mama" has almost 4 million followers and his Facebook Gaming stream has more than 3.5 million followers. He signed to be a partner around May of last year.
"We've been around for eight years," James told Business Insider. "So even if you kind of outgrew our stuff a little bit, you know, whether you're a kid who had a certain sense of humor and you kind of got over it as you got older, people kind of rediscover us on Facebook."
James plays games like "Grand Theft Auto V" and said working with Facebook Gaming has given him a chance to dive back into the types of games he played as a kid. He also says the team at Facebook has the best company culture out of any platform he's ever worked with - despite Facebook's recent PR problems.
Members of Facebook's first class of partnered streamers for Facebook Gaming.
"I think a lot of these big tech companies like Facebook are being re-evaluated, and when you re-evaluate anything like that, any of these companies are going to have scrutiny. Any of that sort of scrutiny can align or realign certain public perception," James said.
James also said he observes that he can make more money from ads on Facebook videos than on YouTube videos. Specifically, he said he makes about two to three times the ad revenue on a 3-minute Facebook video than he does on a 10-minute YouTube video.
Read more: The best-selling video game of every year, from 1995 to 2018
"It looks like Facebook will be one of the few companies that will actually bring real competition to YouTube," he said. "And they don't have a company culture that I think will have a negative impact on creators. If and when it gets larger, I think it's only going to be more welcoming to creators like me."
Next, Facebook Gaming plans to launch an app. Right now, it's being tested in three markets - the Philippines, Brazil, and Mexico. Sharma says most of the traffic to Facebook Gaming comes from mobile devices, as opposed to desktop, and when using the app, streamers will be able to start streaming from any app on their phone.
"I think they're definitely looking at the market a bit differently than Twitch or YouTube has," James said. "Creators need more competition in the market, and it seems like Facebook could actually provide that real competition."
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Home / World News / Delta-free haven New Zealand sets out path to opening borders
Delta-free haven New Zealand sets out path to opening borders
The government will speed up its vaccine rollout this year and begin a phased reopening of the border in early 2022, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Thursday in Wellington.
Since the outset of the pandemic over a year ago, New Zealand's border has been closed to foreigners and all returning residents have been required to enter a managed isolation facility for two weeks.(File Photo)
Published on Aug 12, 2021 07:56 AM IST
Bloomberg |
New Zealand laid out a plan for easing some of the world's toughest border curbs, which have kept out the highly contagious delta variant and seen the island nation effectively Covid-free for much of the pandemic.
The government will speed up its vaccine rollout this year and begin a phased reopening of the border in early 2022, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Thursday in Wellington. Vaccinated travelers from low-risk countries will eventually be able to enter New Zealand without going into quarantine, she said.
"Getting vaccinated is the number one thing everyone can do to be protected against Covid-19, help accelerate our economic recovery, reduce the risk of lockdowns, and safely allow New Zealand's borders to begin re-opening next year," Ardern said. "The first step in our plan is speeding up the vaccination process to ensure everyone is at least partially vaccinated as soon as possible to reduce the risk and impact of delta entering the country."
Since the outset of the pandemic over a year ago, New Zealand's border has been closed to foreigners and all returning residents have been required to enter a managed isolation facility for two weeks. The system has caught imported cases, but there have been no delta infections in the community so far. A quarantine-free travel bubble with neighbor Australia was suspended last month due to delta-driven outbreaks there.
New Zealand's push to eliminate the virus has paid dividends, with just 26 Covid deaths and life within its borders relatively normal. The country has scored consistently well on Bloomberg's Covid Resilience Ranking, which measures the best and worst places to be amid the pandemic. After some early lockdowns, community transmission has been scarce thanks to the nation's isolation and the zero-tolerance border and testing regime.
But a slow vaccination rollout -- just 23% of the population is covered, versus more than 50% in the U.S. -- has left it vulnerable to an outbreak of the delta strain, which has forced large parts of Australia back into lockdown. At the same time, Ardern has been under pressure to present a road map out of "fortress New Zealand," with the restrictions decimating its tourism industry and leading to shortages of migrant labor.
Vaccination Rollout
Ardern said the government will make the Pfizer Inc. vaccine available to all adults sooner than previously planned and increase the gap between doses to six weeks from three. This will allow more New Zealanders to get their first dose sooner and ensure as many as possible are at least partially vaccinated in coming months, she said.
From Sept. 1, all eligible ages will be able to book a vaccination appointment.
The government will also use the second half of 2021 to conduct a self-isolation trial for vaccinated New Zealanders in preparation for the gradual resumption of quarantine-free travel. From the first quarter of 2022, new risk-based border settings will be introduced that establish low, medium and high-risk pathways into the country.
