Gamification Innovation and the Enterprise

Javed Mohammed Innovation and Marketing Consultant

k2film@live.com

alchemyofinnovation.wordpress.com A K2Vista Production

Agenda

• Games Vs. Gamification

• Why it’s important

• How does it work

• Where doesn’t it work

• Conclusions

72% of American households play computer or video games

• Soon we will all be gamers

One Billion Gamers

Demographic Shift

• Generation Y: • (Echo Boomers or Millenniums:

Born: 1977-1994)

• Sophisticated, technology wise, immune to most traditional marketing and sales pitches... exposed to it all since early childhood.

http://www.socialmarketing.org/newsletter/features/generation3.htm

Demographic Shift

• Generation Z • Born: 1995-2012

• Gen Z kids will grow up with a highly sophisticated media and computer environment and will be more Internet savvy and expert than their Gen Y forerunners.

92% of two-year olds play games!

10 benefits of playing games

1. Joy

2. Relief

3. Love

4. Surprise

5. Pride

• Curiosity

• Excitement

• Awe & Wonder

• Contentment

• Creativity

Enterprise and Gaming: like oil and water? Not really

Games vs. Gamification

• Games: getting people to voluntarily engage in an activity or goal with certain rules and results.

• Gamification: embedding game mechanics and game design techniques into new kinds of work that engages employees, customers and partners.

Games vs. Gamification

Narrative

Engagement

Levels

Leader boards

Points

Games Gamification

FUN

Engagement

Levels

Leader boards

Points Useful Activity

Why Gamification is important

• Avg 21 yr old spent 10,000 hours gaming.

• They are tomorrows workforce.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1629214s http://researchkart.wordpress.com

Levels of engagement at work

• Frustration/Anxiety

• Boredom

• Somewhere in the middle

• Fully Engaged

Why Gamification is important

• Only a 1/3 of the workforce is engaged (lost productivity costs the US economy $370B annually. (Gallup)

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1629214s http://researchkart.wordpress.com

Why Gamification is important

• By 2015, more than 50% of organizations that manage innovation processes will gamify them (Gartner)

• By 2016, 70% of Global 2000 companies will have at least one gamified application(Gartner)

• ResearchKart says Gamification industry to grow to a 3.6 billion dollar market between 2012-2017

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1629214s http://researchkart.wordpress.com

Web users trading Virtual Goods grew

from 13% to 21% in 2011

What if we could bring the positive benefits of gaming into the real world?

• Greater productivity

• Employee satisfaction

• Solve real world problems

• Continue innovation legacy

• By adding game-like elements we can increase participation and engagement in any experience

Kinds of engagement

• Engage the senses: watch video, listen audio, see photo

• Volunteer information

• Answer a survey

• Visit/Recommend affiliate sites

The Challenge is to find common ground

Games Gamification

FUN Useful Activity

Individual interest

Business interest

Successful use of gamification in business

• Frequent Flyer programs – Earn travel miles

– Earn badges, silver, gold, platinum

– Challenges: fly 2 segments and earn a bonus 5000 miles

• Credit Card rewards

• Nike+ and iPod – Gamified exercise

• Salesforce leaderboard

At its core gamification

• Engages the ego by challenging it in someway, so that you can be ranked doing an activity wrt your peers.

• There’s a goal and there’s competition. • If you can be the best xyz player in your family,

friends, co-workers, city, country, universe,… you get the picture.

• As a business your goal is to engage the user to perform a particular behavior. Sounds nasty, but if used for good they can become fans or even evangelists.

To make applications more engaging

• Pay attention to visual design

• Build in novelty/uncertainty

• Incorporate social elements

Incentive

• Reward

• Status

• Achievement

• Self Expression

• Competition

• Altruism

Creating incentives

• To get people to participate in innovation, requires different incentives.

1. Recognition: A mention in the newsletter, lunch with an executive, Leaderboard

2. Competition: Leaderboard

3. Economic incentives: A financial or other type of gift

4. Altruistic reasons: if self motivated no need for rewards

Game Mechanics: Intrinsic & Extrinsic motivation

• Points

• Levels

• Challenges

• Virtual Goods

• Leaderboards

• Gifting & Charity

Gamification Mechanics: Progress

• Badges: Goals, Rewards, Status

• Leaderboards Comparison , Competition

• Points Tracking & Feedback

• Incentives Rewards

Personalization, Pride & Pace

• Players should be allowed to customize & express themselves – eg Username, Avatar, Look/feel

• Need to build a connection with the user and appeal to their pride, ego.

• The pacing and rewards should be in the sweet spot to keep them hooked and become a repeat customer

Mastery & levels

Master

Expert

Novice

The Journey and Experience

• The whole experience of onboarding , and the journey through the game must be a narrative that piques their curiosity and has sufficient attraction or rewards that it keeps them coming back.

Gamification: finding the zen

Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

challenge < talents + abilities => Bored

challenge > talents + abilities => Stressed

challenge =talents + abilities => Flow

Intrinsic motivation and the 16 basic desires theory

1. Acceptance, the need for approval 2. Curiosity, the need to learn 3. Eating, the need for food 4. Family, the need to raise children 5. Honor, the need to be loyal to the traditional

values of one's clan/ethnic group 6. Idealism, the need for social justice 7. Independence, the need for individuality 8. Order, the need for organized, stable,

predictable environments

Professor Steven Reiss

Intrinsic motivation and the 16 basic desires theory

1. Physical activity, the need for exercise

2. Power, the need for influence of will

3. Romance, the need for sex and for beauty

4. Saving, the need to collect

5. Social contact, the need for friends (peer relationships)

6. Social status, the need for social standing/importance

7. Tranquility, the need to be safe

8. Vengeance, the need to strike back and to compete

Professor Steven Reiss

Can apply Crowdsourcing and Gamification to address

innovation Idea Generation

Enterprise Collaboration

Idea Markets

Prediction Markets

Jams

Challenge Events

Things to beware of in gamification

• Bolting on points, reward, badges does not create gamifcation experience

• Bribing with real or virtual currency and rewards may only work in the short term

• Reputation online is not equal to achievement offline

• In order to compete people can game the system so spam filters need to detect this

Parting thoughts

• Gamification as with all new concepts and technologies is cool and can solve, improve, address some real world challenges.

• Many practioners of alchemy pursued the elixir of life or immortality but it is not the path to utopia

• The following are some questions to think about.

Parting thoughts

• How will your customers, users experience in the real world the challenge you are trying to address?

• What other forms of media are involved?

• Is your core product, service compelling? If its not gamification may provide the sizzle but not the steak.

• Gamification is a long term outlook, rather than a short-term fix so look at your time horizon and what resources you can commit to it.

• As with innovation, ROI using gamification is hard to measure. There are quantitative and qualitative measures. Define your success.

Reference: Gamification 101 by Bunchball

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