My favorite talk from TED2010 was by Jane McGonical and her theory was that kids around the world spend enormous amounts of time and effort playing games. They

My favorite talk from TED2010 was by Jane McGonical and her theory was that kids around the world spend enormous amounts of time and effort playing games. They should not be considered losers for gaming so much, everyone else is the loser for not knowing how to tap their energy. Her idea is not so much applying game dynamics to real life, but changing existing games slightly so that people solve more important problems (think ending world hunger by leveling up). You can find several games she created on http://www.avantgame.com/ http://www.avantgame.com/ The talk is not yet online, but I"ll post it on HN when it comes out.