The pathway a traveler takes will be based on the risk associated with where they are coming from and their vaccination status, and each pathway will have testing and isolation requirements proportionate to that risk.
A low-risk pathway will permit quarantine-free entry for vaccinated travelers; a medium-risk pathway would include a combination of self-isolation and/or reduced managed isolation for vaccinated travelers, while a high-risk pathway will require a full 14 days in quarantine and testing regardless of vaccination status.
"This individual risk-based approach requires new systems to be set up," Ardern said. "We will use the remainder of 2021 to continue to prepare for the operation of borders under this system."
The government is investigating methods to rapidly test airport arrivals for Covid, she said.
Covid Zero
New Zealand joins other so-called Covid Zero economies -- places that have targeted suppression of the virus within their borders -- in laying out a framework for exiting the strategy. While effective in eliminating the virus, the approach relies on continued isolation, which nations with significant tourism sectors like New Zealand can't afford long term.
'Covid Zero' Havens Find Reopening Harder Than Taming Virus
Singapore, which has also gone spells Covid-free and tightly polices its borders, says it will start to ease curbs once it hits 80% of the population vaccinated, while Australia has indicated a rough timetable to open up in the first quarter of 2022, a plan that may be complicated by the current resurgence.
Meanwhile, China, the biggest adherent of Covid Zero, is doubling down on the strategy after delta got past its defenses and seeds flareups there. The country is not expected to start opening up until mid-to-late next year.
delta plus new zealand


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Works are progressing well on the construction of the new 7,500m2 packing hall at our Macclesfield site.
Following the demolition of existing warehouse racking, and removal of the existing slab, we have installed new foundations and slab to enable the construction of the mezzanine steel framed plant deck.
The mezzanine floor slab has been poured in readiness for the delivery of Air Handling and Water Purification plant. Demonstrating flexibility and collaborative approach taken throughout the project, we completed this crucial phase in only 8 weeks.
We are making excellent progress on this flagship £50 million project. Being 39 months into the construction programme, we have successfully completed works on the high bay and numerous refurbishments to GMP standards within the low bay warehouse, and are now focusing our efforts on the packing hall.
The final construction phase will see the internal fit out of the packing facility which is due to complete in Quarter 3, 2019.


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Women's Basketball: Terriers go "Seiper Mode" in home-opener victory
by andrewmason24
Terriers bench getting pumped during a big home-opener win. Photo by Gabi Turi
By: Andrew Mason
The Boston University women's basketball squad (1-1) grabbed its first victory of the season on Monday night, in a 72-51 home-opener win over the Brown University Bears. It was a milestone night for first-year head coach Marisa Moseley, who now has an official Terrier win under her belt.
Unlike last Friday's loss at Northeastern, BU came out with the energy to get the job done on Monday night. After missing her first two open shot attempts, senior Payton Hauck maintained the composure to shoot 50 percent (5-10) for the rest of the contest, 83 percent (5-6) from the free-throw line.
"That's a big shoutout to all my teammates," Hauck said. "When we miss shots, no ones head goes down. That's something you can always rely on to keep you going."
Hauck finished the night with 16 points, six rebounds, and four assists, while forward Nia Irving added 16 points of her own to go with 12 boards. The Terriers' dynamic guard duo of Katie Nelson (10 pts, 7 asts, 4 rebs, 4 stls) and Lauren Spearman (nine pts, 3 rebs, 3 asts) added to an impressive outing for the starting unit.
However, it was freshman center Ashley Seiper who made the biggest splash on Monday night. In her Case Gym debut, the Tampa, Florida native grabbed 10 points and four rebounds in 11 minutes coming off the bench.
Ashley Seiper (10) gets the bucket to fall. Photo by Gabi Turi.
"We were all just working so hard to keep our lead," Seiper said. "Tonight we were ready to win this came and come back from [the] Northeastern [loss]."
Seiper, who is the second tallest player on the Terriers roster at 6-foot-2, showed off an impressive mid-range jump shot on Monday, knocking down multiple shots from the short corner areas.
"I've been working on [mid-range shots] a lot lately in practice," Seiper said. "I knew today they would be open against the zone. I wanted to make sure I could hit that shot."
The freshmen class as a whole has been a major bright spot for BU through two games. While Riley Childs and Audrey Nicholson continue to sit due to injuries, Chiara Tibbit (6 pts, 3 rebs), and Seiper have represented the class of 2022 quite well.
Their play has even gained the attention of their older teammates.
