The Gamification Quest

This week on Gamification Talk Radio, we finish exploring the seven continents on our journey, and review Rules, Rewards, and Results.

Level 5:  Siberian Express – Why would they want to play?

As you create your gamification experience, think of creative features that will appeal to a variety of intrinsic and/or extrinsic motivators of your players. Define what core drivers of motivation will be most dominant in each phase of the experience. For example, in your onboarding phase you can get your players in quickly with some simple extrinsic motivators. The longer your players are in your game, you’ll want to design for different motivators such as: 

1. Autonomy—the feeling of control of your own destiny. How can you give your player choices or control within a system that works for you to achieve your business objectives?
2. Mastery—building competence and skill. How can you help your players feel smart, capable, or that they are getting better at something?
3. Purpose—connecting with something greater than yourself. Can you use a dynamic story line to give your players the sense that their involvement with your product or service is making them better, stronger, or more powerful?

Dangers in the Cold: 

• Don’t make the extrinsic metrics or rewards the main event
• Don’t alienate your players with a shallow, manipulative game; give them as much autonomy as you can
• Don’t focus only on the extrinsic, dig deeper and tap into their intrinsic motivations to keep them engaged with you 

Level 6:  Forbidden Land—What keeps them in the game?

How does the game reward your players and keep them in the game? Build with a variety of formal game elements or mechanics such as collecting gems or coins, points and leveling up, level challenges and leaderboards, collaboration, competition, chance, count-down clocks, second chances, cues, meaningful feedback… the possibilities are endless. This doesn’t mean that you should pile on as many of these formal game elements as possible. Think of going on a 6-week global expedition. You have to pack wisely, only taking those things you need to take. If it doesn’t fit… it can’t go—you may need to put it on a shelf for a future adventure. Your players will become engaged users when you help them hit the "sweet spot" of motivation, reward, pain aversion, opportunity, need fulfillment and social context through a variety of well-planned game mechanics.

Dangers in the Orient: 

• Don’t forget:  game mechanics are visible effects —NOT the experience itself
• Without a well-designed and interesting experience, mechanics add clutter and confusion.
• Dusting game mechanics on a process or product will NOT miraculously make that experience more exciting

Level 7:  Exotic Expedition – What’s it like to play?

What kind of experience does the player have as a result of playing the game? What's your story or epic adventure? Stories are a powerful way to generate an emotional response and helps to keep your players engaged in the experience. What does it look like? Do the aesthetics of the game express your key message? Do they add value as far as the target audience is concerned? Technology - What are they playing on? The choice of platform and technology will have a huge impact on what kind of gamification program can be built. And last but NOT least, is it FUN? If not, why should anybody play it?

Dangers Downunder:

• Remember:  Gamification ≠ Technology – Although technology can greatly enhance your project – it is foremost about the players experience.
• Don’t focus on the ‘bells, whistles, and glitter – but DO make it aesthetically pleasing for your players.
• Don’t forget the FUN!

As with any new process, you’ll succeed when you’re willing to evaluate and adapt. You’ll examine both the game mechanics and the behaviors that are critical to motivate the behaviors that you need. Both will change as you learn about your players, and as they learn how to play your game. Remember, we want to make this fun for them, so that you will successfully achieve your business objectives.

Think through and answer:  How will gamification help you to achieve your business objectives?

About Your Host: A gamification speaker and designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as the #1 Gamification Guru in the world by UK-based Leaderboarded. She hosts a weekly Gamification Talk Radio program, and is author of the book Totally Awesome Training Activity Guide: Put Gamification to Work for You. Monica’s niche is gamification techniques that can be used within the framework of corporate talent development.

Connect with Monica:

Twitter @monicacornetti.
Website: www.monicacornetti.com and www.sententiagames.com  

Using the metaphor of a World Explorer, Monica takes you inside her hands-on, gamified playshop to explore the beauty, awe, marvels, and dangers of the seven levels of successful gamification. You'll learn how to plan for your journey and pack wisely to make every item count.

This week we continue and explore to more of the seven continents on our journey, and about keeping score and how the game is played.

Level 3:  Jungle Standoff – How are you keeping score?

How will you know the gamification program you put in place is driving the behaviors you need in order to meet your business objectives? What are the KPIs or benchmarks you will use to measure progress? Define the business metrics or quantifiable output indicators on the basis of achieving your business objective. Decide what numbers you must hit in order for your gamification program to be deemed successful.

Dangers in the Jungle: 

• Don’t record and measure everything
• Don’t produce numerous and complicated reports and dashboards
• Don’t count behaviors that don’t matter - focus on those that drive business objectives

Level 4:  Saharan Crossing – How is the game played?

