The ability to direct attention is extremely powerful. Everything around us—an apple, a pen, a computer—can be viewed as aggregated human attention. Game play involves extremely focused attention. Game play, as an energy source, is currently like wind: raw, untapped, and deliciously abundant. One of the best examples of productive gaming is Fold It.

Fold It is a protein folding game that helps scientists understand how proteins might fold themselves. Proteins naturally fold themselves into specific structures and these structures relate to the protein’s function.

As people score points by turning and folding twisted protein strands, the software catalogs unique ways of folding proteins discovered during play. Fold It was a surprisingly addictive and fun game. Through it, scientists were able to channel the attention of many minds and explore possibilities that would otherwise be unduly time consuming and expensive. Proteins feature prominently in the quest to understand and develop treatments for diseases like HIV/AIDS (HIV-1 protease and reverse transcriptase proteins), cancer (p53 tumor suppressor protein), and Alzheimer’s (amyloid-beta precursor protein).

Fold It is a highly specific visual thinking tool that taps into our natural pattern finding abilities and the little jolts of dopamine we get whenever we discover a novel solution. Like Fold It, visual thinking tools and activities tap into our natural urge to play. When the information digesting, problems solving, decision making and explanations involved in work are transformed into or take on the aspects of play, several things happen. One immediate effect is the shifting of the energy dynamic: instead of being drained and exhausted, we are refreshed and enlivened.