Call for Gamification Startups to Attend GameFounders Gaming Accelerator

GameFounders is Europe’s first gaming startup accelerator and is seeking startups for an intensive 3 month development program in Tallinn, Estonia starting in September. Applications are open to both gaming and gamification startups until June 20th. You can apply here: gamefounders.com/#/apply.

GameFounders is the only gaming accelerator in the world that invests up to 15,000 EUR seed capital for a 9% share in the accelerated companies. They are also the first gaming accelerator in Europe. They have had two selection cycles featuring 14 top contenders from Argentina, Lithuania, Italy, Germany, Macedonia, Hungary, India, Holland and Estonia. In total they have received applications from 47 countries globally.

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All Gamification Companies in the Buyer’s Guide Now Have Lead Generation

The Gamification Co Buyer’s Guide has been steadily growing ever since we first launched it back in November 2012. It’s the only comprehensive selection of gamification vendors with filtering elements to help you find the right partner to help you implement gamification into your organization.

Now that there are 60+ qualified gamification vendors listed in the database, we decided to celebrate this milestone by offering each vendor a free service upgrade to receive lead generation from their company profile.

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New Seeds Startup Brings Gamification to Venture Capital and Microlending

The Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act is on the verge of altering the investment landscape, finally enabling startups to procure capital from investments that follow the model of crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The crucial difference is that the funds are given out as true risk/reward-bearing propositions.

The world of investment, at all levels, typically carries the nomenclature and ethic of gamification even though it is engaged in the serious business of real money. This means that it is a natural fit for gamification startups. Some are bringing unorthodox approaches to crowd investing that borrow ideas from an extremely fun and popular source – casual online games.

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The Term Gamification: Why I Hate It AND Why I Love It

If one area of engagement can be taken for granted, it’s the one when people engage again in passionate discussions on the term “gamification.” It doesn’t matter if you are coming from inside or outside the industry. It seems to engage. Given that, alone that would already a big case for keeping that term. But let’s not hasten the things, let me go through that step by step

Recently Kris Duggan, co-founder and former CEO Badgeville and gamification-evangelist (ok perhaps more “whatever-you-call-it-but-not-gamification”-evangelist) took up the torch to lead the latest rally against the term. Kris and others have certainly not one, but many good points when they talk about the initial reactions of corporate (and we only talk about “boring” enterprise) when they are confronted with that term. And I agree with many of them. And knowing Kris, who in the spirit of every innovator, needs to be convincing, smart, and sometimes a little bit of a prankster, is certainly one of the best minds to open that topics for an honest discussion

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Gamified Management Processes Can Boost Employee Performance

Many people think of gamification as a consumer targetted model. While gamification techniques are particulary apt at increasing consumer involvement, they can also be applied to the employee management process for improvement.

Maintaining a consistent working attitude by employees is important for any business to keep healthy productivity. It takes effort by management to encourage employees to work for higher goals. It requires investment by management to identify where employees struggle in the process. Utilizing a gamification model within the management process can help businesses save time and reduce costs while increasing the bottom line.

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Top 12 Pitfalls To Avoid in Managing Enterprise Gamification

Gamification is fast being touted as a panacea for everything from employee engagement to higher productivity, from customer loyalty to effectiveness in teaching. It’s no wonder that more than 70% of Forbes Global 2000 companies have announced plans to deploy gamification in some form or other. As more and more enterprises wake up to the potential of gamification, there is also an increasing frustration with projects that have petered out after the initial hype, with low or no returns, and a growing disillusion with fun at work!

But a closer look at the failures will reveal some simple ground rules which can ensure the success of your gamification initiative. Here are the top 12 pitfalls to be aware of, and avoid, in your quest for successful enterprise gamification:

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4 Social Gamification Techniques That Work in Enterprise

As more and more enterprises wake up to the potential of gamification in employee engagement, there is also an increasing realization that the applications for social gamification go far beyond kudos, points and badges. For example, at Persistent Systems, a 7000+ employee IT company based in India, social gamification has been used as a delivery mechanism for a wide variety of employee-centric applications that increase employee bonding, productivity, and have a direct impact on health and wellness.

In this article, we discuss four social gamification ideas that can have a direct, positive impact in your organization.

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Turning Big Data into Smart Data: Nike+ Drives Valuable Insight

It was 2006 when Nike turned the most simple of sports into a key driver for adopting a healthier lifestyle. 7 years later, Nike+ now has about 7 million users. Socially rich data is key for any quantified self project, and running is no exception. The success of Nike+ is an example of how measuring performance is useful to gaining key insight. For users, they get to understand their running patterns better. For Nike, servers worth of Nike+ data can be turned into strategic business decisions to improve company performance.

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What Attendees are Saying About GSummit 2013: Day 1

A Focus on Our Favorite Tweets from GSummit 2013. GSummit 2013 is fast underway and attendees aren’t wasting any time tweeting about their experience here. Everyone attending is actively participating and giving feedback by posting real-time reactions to Twitter during talks, events, and even the awesome lunch trucks. Between Mario Herger’s Enterprise Gamification Certification Workshop…

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Why Gamification Is Important as a Young Professional

When I first heard of gamification I was working at a big data internship with Infosys in Bangalore, India. My mentor explained it to me as “bringing games to the world to drive creativity, production, and behavior change.” I remember calling my parents shortly after to tell them, “Remember all those hours I spent playing Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario, Metroid, and FIFA. Well, I don’t think it is fair for you to yell at me anymore for wasting my time. Have you heard of gamification? Well let me tell you about it…..”

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Foursquare and the Fun Gap: What Foursquare Should Have Been

Today Foursquare announced a new round of debt-based financing amounting to $41M in loans and convertible notes. It has been controversial, because debt-based financing suggests the company has a significant performance problem (Jason Gelman has a good wrap-up of the spirited discussion). Foursquare’s problem has become increasingly clear to Gamification folks over the past two years – it’s just not fun anymore. In the transition from a (great) game to a (good) loyalty program to a (mediocre) recommendations engine, they lost the plot, alienated customers and wasted a ton of resources and time.

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