Professor Game Podcast

Kevin Allen has had a 35-year career in the global ad industry where he was key to the transformation of powerhouses McCann Worldgroup, the Interpublic Group and Lowe Worldwide. Kevin worked with brands like MasterCard—developing the famous "Priceless" campaign, brought in $1 billion in revenues and was part of the mayor's advisory team that prepared the way for the successful New York City renaissance. Kevin is the best selling author of The Hidden Agenda: A Proven Way to Win Business and Create a Following. Kevin then became a founder and chairman of E.I. Games, creators of award-winning emotional intelligence-based Business Training Games (which counts Cisco, Duke University and Arizona State among its clients). He is also a Fellow at Ball State University, an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Florida Atlantic University, and a visiting lecturer at Columbia University and the Harvard School of Design.

Kerstin Oberprieler is award-winning gamification designer and Co-Founder of PentaQuest. She is also studying her Ph.D. in gamification. As a leading gamification academic and practitioner, Kerstin is pushing the boundaries of what is possible with gamification, building gamified solutions that are intuitive, highly effective, and engaging. Her recent clients include private businesses, government, not-for-profit organizations and schools, all seeking to engage their employees and learners through gamification. Her gamification experience includes card games, board games, digital games, and team and workplace-based gamification experiences and platforms.

Dr. Dennis L. Kappen, Professor at the Faculty of Applied Sciences and Technology, Humber College, Toronto, Canada, is a leading expert in UX design, human interaction design, industrial design, ergonomics and human factors, with more than 25 years experience in the field. His recent doctorate (2017) in Computer Science from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada, focused on assistive technology, older adults and the use of gameful technology. His Ph.D. dissertation "Adaptive Engagement of Older Adults through Gamification" was in the research and design of assistive technologies utilizing gamification strategies, facilitating physical activity among older adults' through motivational affordances and gameful technology. Dr. Kappen's gamification framework called the "Kaleidoscope of Effective Gamification" (2013) has been well-received by academia and researchers as a tool providing a step-by-step methodology for designing gamification applications.

Sue, for more than three decades, ran a national PR agency that focused first on tech and then on the game industry. The Bohle Company was Microsoft's first PR agency. She launched Epson America. And then she turned to games, helping create the Game Developers Conference, promoting Penny Arcade Expos and working for most of the big video game companies.Along the way, Sue realized that there was something addictive about gameplay. Those kids would forget about everything else and just spend hours playing games. She began to wonder if the same gameplay elements could be used to engage students.In 2007, she launched the first Serious Play Conference. Attendees include teachers interested in using games for K12, college faculty, game developers and instructional designers, corporate and health care training professionals.In 2014, Sue gave up her agency and now just focuses on promoting game-based learning.

Melissa Pilakowski teaches English/Language Arts in a small rural high school in Valentine, Nebraska. An advocate of innovation and gamified learning, she also hosts #games4ed on Thursday evenings. She uses blended learning and coaches other teachers trying to integrate technology into their classrooms. In general, Melissa is interested in anything related to literacy, innovation, technology, and how students learn.

With a background in neuroscience, computer science, and psychology, Amy Jo Kim is part game designer, part web community architect.Her design credits include Rock Band, The Sims, Ultima Online, eBay, family.com, nytimes.com, indiegogo.com. and numerous startups. She's well known for her 2000 book, Community Building on the Web, and her work applying game design to Web and mobile services.Kim holds a Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Washington and is an adjunct Game Design professor at Stanford and at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Betty Adamou is the Founder of Research Through Gaming, Author of Games and Gamification in Market Research (Kogan Page Publishing, 2019), and a serious game designer specializing in market research and marketing.Adamou is the inventor of ResearchGames™ (a new research methodology) where she designs games as instruments for consumer research on behalf of Fortune 500 brands. She is frequently invited to give keynote presentations and university guest lectures to share her business cases,expertise and research to a global audience.Betty has been voted "1 of 7 women shaping the future of market research" and is a multi-award winning entrepreneur and innovator, including the NGMR Disruptive Innovator and Enfield Entrepreneur of the Year awards. She has been noted both as a 'pioneer' and 'revolutionary' in the research field and is frequently voted as a top researcher and researcher of influence. Adamou is regularly interviewed to share her unique work and customers success stories, including several newspapers and magazines, podcasts and radio stations (including BBC Radio). She notes her greatest achievements as climbing Hong Kong's Lantau Peak, writing a book, and achieving a 97% completion rate among teenage audiences.Research Through Gaming is based in the UK and since its inception in 2011, has worked with a diverse range of global brands, and has been in the GRIT Top 50 Most Innovative firms twice.

Pre-school teacher, learning experience designer for virtual and face-to-face. Clara also trains instructors, coordinates projects and manages learning communities. She is particularly dedicated to gamification, escape room design, visual thinking, storytelling and digital and communicational skills. Her work happens in several learning institutions (INTEF, CAM, Telefónica, UCM, training centers…), in face-to-face settings and often about e-learning. She is focused on learning innovation and is constantly creating active processes to improve the quality and efficacy of teaching.

Zsolt Olah is a creative learning consultant at Kineo with over 15 years of L&D experience. Zsolt is a frequent speaker at learning conferences on the subject of engagement and game thinking for L&D. He was in the top 50 authors of the year on elearningindustry.com for two consecutive years, and he's also published a gameful book, called Engage the WORL&D!, exploring six essential traits of instructional design. With a degree in information technology, Zsolt's been not only talking the game but walking the game with various workshops using game engines and sharing his prototypes online. When he used to have free time he wrote a feature film screenplay that was a finalist in an international competition.

This week we have quite a different episode. I've been asked before what is it that I do in gamification aside from this podcast and it all started creating interactive and engaging learning experiences at IE Business School's Publishing.