Gamification - engaging people to change!

Change is hard and these days we are faced with more frequent change in our jobs than ever. What adds to this challenge is that we are not engaged at our jobs (only 13% are engaged - see Gallup Global Workforce Survey) and there may be many reasons for that, but lets look at a major solution to this problem.?

The Solution - Gamification - What can it do?

The trick is to get people to be so engaged that they forget they are working. The gaming industry is the one industry that has succeeded the best - that is getting the players into a "flow" or "zen" state. Those who play video games know what I mean, where you play and somehow 4 hours goes by without you barely even noticing. (see 3 great examples further down)

"Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems and increase users' contribution."

To get humans into this flow state, we need a lot of feedback. In video games it is constant feedback, everything you do has a reaction and you have many gamification mechanics in place triggering and stimulating your brain - making things fun! And when its fun we get more engaged, we produce more, we are more creative, we change our behavior.

You need to design to encourage the behaviors that will give your system the best outcome, whilst engaging users.

Gamification methodology plays on basic psychology and behaviorism and designs systems that engages all the different player types typically found in any organization or even small teams. (Socializer, Achiever, Killer, and Explorer)?

Some great examples

Recyclebank - changed peoples behavior and took Philadelphia from 7% to 90% in recycling over a few months. They did it through introducing a point system for recycling, like frequent flyer miles, where you can use your recycle points to go shopping or to pay for local services.

The key gamification element at play here is - higher meaning (save the planet) and accomplishment (your points, rewards and leader-boards).?

OPower - compares your energy usage to your neighbors and challenges you to do better than them. So far they have helped the consumer save?2 TWh in electricity, or approx 500 million USD in savings, the equivalent of taking 200,000 cars off the road.?

The key gamification element at play here is - mainly social pressure?(you will not allow being the worst house on the street, no way!)

Duolingo - is the leading free language learning tool and crowdsourced translation services that teaches people language skills for free for their collective effort in assisting translating content into other languages.?

The key gamification element at play here is - accomplishment (points, progress bar, badges driving your learning forward step-by-step) it also has higher meaning, but that is more a sales argument for the on-boarding process/buy-in to get you started.?

All this with the power of gamification but - be aware!

According to Gartner, 80% of all gamification initiatives fail. I believe this is due to lack of proper initial analysis and not enough iterations keeping the users engaged. The 20% that succeed generate amazing results, as the examples above proves, and it just shows that people are willing to change given the proper engagement and fun tools to play with.??

Stefan Okstveit is a communication expert and gamification master and is looking for projects to improve the world we live in. Connect and share your ideas or thoughts!?