Gamification Summit Rolls Into Up San Francisco
Gamification Summit 2012
The Gamification Summit is a fantastic opportunity to learn from the industry’s leaders. It’s being held in San Francisco, California from June 19th to the 21st. It boasts an array of workshops, lectures, networking and other events with some of the experts of this diverse and growing field.
Get Insider Information on this Rapidly Growing Gamification Market
The Gartner Group recently predicted that 70% of the Forbes Global 2000 will be using Gamification as early as 2015. M2 Researched agreed, adding that an expected $2 Billion will be spent on related technologies.
The Gamification Summit is the perfect chance to get in the know and stay on the cutting edge of this incredibly influential field.
Gamification: No One-Trick Pony
As the Summit is sure to demonstrate, Gamification isn’t a technology that can be relegated to a single field. Its applications range from consumer marketing to health care to human resources to education and beyond.
The Summit is a three day experience that shouldn’t be missed by anyone looking to bring their company into the next generation of technological innovation.
Some Words about Gamification
In case you’re not convinced by Gamification, there are a plethora of examples of how serious leaders in various industries are taking it and the implications it has for the way that business is done in the future.
When it comes to business-consumer relations, Joe Rork of Ford Motors said that Gamification “allows consumers to have fun,” and Esteban Contreras of Samsung USA identified it as one of the keys for “better and more meaningful experiences,” for customers.
In terms of its implications within businesses, Richie Etwaru of UBS called it an excellent method for “encouraging and celebrating preferred employee behaviors;” one which “unlocks a new category of incentives for organizations to use.”
Gamification is one of the many ways that socially focused technologies are working to improve the way that business is done. Gartner predicts that, by 2014, gamified applications will be “driving 50% of all innovation.”
Interact and Engage with Fellow Collaborators
Gamification is focused on interaction and engagement. In much the same way, the Gamification Summit is focused on bringing together the leaders and the uninitiated of the soon-to-be gamified world in order to promote their interaction to speed the adaptation of these revolutionary technologies in all areas of industry.
Busification Pioneering Gamification in South East Asia
Busification Stands to Play a Major Role in the Growing Gamification Industry in South East Asia
For Busification the future of gaming and Gamification in Southeast Asia is looking bright indeed. A recent report by Channel News Asia highlighted the growth of the gaming industry in the region. This growth mirrors that of the global gaming market, which is expected to reach US$70 billion by 2015.
Singapore – Hotspot for Gamification in South East Asia
Singapore is fast becoming a hotpsot for Gamification. With even gamified toilets in their airport bathrooms (yes, you read that correctly – touchscreens in every stall allow users to rate the quality and cleanliness), Singapore is continueing its tradition of being a leader of innovation in the region. It is this latest trend – the use of Gamification in marketing and the workplace – that has become increasingly popular.
Excellence is Rewarded With Gamification
In a talk titled, “The Game of Collaboration” at GovCamp Singapore, Roan Yong, an expert in the area of social collaboration, spoke about the differences between traditional workplace methods for rewarding and recognizing employees, and those used in Gamification.
He followed up the Q&A session in his blog, writing, “Gamification incentives are tied to the intrinsic motivation… you need gamification in a company to make work meaningful by giving task autonomy, making progress visible, and recognising people who have achieved personal mastery.”
Ways of implementing game mechanics in the workplace in order to achieve the kind of engagement that Yong is talking about has been the at the center of much discussion recently. The first Gamification Summit in New York that offered “certification in gamification” was sold out in less than a month.
With the desire for gamified business practices, one Singapore start-up in particular is looking to satisfy this local and global need. Busification is focused on using Gamification to motivate and incentivise employees in the workplace. And is it is a SaaS applictaion hosted in the Cloud, this new technology is widely accessible and the theoretical results that Yong discussed will soon become a reality.
A Bright Future For Gamification
Gamification is not simply a short-lived fad or a technical buzz-word. It is becoming more and more of a necessity in business, particulalry with the rise of the tech-savy Generation Y and all of those that will follow. Traditional methods are failing and the one solution that produces the desired results has proven to be Gamification. Busification is priming up to be a leader in Gamification in the region. Gamification is young now, but like game industry in Singapore and the rest of Southeast Asia – it has a bright future.
Gamification Company BigDoor Ramp Up Their Logo
BigDoor Logo Change Reflects Gamification Maturity
BigDoor’s revamped logo is both a result of, and a visual representation of, the evolving gamification marketplace in which they operate. A large aspect of this evolving marketplace is Gamification.
