May 5, 2026
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loyalty

What’s The Difference Between Loyalty Programs and Gamification?

38 mins

Whenever I start talking about gamification, one of the first questions that I get asked is this: how is it different from loyalty programs?

As part of my MBA in the Management of Technology and Innovation at Ryerson University, I was tasked with writing a major research paper on a business topic of my choosing. As a gamer, I was extremely interested in the rising trend of gamification. Aside from the question about loyalty programs, a lot of small startups I talked to were interested about this “gamification thing they heard of”, but really had no idea where to begin or how to use it. When I came across the CARROT todo list, I was amazed at its simplicity and execution. It pushed me over the edge, and made me really want to find out exactly how gamification was being used.

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Gamification Accreditation and Finding Gamification Jobs

Ivan Kuo11 mins

The Gamification Revolution is the only live gamification webcast featuring Gabe Zichermann and fellow gamification experts every week. Be sure to catch our next episode this Thursday, September 19h at 1PM ET/1800 GMT, where we will feature Mike Skochko, teacher, tech coordinator and gamifier!

Remember you can participate in the show if you sign-in and RSVP! Signing in will allow you to receive show reminders, ask questions, and even join Gabe and our guest for a live question.

This week Gabe got the chance to catch-up with some audience regulars and answer some important questions about why it matters to get gamification certification and strategies for finding gamification jobs. Catch the full video below:



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employee engagement

Partnering, Not Parenting, for Employee Engagement

Kevin Kruse06 mins

By now, most executives and HR professionals know that employee engagement is both important and woefully lacking. But despite all the time and money invested into engagement initiatives, many organizations still aren’t moving the needle. Why?

Whenever I ask business leaders, “Whose job is engagement?” I usually hear one of these answers:

  • The HR department owns it
  • We hold our managers accountable

Both good answers, but partial answers.

According to IDG Research 43% of engagement comes from intrinsic motivation, by definition factors that are completely outside the influence of company mangers.

What is missing from many efforts to increase employee engagement, are the individual employees themselves.

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How to Design Addictive User Experiences

Kevin Shane02 mins

Is your service a vitamin or pain-killer? Does your app cause anxiety in your users when they don’t have it? We’re not talking meth — we’re talking about addictive user experiences within the framework of engaging design.

Nir Eyal has developed a framework for designing habit-forming products called “the hook model,” which gives product designers a new way for thinking of the necessary components of creating user behavior. In this fast-paced session, Nir will take you through how to create massive, repeatable engagement in a predictable way.

Watch Nir’s session to learn:

  • The common design patterns of habit-forming products.
  • The stages of habit formation and how to optimize for user retention.
  • A look into the psychology behind what drives user behavior and how to build products to cater to core human needs.

Be sure to also subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the latest videos from GSummit SF 2013 as they’re released. You can also download a copy of this presentation by downloading it here.

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compost

Betting in Classrooms to Promote Composting

Ivan Kuo04 mins

Last week we held another gsummitX gamification meetup at AOL HQ with a number of new attendees ready to learn and gamify. We were greeted with a great talk from Gilt Groupe Program Manager Jeff Bobula, who walked us through Gilt’s approach to gamified loyalty with their flash-sale site, and a quick demo for our gamified Twitter conference app, Livecube (formerly known as Memecube).

But the big crux of the night was rooted in our gamestorming session to try and solve another problem for Social Good: “How can we get more people to compost?”

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rajat paharia on big data, loyalty, and gamification

The Future of Loyalty is in Big Data and Gamification

Ivan Kuo02 mins

Today’s loyalty programs are like the Bruce Willis character in the movie The Sixth Sense. They’re dead, they just don’t know it yet. They have failed at creating actual loyalty, at keeping up with a rapidly changing world, and at engaging all the constituents that matter, a company’s customers, partners and employees. It’s time to take back the word “loyalty” and make it actually mean something. By utilizing the Big Data generated by our constituents as they interact with us, combining it with an understanding of human motivation, and using the data-driven motivational techniques of gamification, we now have the power to motivate, to engage, and to create true loyalty – Loyalty 3.0.

Check out Bunchball’s Chief Product Officer Rajat Paharia as he explains the the next evolution of loyalty from GSummit SF 2013 .Be sure to also subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the latest videos from GSummit SF 2013 as they’re released. You can also download a copy of this presentation by downloading it here.

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Gilt’s New Loyalty Program Provides Exclusive Access to Customers

Kevin Shane04 mins

The gamification community in NYC came together last night for our first GSummitX event fully focused on loyalty marketing. To start things off, Gilt Groupe’s Jeff Bobula (Program Manager) delivered an educating talk on Gilt’s new loyalty program, Gilt Insider. Then, we all engaged in our Play for a Cause to help solve NYC’s composting issue.