"[Seiper] works hard and it shows in practice everyday and on the court," Hauck said. "She's not timid or scared, and that's a huge thing as a freshman."
On the defensive end, the scarlet and white were able to keep one-half on the high-scoring duo of Shayna Mehta and Justine Gaziano in check. While Mehta grabbed a game-high 23 points, Gaziano struggled to connect from the field, finishing the day with just seven points. In last season's blowout victory for the Bears, the two had combined for 44 points.
Moving forward, the Terriers head to Poughkeepsie, New York this Friday to take on the Red Foxes of Marist College (1-0). Marist stole a 80-52 road win last time these teams' met a season ago.
Tip-off between the Terriers and the Red Foxes is set for 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 16 inside the McCann Center from the campus of Marist College. .
Posted in Women's Basketball
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Professor Game
Gamification for education!
About Professor Game
← Brian Collins from Disney Imagineer to Gamification | Episode 140
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Toby Beresford and his Book Infinite Gamification | Episode 141
Posted on July 6, 2020 by Rob Alvarez Bucholska
Listen to this episode on your phone!
Toby Beresford is an expert on using gamification and statistical metrics in business to build the best working teams. He has appeared on Sky News, as a keynote speaker and has written about gamification for .net magazine and others. Toby has worked with organizations large and small including IBM, PwC and has even gamified the United Nations to encourage UN staff to use social media to promote the work of the UN.
Links to episode mentions:
Toby's new book Infinite Gamification
Toby's first appearance on episode 37
Chuck Coonradt
infinitegamification.com
Instagram @InfiniteGamification
Twitter as @TobyBeresford
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Looking forward to reading or hearing from you,
Full episode transcription
Rob 00:41 Engagers welcome. We have once again, a guest I'm happy always to have friends back, and this is the case of Toby, but Toby, before we get started, are you once again, prepared to engage?
Toby 00:51 I'm ready to engage. Looking forward to it.
Rob 00:54 Let's do this because Toby Beresford is an expert on using gamification and statistical metrics in business to build the best working teams. He has appeared on Sky News as a keynote speaker and has written about gamification for .net magazine. And others. Toby has worked with organizations large and small, including IBM PWC, and has even gamified the United Nations to encourage the UN staff, to use social media, to promote the work of the UN. So, you know, gamifying the UN it doesn't get any broader and larger than that. I'm guessing, right?
Toby 01:29 They're a big organization, aren't they? And, uh, certainly they've enjoyed being gamified and it's been quite an interesting journey for all of us, sort of seeing some of the fruits of that.
Rob 01:39 Absolutely. And then it's like, you know, they are kind of all over the world. And what do you do after, after you, you gamify the UN, you know?
Toby 01:48 Yeah. I know. Just wait for the checks to pour in which of course don't pour in.
Rob 01:54 That's true. That's true. So, so Toby we're, we're gathering back because I got an advanced copy of your book while ago. Now your book is already out there. And I think it's a, it's a nice opportunity to talk about the things that you're talking there. Recently we also had Sylvester, you know, you probably remember Sylvester as well. He also launched this book recently. Um, interestingly enough, in these times of, you know, hybridity and online and all of that, and it has a lot to do with his book, but I do think your book is also very, very timely. It's the book Infinite Gamification in the sense. Well, I actually, why don't you tell us initially, let's get started with that. Like what is the book even about?
Toby 02:35 Okay, good. So what I've tried to do is really come from my own kind of practitioner experience where I think most of my colleagues and the other Engagers in the world of gamification has been thinking and working on projects that tend to be finite gamification. So that's an often with a kind of a training mindset. So onboarding, it's, it's all about getting people through a sort of a set of hoops, allowing them to level up and eventually achieving some sort of Epic win like a badge. And whereas the sorts of gamification I've seen and been kind of involved in is less, has less that sort of objective. It's much more been instead, how do we, our staff or our, our people, they already know how to do something they've, they've already been trained or they've already learned it, but that we're more concerned about how they could, they adopt and then adopt those kinds of tools and those behaviors into their daily lives and then start to perform well and do even better at it.
Toby 03:37 So, uh, and those sorts of programs where you're thinking not just about learning, but you're thinking about, um, how do I help people adopt things? How do I help tools? How do I people help people to perform better? Then that's where the, where infinite gamification comes in, because it's a sort of continuous improvement. It's looking at each individual's journey each day, each week, each month, each year, and tracking that over time. So I think that's been my, sort of my that's been, so I've, I've seen lots of, for example, that the most obvious examples, something like a sales scorecard, so most sales organizations where you've got three or four or even 20 salespeople, they will have some sort of sales scorecard, which tracks the behaviors that they need to do in order to achieve good sales. And that's then reported back to them either as a score or as an entry into the president's club or a hundred percent club or whatever. There are loads of different ways in which sales managers engage their sales team, but the fundamentals are the same that they are a type of infinite gamification program that helps those sales professionals continue to improve day in, day out as they do their day job.