Determine the desired actions you want your players to do. What do you want to improve and identify the particular behaviors that have the potential to drive the greatest benefit to your program? Can you build on any of their existing habits?

Dangers in the Desert:

• Don’t develop a list of behaviors to drive and then fail to track and measure
• Don't gamify a behavior that doesn't actually provide value to your players
• Beware of Unintended Consequences

Keep an eye out for unintended consequences - once you are able to measure the behaviors you want to gamify, you must watch out for the unintended consequences of each of these behaviors. Cheating is one of the most common unintended consequences of gamification so remember to build in stop points.

About Your Host: A gamification speaker and designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as the #1 Gamification Guru in the world by UK-based Leaderboarded. She hosts a weekly Gamification Talk Radio program, and is author of the book Totally Awesome Training Activity Guide: Put Gamification to Work for You. Monica’s niche is gamification techniques that can be used within the framework of corporate talent development.

Connect with Monica Twitter @monicacornetti.

Website: www.monicacornetti.com and www.sententiagames.com  

Using the metaphor of a World Explorer, Monica takes you inside her hands-on, gamified playshop to explore the beauty, awe, marvels, and dangers of the seven levels of successful gamification. You'll learn how to plan for your journey and pack wisely to make every item count.

This week to get started we explore two of the seven continents on our journey, and begin with business objectives and who is playing our game (our learners).

Level 1:  Urban Commander – Why are we playing?

Starting your gamification journey without knowing your overall business objectives will take you on a road to nowhere. Get agreement on what the real business objectives are. Why are we playing?

Beware of Urban Dangers: 

• Don't try to fix a broken product or service with gamification
• Don’t start your gamification journey without knowing your overall business objectives – you’ll be on the road to nowhere.
• Don’t forget to focus on the players – Ask… ‘What’s in it for them?

Level 2:  Bonjour Mon Cher –Who are your players?

Who is the game for:  the gluten intolerant, bourbon connoisseurs, or perhaps people who race bikes competitively? When defining your player, keep in mind age, gender, interests and skill levels. Define your target user group, making sure to identify all your players.

Pardon, non parlez Francais. Parlez vous Anglais? (Try to speak their language) —Beware of Paris Dangers:

• Don’t forget:  A game’s primary function is to entertain the player, and it is your job to create a ‘game’ that does so—are your players going to enjoy playing your ‘game’?
• Don’t think of the player as your opponent—find ways to help them win
• Don’t assume your players want things a certain way—remember your tendency for self-hugging, because you like things a certain way, you tend to believe that others also will

This handy tool you are about to use is a genuine hidden treasure of useful information about what you should pack and why on your journey into the realm of gamification.

About Your Host: A gamification speaker and designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as the #1 Gamification Guru in the world by UK-based Leaderboarded. She hosts a weekly Gamification Talk Radio program, and is author of the book Totally Awesome Training Activity Guide: Put Gamification to Work for You. Monica’s niche is gamification techniques that can be used within the framework of corporate talent development. Connect with Monica Twitter @monicacornetti. Website: www.monicacornetti.com and www.sententiagames.com  

With Special Guest Darryn Van Den Berg – founder of Passion 4 Development (p4d.co.za) – an Organizational Development Company based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

In this episode of Gamification Talk Radio, we’ll be discussing How Gamification Increases Value in Corporate Learning and Development. 

To increase productivity and improve the bottom line -- savvy corporate T&D executives are quickly discovering the difference between adding Gamification to learning vs. adding GAMES to a learning program.

Darryn and his team have applied Gamification to learning programs with some amazing success and we’ll be talking about those success factors today! 

You’ll hear:

1. Why learning and development often does not help businesses in increasing their employee productivity and bottom line growth?
2. The difference between Gamification and adding GAMES (simulations etc…) to learning.
3. The challenges the future holds for businesses in their learning requirements and how Gamification is extremely valuable in solving these challenges!

About Darryn Van Den Berg: Passion 4 Development was founded by a husband and wife team - Darryn and Bronwyn Van Den Berg. The couple and their organization are totally passionate and excited to bring Gamification in a practical and real way to business, education, and Life in general. With a combined 20+ years of Organizational Development and business experience, both in Africa and internationally, Darryn and Bronwyn love to share and enable business growth into new and uncharted territories. 

Connect with Darryn at www.p4d.co.za and on Twitter @darrynvdb

Libsyn

About Your Host: A gamification speaker and designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as a #1 Gamification Guru in the world by UK-based Leaderboarded. She is the Founder and CEO of the Sententia Gamification Consortium, hosts a weekly Gamification Talk Radio program, and is author of the book Totally Awesome Training Activity Guide: Put Gamification to Work for You. Monica’s niche is gamification techniques that can be used within the framework of corporate talent development.

