April 13, 2026
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gsummit

Case Study: Air Canada’s Gamified ‘Earn Your Wings’ Program

Natalija Knaidele03 mins

In late 2013, Gabe traveled to 15 cities worldwide for GSummit Global, a series of full-day workshops and meetups to bring GSummit closer to gamification fans. As a part of GSummit Global, we also released 10 new webinars and videos by gamification and engagement professionals. We will be releasing them publicly as we keep counting down to GSummit 2014.

First up, a webinar by Ian Di Tullio, the Director Loyalty Marketing of Air Canada. This fast-paced webinar will lead you through the basic features and characteristics of airline loyalty programs, with a neat case study of Air Canada’s own loyalty promotion, Earn Your Wings.

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Spotlight Gamification Expert: Kevin Werbach

Kevin Shane02 mins

As we move into our next installment of GSummit (June 10-13 in San Francisco), we look at our past GSummit speakers and experts that have helped shape the user engagement space. This week’s spotlight Gamification Expert is Kevin Werbach–Associate Professor at The Wharton School at UPenn and teacher in the massively successful online Gamification Class on…

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New for GSummit SF 2014: Hands-on Labs for ALL Conference Attendees

Kevin Shane07 mins

With the consistently sold-out success of our Certification Workshops at GSummit each year, we decided to add a workshop experience to the regular conference agenda FOR ALL ATTENDEES to participate it. We call them Hands-on Labs and they’re going to be one of the best aspects of this year’s event–guaranteed! Each of the 90-minute Labs will offer a limited group…

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gsummit global webinar

Using Gamification to Attract Wide Audiences – GSummit Global Webinar

Ivan Kuo31 mins

Every marketer wants to know: how can I get my audience to do “X” ? In our third GSummit Global Webinar we brought in Karl Dunn (TBWA), Adam Penenberg (PandoDaily) and Jeff Hawley (Yamaha) to discuss their respective observations on audience engagement in this one hour session.

Moderated by yours truly, the following webinar is our third and final webinar of our GSummit Global Webinar series. Webinars for Employee Engagement and Consumer Engagement are also available at their respective links. 

If you want more GSummit Global action, our final event on the tour is taking place at Sao Paulo, Brazil on January 15, 2014.

Join us for our last stop until GSummit 2014!  

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will wright gsummit

Will Wright on Gamifying the World: From SimCity to the Future

Ivan Kuo22 mins

One of the most phenomenal experiences of GSummit SF 2013 happened with Will Wright’s keynote talk. As the creator of SimCity and countless other games and simulations, Wright’s talk goes deeply into games’ and their effect on us as humans in society and what that means for gamification in the grand scheme of things.

He touches on the lessons can we take from games — and decades of experience designing for fun — to create engagement for large audiences with complex models and issues? How can we make simple everyday interactions more compelling and use them as teachable moments to energize society? Can everything really be fun — and what are the secrets for balancing detail and simplicity? Check out Will Wright’s full talk as he re-imagines how the world becomes a more fun and engaging place, sharing his vision for the future and powerful design insight.

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get our latest gamification videos and talks. You can also download a copy of this presentation by downloading it here.

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tim kring

Redefining Story for Transmedia in the Gamification Era

Ivan Kuo32 mins

It used to be enough just to give consumers 22 minutes of quality content, once a week, year after year, to be successful. Today, media consumption has dramatically changed. Where TV used to be the distraction, now viewers use second and third screens – a distraction from the distraction. This change, both demographic and technological, forces us to reimagine the nature of storytelling and narrative in an unprecedented way.

Viewers today want to lean forward (and you need them to), become part of the action, engage with characters and each other in new and exciting ways, and shape the outcome. But how do we do this without ceding total control to the audience and reducing the main reason they “pay” to be with us in the first place?

Join Tim Kring, Transmedia expert and creator of the blockbuster TV programs Heroes and Touch, as he shares his insights about how to tell stories in this new lean-forward era that consumers are willing to pay for with time and money.

Watch Tim’s full GSummit SF 2013 video below and be sure to 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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mark goldstein loyalty

How Brands Are Reinventing Loyalty with Gamification

Ivan Kuo21 mins

Loyalty programs are mostly buy 10-get-one-free, but they can be accomplish so much more. In recent years, the loyalty industry has embraced gamification, advancing our understanding of what works – and what doesn’t – to drive customer behavior.