Rob 04:47 And talking about that because I agree that there are many, many situations in which it's not a one-off or a, you know, month or even a year. It's something that you're looking at. You're thinking about something that is going to last in the future. And when you create these things, how do you think about, is there some sort of update, how do you think about, you know, sort of the future, what happens after you create this? I mean, let's, let's assume you create it. You even went through iterations, we went through the hoops, it's now working, it's working well, do you think of, of updates? Like how do you approach this, this situation, like in a year's time in two years time, in five years time or 10 years time? Like, what would the outlook look for you? Does it get old at some point?
Toby 05:30 Yeah. I mean, and this is the key, isn't it? So the key with an infinite gamification program is that it needs to evolve over time. And in the book I go through the sort of three sections, there's an analysis phase, which most gamification professionals would recognize around understanding the real organization requirements behind it. A design phase, where you look at the different ways to do it, but they've actually the third phase is actually evolution. And I think there's quite a bit of sort of fresh thinking in there because if you do come from a, a finite gamification background, there is a, a sense that, you know, I've built the program, it works and that's it, it's all done. And the players, if you like are traveling through they've, they complete the gamification program. And that's the end of it. Whereas with an infinite gamification program, of course, the players are there and they stay there, but the behaviors that they perhaps want to track the tools that they want to use, whether it's the work for the process, even their sort of their level of ability does of course change over time.
Toby 06:30 So the program itself then has to evolve. And so we look at, I look at, in the book, some simple mechanisms for evolving, infinite gamification programs over time. And I think that's a pretty key thing. And if I may say, I mean, one of the things that I think gamification and infinite gamification, in particular, can then bring back to the business community, is this idea of evolving the metrics, evolving the targets, evolving the way the scorecards, because I just don't think at the moment most managers realize that it's even necessary or perhaps have the right framework in which to deliver it and evolving scorecard.
Rob 07:07 Absolutely. And this brings me back. I don't want to sort of go into the deep end because we were in episode 37 with Toby. If you want to take a look at that you're, you're curious about what Toby's story is, what, like, where do you start? What were some of his, you know, tough moments, his glorious moments as well, all those things are there. And we started talking one of those sort of the key lessons or the key things that went throughout, whereas what we called score science. And then you even suggested that we have Chuck and we had Chuck in the show as well. I understand that you're and from your book as well, which I had the chance to read your whole theory stems from keeping good scores. So how do we keep good scores? What does that even mean?
Toby 07:52 Well, that's a good question. Isn't it? And for me, the key is that there are good scores and bad scores. So that it's as good as well or better phrase perhaps is well-designed scores and badly designed scores. So for me, an infinite gamification program is usually a score combined with some form of comparison, whether that's comparing it to yourself or comparing it to others, individuals or comparing as a team, it doesn't really matter. But the two usually go hand in hand. And the thing is that if you have a well-designed score, it's going to create the positive behaviors that both the organization, that the manager creating this creating and publishing the score want and the player wants. So it's a win for both, if you like. So a well-designed score has that effect. Now the problem is that a badly designed score will have unwanted side effects.
Toby 08:42 It may do something that the manager wants, but not what the player wants. And you get this sense of manipulation. I've been manipulated by the score. But on the reverse, you might also have a situation where it does something that the player wants, not what the manager wants. And so, and then you have this sense of the program being gamed by the players. So it's very important when anybody designs their own program, that they have that kind of idea in the mind that actually they can design it well and they can design it badly. And of course, that means that they, if there's a chance to do something well or badly, that means everybody just has to think about it. And so what I've hoped to do in this book is really to signpost and our signpost, all the key questions that you need to ask yourself in order to create a well-designed program. I'm not suggesting I'm not it's by no means a sort of a I'm afraid I can't do all the hard work for you, but it is a toolkit that just says a set of checklists, which actually, so you, if you were to go through it, what you'd find is that you create a well-designed score would come out at the end of it because you'd have been forced to think through all the real issues.
