Through technology we have created new ways to collect, show, and share data. Beyond that dry term, “data”, is a vast range of possibility, and gamification is demonstrating how we can show and share information in the hopes of becoming more fit, more healthy, and more knowledgable. These are largely personal goals made social through…
by Greg Caswell and Jeff Lopez Regardless of your political orientation, the last few months have been frustrating ones for American voters and citizens. The political system seems far removed from ordinary Americans; politicians are playing a game removed from the needs of many of their constituents because their primary goal is to win the…
Innovation and bureaucracy may seem like polar opposites, but companies like Spigit are working to bring them closer together. In the burgeoning world of gamification, it has been well-cited that Gartner predicts half of innovation-based companies will be gamified by 2015. Gartner released a case study on implementing a gamified enterprise solution for the United Kingdom’s…
Gaming the System: Changing the Course of Online Radicalization Alix Levine is the Director of Research for Cronus Global, a security consulting firm. She specializes in the study of homegrown extremism and online mobilization. You can find her at www.alixlevine.com. We all know that the purpose of gamification is to drive consumer participation. I fly on…
Do you have an idea about how to deal with the piracy in the Gulf of Aden? Well, starting next Monday, the US Navy would like to hear it and put it up for a vote in front of the whole Internet. The game is called MMOWGLI, (Massive Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet)…
Education games have a tenuous history. I’m sure many readers brought up during the early days of attempts to put computers in school still harbor a deep loathing for Mavis Beacon and a deep confusion as to why teachers thought playing Oregon Trail exclusively for the hunting portion was educational in any way. Times have…
According to Jen Pahlka, founder and Executive Director of Code for America, trust in government is at an all time low except amongst a single demographic: Millennials. This may seem odd, as our generation is typically seen either in a never ending text conversation, wasting time on Facebook, battling friends on Call of Duty, or clicking on cows in FarmVille. But I see these elements as something different. I believe our “wastes of time” have the ability to make our generation into the most participatory generation in the past two-thousand years. As Pahlka puts it, “it’s not that Millennials think the government works now, it’s that they think they can remake the government in their image”. In line with this idea, collaboration and participation through social media is becoming an integral part of the Government 2.0 movement, and I see games as the next step in the process.
Kevin Richardson is the Senior Producer in Nickelodeon’s Kids and Family game unit in San Francisco. He’s spent an equal number of years in the animated film/advertising business, and in games. Last year he won Volkswagen’s Fun Theory Award for his idea ‘The Speed Camera Lottery’. The basic question was “Can we get drivers to…
Ed Note: When it comes to social media, online interactions and gamification, many people often overlook how the law factors in. Working in an industry surrounded by ever-changing technology and innovation, legal precedents and regulations are also in a constant evolution in order to keep up. These laws exist to protect users, developers and business…
Gabe Zichermann has a new op-ed piece on The Huffington Post that just went up today. It’s called “Can Games and Gamification Fix Washington?” It’s about how the many issues that are currently plaguing the US often seem too vast and overwhelming for any real change to occur. Gamification can be used to engage an…
Every election, tons of political groups come out to try to encourage young voters, which are a prime demographic. MTV tells us to “Rock the Vote” and one year I recall P. Diddy threatening my life, telling me to “Vote or Die”. I’ve been receiving tons of e-mails over the last week from different political…
