I was out doing yard work the other afternoon when I saw something I have never seen before: two hummingbirds calmly sharing the same feeder.

Jane and I always wondered why the feeders we bought bothered with multiple perches and spigots. Normal ruby-throated hummingbird behavior is highly territorial. A bird finding a feeder occupied will try to chase the other bird off–and the other will fight viciously to maintain its prize. Just last night, two birds buzzed by my head so close I could her the buzz of their wings, completely oblivious to my existence in ways they never are when I try to get close to them while they are feeding at this stage of the year.

But there they were–the two of them–perched on the feeder in the southwest corner of the lawn and sharing dinner like old friends. I could not get close enough to make out whether they were an adult and juvenile or a male and female mated pair. Eventually, one flew off to the north. The other, when it left a good while later, headed south. I have not seen the behavior repeated since. And I have seen plenty of territorial squabbles in the interim.

Still, there was something hopeful in that experience. I spend a lot of time working with different cancer organizations. Too many of them see each other as competition and newcomers as some kind of threat to their position. I suppose a certain amount of that is inevitable. Humans like to compete at everything–even charity and altruism. And competition does not have to be a bad thing. The fact is, it often is anything but. I spent last night reading some things about a concept called gamification. The theory tries to take advantage of the fact humans like to play games and establish themselves through badges and other forms of recognition in order to get people to undertake specific kinds of actions that will either be good for them or the company using the methods or both.

Foursquare and Words with Friends are examples of this. I have to admit that I don’t share the fascination others have with these two games in particular. But as I read about them, I realized my interest in role-playing games shared many of the same elements–and the same elements existed in the pinball and electronic games of my youth.

Someone wrote to us yesterday asking if there were some way we could get the information on this website shared more widely. I happened to be online at the time with one of the people who works on the technological underpinnings of the site and passed the question on to him. His response, once he understood what the writer was getting at, was gamification.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. Dungeons & Dragons and similar games gave me a good understanding of the power of combined arms and small unit tactics–not to mention diplomacy and interpersonal and leadership skills I still use today. And we certainly need to spread the word about this particular cancer far more effectively than we are doing now.

But I don’t want us fighting over the feeders either. There is something to be said for a quiet, shared dinner with friends and family.