Connect with Monica Twitter @monicacornetti.

Website: www.monicacornetti.com and www.sententiagames.com

Overview of BLUErabbit | BLUErabbit

BLUErabbit is a tool to superpower teachers and students. We want to change education around the world and make sure everyone has access to incredible and meaningful education.

Because BLUErabbit is a relatively new platform for educators to use in their classroom – today Bernardo and I discuss what BLUErabbit is and what it isn't. We explore how to apply gamification in the classroom and analyze how it improves classroom engagement and results. Is it possible to take the stress away from grades and focus on learning? Listen and discover why gamification is the answer to the education crisis.

About Bernardo Letayf: Bernardo started as a web designer in 1998. He worked at JWT (marketing agency) for a year and afterwards started his journey in the training world working at EduMac as an Adobe Certified Instructor. In 2008 he started working at the American School Foundation. In 2010 he was introduced by a student to the concept of gamification and has read as much material as he can, regarding the matter applying this knowledge to his clients and classes. For the past two years, he has been working in the development of BLUErabbit.io a platform used to gamify education and increase the engagement in the traditional classroom.

He says BLUErabbit is his personal declaration of war on grades.

You can connect with Bernardo at the blue rabbit website:  http://www.bluerabbit.io  and on Twitter at @bluerabbitclass

About Your Host: A gamification speaker and designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as a #1 Gamification Guru in the world by UK-based Leaderboarded. She is the Founder and CEO of the Sententia Gamification Consortium, hosts a weekly Gamification Talk Radio program, and is author of the book Totally Awesome Training Activity Guide: Put Gamification to Work for You. Monica’s niche is gamification techniques that can be used within the framework of corporate talent development.

Connect with Monica Twitter @monicacornetti.

Website: www.monicacornetti.com and www.sententiagames.com

Gamification is way more than badges and high scores on a leaderboard.  It is finding creative and exciting ways to turn everyday work into engagement opportunities!  Between mini disc golf tournaments, rock star awards, happiness wheels, murder mystery dinners and countless other pursuits, at his workplace, my guest today gives his team a compelling story to tell.  

Today Nate and I discuss the techniques that have helped his support organization drastically reduce turnover and scale the mountain of engagement.  We’ll cover the many different applications for gamification, including training and change management, while also laying out practical steps to implement your own program.

You’ll hear:

• Types of problems that Gamification can help solve
• Guidelines for setting up a program
• Examples of game mechanics that work
• Things to avoid when creating a program

About Nate Brown: Growing up, Nate specialized in “unique” games at least for kids. These included golf, tennis, badminton, and ping-pong. Most of his afternoons were spent kicking around a golf course, followed by evenings in our basement game room. The pinnacle of his youth came when he won a talent show by reenacting Disney’s “The Lion King” on rollerblades.

Nate works for UL (Underwriters Laboratory) in the area of Workplace Health and Safety. Nate has never stopped playing games, and has now found many great ways to do while at work. Recently Nate has been participating in the larger support community through blogging and speaking. He has led sessions on Customer Effort Score and Gamification at the ICMI and HDI Conference and Expos. He is also the author and founder of the blog CustomerCentricSupport.com.

Nate and his wife have two daughters and live in Nashville, Tennessee where he enjoys disc golfing, fishing, photography and serving in his local church. You can connect with Nate at his blog:  www.customercentricsupport.com and on Twitter at @CustomerIsFirst

About Your Host: A gamification speaker and designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as a #1 Gamification Guru in the world by UK-based Leaderboarded. She is the Founder and CEO of the Sententia Gamification Consortium, hosts a weekly Gamification Talk Radio program, and is author of the book Totally Awesome Training Activity Guide: Put Gamification to Work for You. Monica’s niche is gamification techniques that can be used within the framework of corporate talent development.

Connect with Monica onTwitter @monicacornetti.

Websites: www.monicacornetti.com and www.sententiagames.com

Gamification may be widely talked about in the media, but it's still not widely taught in school. But today you’ll hear how Los Angeles Film School instructor David Mullich teaches his game design students about gamification. 

In his gamification workshop, David's students learn to:

• Specify a user journey, from onboarding to mastery, for a business or non-profit activity to gamify
• Identify the type of user most likely to be attracted to that activity
• Select the appropriate game mechanics to engage users at each stage of the user journey

Today you'll hear David's point of view on how gamification is generally viewed by other video game designers, why he decided to include gamification in his game design course, and his game design students' reaction to gamification.

