To contribute or to find out more about the Call of Duty Endowment, please visit:  http://www.callofdutyendowment.org.

General Jim Jones and I earlier this year.

If I sound impatient,  it is not just that other countries are ahead of us in online education, though many are — particularly in Asia.  Here are examples taken from a 2010 study by the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute:

• Singapore: In Singapore today all high schools use online learning and all teachers are trained to teach online.   Singapore is also experimenting with using the online game Second Life as a teaching tool.

• China:  Focusing on areas without sufficient schools and teachers, China is using online learning to reach 100 million students.  Eight years ago, the nation’s entire K-12 curriculum was put online.  One of the country’s education leaders, Chinese University of Hong Kong president Lawrence Lau, has reported that China considers broadband critical to overcoming poverty.  Among other innovations, China is using a broadband agreement with the United Kingdom to give Chinese K-12 students access to English educational opportunities.

• India: India is working to provide universal access to online K-12 learning by 2020.  From developing a $10 laptop for students to digitizing its K-12 curriculum, it has given online learning high priority.  It is even selecting the best teachers in math and science and will make them available to global classes, seeing online learning as an export opportunity, too.

To my mind, these countries are exactly right in their online emphasis.  Here in the United States, a 2009 report from SRI International for the U.S. Department of Education found that, “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”

As the study’s lead author told The New York Times, “Online learning today is not just better than nothing; it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction.” According to the Times, one big reason is that online learning provides “‘learning by doing,’ which many students find more engaging and useful.”

In other words, the same lessons we’ve learned in the video game world can be applied to education:  Make an experience hands on, engaging and fun, and students will come, stay and learn.

We announced an important new relationship with Tencent for Call of Duty Online in China.

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Walter distills from the book 14 lessons that he calls “the keys to [Steve’s] success.”  They range from “focus” and “simplicity” to “stay hungry, stay foolish.”  This last one means, as Jobs wrote for an Apple ad: “[T]he people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

But the Jobs lesson that spoke with particular strength to me was, “Combine the Humanities with the Sciences.“  It runs all through the book’s sections on Pixar, iTunes and the iPod, and really through all of Steve’ life.

As Steve told Walter, “Silicon Valley folks don’t really respect Hollywood creative types, and the Hollywood folks think tech folks are people you hire and never have to meet…. Pixar was one place where both cultures were respected.”

I didn’t realize it before reading the biography, but at first Jobs thought Pixar’s business would be selling rendering machines and accompanying software.  Animation was a sideline he kept alive, primarily out of a passion for the brilliant work that chief animator John Lasseter and his team were turning out.  As Isaacson tells the story, at the end of the concept presentation for the first Apple short, the five-minute-long Tin Toy, Jobs turned to Lasseter and said, “All I ask of you John, is to make it great.”  Tin Toy won the 1988 Oscar for best short animation.

So even as slow sales of hardware and software prompted cuts in staff and budgets everywhere else, Steve continued to fund expensive development projects in animation.  The result, as Isaacson concludes, was that “combining great art and digital technology would transform animated films more than anything had since 1937, when Walt Disney had given life to Snow White.”

To me, there is a great lesson in there about leading businesses – and about life: Stay focused?  Yes.  Simplify? Yes.  But most of all, whether or not your goal is changing the world, always, always follow your passion.

Bobby Kotick Attends Microsoft E3 Press Conference

At Microsoft E3 press conference. Black Ops II reveal was really well received!

The first is the mounting of Chris Burdens Metropolis II.  If you remember Red Groom’s Ruckus Manhattan, first exhibited in 1975, you could think of Metropolis II as a kind of L.A version of that celebrated work.  I say “kind of” because the two installations are very different, much as L.A. and New York are entirely different.  Ruckus was all about street life, the signature experience of Manhattan.  Metropolis II is all about toy cars and model trains racing in and out of a huge cityscape.  Using conveyor belts and gravity to propel massive flows traffic on toy car freeways, it is full of the movement and noise of transportation.  To me, it speaks of both the excitement and frustrations of our active, sprawling, rushing megapolis — one side of Southern California.

The other exhibit — California Design, 1930-1965: “Living in a Modern Way — spoke to another aspect of the Southland.  In the decade before and two decades after the Second World War, California artists, designers and architects remade what it meant for a middle class family to live in the modern world.  This exhibit showed some of the products of their work.  Others like the Bauhaus movement in inter-war Weimar Germany and Frank Lloyd Wright in this country had used modern industrial materials and simplified forms to create homes, furniture and the various accompaniments of daily life.  But the exhibit showed that here in California the results were more joyful, more democratic and, to me at least, so more exciting than anything that came before.

By the way, the museum website (www.lacma.org) has a terrific collection of videos, most of them interviews with artists.  Together they are almost as good as a visit to the museum itself.  Almost… but not quite.

Honoring our veterans is not just a matter of saluting as they march by in Fourth of July parades and thanking them for their service when we see them on the street, though such gestures are appropriate, important and appreciated.

But honoring those who have served also means going out of our way to make sure our country has a place for them when they return home from their tours of duty.