Rob 09:43 Absolutely, absolutely. You've touched upon something there, which is key. And we were talking before starting the interview, which is you're talking about managers and employees, and there's definitely among many of us, there is an interest and a push that we're doing like myself, like in every day in everyday work. And all the things that we're doing there is some of us who were also sort of trying to push forward. The fact that gamification gets sort of incorporated into business practice and to business studies as well because we do realize that this has a, can have a great impact, as you were saying, for example, in, you know, the management of employees, but also in other disciplines of business. So how do you view the side of, of what you were mentioning, sort of your you're talking about how scores are well kept so that both sides of the business. In this case, employees and employers are satisfied, how do you think this will sort of break-in or hopefully break in to the business disciplines?
Rob 10:43 That's good. So I think particularly today with this a move to remote working for so many of us, I think it really does provide a kind of a new greenfield opportunity for organizations to look at the way in which they recognize good performance, but also help individual employees to focus on the behaviors that actually kind of deliver the goods for the business. I mean, we've had this sort of, I mean, I'm not a business management historian, but I mean, we've had a good long period now where we will be sitting in offices. And the main metric that employees and managers look at is the number of hours spent the sort of, this idea of presenteeism that the longer you are in the office, the better you must be as an employee, which of course we know is absolute rubbish. Um, the, the best employees aren't necessarily the ones that spend the most time sitting at their desk.
Rob 11:34 I mean, I'm going to jump in because I mean, it couldn't be more timely sort of a comment in that sense. Like I'm not going to talk specifics in any capacity, but I know of many situations where exactly that sort of sitting on the chair time, it was being measured and whether or not people are sitting there, it's not necessarily about results. It is powerful. And it's refreshing. It's one of the few things, good things that we've had from this pandemic. It's the fact that many people realize that the pandemic came in. And in some businesses where this could already happen, it happened and nothing changed. And then everything is okay, so the business said, Oh, so this is something we can do. And actually we're even saving some money, so let's move forward with it. So it pushed some people there have been bad consequences. Of course, there are people whose jobs were, are not possible to do remotely and have had bad consequences, but, you know, they're, I'm trying to bring in to get the good side of this. So I just wanted to make that comment to make sure it's highlighted because I do think it is a very good time. Let's talk about this.
Toby 12:31 Yeah, of course. And yes, and I think we all sort of all our roles and jobs are all changing a little bit as a result. And I think there is this period of adaptation into that is where I think lots of managers will be now looking at scorecards and the way in which they distribute the score, the results of what's going on at work, because you have to, if somebody sort of stuck out on a limb somewhere where in their home that you don't have that sense of shared achievement. you don't have a sense of managerial presence. You don't have that kind of, many of the, sort of the traditional toolkits that are manager hat tools, a manager has to support his staff, his or her staff. So, you know, offering a scorecard is something that I'm sure many managers will be trying to do.
Toby 13:16 And, and it's usually coming from an enablement background. So if I take one of my, I spent three years working with, with IBM with their inside sales team who were remote distributed team across the globe. And they were with transitioning to a kind of digital selling. That was the main kind of essence of what they were doing. And so what the management and the, and the gamification program for net gamification program that we put in place was that IBM put in place was really about looking at all the different tools that were, that would be given to those inside sales reps and saying, okay, let's see how you're adopting, how you're performing using these tools. And let's give you a score or some feedback each month with some limited comparison that wasn't a pure sort of leaderboard, but some limited comparison with your colleagues so that each inside sales rep could see how they were doing on that kind of journey to being a better inside seller and a better digital seller.
Toby 14:13 And it's a great example. I'm one of the interesting things of course, is that that program changed an enormous amount from day one to the third year of the program. So, and it comes back to this idea that if the management team are looking at the scoring program, they're looking at the feedback systems they're putting in place and saying from day one, this is going to change in six months in 12 months time because there will be different tools that were different metrics. There'll be behaviors we weren't expecting. We want to kind of tune and tweak this. If they're thinking that from day one, then I think the program has a chance of succeeding because nobody gets it right the first time. You always have to kind of evolve and change it in response to sort of, to use a behavior.
Rob 14:52 Absolutely, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. And Toby, you know, this, you know, I'm, I'm also very much into education and I'm going to throw in maybe a little bit of controversy here. As we know, grades are also a score that we're keeping and there are scorecards around grades. And I have personally argued that, you know, school and university in many, in many ways and in many capacities in general, and I'm generalizing very broadly as well is a poorly designed game. And I don't know if you would argue as well, that it is a poorly designed scorecard in many ways. So what's your first reaction when you, when you hear talking about, you know, grades and the grading system, and maybe I want to, I don't want to talk about certification because some of them are very valuable as well, but the grading system, what comes to your mind as a scorecard and a scorekeeper, an expert one indeed. Yeah.