Watch loyalty pioneer Mark Goldstein in this GSummit SF 2013 talk as he covers the ins and outs of gamified loyalty, with an emphasis on how to bring fun, social and scalable engagement to loyalty endeavors – and how you can apply these lessons to your organization.

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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wow in school - lucas gillispe

WoWinSchool: How to use WoW and MMORPGs to Engage Students

Ivan Kuo31 mins

What happens in the classroom when learning becomes a heroic journey?  Rather than desks and chalkboards, what if students had quests and guilds?  Going beyond simply swapping grades with badges and achievements, Lucas Gillispie, founder of the WoWinSchool Project, will share the journey he and other adventurous educators have begun using World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs to engage students in a playful approach to practicing reading and writing skills.  Along the way student-heroes are becoming better communicators, leaders, and connecting with a global audience.

Watch Lucas’ full GSummit SF 2013 talk below! Be sure to 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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gamification consulting panel

Consulting on Gamification: Strategy, Tactics and Trends

Ivan Kuo12 mins

For all you gamification advocates pushing to implement more fun into your organization, this video is for you.

This past GSummit, we gathered Thomas Hsu, Social Collaboration and Gamification Manager at Accenture, Sascha Goto, Senior Program Associate at McKinsey,  Naureen Meraj, Senior Global Director of Gamification & Strategy at NTT Data, and Bart Briers, Director of Services and Solutions at CTG to all discuss their experiences consulting and implementing gamification at their organization.

These three individuals have been heralds for the gamification cause at each of their respective organizations and have good advice for those looking to take on that role for their own company as well. Watch the full video below to see what they had to say.

Also, be sure to 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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Andrea Kuszewski gsummit

Andrea Kuszewski on The Science of Motivation: Neurology, Psychology, Gamification

Ivan Kuo42 mins

Gamification has proven to be a powerful tool in driving change across nearly all environments—business, personal goals, even education. What is it about gamification that makes it so successful in changing behavior? It isn’t just about points or badges, or earning little gold stars. The best gamification strategies are all about engagement, driven by motivation.

Science tells us that motivation is the single most important factor when it comes to learning and changing behavior—far more important than breadth of skill, or even innate talent. Increase motivation, and you will increase learning—surpassing limits in ways you never imagined—no matter the subject, domain, or context.

Join cognition expert Andrea Kuszewski for a lively, non-technical discussion of the science of motivation, dissecting that ‘magical’ process going on in the brain that is such a critical factor in engagement and learning in this GSummit SF 2013 talk. Watch the full video below!

Also, be sure to 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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kevin werbach on teaching gamification at coursera - gsummit sf 2013

Kevin Werbach on Teaching Gamification at Coursera

Ivan Kuo42 mins

Surely you must’ve heard of Kevin Werbach’s Coursera Course on gamification? (The next Coursera semester starts Jan 27th 2014)

Gamification is a hot growth industry, with billions of dollars in revenue and thousands of new jobs set to be created in the next decade. To accomplish this, organizations of all kinds will need to train and educate leaders of tomorrow on this critical discipline. But how do you teach a topic where core concepts are in a state of flux, examples and patterns are evolving rapidly and learners expect the entire experience to be fun and rewarding? Join Professor Werbach, teacher of the massively successful #Gamification12 MOOC as he discusses the hard-won lessons of teaching Gamification — and how this understanding can make any training, education or development process more successful for your organization. In this GSummit 2013 video expect to learn

  • Opportunities and dangers in the gamification of learning.
  • Techniques for effective gamification in educational settings.
  • How game thinking produced the highest engagement rates of any course on the Coursera massive online platform. (It’s not what you think!)

Watch the full video below! Also, be sure to 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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andrew grauer course hero

Course Hero’s Knowledge Marketplaces and the Gamification of Education

Ivan Kuo12 mins

We’re reading more and more about online education portals incorporating sophisticated game mechanics into its applications. There’s no doubt that education is a space ripe for gamification and in classrooms—both virtual and walled—educators are shifting their approach to offer a more personalized, yet interactive and adaptive curriculum. Course Hero, an online education start-up, has been engaging college students in its online learning community by using game mechanics from Bunchball for more than a year to great success. Harnessing the motivational power of games and applying it to real-world problems, Course Hero’s gamification elements motivate students to learn in a more interactive manner and urge them to care more about what they’re learning.

In this GSummit SF 2013 talk, Course Hero CEO Andrew Grauer will share details on how participation on the site has increased by 25% since implementing gamified elements, as well as how the site has seen a 51% growth in badges awarded since February 2012. Watch the full video below.

Also, be sure to 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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