” We are a few years away from an economy based on fun,” says consultant @marwschaefer. Games are the newest layer of engagement after augmented reality, mobil and social.
(via The future of business: Six layers of customer engagement)
Beyond the hype: 5 ways that big companies are using gamification
America’s Army game has brought millions of potential recruits to the attention of the armed forces and become its most cost-effective recruitment strategy.
Other examples of gamification:
- Siemens use its online game Plantville to train plant operators
- My Marriott Hotel lets potential employees play various hotel roles, develop a basic understanding of how they work and apply for a job
- For workplace health, startups like Keas deliver “wellness as a service” to customers like Pfizer and Reed Elsevier.
- Innov8, a game-based management simulator from IBM is used to teach business process management at a thousand institutions.
Game Over For Gamification?
It’s no secret that people love the thrill of a contest. Whether it’s scoring double rewards points for purchasing NFL-licensed apparel at Sports Authority, or being entered into a trip sweepstakes for liking the neighborhood grocery store on Facebook, game-based offers are seemingly everywhere consumers click.
“Gamification is really just the tip of iceberg; it’s the first widespread application of game mechanics, but by no means the last or most powerful,” said Michael Hugos, a former CIO and author of Using Game Mechanics to Build a Better Business (O’Reilly Media, October 2012). “We live in a world where everything changes all the time, and game-like models allow employees to play the game instead of waiting around and being told what to do.”
In a business context, Hugos believes gamification can be used to improve output and productivity with three characteristics: visibility, so that everyone can see what’s going on; the authority to take action, like in a game; and having a substantive stake in the outcome.
Platform tracks employees’ individual achievements in team projects
When it comes to team projects, managers have to juggle the tasks of monitoring and rewarding individual’s good work while keeping the entire group happy. We recently saw a social network-like model gamify the rewards procedure in the form of My Corner Office, and now PropsToYou is a similar platform aiming to make it easier for management to incentivize hard work, but this time with an emphasis on monitoring individual employee progress. READ MORE…
“For organizations turning all employees into brand advocates, Dachis Group wants to help monitor that activity.”
A new tool makes it feasible for organizations to enable, manage and monitor employees’ social media accounts that are focused on the company. When employees’ email addresses are imported into the tool, it sends messages prompting them to supply their relevant social media identities. However, monitoring is at the level of public posts rather than private social media content.
Social media managers can then scan a listing of employees and their social media accounts, scored by the frequency and reach of their postings, or drill down for more detail on individuals. A messaging system built into the application can be used to distribute suggested messages to be shared, as well as best practices information. Identified employees with their own accounts get access to an employee portal that lets them see the effect of their social media efforts and measure themselves against other employees on a leaderboard. Via The BrainYard - InformationWeek
Gamifying the Executive Suite | ReadWriteWeb
It’s easy to think of gaming as kids stuff, and the behavior-driving techniques honed by the gaming industry limited to getting the unwashed Internet masses to play Farmville or boost engagement in marketing campaigns. But it turns out that the same motivators that get the adrenaline pumping in a 15-year-old gamer also drive executives. So those gamification techiques are also being used to nudge corporate executives into performing desired functions - including completing online training programs in large multinational corporations.
Motivating frontline employees
Fear is a non-starter in terms of motivation. Unfortunately, all too often that’s what organizations use to drive performance in their call centers. By contrast, social environments, combined with well-defined metrics and meaningful rewards, can create positive programs that increase employee and thereby customer satisfaction.
Organizations that use crowdsourcing and gamification tactics, according to this article (registration required), create an enjoyable and productive work environment:
… collaboration between agents and their peers not only serves as an effective motivator, it can also provide a great benefit to the entire organization. For instance, setting up a knowledgebase that also allows agents to ask their peers questions, can be socially gratifying and motivating for individual agents who assist each other, while helping to build a central repository of data for all employees to leverage. Gamification can also be tied in by assigning badges to, or ranking the employees who participate and collaborate most often in the conversation.
The peer recognition inherent in these techniques, especially those that use a knowledgebase, invites all frontline employees to contribute. Traditional recognition programs, on the other hand, tend to focus only on the top 2 percent that the organization can afford to send to Hawaii or call up on stage at a ceremony.
7 potential pitfalls of gamification
Here are warnings about gamification done badly, without longterm commitment and without designing programs that can truly engage participants —
Another article about gamification. We remain fascinated by this trend and the article has some good thoughts about the issues around gamification.
(via socialintel)
Conversion of a Gamification Skeptic The a-ha moment for the writer came when he randomized his to-do list and turned it into a board game.
Click! and you’re included
The New York Times discusses voting clickers, or audience response systems, as a “new form of transparency for crowd psychology” that shows participants where they stand relative to others in their crowd, or on their team.
Clicker software satisfies this curiosity by immediately displaying a bar graph of responses in the room.
Clickers are also being used in team-building exercises. Paula Miller, an education coordinator for Whole Foods Market, purchased 105 of them last year. At employee meetings, she might hang up a white bed sheet near the cash registers and put up a slide with a multiple-choice vote about, say, where to hold the annual holiday party. Or she can create team competitions. Game on: bakery workers will click in as A; butchers, B, and so forth.