Logo Launch Coincides With New Gamified Rewards Programme
In April, BigDoor announced the launch of their Gamified Rewards Program. This program, which provides a straightforward way for online publishers to provide users with a gamified online experience, also prompted a change in the company logo.
What’s in a Logo?
You might be wondering what the big deal is. Well, there are several ways in which this new and improved logo directly effects what BigDoor has to provide for its customers.
Simple, Straightforward, and Accessible
Look at the perspective of the original logo. Sure, it’s three dimensional and shiny and looks very professional. However, the perspective makes the viewer feel small and insignificant. The door is large and imposing. It doesn’t look very inviting.
With the latest redesign, quite the opposite effect is achieved. The logo now matches the products provided by the company: friendly, easy-to-use, and with a beauty achieved through minimalism. Rather than impressing via visual wizardry, BigDoor impresses with results and sheer usability.
BigDoor’s Thoughts on the Matter
In the company’s announcement of their new logo, they identified several key qualities that they wanted to illustrate: “sleek, approachable, trustworthy, versatile, and strong.”
Their new logo certainly demonstrates these and it does so by placing the customer on equal footing with the company, much like their gamified applications provide users and content providers with a way to interact that is transparent, flexible, social, and personalized.
Spotify Becomes Gamified with SaleForce Rypple
Spotify Embraces Gamification With Rypple
Spotify is one of the latest socially focused companies to take the gamification world by storm. It has brought hope to a music industry that was looking questionable, at best, in the face of the evolving technology of the internet and social media.
As is often demonstrated by the parabolic rise and demise of companies like Starbucks, it’s all too easy get carried away by rapid growth and lose focus of what made such a company so successful in the first place. Spotify is one company that is taking advantage of Gamification to reverse this trend.
Despite massive success and growth, with the use of gamified platforms like SaleForce Rypple, Spotify has been able to remain a leader in innovation and stay focused on the task at hand.
Spotify and Rypple: Straight from the Horse’s Mouth
Spotify representative Johan Persson offered some insights into how the company was taking advantage of Rypple and why it was so effective at the recent conference Cloudforce London.
The Constant Connection of Socially Focused Gamification
One of the key points that Persson identified about Rypple was its ability to keep all of the employees connected 24/7, no matter where in the world they were. Updates are broadcast across a peer network that includes supervisors as well as fellow employees. Everyone is in the loop all of the time.
One of the great advantages that this provides, in Persson’s view, is the sense of community that it creates. Employees are no longer lone rangers sent off to tackle their own individual tasks, but part of a large a vibrant community that is constantly communicating with one another.
Peer-to-Peer Recognition in Gamification
Another important aspect for gamification that Persson brought up was the benefit of a peer-to-peer recognition system. Employees are able to give each other the virtual equivalent of a high-five for a job well done, and everyone gets to see it. In individual employee profiles, one’s lifelong list of congratulatory badges is on display.
Supervisors can provide recognition as well. Additionally, they can incorporate peer-reviews into their quarterly assessment. This not only ensures that such assessments remain transparent, fair, and unbiased, but also reduces the amount of time that managers spend on these reports since Rypple essentially writes it for them.
Real-Time Means Real Results for Gamified Workplaces
The third aspect of Rypple that Persson was excited to describe was the fact that everything happens in real time. When a project lead announces a particular goal is finished, its broadcast throughout the company immediately. The same goes for peer-to-peer interactions and supervisor-to-employee interactions, such as promotions.
Real-time interactions mean that there isn’t a moment wasted. Goals are completed, congratulations are shared, and then it’s on to the next one. Dynamic results allow for a seamless workflow and an outstanding increase in productivity.
Gamification Can Transform Education
Gamification and Education: Revitalizing the Classroom and Engaging Students
Gamification is in for a long ride, educational systems are notoriously slow to take advantage of the latest technological innovations. It’s perfectly acceptable to take a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach, but the fact of the matter is, educations certainly is broken.
A recent study by MIT noted that the “default” school environment produces a plethora of undesirable responses. There is a disturbing lack of engagement between the majority of students and the material they are taught.
The need for “standardized” education alienates students by forcing every one of them to squeeze into the same mold, the same patterns of thought and problem solving. When students fail to do this, they give up, drop out, and lose all interest and motivation to learn.
Where Gamification Comes In
That same study by MIT also had this to say about Gamification features:
“Game players regularly exhibit persistence, risk taking, attention to detail, and problem solving, all behaviors that ideally would be regularly represented in school.”