Toby 15:44 So interesting. Isn't it? So, I mean, I think the first thing is interesting is the two play together. I, we are conditioned through education to look at scorecards. I mean, that's one of the reasons that score scores, scores and infinite gamification works at all in, in an industrial setting is because people have spent 18 years in education thinking and being told that, you know, getting a high score is a good thing. So there is obviously that sort of, sort of, um, that kind of link between the two. I, um, when it comes to your point about an, our grades a good thing. I think my kind of my perspective on it is that everything that we've found from in the world of infinite gamification is that every context is unique. And what I mean by that is that the more that we know about an organization or even an individual, but particularly around any kind of group, trying to do something that there isn't a kind of a one size fits all infinite gamification sort of scorecard that you can just get out of the box and say, yeah, this is going to work here.
Toby 16:45 It just doesn't work like that because each organization, each kind of a learning journey, if you like, taking in the education world is going to have a slightly different skew and a slightly different bias. I'm actually doing a, I'm back in education myself at the moment, I'm doing a part-time theology course, which, uh, which is fascinating. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. I thought it was going to be really dull, but it's actually interesting. So a different, there's a whole, different world from gamification. So it's quite interesting, sort of it's good for me. And, but the way in which they, they mark us is yeah, they do give a grade a percentage, but the most interesting part of it is they also break down the rubric of what goes into that grade. So you can see across the five sort of, as the marker has looked at it, what are the difference of a few said, okay, these are the different five areas that she wants to Mark against.
Toby 17:37 You can then see the feedback per rubric point, if you like. And so that, I think that's, that's an example for me of how this particular course is starting to sort of go beyond just the basics of a grade, start to think more broadly about better feedback at a more granular level. Because of course, as an individual, I need the sort of the individual feedback. I don't just want to just tell me, you know, I've got a mark out of a hundred is a relatively limited use if I'm going to now optimize and improve my performance for the next essay or next paper. So I think that's, I think coming back to your point about our grades, uh, grades, and I think they're a good, they're just one, they're just a start, but actually I would encourage any kind of educator to think, okay, that's fine. Now reading the book, where else can I provide better feedback to my students that will help more of them succeed?
Rob 18:30 Absolutely. So just a small clarification. I, I, I don't want to mean that grades are, you know, sort of grades should be just eliminated necessarily with the thing I've, I've mentioned many times to students is as an educator as well. I can tell you that we are, we need to, to set grades and that that's fine, but there are also a series of restrictions around which those sort of gradable items need to be considered. And for example, like a, a simple test, the same test as we've, we've been taking for years and decades, I'm not sure that that is necessarily the best way to both, as you said, provide feedback, but also even understand what is the level of advancement that might be one of the best proxies available. It doesn't mean it is a good proxy in any capacity. So that was in general.
Rob 19:19 That tends to be my point around grades. And I talked to this about this with my students who get very, very anxious about grades. They feel their whole future is depending on the grade they'll get. And for example, I just finished my operations management course, and some students feel like it's the end of the world, whether they get, you know, the top grade or the second or the third or the fifth or the 30th, you know, it's, and that is exactly my point. As, as you were saying, it's not just about the number that you get there, which, you know, it has its value. I kind of understand it there, there's also arguments that there go back and forth in that sense. But beyond that, like your main objective, your main metric personally must not be the grade. And that's where I think there is a lot of room for intervention, as you were mentioning, both, both on the feedback side, which, which I think is, is positive.
Rob 20:07 And whenever possible is very, very important, but you know, teachers as well can sometimes be overwhelmed with work. Sometimes they have too many sections, sometimes a single section is, you know, 600 people. So how do you personalize that? You know, hopefully, technology will start helping us with some of those things, but I'm not sure like the whole feedback is necessarily always possible. But I do agree like when you, when you can, write, as you were saying, an essay or one of the things I like to do with my students when we teach gamification is to give them feedback on a project. So they're actually doing the thing. And that's where tying the grade to doing exactly what they're doing, I think is important. And it brings them into the industry in a way which hopefully is, is, is we agree on that one?
Toby 20:49 Yeah, we do. We do. And I mean, if we think about this idea with infinite gamification that you, that, I mean, one of the models that I have in the book is about learning adoption performance and performance and how we, we kind of start when we learn. And then, then we need metrics that help us to adopt those kinds of new habits. And then we need metrics that help us to perform well at those habits. So if we were to apply the, kind of, the idea of infinite gamification for an educator, one of the first things I might say as a manager, and this is where it's very interesting kind of area for a business school is to say, look, you know, the educator, either the manager's job, isn't just about helping to improve performance, but also maybe the educator's job, isn't just about teaching and learning.
