The #1 School for Entrepreneurship (both Undergraduate & MBA) is definitely on top of their game in engaging their community with the hottest topics & strategies in business. This time up, GAMIFICATION. Babson College, the Babson Alumni Club of NYC, and GamificationCo delivered a stellar evening to the Babson Alumni of NYC this past October 16th at AOL Headquarters in Manhattan. Special guests included Babson’s President Len Schlesinger and top gamification expert Gabe Zichermann.
Following in the path of our successful and highly engaging gsummitX meetup events, a similar structure was followed. Gabe gave one of his famous gamification talks. The eyes and ears of the audience were like tractor beams on every word and gesture that came from him.
Len Schlesinger then took the floor to tell all the Alumni that their Babson Degree is increasing in value by the minute. We heard about Babson’s recent rewards & rankings and Babson’s current “Define Entrepreneurship” campaign. Len then transitioned into the topic of gamification. He started by rolling up his sleeve to show off his Nike Fuelband and how he uses game mechanics to motivate him to live a healthier life.
The baton was then passed back to Gabe to facilitate Play for a Cause (P4C). Being that this was a night for Babson, the P4C was also focused on the #1 School for Entrepreneurship. As a refresher, Play for a Cause is when we invite a nonprofit organization in to pitch a challenge to our attendees–and the attendees then play a brainstorming game to help come up with solutions to that challenge. The challenge presented by Babson was to engage more people with their “Define Entrepreneurship” campaign. Having already implemented a successful campaign (collecting over 2k definitions of entrepreneurship in 2012), they are shooting to reach 10k definitions through 2013.
The groups of Alumni put their heads together as if they were back at Babson doing group projects. They came up with some innovative ideas to help Babson reach its goal. A few of the winning ideas (because it was a gamified brainstorming session!) were: 1) Online Galleries with Local Events 2) Make a book out of the Definitions 3) Personalized Trading Tiles *You can watch the video of the event below and hear more details about each idea. We measure success of these events by feedback from the attendees and the engagement of the attendees.
Based on our analysis, the event was a fantastic success for everyone involved. All those who attended understand the strategy of gamification much better and many of them will most likely dig deeper into it. We’re always happy to welcome more members into our gamification community! Thanks again to Len Schlesinger, Gabe Zichermann, Babson College, the Babson Alumni Club of NYC and the NYC Babson Alumni for a great night of gamification and Babson!
Watch the Entire Event Below