The fact that games have perfected the methods needed for fostering such positive responses is undeniable. Each week, over 3 billion hours are spent worldwide on video games. Wouldn’t it be something if the same could be said of education?
Well, that is exactly why educators need to look to Gamification as the way of the future if they want to have a real and positive impact on their students. The first step in this process is identifying exactly how games achieve this level of engagement and response.
How Games Motivate Players: 3 Key Properties
There are three main ways in which the most successfully games engage players and maintain that level of engagement over a substantial period of time. They are:
- Progress Tracking
- Returns on Time Spent
- Continuous Learning
Progress Tracking
As players move through a game, their progress is tracked every step of the way. This progress is visually represented by things such as levels and points. At any point in time, a player is well aware of their status within the game. They know how far they have come and how far they have to go.
Returns on Time Spent
Modern games know that players don’t want to waste their time. While it is certainly true that games are a leisure activity, modern users want something to show for their time invested. In the past, this was as simple as a High Scores system.
In today’s games, there are a multitude of systems in place to reward players for their efforts and all of these systems encourage collaboration and sharing. By encouraging connection between players, they are recognized by both the game and the players with whom they interact and share.
Continuous Learning
Within games, learning is constant. New features are unlocked or discovered, and more often than not, these discoveries are exciting surprises. Players never know what may be around the next corner and this constantly keeps them coming back for more.
Gamified Education: The Methods and Desired Results
Using these techniques, a gamified education can be made a reality. However, it is important to note that such an education doesn’t attempt to disguise itself as a game. Rather, by adapting these methods to the educational process, educators can make education interactive, engaging, and most importantly, meaningful for students. Education must find ways to make students care about their education, to make them interested in the material at hand, and to allow them to apply this material to the real world, just as games do within the virtual worlds they present to their players.
Squarz Makes Deals Fun With Gamification
Squarz Uses Gamfication To Help People Win Big
Everyone loves a good deal, but what if using gamification could also get you the chance to win an even better deal? Throw in a sporting event, and you’ve got Squarz, a sweepstakes that uses gamification to add an extra element of fun to specials and promotions.
Based on the popular sports pool Office Squares, every promotion on Squarz is tied to an upcoming sporting event and incorporates a game board with 100 squares. Each participant is assigned a spot on the grid, and the winning square is determined by the score or some other stat from the event.
Since there’s no way to predict who might win, it’s essentially a micro-sweepstakes in which everyone has a 1-in-100 chance to win the big prize. But, unlike Office Squares, everyone walks away a “winner,” because every player still gets the deal.
Squarz Founder Foufas Explains Sweepstakes & Gamification
Squarz founder and CEO Chris Foufas explains how he came up with the idea.
“Every year, around the Super Bowl and NCAA tournament, I would see everyone passing around their office square pools, and everyone would get in,” he says.
“I saw this great game that everyone loved to play — I would see people playing it in restaurants — it was everywhere. And no one out there was even touching it on a commercial level. I saw the opportunity to tie in a deal or promotion, as well as the chance to win.”
The site launched in September and now has about 10,000 users. Squarz is also starting to expand to restaurants and sports bars, so that when customers come in to watch a game, they can sign up and have a chance to win prizes like drinks, appetizers or gift cards throughout the game.
As Foufas points out, Groupon made the coupon cool, and now Squarz is trying to make the sweepstakes cool. “There’s a social element, and there is always a promotion or offer tied in,” he says. “In the end it’s that chance to win that everyone seems to love.”
Badgeville Powers Reality TV Show
Gamification Storms Reality TV With Badgeville
Gamification, the use of game-like rewards in non-game applications, is moving into reality TV. Badgeville will provide gamified achievements to the multiplatform reality TV series Ford Escape Routes, where people compete in a road trip competition between cities across the USA.
The series is being created by digital agency Rokkan and viewers at home will participate in real-time on EscapeRoutes.com, helping their favorite team win. The viewers can help out the teams by playing interactive challenges and games online that Badgeville provides.
“Badgeville’s technology enabled the team at Rokkan to easily deploy their strategic, creative, and technical visions around this new interactive form of entertainment,”
said Jim Blackwelder, executive technical director at Rokkan.
“We selected Badgeville as one of our key technology partners because of their flexible and powerful gamification platform. Working with Badgeville’s unique features, we were able to easily build a sophisticated and unique gamified user experience that couldn’t have been achieved otherwise.”