Toby 21:38 It's also about ensuring adoption and performing well at it. So when we talk about my theology and parttime theology course that we'll just stick with that. So theology is, so I, I'm hoping that this theology course will help me to, for want of a better word to do better Bible studies. So I'll be able to sort of help other people to read particular bits of the Bible and understand it better. So what would be a kind of the, the, the sort of the, I get my grade and that's the kind of the learning side, but actually the adoption and performing. So I might be that the people that whom I'm giving the Bible study to there's sort of these four or five people might then give me some feedback on that. And that would then become part of my scorecard, which would then help others to see, help me to see whether I've actually adopted all the things that I've learned in theology. And am I performing well at giving those out? And so my challenge, I suppose, to any educator is where, when does education stop and, and can, you know, with, with something like, kind of an infinite gamification scorecard, there is that sort of opportunity to sort of define not just what happens when someone finishes learning, but actually to help your students to continue to adopt and then to perform well at what they've learned,
Rob 22:51 What are those things that are being taught that are applicable then in their, you know, in their current or future workplace? Absolutely. Absolutely. Just a quick break before we continue, are you enjoying this podcast? If you're listening through a podcasting app, please subscribe and rate us on the app. This will be of great help to reach more Engagers so we can change the world together through gamification. So Toby, the next thing that I wanted to get into is actually something that we do. I'm not true. I think we didn't do it on your initial episode, which is taking a random question from the audience, and hopefully, it will be very, very related as well to what we've been talking about. Okay. So here it comes it's well, I think it could be related to almost any guests. I think it's a good question for most people and it is, how did you get started in gamification?
Toby 23:47 Good question. So I came at gamification from the world of Facebook originally. So I was working as a social app developer for Facebook size building marketing campaigns, mainly for that were worked on Facebook for big brands. Like Reckitt, Benckiser Sony PlayStation. And as part of those projects as games, they were, I started to see this kind of idea of, of gamification the, I think it was at South by Southwest. It was called the game layer at the top of the world. And so I kind of saw it as the natural progression from the social layer, which is what I'd been working in for sort of three or four years with Facebook to the game there where we were not just sort of seeing our friends, but we're also seeing how our friends are doing
Rob 24:34 Absolutely. That's fantastic. And, and since then, did you, I'm guessing that you got inspired from that experience and then got started with, of course, I mean, being from marketing it's funny. I also was, was teaching quantitative methods. So a lot of numbers and statistics, um, some people were like, Oh, I want to study marketing. This is not necessarily relevant to me. It's like, well, you know, come and going from marketing, especially in digital marketing, I think you're going to be looking at quite a few numbers and statistics,
Toby 25:00 Digital marketing is almost a number of numbers. Yeah, that's right. And I mean, I think for me, the kind of the exciting part of gamification is it's you, you're trying to sort of see people flourish and for individuals particularly to get better at what they're doing. So for me, the exciting thing is that we can put in place simple programs that provide good feedback, that in a sort of an engaging way that allows any individual to do better at what they're trying to do. So that's really been the kind of the thing that I've, I've seen gamification being its benefit is that it allows that because of the engaging design, because of the good feedback, it actually helps us to continue to get to continuously improve. It's not just about you've achieved something and that's it it's actually, okay, this is the type of tool that's going to help me on my longer journey. And for me, that's very exciting.
Rob 25:54 Absolutely. And you touch upon, and this is the last thing that probably where we're going to get into, but you've touched upon something and you've mentioned it in different capacities before. It's I would almost call it the ethical side of gamification, which I argue is even the place where it is actually starting to be effective, maybe not in the immediate run only, but also in the medium and the long term, which is, you know, that side of, you know, gamification is not about just benefiting one of the sides that is in that, in that circumstance. I don't want to call it transaction because it's not a transaction only, but it's about getting people to improve on something that they actually would want to improve. And maybe don't manage to do it because they don't understand how it goes because they can't get into the habit because they don't find the motivation, whatever, whatever that is. Whereas when it, when it's just sort of pure manipulation in getting you to do something that you would otherwise just not do, because you don't want to, that's where I think both the field, the person and the company doing this is losing in the, in the medium and long run. So I would just want it to bring that back and, and hear your, your, your reactions to sort of the ethical side of this whole thing because I think we have kind of been going around it for a bit.
