Gamification Of Work

Mastering Gamification: Customer Engagement in 30 days by Scot Harris and Kevin O’Gorman is written as a hands-on guide to running a gamification project for startup entrepreneurs, SME owners and marketing practitioners.

The book’s strengths are in its step by step methodical approach to building up a gamified service. This is approached by breaking down all the thinking that needs to be done into bite-sized chunks – who are the players, what are the objectives, why will they play and so on. I thought the break down into 30 day chunks was quite helpful though in practice I think some sessions would go on longer than others!

Embedded in the book are some ready to use forms (such as a beta testing questionnaire) and some good lists. Amy-Jo Kim’s categorisation of game mechanics is helpful here as are the references to Yee’s player motivations which are more granular than Bartle’s and allow for individuals to be driven by multiple motivations. LeBlanc’s eight kinds of fun are also a must read for any gamifier who needs to understand what we really mean by the word ‘fun’.

There is a section on the team required for a gamification project – this alone should make prospective gamifiers sit up and think. According to Harris and O’Gorman it’s a team job to do gamification, not something for ninja individuals.  This jarred with my own experience where I’ve seen individuals, typically the CEO, create quite sophisticated and successful gamification programs themselves. Positioning gamification as something that can only be executed by teams also puts it beyond the reach of most startup entrepreneurs, SME owners and many marketing departments that I know. Getting a team together of 3 or more people with specific skills is quite an undertaking in itself.

This meant I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a need to discuss simpler gamification initiatives that can be run by a single lead individual (using lightweight gamification platforms like Gametize, Leaderboarded or Credly). I think this  can deliver much of the intended value by focusing on a single facet of a gamified system, often with the intention of building out more later.  This chimes with the social game designers motto of launching with the minimal viable product.

One final niggle  was that I felt the authors were a little too breezy  on the use of rewards for specific behaviour.  The use of rewards in a gamified system should have a warning sign associated with it – for ‘master gamifiers only!’. Otherwise traditional marketing ‘incentive-thinking’ seeps its way in to the gamified system too early and with too much importance.

Gamification should be seen primarily as a feedback system not a reward system. It signposts and recognises performance in a set of existing behaviours that players are already doing. Approaching gamification in this way, helps novice gamifiers avoid the dangers of over-justification, manipulation and moral hazard which are some of the symptoms of ‘bad gamification design’ that Gartner (and the authors to be fair) railed against.

Overall I warmed to the book, thought it was an excellent step by step approach and felt it was well priced. I would recommend it to gamification consultants who need a methodology to take their clients through and as a way to convince clients why their bill is so high! Gamification takes hard work and a lots of game thinking to get right, there can be no doubt in anyone’s mind after reading this book.

Toby Beresford

Toby is CEO of lightweight gamification platform Leaderboarded. He was the 2013 founding chair of Gamfed.com - the International Gamification Confederation and organises the UK Gamifiers meetup. As a gamification consultant he has hosted workshops and provided expert design guidance and evaluation on a number of projects. He is also available as a professional speaker and writer. Follow him on twitter @tobyberesford and Subscribe to this blog at Gamification Of Work blog feed

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An article of mine was recently published in Sodexo Workplace Trends 2014 – Click on Docs, go to Content and then the 2014 Workplace Trends PDF.

Skip to pages 40-46 to read my article.

Toby Beresford

Toby is CEO of lightweight gamification platform Leaderboarded. He was the 2013 founding chair of Gamfed.com - the International Gamification Confederation and organises the UK Gamifiers meetup. As a gamification consultant he has hosted workshops and provided expert design guidance and evaluation on a number of projects. He is also available as a professional speaker and writer. Follow him on twitter @tobyberesford and Subscribe to this blog at Gamification Of Work blog feed

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Book review of Play at Work: How games inspire breakthrough thinking  by Adam Penenberg.

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Unless you are living in a hole in the ground, it would be hard to have missed the global trend towards games. Certainly for readers of this blog it comes as no surprise that games are the new normal, even in the workplace.

Convincing our peers that games, and more specifically gamification, can drive productivity and engagement at work though can be a little more difficult.  We tend to dress it up in fancy ‘non-game’ terms such as engagement, motivational design, behavioural economics, ‘engagonomics’ (not a joke word, I kid you not) and I’m sure many more.

