Moving Beyond Points and Badges: Gamification 2.0
The technology and business world has been abuzz with a new term– gamification, defined as the use of game elements in everyday scenarios in order to drive engagement and make work more interesting. This has been seen by some as a game changer (pun unintended) to make boring tasks fun & drive motivation, while others see it as a modern and web friendly extension of the ubiquitous reward and recognition techniques already being used by companies in some form or another.
But the question is, is it always going to be just about points and badges? The answer has to be an emphatic no. While points and badges have served admirably in terms of providing social recognition and motivation to millions of users already, their novelty is rubbing off, and incremental gains are dropping alarmingly.