In this Topical Zoom episode I speak with Amy Jo Kim, world-renowned social game designer, community architect & startup coach about community building and why it should play a bigger and central role in what we create.
Communities are a core aspect of the human race, and have played a key role on the internet as well. What are the key aspects of communities and how have these played a key role on the internet (and changed ever since the internet was born? How has design changed over the last many years? In this episode, we speak about:
- How our guest has transitioned from designing interfaces to coaching startups over 4 decades.
- A perspetive on how design and products has changed since its early days.
- The key aspects of what makes communities great – online and offline.
Who is Amy Jo Kim?
Amy Jo Kim helps entrepreneurs & innovators 10X their product/market fit with Game Thinking. Named by Fortune as one of the 10 most influential women in games, Amy Jo is a world-renowned social game designer, community architect & startup coach. Her design credits include Rock Band, The Sims, eBay, Netflix, Covet Fashion, indiegogo, nytimes.com, Ultima Online, Happify, Pley and numerous startups.
She pioneered the idea of applying game design to digital services, and is well known for her 2000 book, Community Building on the Web. She holds a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Washington (along with a BA in Experimental Psychology) and is an adjunct Game Design professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
What you will learn – Community Design and more!
- Your LinkedIn timeline looks so interesting. Could you quickly talk about your journey from designing interfaces at Sun Microsystems to designing communities and games to now helping startups 10x their product/market fit?
- You’ve worked in the field of design, making products from the 80s. How has your perspective of design and products changed in all these years?
- Back in the year 2000, you wrote a book on Community Building for the Web. Why inspired you to write this book?
- How relevant is the book for today’s www?
- What are the 3 key aspects of a good community? Where does one start?
To continue in Episode 131.
Useful Links
- Amy Jo Kim on the interwebs
- Amy Jo’s book
- Community Design For The Web (Click here to Buy on Amazon)
Join DYT Insider
DYT Insider is our newsletter program. I share episodes, my best work on product and design and give away my best ebooks and other resources for free so you can download them and read at your own pace. Join me here.
Getting Started & Resources
- Tiny Book Of Triggers for actionable triggers to learn fresh new Product Management & Design skills & more. (click here to download)
- Get Started with Design Your Thinking (click here)
- Handpicked Resources (click here)
