Yesterday at 7AM I was walking in Bedford center. Why? Well it all started on July 14th. I got an interview request about child safety and Pokemon Go. Before taking the interview I felt obligated to play a little to understand what it was all about. When I started, being an engineer by training and a tech geek by practice I just downloaded it and started playing. To make a long story short, I was terrible at the game until I asked my 12 year old what to do. So on 7/16 we went to Bedford center to play the game and walk around after diner. I almost fainted, that was the first time my daughter wanted to do anything for more than a few minutes with me, unless mandatory in about 2 years. I learned how to throw a pokey ball properly & I taught her how to spin the center of the Pokestop to collect items for later use. I took a pic of a real bunny, and then we walked on, for 2 hours!!!!
What I learned about the game was, yes having kids with mobile phones walking around playing a game where the game is tracking they’re every move in real space and time is scary (I will write a separate post on why and what should be done in the future to help). But, with the right parental supervision (like look where you are walking, etc) it can be a great experience, get your kids & yourself moving when otherwise they’d be sitting in their room playing games or face timing with friend or doing selfies for Instragram (that is another scary thing).
Back to the story of walking in town at 7AM. I had to get an oil change, the best way is to show up at opening time, 7AM.
You can sit inside in air-conditioned bliss doing your e-mails or having a free coffee. You can even watch the morning news (if you want to get depressed). But it occurred to me that the morning e-mail messages could wait, I’d go for a walk in town and collect some Pokeballs (these are items you get at Pokestops and are what you need to play the game) and other stuff so that later I would have ammo to play with my daughter.
If you’re one of those people, like I was, who never seem to have enough time for enough exercise, think about getting outside in your town and visiting some Pokestops. What is a Pokestop? It is a marker that starts as a blue square on a post. When you get close enough it turns into a rotating round sign. It exists in the game but is linked to a physical location that someone at Niantic got from the Google Maps DB.
When you tap the center on your screen it zooms in to the marker or thing that was selected from the DB to be a Pokestop by the developers. If you are close enough you can spin the center part by swiping on your phone & get items.
What’s interesting is the places they chose, like the entrance to a college down the road from where I live, or our local fire department or a historic marker.
All of these are things that I might never have paid any attention to normally. On my walk in town with 
my 
daughter they spurred conversation & LEARNING (yes we looked up the items to find out about the history of our town). The magic of the game to me is not “Collect Em All” or even battling to control a Pokegym (that will have to be another story). It’s the social aspect of the game, talking about things we might not have noticed or even known before & of course the potential for learning. So based on a career in and around the games & entertainment industry what do I think? First of all since we started doing VR & AR back in the 90’s this is the first game that has made it main stream for all ages, though it seems the demographic is more 18-25 and 6-15. Secondly people in NYC are talking to each other while they wait at Pokestops in NYC. Since I grew up there I am totally amazed & pleased at this phenomenon. Lastly, my wish is if Minecraft & Pokemon Go & made a baby, people of all ages could build worlds of their choosing, bringing in interesting real locations as Pokeminestops & those cute Pokeman characters & share their world with their friends & others.
I even got my daughter to have diner with me at a local restaurant which used to be the location of a post office (many post offices are Pokestops). We sat having a healthy diner & played the game and talked (another gift from the developers).
startupdoc 
