Can you be the top gamifier at Gammify?
Yu-kai Chou is an experienced entrepreneur and gamification pioneer who has been working in gamification since 2003. Yu-kai is the original creator of the Gamification Framework Octalysis, and is a regular speaker/lecturer at organizations like Stanford University, Google Inc.
We all know that gamification is among the world’s fastest growing professional service industries and continues to greatly impact corporate and social enterprises worldwide. However the importance of this field has further been demonstrated recently with the announcement that 2013 will see the first ever Gamification World Championships.
Gammify – The 2013 Gamification World Championships will get under way in September this year with the first of it’s two online rounds. While I originally thought the competition name was a typo, I soon learned that is was subtle play of worlds, as this is the 3rd World Championship Event by the competition organizers, the Professional Services Champions League (PSCL), ‘Gamma’ in Greek of course representing 3.
The competition has been created as a way to further build the global gamification community by giving contestants an opportunity to apply their understanding of gamification principles in a number of different real world contexts. This kind of hands on exposure to various types of gamification is still somewhat hard to find within this relatively young industry, “… we hope that this will help deepen the international understanding of what is actually involved in gamification, which is often oversimplified. It’s about promoting excellence.” event organizers Johann Odou and John Persico mentioned to me recently.
PSCL is not the first to gamify the gamification community, as Toby Beresford runs a successful Leader Board of Gamification Gurus. But with a $40,000 in cash prizes for the winners from over a dozen respectable sponsors such as Deloitte Digital, Amazon Web Services, and BigDoor, the stakes for Gammify have centrally been set high.
The competition is structured as two online rounds (commencing September 1st) where contestants will compete individually and work through a variety of case study style scenarios. Questions will test wide-ranging skills and expertise and force participants to apply their gamification knowledge in relation to marketing, enterprise and social contexts amongst others.
The top 16 competitors from the online rounds will earn a trip to San Francisco for the Live World Championship Finals on October, 13 where I will I be a judge alongside fellow gamification experts Mario Herger and Marigo Raftopoulos. The Live Finals event will also incorporate presentations from a number internationally recognized speakers, so it should be a fantastic way to see the best of gamification in action.
Personally, I think this competition offers a great opportunity for professionals to practice, develop and demonstrate their gamification capabilities. So far, there has been strong interest from people in Strategy Consulting, Innovation, Human Resources, Management Consulting, Information Management, Product Design, Game Design as well as amongst Start-Ups.
Wow – this sounds like it’a gonna be awesome!
Interesting. I don’t believe quizzes are the best way to measure ability – hopefully the in-person final round is less knowledge-based and more ability based.