Growing up, like most kids I was an avid player. From video games to cops and robbers, cardboard forts (oh how I loved it when we bought new appliances!) and the occasional sport, play was an integral part of my childhood. As with most adults, play has become a much smaller part of my daily…
One of the things companies most want to accomplish with gamification is to offer scalable personalization. In an ideal world, e-commerce, social and behavior-change sites would offer entirely personalized views of game mechanics like challenges, achievements, leaderboards, etc. Just as targeted advertising has helped raise click-through rates, so too would personalized gamification be better able…
I’m super stoked to announce a new slate of additional speakers for GSummit (June 19-21 in SF). The event just keeps getting more exciting, and I’m sure you won’t want to miss the hands on workshops and 40+ sessions. Also, the early bird deadline is fast approaching next Friday; if you want to save $300…
This year’s SxSW has been even more festive than years past, with the alternating rain and sun driving social media hordes in and outdoors over the weekend. In between bouts of over-drinking, endless parties, sponsored taco trucks and coffee “scrums”, there were some interesting sessions at the conference on the topics of gamification and engagement….
I can’t resist a documentary about competitive subcultures, like the amazing Word Wars and Wordplay – docs about Scrabble and crossword puzzles, respectively. Even better when I come across one that is both game-oriented and competitive. The excellent documentary, Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story ably satisfies both requirements – and then some. Like many…
We’re beyond excited to announce Gamification Summit 2012, which will take place in San Francisco June 19-21. Coming on the heels of 2011’s awesome, sold out events in NYC and SF, GSummit 2012 (our only major US event this year) promises to deliver even more of the hands-on, data-rich learning, networking and fun that helps…
Following up on the meme that’s spreading like wildfire today, I thought you might find it amusing to see our view of “What Gamification Practitioners Do”. Click on the image to see the full size version, and feel free to share your thoughts. 🙂
This past weekend Natasha Singer at the New York Times tried her hand at summarizing Gamification in a short form piece. Setting aside the obvious fact that to cover an industry as broad, big and rapidly growing as ours is tough at best, the lack of common sense in the piece is glaring. My favorite…
Enterprise gamification (aka using game thinking and mechanics to engage employees and partners) is getting more interesting every day. Following on the heels of Bunchball’s moves to connect gamification platforms to major enterprise software, Badgeville today announced a unified enterprise connector initiative. Cloud Connectors makes official their longstanding connection with Omniture, and adds Jive and…
Over the last 3 years, I’ve had the privilege of analyzing, deconstructing and helping design gamification for many companies and non-profits. Since the publication of my first book, Game-Based Marketing (now available in audiobook format), there has been an ever-increasing clamor for process, methodology and systems that can be used to make gamification more repeatable…
Recently the NTSB released a report that strongly recommended a complete ban on driving and using mobile devices. Obviously, this would be an extremely difficult behavior to change. Gamification has been uniquely successful at changing such entrenched behaviors, so it occurred to us that it would be interesting to apply some gamified innovation techniques to topical…
Last week I had the unexpected pleasure of keynoting the TIES conference in Minneapolis. The invitation came at the last minute when their scheduled keynote (the incomparable Jane McGonigal) fell ill. Luckily, the organizers reached me in time so I could make it to Minnesota, and because I had done a recently featured TEDx talk…
In the emergence of a new design discipline like Gamification, there are many successes and failures that contribute to the overall body of knowledge within the industry. In our case, the meme burst onto the scene so aggressively in 2010, that with some notable exceptions, most of us have been scrambling to simply put our…
Since the dawn of the blockbuster gamification industry, I’ve been compiling, distilling and summarizing design patterns and systems. The objective has always been to help people across diverse industries such as marketing, healthcare, education, consumer tech, CPG and others find common entry points to this exciting new design approach. Over the course of the last…
Like many of you, I’m a huge fan of the Ted conferences and am in awe of the success they’ve had in spreading awesome ideas. So when earlier this year I was invited to give a talk at TedX Kids in Brussels, I rearranged my hectic schedule and set to work on a new talk….