Toby 27:01 Yeah, no, I think it's critical. And the keyword that I have from my experience that resolves this sort of the ethical conundrum is really about maturity. Having run really, quite a lot of these programs. I've always been surprised by how immature a large number of players are when they're given a score. And in the book, I talk about this idea of player maturity, that when we receive a score, we all receive it in a slightly different way. And so somebody who's very immature, sort of a baby will accept the score has given. So if I say, Hey, Rob, your score is 34. If you're with a baby mindset, you're like, Oh, my score is 34. And, and you wouldn't, you don't think anything other than that. Whereas a toddler, for example, as it were, feel four year old might reject the score out of hand say, well, I don't care.
Toby 27:48 I don't care if my score was 34. And then we have a slightly, a more mature person that a teenager would. Then you just say what you would attempt to game the scorecard. I say, well, how can I make my score higher with doing the minimum amount of work? But then when you come to sort of what I would call us of an adult understanding and mature understanding the scorecard is you'd say, okay, 34. So, okay. So how, how can I use that score to track my progress and then optimize my activity over time? That's, it's useful to have this score, but how does it help me to get better at what I'm doing? And then it does actually go on that maturity model because prematurity, because then we have this sort of, the idea of a senior who will then challenges the score algorithm and say, well, hang on.
Toby 28:27 How did you get that score? 34? Where does that come from? And is it actually measuring the right things? And then finally we have us over the idea of a retiree who for many different reasons may, will say, well, actually that score is no longer relevant. I've outgrown it. And so actually I think for me that this idea of maturity, when it comes to receiving it, to being given and to accessing and using scores, and there are lots of scores in our lives, aren't there? There's the, you know, whether it's a Fitbit ratio or the, or the salary or a score that your boss has given or HR, there are lots of scores that we, or credit school, we receive lots of scores, but actually the key issue that I'm seeing is that people aren't mature in the way haven't matured sufficiently in the way in which they received them. And so I'd be really excited from my book from infinite gamification if it helped both managers and players to become a little bit more mature in the way in which we see the scores that are, are being used on us.
Rob 29:20 Well, that sounds like a beautiful way to end this conversation. So Toby before we go, of course, where can we find more about Toby? Where can we find infinite gamification? Lead us to wherever you want, as in, of course, any, any other call to actions that you want to have this, this is a time before we say Game Over.
Toby 29:42 Thank you, Rob. Well, guys have a look infinitegamification.com. There's a link there to the book it's on Amazon as Kindle or as a paperback. And they're also going to every time I sort of have one, have any kind of videos or downloads or resources, I'm going to be putting them up on that site. I've created an Instagram @InfiniteGamification. So if you like, I like that social media, please come and follow me there. And as a takeaway, it would be really helpful, we're really keen. I think all of us within the gamification industry to see gamification being kind of used in the right way, but also, you know, used, used more widely. And so if my hope is that this book is, which is targeted at kind of any type of business manager or any type of leader, this could be a tool that we could actually be, we could be sharing within the kind of organizations that we're in and saying, look, this is how you could be using gamification with your, your spreadsheet about your employees or your HR program or whatever it is. But I think what we really need to do within to expand the kind of the reach and the ability of gamification itself is to sort of seeing it being used in the right way within organizations. And my hope is that this book can contribute to that kind of vision.
Rob 30:51 Absolutely. I'm sure. I'm sure it will. So thank you very much, Toby. We can find, as you heard, we can find Toby both on his website of infinitegamification.com, there is an @InfiniteGamification Instagram account. I know I followed Toby for a while on Twitter as well @TobyBeresford. So you can find the links to all of these things. You can go to professorgame.com, you type Toby and you'll find both of these awesome episodes with Toby. And if you're anything interested in these things about scorekeeping and scorecards and score science and infinite gamification, you'll find a lot of value in both of these episodes. So Toby again, thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much for writing a book. I know it's a massive endeavor, which is not always financially recognized, but I'm sure it'll bring you a, you know, a lot of recognition from the work that you have done. So thank you very much for all of that, however, at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it's game over.
Toby 31:49 Thanks, Rob.
Rob 31:51 Hey engagers, thank you for listening to the Professor Game podcast. And I hope you enjoyed this, you know, encore with Toby. And I know you always have interesting things you want to find out. There are questions that you have. So if you have questions, if there's something that you're curious about, something that would maybe be very useful for you and your life. Well, go ahead, go to professorgame.com/question and ask your question. It will very, probably be selected in the future. And if it does, it will come up in a future episode and you will get answered live by one of our experts. And before you go onto your next mission, do you want to know what is up, what's going on next in Professor Game podcast? Well then subscribe using your favorite podcast app and listen to the next episode. See you there.
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