Thoughts going into today’s Find the Future

Many of you have been following (in one way or another) my thoughts and learnings leading up to tonight’s Find the Future at the New York Public Library. I feel the need to make a statement before it all begins, so here goes:

What I think will be most interesting on a micro level is how people cooperate to compete. So many games are about working together when it’s convenient and then ultimately striving to do what it takes to independently win. This, however, is a 500 person cooperative effort. We either win together or lose together. But, with 500 people, most of whom are complete strangers, what’s the winning strategy? Who takes the lead in organizing that strategy, and figuring out the best possible way to use everyone’s personal talents for the good of the team? Not everyone speaks up, but if everyone did, it would go nowhere. SO, I am wondering how it begins, and to what level cooperation will need to be organized by players instead of just manifested naturally. Will people show patience and fortitude throughout, or will irritability and absorption into the personal experience of the game take over? Will age, background, profession, or neighborhood be serious factors, or will the NYPL coupled with a game level the playing field? 

On a macro level, Is Reality Broken and will working together fix it? How will #findthefuture carry forth into the online open-to-the-public portion of the game? Will the library become known in it’s 101th year primarily for this historic event, or will the actual history of both the building and the entity be the highlighted point of preservation? More broadly, does the future promise to be made up of strong-headed, proactive conquerers who take big leaps of self-righteousness and then infuse it into the future without looking back at the building blocks, or will it be a thoughtful collaboration of a team of various types of leaders that is organized through a semi-scientific collection of historic data and application of relevancy and creativity? OR, does the future promise neither and is largely unchangeable?

I’m immensely looking forward to this adventure and opportunity, but have no idea how I, the lucky 500, or the future will emerge.