Xona Games - Developing Talent in Young People (Benjamin Bloom)

Developing Talent in Young People (Benjamin Bloom)

Sunday, January 21, 2007
By: Matthew Doucette

Developing Talent in Young People (Benjamin Bloom):

Another great book for parents, teachers, and students.

The greatest revelation this book makes, is that talent requires time and effort. There was no instances of extraordinary talent developing without at least ten years of concentrated effort into the skill in question. It shows that our talents and skills are the results of a grand accumulative effort. Every year you do not put effort into a talent of your choosing, is a year of accumulation lost, forever. Time is not on our side.

For each trade, it showcases the importance of parents, elementary school, junior high school, high school, college, university, professors, fellow students, etc. The importance of some of these entities is negligible, which is important to recognize. (I also suggest reading Frank Smith's Insult to Intelligence for understanding the role of school and where school goes wrong.) I strongly related my passions of game and graphics programming to the section on talented mathematicians, that is, right up until the college and university level where they headed in a completely different direction than myself which explains their extraordinary success and my lack thereof.

Another revelation in this book is that you must surround yourself or associate yourself with those who are doing what it is you are trying to do. This applies more for certain trades than others, but it certainly helps to have someone who understands your passion. In hindsight, it is undeniable that I would have been more successful had I met just one other person (other than my brother, Jason Doucette) who was also involved in game and graphics programming, just to help point me in the right direction and get the right tools for the job. Having Jason on my side was an incredible help in the advancement of my programming skills, but he was ultimately bound by the same limitations and barriers that I was from sharing the same household.

That is all.

About the Author: I am Matthew Doucette of Xona Games, an award-winning indie game studio that I founded with my twin brother. We make intensified arcade-style retro games. Our business, our games, our technology, and we as competitive gamers have won prestigious awards and received worldwide press. Our business has won $190,000 in contests. Our games have ranked from #1 in Canada to #1 in Japan, have become #1 best sellers in multiple countries, have won game contests, and have held 3 of the top 5 rated spots in Japan of all Xbox LIVE indie games. Our game engines have been awarded for technical excellence. And we, the developers, have placed #1 in competitive gaming competitions -- relating to the games we make. Read about our story, our awards, our games, and view our blog.