About David Mullich: David is a video game producer who has worked at Activision, Disney, Cyberdreams, EduWare, 3DO and the Spin Master toy company. He is currently a game design and production consultant; Lead Faculty, Game Production Program at The Los Angeles Film School; co-creator of the Boy Scouts of America Game Design Merit Badge; and answer kid’s questions about game design on the Boy’s Life website. At the 2014 Gamification World Congress in Barcelona, he was listed as the 14th ranking "Gamification Guru" in social media.

Connect with David at http://www.electricsheep.biz and on Twitter at @David_Mullich.

Libsyn

About Your Host: A gamification speaker and designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as a #1 Gamification Guru in the world by UK-based Leaderboarded. She is the Founder and CEO of the Sententia Gamification Consortium, hosts a weekly Gamification Talk Radio program, and is author of the book Totally Awesome Training Activity Guide: Put Gamification to Work for You. Monica’s niche is gamification techniques that can be used within the framework of corporate talent development. Connect with Monica Twitter @monicacornetti. Website: www.monicacornetti.com and www.sententiagames.com 

WHY We Play – Part 2

People don't fit nicely into

Once we know why people do

Once we know that, we can add

Today’s episode is Part 1 of an

You’ll hear Jonathan explain the

Jonathan tells us why it’s

If you’d like a copy of the

Today, enjoy Part 2 of this

About Jonathan Peters,

Jonathan Peters, Ph.D. Is an

Jonathan has authored four books,

About Your Host:

People don't fit nicely into categories, and we're in the people business. So, what if we looked at things differently?  

Once we know why people do things, we can anticipate what they enjoy doing and what they consider fun. 

Once we know that, we can add game elements, mechanics, and dynamics that they'll actually enjoy, that will cause them to want to play. 

Today’s episode is Part 1 of an outtake from a recent webinar that Sententia hosted with Jonathan Peters, PhD entitled Why We Play.

You’ll hear Jonathan explain the 16 WHYS that we use at Sententia. For many people, the 16 WHYS feels, looks, sounds like something they’ve gone through before. But it’s actually quite different. 

Jonathan tells us why it’s different, and also introduces you to the 14 WHYS that relate directly to gamification and how and what each of us defines as FUN. After all, wouldn’t it be better if people wanted to engage in your programs rather than being prodded and pushed? 

If you’d like a copy of the whitepaper that Jonathan references in the program, simply email me [email protected] and ask for The 16 Whys Whitepaper.

Today, enjoy Part 1 of this program, we’ll bring you Part 2 next week. I look forward to your comments and questions.

About Jonathan Peters, PhD: 

Jonathan Peters, Ph.D. Is an international speaker and writer. He has spoken before audiences from Melbourne, Australia to Augusta, Maine. His specialty is marketing and customer experience, helping audiences identify what motivates their customers and learn how to speak toward those motivators.

Jonathan has authored four books, including Cavemen Can’t Market, the first in the Caveman Trilogy. He has also ghostwritten 31 non-fiction books. Jonathan is the Chief Motivation Officer at Sententia and is also an adjunct professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he instructs senior-level business majors. Connect with Jonathan on Twitter @jpetersphd and at www.jonathanpetersphd.com.

Libsyn

About Your Host: A gamification speaker and designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as the #1 Gamification Guru in the world by UK-based Leaderboarded. She is the Founder and CEO of the Sententia Gamification Consortium, hosts a weekly Gamification Talk Radio program, and is author of the book Totally Awesome Training Activity Guide: Put Gamification to Work for You. Monica’s niche is gamification techniques that can be used within the framework of corporate talent development. Connect with Monica Twitter @monicacornetti. Website: www.monicacornetti.com and www.sententiagames.com  

By now you’ve heard about gamification for corporate learning and organizational development, but how do you take the elements of gamification and make them a reality within your organization?

Are you asked to show a measurable ROI on areas like:

This week on Gamification Talk Radio, Monica will share with practical low-tech elements for gamification, real-life examples, nifty tips, and a step-by-step approach for implementing gamification concepts in your talent management program.

You can gamify your content, and you don’t have to have a high tech platform to do it.

If gamification is 75% psychology and 25% technology – then why not get started with a low-tech gamification design strategy this week?

About Your Host: A gamification speaker and designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as the #1 Gamification Guru in the world by UK-based Leaderboarded. She hosts a weekly Gamification Talk Radio program, and is author of the book Totally Awesome Training Activity Guide: Put Gamification to Work for You. Monica’s niche is gamification techniques that can be used within the framework of corporate talent development. Connect with Monica Twitter @monicacornetti. Website: www.monicacornetti.com and www.sententiagames.com