Taming the Butterfly
Bloomington is a strongly-connected community. Thanks largely to Indiana University, we boast a network infrastructure the envy of many cities. Our residents, students, and organizations make use of social media and digital services more and more. Even so, we can be a niche community that could benefit from improved technical skills and stronger bridges between diverse groups. Like everyone else, we can always get better.
In the weeks leading up to TEDx Bloomington on May 14, we will be playing a game together, one designed with many hooks to engage locals:
- Play a gripping augmented reality game (ARG) with serious purposes for Bloomington.
- Learn digital skills for today’s challenges, taught by local experts.
- Engage with other forward-thinking members of the Bloomington community.
- Change Bloomington to be ready for the challenges of the next quarter century.
Details of the game were announced on April 6, at the Bloomington Geek Dinner, a recurring gathering of local technologists, academics, and entrepreneurs. The official game website is now open for registrations.
With consultation from Studio Cypher and others, SociaLens will be running the game registration and Week of Digital Fluency activities scheduled for May 5th through 12th. SociaLens is a local consultancy helping organizations become aware of and develop digital fluency. They make a distinction between being literate (knowing what and how to do something) versus being fluent (understanding why and when to do something). The goal of Taming the Butterfly is to spread these ideas, raising overall digital fluency in the Bloomington while also enticing participating locals to become more engaged with each other online.
