Gamification, Games and Learning in Brazil

Having recently returned from a trip to S?o Paulo, Brazil where I participated as a keynote speaker, workshop leader and attendee at the Expresso3 Summit on Gamification, I learned a great deal about what is happening with games and gamification for learning in Brazil. (In the picture below loved the cartoon "Karl")

I had the opportunity to speak with many passionate, smart and focused people about the role that games and gamification are starting to play in the Brazilian Learning and Development (L&D) community.

During the event, I conducted a keynote and a mini-workshop of about two hours where I had several teams of folks creating a learning game prototype. The results were fantastic. The image below shows the "Chaos" of creating learning games in a limited time frame.

A total of 17 teams completed a playable learning game prototype. Each group then exchanged their prototype with another group to see how their prototypes would stand up and to play the other groups' games. The game ideas and designs the teams came up with were creative, innovative and inspiring. Very clever game designs and game play.

The event included a variety of speakers from Brazil including Ana Da Mata from Lincare and Eduardo Baer from DogHero. Both of these organizations are not traditional learning and development firms but have incorporated gamification into their applications. Their presentations provided a good launching point for discussing gamification within South America and Brazil in particular.

I especially liked the Lincare innovation discussion. For example, if a user cannot work their app, the app provides the user with an indication of the current state of the app in the form of a smiley face, neutral face or sad face as shown in the image below.

When the user indicates the type of face to the help desk, based on the type of face, the help desk team can diagnosis the problem.

It’s great because describing the type of face is easier for a user to convey to help desk than explaining a cryptic a error message (and more friendly for the user of the app). "My app has a sad face." That means you are not connected to the internet.

The Gamification Summit was hosted by Prof. Wagner T. Cassimiro of Expresso3. Wagner is a leader in the L&D field in Brazil. (Wagner and I having some fun in the image below.)

Wagner worked hard to pull together the entire event and was a gracious host. He provided me with a good deal of input into what was happening in Brazil regarding games and gamification for learning and he was able to arrange speakers from IBM, SAP, the financial giant Bradesco, the Brazilian retail giant Mercado Livre and the French headquartered home improvement and gardening retailer named Leroy Merlin.

The event also featured speakers from SEBRAE which is “Brazilian Service of Support for Micro and Small Enterprises” (SEBRAE). SEBRAE is a private non-profit organization encouraging the development, growth, and support of small businesses across the country. Their are plenty of entrepreneurs in Brazil --in the L&D space and in many other industries.

Additionally, an academic perspective was brought to conference as a two speakers attended from the University S?o Paulo. One of the speakers was from the Faculty of Economics, Administration and Accounting and the other was the Director of the USP Research Center on Open Source Software (CCSL). It was great to gain their perspectives on the use of games and gamification within Brazil to promote learning and engagement within an academic setting. It was also interesting to learn how those professors were partnering with corporations to create unique game-based learning experiences.

Wagner indicated that there are more than 30 companies in Brazil working with gamification as a main solution for learning and HR. The list below has several examples of companies that presented at the Gamification Conference in the "Road Show" portion of the conference.

• Engage
• Gamifier 
• Triunica
• SenacSP
• Kaptiva
• Nexialistas 

Here are some shots of the vendors in actions explaining their gamification and game-based solutions.

I asked Wagner why he decided to create and host a conference on gamification in Brazil. He indicated that “Gamification is a hot topic and a great trend in Learning and Development. If well implemented, it can nurture a lot of people in their management process and improve the performance results. People in organizations are eager to find ways to adopt it. A conference on gamification supports them in this learning process with business cases and examples of theories in practice.”

I noticed that the pace of innovation, the willingness to embrace gamification and the number of gamification initiatives presented at the conference was impressive in all sizes of business.

You can see some interviews, additional information and content related to the conference in both English and Portuguese at this link. You can download presentations from the conference at this link.

Another question I asked of Wagner was “was why do you think gamification is becoming so popular in Brazil?” He told me that Brazilians love games and are competitive but also love to work as a team and so gamification seems like a natural extension of what Brazilian like to do. He also added that “as young kids we are addicted to games but then unfortunately we grow up and have to abandon them. But if we can play in a work environment [then] let's play it.” The sentiment is echoed by other major players in the Brazilian market for learning games and gamification.

In fact, Flora Alves (standing with me below) the author of the gamification book, “Gamification: Como criar experiências de aprendizagem engajadoras. Um guia completo: do conceito à pratica*” indicated that “in Brazil gamification for learning is growing fast and as a result it is necessary to keep an eye on ‘how’ and ‘when to use it.”

She goes on to explain “the use of games for learning in Brazil is widely known but sometimes people do it mostly based on intuition and that is why it is so important to approach gamification and learning design together.” Part of my workshop was focused on describing how to approach gamification using a systematic approach.

Alves also said that she is seeing a “huge interest in the use of gamification for learning in Brazil.” One company that is creating some gamified solutions is called Micro Power. I visited with Michel Musulin Soeltl—the General Director of the company (standing next to me with the blue shirt)—and his team of developers, designers and marketing folks to talk about how they are implementing gamification with their clients.

Micro Power has created a number of gamified solutions for companies in Brazil with the main objective of the gamified solutions being to better engage employees who need to learn key information about the products they are selling. Michel Musulin Soeltl stated that “the ‘traditional way’ of corporative learning is not motivating the current workforce in Brazil. He went on to say that “we have almost 40% of our workforce in Generation Y, and these young folks learn and perform differently. They want to compete, be recognized and rewarded.”

Flora Alves reminded me that “it is important to highlight that in Brazil gamification for learning is not restricted to one industry and in general I don’t find resistance to implementing gamified learning solutions.”

I asked Michel to describe to me a little about their LMS. He stated, “our LMS is called MicroPower Performa. We have added gamification elements (Teams, Phases, Rewards and Virtual Store), Ranking, Recognition (Badges), etc... in order to allow companies to create more fun and engaged training modules. The most popular element is the Badge and Phase to accomplish the tasks.” The demonstration his team presented was quite impressive. 

The interest, enthusiasm and focus on games and gamification within Brazil is exciting. The conference ended with many vendors from Brazil highlighting their products and how they’ve implemented gamification. It was a great ending to the conference. 

As Flora Alves said, "When I think about the future of gamification in Brazil, I believe that gamification for learning has come to stay. As we are surrounded by technology and devices we will keep taking advantage of the mobility that the devices give us to be more effective when it comes to the gamification of learning."

Bio

Karl Kapp is a professor at Bloomsburg University and he literally “wrote the book” on the "The Gamification of Learning and Instruction" and he recently co-authored the game-based learning book Play to Learn with Sharon Boller. Karl is a researcher, analyst, speaker, professor, consultant and designer of instructional games, gamification and engaging learning experiences. He is a learning experience designer who works around the global helping organizations in places like Brazil, China and Brussels create engaging and meaningful learning experiences using an evidence-based approach.

He is founder of The Wisdom Learning Group, LLC, a global partnership that helps organizations implement game-thinking and game-based learning to achieve success. He is author/co-author of seven books on the convergence of learning and technology. He is the creator of the Lynda.com courses "The Gamification of Learning" as well as "Gamification for Interactive Learning"

Follow Karl's blog https://karlkapp.com/kapp-notes/.

Follow Karl on Twitter @kkapp.

Need insights, input, ideas, or a learning strategy or new approach or, especially, an energetic keynote speaker or some industry insight? Karl provides evidence-based guidance, design and insights for creating engaging, meaningful learning (as well as some awesome gamified workshops and learning events.)

Visit www.karlkapp.com for more information on gamification, game-based and learning experience design.