Play Balloon Brigade to Find Your Strengths as a Worker

Balloon BrigadeHere is an online game that I am playing. My task: To water my flowers and to defend my “contraption”, on the right side of the screen, from the burny thingies that march over the hill from the left. My weapon: water balloons that I can fill on my contraption (until they sometimes burst) and flip (with a swipe of my finger) at the hot enemy hordes, thus extinguishing them. The challenges vary. Sometimes, there are just a few fiery intruders. If I throw high and hard enough, I can catch them as they first enter my space. Sometimes, though, I miss them. They toast my flowers and come right up to the foot of my contraption, trying to burn it down. No time to fully fill balloons then. Just a quick squirt and then fling, fling, fling the flaccid bags down to protect the contraption base.

How well I performed, through sixteen challenges, may offer a clue to where my strengths as a worker lie. Am I a strategic thinker? Am I quick? Do I think ahead to protect the flowers at my base when there is leisure to do so?

The game is called “Balloon Brigade”, available as a free iPad or iPhone download from Knack (http://knack.it), a San Francisco-based company that aims to analyze potential employee strengths based on game play.

Knack
http://knack.it

Author Irene McDermott talks with Bill Leff in Chicago

Bill Leff

Up all night, Chicago? Tune into Bill Leff’s show on WGN radio 720 to catch author Irene McDermott  discussing web sites that can save you money on travel.

Missed it live? Listen to the podcast: http://wgnradio.com/2013/03/26/sites-to-make-you/

Download a smarphone app to check voting rules in your state

Election ProtectionThe Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law and others have joined together “to deploy the Election Protection Smartphone Application to provide all information and resources, in English and Spanish (branded “Ya Es Hora”), that voters need to fully participate in the 2012 elections.” Download this free Android app to register to vote, verify your registration, see the voting rules for your state, and to get contact information to report a voting issue. (It does not appear that this app is available for iOS products.) Use this app to get voter ID information for your state, as well as voter registration and absentee voter information. The website also offers state voting information.

Election Protection
http://www.866ourvote.org