April 4, 2026
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Achievement

calm

Calm: A Meditation App That Does Feedback Right

Gabe Zichermann35 mins

One of the most elemental concepts in good gamification design is what I call the three Fs: Feedback, Friends and Fun. They come in many forms, but together they form the foundational structure of how we create engagement. I’ve written and spoken about the three Fs at length, but I find myself spending a lot of time thinking about and designing effective feedback systems.  I also love to meditate.

At the intersection of both of these interests is the excellent and visually gorgeous app, Calm. It’s a guided meditation app for iOS that’s received a number of accolades for its simple design and great programming. The premise of guided meditations it that an instructor’s voice (and soothing music) help you relax, focus and create productive, healing brain states.

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In Defense of Trophies: The Case for Rewarding Every Step

Gabe Zichermann411 mins

This week, Ashley Merryman (co-author with Po Bronson of two books on motivation) wrote a startlingly misguided op-ed in the New York Times entitled Losing is Good For You. The title suggests that the author was going to dive into the teaching power of failure (which is amazing). Instead, it’s a thinly supported screed against “rewarding kids for just showing up,” and judging from the comments it’s touched the Lazy Millennial nerve as well. While the authors deserve creative credit for creating a new middle class bogeyman in the form of the “Trophy-Industrial Complex”, the rest of the article is full of intellectual leaps that might leave parents and educators with the wrong impression.

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