Today, in our time, there is so much more we can and should do.  According to government statistics, we have nearly a million unemployed veterans from ages 18 to 64 in the United States today.  Nearly a quarter of these veterans served in Iraq and Afghanistan.  That means that 12 percent of the veterans of those conflicts are out of work, far higher than the national average.

Among young veterans, those 18 to 24, unemployment is over 30 percent, twice the national average for their age group.

Our veterans deserve better.

This is why we at Activision started the Call of Duty Endowment in 2009, to help veterans find work.

We have partnered with such groups as Paralyzed Veterans of America, The Wounded Warrior Project, Hire Heroes USA, Swords to Plowshares, Veterans Village of San Diego, and others, investing $5 million between 2009 and the end of last year.

The result: In part thanks to contributions from the endowment, our partner organizations have helped hire over 700 veterans, provided job training and mentorship to more than 2500 others and scholarships to still more.  It has instituted scholarship programs at two community colleges – one in Texas, another in Wisconsin — that have large numbers of veterans pursuing video game development and graphic design.

Recently General James L. Jones, former National Security Advisor to President Obama and a 40-year veteran of the Marine Corps, agreed to join me as Co Chairman of the Endowment.

General Jones said, “The Call of Duty Endowment has accomplished great feats in the fight against veterans’ unemployment….  Veterans employments is an issue I am very passionate about and I am energized by the prospect of affecting change in the lives of our country’s heroes by expanding the Endowment’s efforts.

All of us involved in the Call of Duty Endowment share General Jones’ dedication to this essential cause.  That is our call of duty.

If I sound impatient, it is not just that other countries are ahead of us in online education, though many are, particularly in Asia. Here are examples taken from a 2010 study by the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute:

• Singapore: In Singapore today all high schools use online learning and all teachers are trained to teach online. Singapore is also experimenting with using the online game Second Life as a teaching tool.
• China: Focusing on areas without sufficient schools and teachers, China is using online learning to reach 100 million students. Eight years ago, the nation’s entire K-12 curriculum was put online. One of the country’s education leaders, Chinese University of Hong Kong president Lawrence Lau, has reported that China considers broadband critical to overcoming poverty. Among other innovations, China is using a broadband agreement with the United Kingdom to give Chinese K-12 students access to English educational opportunities.
• India: India is working to provide universal access to online K-12 learning by 2020. From developing a $10 laptop for students to digitizing its K-12 curriculum, it has given online learning high priority. It is even selecting the best teachers in math and science and will make them available to global classes, seeing online learning as an export opportunity, too.

To my mind, these countries are exactly right in their online emphasis. Here in the United States, a 2009 report from SRI International for the U.S. Department of Education found that, “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”
As the study’s lead author told The New York Times, “Online learning today is not just better than nothing; it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction.” According to the Times, one big reason is that online learning provides “‘learning by doing,’ which many students find more engaging and useful.”

In other words, the same lessons we’ve learned in the video game world can be applied to education. Make an experience hands on, engaging and fun, and students will come, stay and learn.

Two million of the userbase consists of premium paid members, with the Call of Duty franchise boasting 40 million active users per month. Modern Warfare 3 alone has raked in a staggering 1.6 billion hours of online gameplay.

Full article

Bobby Kotick and General Jones

Last month was an extraordinary month. General James Jones, the former National Security Advisor and Marine Commandant, was appointed as co-chair of The Call of Duty Endowment, our not-for-profit organization dedicated to finding jobs for Veterans.  I can’t thank the General enough for his willingness to help shine a brighter light on one of the most important issues of our time, the rising challenge of finding careers for our veterans.

We created The Call of Duty Endowment to fund organizations across the country and around the world to help soldiers transition back to civilian life after they have completed their military service, specifically through job training and placement.  I think most Americans would be shocked to learn of the difficulty these talented men and women face when they seek to join, or re-join, the civilian workforce.

Not many realize, for instance, that according to a report released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the jobless rate among vets ages 18-24 who have served since 9/11 is 29.1 percent. This is substantially higher than the jobless rate among non-vets in the same age bracket (17.6 percent).  It is a nothing short of a tragedy.

I am committed to raising awareness as well as helping to put veterans back to work, and our chances for success in accomplishing these goals are greatly improved with General Jones as a partner in our efforts.

The General and I have spent a great deal of time discussing the obstacles facing our returning veterans. The federal government through the Veterans Administration and efforts like Joining Forces are important initiatives in addressing the challenge of finding careers for veterans.  But we need to have business – both small and large – to recognize their responsibility to our men and women in uniform.  We need to remind ourselves that our armed forces protect the freedom and democracy we are so privileged to enjoy, and we need to make certain their sacrifices are honored through employment opportunities.

In my recent guest blog for The Huffington Post, “Message to American Business: Unemployed Veterans Deserve Call to Duty,” I urged employers to step up to the plate and replace yellow ribbons with help wanted signs.  Please share your thoughts. If you have suggestions for new employment opportunities or programs for finding jobs please share them. We need your help and ideas!