Gamification has been around for some while now, but the concept of competing both with your fellow man and yourself has been around for eons.
Gamification can be defined as: "The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service." (Thank you Mr Wikipedia.)
So how does gamification work? Well, put simply, we are a fairly competitive bunch if we are in a familiar and relatively comfortable arena. Traditional sales targets and employee of the month have been around for ages, but more subtle digital gamification in the workplace is all around us, from the number of likes and reposts on LinkedIn or Blogs to our latest tool, Passle. The ability to create lively dynamic content quickly, from station platform to conference speeches, and post them on multiple media sites, as well as creating a collection of both your own posts, your company’s posts and posts you follow on your corporate website, is a great addition to the armoury in this fast moving, content rich society.
But gamification is also introduced, in fact, without us even knowing about it; the guys at Passle divide their clients (us) up into teams within each company, setting the cats amongst the proverbial pigeons and Blogger against reposter with a subliminal message that ‘posting gains rewards’; in this case a bottle of best bubbly and a Passle rucksack…... simple, but shamefully good.
What happens? Previously employees who may have been shy of using social media on a professional basis suddenly engage in additional market related reading, considering what it really means to them and the company, and can then post, protected if you like with an authorisation stage, to provide and contribute to the market discussion on behalf of the company.
Gamification is all around us and plays on human nature and behaviour; it is an excellent tool, if used wisely and with control, with a long list of benefits to staff and employer.
I am not sure how to take the fact that in Morning Data, the teams are ‘me’ in one team and the rest of the "Passlers" in the other! Hmmmmmm.
Bring it on!
