Gamification In 2012: For Businesses & Companies, Employees And Customers
Gamification!
A buzzword among Brand Strategists,Product Strategists, Product Managers, and Interactive Marketers,among others.
So, What is Gamification? Does it mean playing games? Is it a game theory? Is it a hype? The Answer to all such queries is a big NO. And to know what’s Gamification and what businesses can achieve with gamification, here is a post ” CRM 2012 Forecast: Gamification becomes serious business”
For new readers, Gamification is ” the use of games and gaming dynamics to teach, change attitudes and behaviors, and inspire action“.
Expanding it, Constellation Research Group CEO, Ray Wang defines, “Gamification describes a series of design principles, processes and systems used to influence, engage and motivate individuals, groups and communities to drive behaviors and effect desired outcomes.” He further predicts that ” Enterprise gamification is a user experience (UX) and consumerization of IT (CoIT) trend that will take the market by storm in 2012. Constellation believes that by 2013, more than 50 percent of all social business initiatives will include an enterprise gamification component.”
So, gamification signifies a new way to create value for your companies, customers and employees, among others.
Gamification for Companies and Businesses
“Enterprise architects, CIOs and IT planners must be aware of, and lead, the business trend of gamification, educate their business counterparts and collaborate in the evaluation of opportunities within the organization.” For example, the U.K.’s Department for Work and Pensions created an innovation game called Idea Street to decentralize innovation and generate ideas from its 120,000 people across the organization. Idea Street is a social collaboration platform with the addition of game mechanics, including points, leader boards and a “buzz index.” Within the first 18 months, Idea Street had approximately 4,500 users and had generated 1,400 ideas, 63 of which had gone forward to implementation. Further examples include the U.S. military’s “America’s Army” video-game recruiting tool, and the World Bank-sponsored Evoke game which crowdsources ideas from players globally to solve social challenges. (Source: Gartner Gamification Report 2011)
Gamification for Employees
From employees perspective, Forrester Content & Collaboration Professional, TJ Keitt, in his post “Yes, Gamification Can Help Your Business Internally says some thinkers , however, saw that the real value of serious games to business leaders was not in the games, but, as Indiana University’s Edward Castranova noted, in taking elements of games and applying them to “jobs with high turnover, such as call centers, to lower attrition with the introduction of fun competition and encourage high performance.” Microsoft case revealed that gaming tactics are most successful in two scenarios: encouraging employees to expand their skill sets within their jobs (e.g., training) and getting workers to use the skills they have to do things outside of their role (e.g., helping the company test software). Many information workers may not respond well if competition, badges, status, and other gaming elements are layered onto their jobs because their motivations are different than their colleagues in the contact center or in the sales department.) To know more, read the report showing how ” Microsoft Uses Productivity Games To Test Windows And Office Communicator”
Gamification for Customers
Every business is based on customers and their behaviors that include some sort of purchasing or subscribing to something or watching something. And, if you can drive that behavior among your consumers, your users, your customers, then you can drive real business value.With gamification, your business generates leads, and your customers get a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction and winning a competition. Gamification is based on satisfying fundamental human needs and desires, which we have for reward, status, achievement, competition, self expression, even altruism, and such needs are there across genders, across demographics, across any segmentation you want to apply. We’re all motivated by some combination of these feelings. For the best examples of gamification in today’s economy, one should look first at social networking websites like Facebook, auction sites like eBay, and other innovative online service providers like the DevHub Website Builder site, as well as games like Farmville, Tencent and MeTyoon. Nike has a system called Nike Plus where they put a little accelerometer into your shoes and you can keep track of your runs and then plug it into your computer and do competitions with your friends, track and see leader boards. Four Square uses point systems and leader boards and concepts like being the mayor. Those are some of the examples that people are familiar with and talk about a lot. (Source: Gamification: Why Playing Games Could Be the Next Big Thing for Business , Knowledge@Wharton )
Forbes in its post, “Gamification Is More Than A Game For Businesses” emphasizes the importance of gamification from customer retention and acquisition perspective. It says, “It’s becoming harder for a business to retain its customers and engage its employees. It’s believed that gamification can be used to motivate engagement and certain behaviors for both your customers and employees. It’s about creating identity and reputation and recognizing a person’s attention and loyalty.”
If you want to read more gamification examples, read the post “Gamification Case Studies and Examples“