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undiscovered territory autodesk

Case Study: Autodesk’s Great Tutorial Game to Convert Trial Users

Ivan Kuo02 mins

For software company Autodesk, the 30-day software trial period offered to customers is critical. Trials are a key part of the customer’s purchase decision and account for a significant percentage of the company’s website traffic. So when the 2013 version of the Autodesk(r) 3ds Max(r) software released, the company turned to digital marketing agency Resource to create a fresh and innovative way to increase trial conversion. Known for consumer research and innovation, Resource developed an online game called “Undiscovered Territory” that took customers on an entertaining and educational journey. The result was a significant increase in trial downloads and usage and the campaign earned a Forrester B2B Groundswell Award.

In this session from GSummit SF 2013, Dan Shust, VP of ResourceLAB at Resource and Dawn Wolfe, Sr. Manager of Integrated Marketing Programs at Autodesk will share insights on what made “Undiscovered Territory” such a hit and why gamification is a marketing approach they will continue to use in the future.

Be sure to also subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the latest videos from GSummit SF 2013 as they’re released. You can also download a copy of this presentation by downloading it here.

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zombie technology

The Zombie Technology Elimination Project: Gamifying The Destruction of Old Software

Mike Finney49 mins

Zombie Technologies are real. If you’re a software developer, a Zombie Technology (ZT) is that old technology you used long ago to create yesterday’s awesome solutions. Yesterday’s glory is a memory, yet the product lives on and it’s using a ZT.

I am leading an internal employee engagement enhancement project to make the conversion of old zombie technologies to new technologies more fun and more likely! Normally the conversion process is inherently behind the scenes and painful. In Mary Poppins style, a spoonful of zombies helps the work go down.

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jon radoff on the gamification revolution

Applying Game-Design Principles to Gamification with Jon Radoff

Ivan Kuo02 mins

The Gamification Revolution is the only live gamification webcast featuring Gabe Zichermann and fellow gamification experts every week. Today we’ll be looking at last week’s guest: Karl Kapp, Professor/Consultant at Bloomsburg University and Gamified Learning Veteran.

Be sure to catch our next episode this Thursday, September 5th at 1PM ET/1800 GMT, where we will feature Jeff Atwood, the esteemed man behind Coding Horror and co-founder of StackOverflow. Remember you can participate in the show if you sign-in and RSVP! Signing in will allow you to receive show reminders, ask questions, and even join Gabe and our guest for a live question.

Regardless of where you might stand on the gamification versus game-design debate, each side has many lessons to offer to the other when you consider differences in their design. This week we brought on Jon Radoff, CEO of DisruptorBeam, to give us his input on various facets of gamification design as a game-designer. We take deep looks into story narratives, feedback loop lengths, and many other game design theories as it relates to gamification.

Catch the full video below:



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intangible rewards

How to Incentivize Users with Non-Physical Rewards

Kevin Shane11 mins

A common feature of nearly all gamification implementations is the presence of a reward system. People are motivated by rewards but do they always have to come in the form of a cash prize or fancy gadget? Suchit Dash of ifeelgoods believes it doesn’t have to be.

Tangible Rewards come in many shapes and sizes, and though they may not scale super well, they can be transformative. See how you can use non-discount, tangible rewards to drive user loyalty and engagement in this fast-paced talk from rewards expert Suchit’s session at GSummit SF 2013.

Be sure to also subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the latest videos from GSummit SF 2013 as they’re released. You can also download a copy of Suchit’s presentation by downloading it here.

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gamification vendors

Choose a Gamification Vendor Based on Case Studies, Not Features

Carter Lusher25 mins

Nascent technology markets like gamification often see a proliferation of vendors. In part this is due the low barriers to entry because the capital needed to develop SaaS-based product is minimal because of cheap infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) offerings as well as inexpensive development tools.

Startups are likely to target a particular niche within a nascent technology like gamification when developing their initial product because it is easier to identify likely early adopters to sell to and to create differentiation. Avoid this trap by being more picky with your selection process.

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gamification certification

The Guide to Our New Gamification Certification Levels of Mastery

Gabe Zichermann27 mins

The first gamification design course was offered in 2011 at the inaugural GSummit in SF. Since then, nearly 1000 people have taken live and online courses that are eligible for certification through the Engagement Alliance. Additionally, tens of thousands have attended on-and-offline gamification courses that don’t offer any commonly accepted accreditation.

After many years of experimenting with design frameworks and through extensive discussion and consultation with industry, I’m pleased to announce a new rubric for design certification. This new program is based on best practices, designed to maximize the value of your education and help you deliver optimal results for your employer and your career. Here are the new levels of certification, and what they mean:

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james gatto

What Are the Legal Issues with Gamification?

Ivan Kuo22 mins

Gamblification is a term that we have adopted to describe the intersection of social media and gambling. Although it may not seem like it at first, many Gamification systems walk a dangerous line, giving users the option to gamble with currency in their system. Given the complexity of the legal issues around this concept, it is not always easy to ensure that one does not cross the line. When is gambling in gamified systems ok, and when isn’t it? What are some of the risks you should consider, and what are the basic legal considerations and concerns affecting gamification in general? Join legal expert James Gatto for this fast-paced, crowd-favorite session on some of the key legal issues every gamified system operator needs to know in the video below.

Be sure to also subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the latest videos from GSummit SF 2013 as they’re released. You can also download a copy of Jim’s presentation by downloading it here.

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