But then there are those of us who are unapologetic: gamification is, at its heart, about games. We call a spade a spade. There’s no need to hide it in familiar terms just so the c-suite feels safe. The reality is that games are coming and they are going to change not just the way we work, but whole companies and industries.  And, if you are struggling to articulate this change to your own c-suite (or if indeed you are the c-suite), then you could do a lot worse than recommend they read tech journalist, Adam Penenberg’s new book: “Play at Work”

Despite being a self confessed ‘non-gamer’,  Penenberg has travelled America to interview real people putting games to work and demonstrating success.  He looks at car companies that crowdsource car designs, medical educators that create high fidelity practice dummies, software gurus that get their software tested and translated for free and, of course, call centers that incentivise bored staff with points and badges.

It’s a roller coaster tour of our changing world where games are spilling out of the virtual into our daily lives. He charts Ian Bogost’s hilarious spin on Farmville – the Cow Clicker game – with glee, while not failing to mention its evident success. Penenberg has an eye for personal stories that keep you reading where dryer books have failed.  At times it feels like a cross between the latest Malcolm Gladwell and Steven Levitt’s Freakonomics. Perfect for the average business reader, who like David Cameron, found himself addicted to Angry Birds but didn’t quite know why (it’s all about progression, in case you were wondering).

I have two quibbles with the book, 3 if you include the fact that the Easter Egg is a bit rubbish. Firstly, like too many other books on the subject, it is still too weak on covering the problems raised by critics of gamification.  Criticism of gamification is not going away; in fact the lack of clarity from the industry in rebutting issues has made their voices seem even louder. I felt a chapter on the dark side of games was needed. It needed to cover topics such addiction, manipulation, playing when you should be working, reinforcing bad habits, gaming the system and accidentally condoning inappropriate behaviour (‘but I was just playing the game…’). Perhaps something for a next edition.

Secondly, Penenberg’s rather peculiar conclusion had me bursting with incredulity.  Maybe I misunderstood his point, but in it he appears to suggest that we’re already living in the Matrix, a simulated world created for us by the machines of the future.  As far as I’m aware there isn’t really any actual evidence for this world view so I wasn’t sure why it was included. While vaguely interesting as an dorm-room discussion, it  provided a slightly wacky end to an otherwise sensible book.

So, for my own conclusion, I really enjoyed the book and would highly recommend it to gamifiers and non-gamifiers alike, as a wide ranging and solid introduction to games in the workplace. I might just advise you to skip the conclusion.

And for a final spoiler, the easter egg  is in the thank you notes. Pesky gamification bloggers, I don’t know…

Toby Beresford

Toby is CEO of lightweight gamification platform Leaderboarded. He was the 2013 founding chair of Gamfed.com - the International Gamification Confederation and organises the UK Gamifiers meetup. As a gamification consultant he has hosted workshops and provided expert design guidance and evaluation on a number of projects. He is also available as a professional speaker and writer. Follow him on twitter @tobyberesford and Subscribe to this blog at Gamification Of Work blog feed

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I have three rules of thumb I use to determine if a particular gamification initiative is ‘working’. I hope you find them helpful:

Engagement – Players are complaining

In my experience unless players are complaining (“my score is wrong” for example) then they aren’t engaged. And if they aren’t engaged then your gamification initiative is a dud.  Complaints are a good thing, expect and relish them.

Virality – New players are joining

A good gamification initiative spreads as others are attracted to it. Typical of this might be when a department outside the original initiative (the back office team on a sales leaderboard challenge for example) demands to join in.

Monetization – Underlying stats are improving, business objectives are being met

Everyone likes to see lift in the underlying stats. Typically gamification will generate lift in multiple activities, not just one. This is where your gamification initiative is paid for (monetised).

There we go, three simple rules of thumb to check the success of your gamification program – Engagement, Virality and Monetization.

Toby Beresford

Toby is CEO of lightweight gamification platform Leaderboarded. He was the 2013 founding chair of Gamfed.com - the International Gamification Confederation and organises the UK Gamifiers meetup. As a gamification consultant he has hosted workshops and provided expert design guidance and evaluation on a number of projects. He is also available as a professional speaker and writer. Follow him on twitter @tobyberesford and Subscribe to this blog at Gamification Of Work blog feed

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