According to HBR Blog Network – “69% of the heads of households in the U.S. play computer and video games and 97% of young people – your emerging talent pool – play them.” So what does this tell us? Quite simply, that the general working public receives the most pleasure from gaming.

The Same Old, Same Old

We have all experienced this in our work life-going to work every day preforming the same exact tasks every day clocking out and going home. There is hardly ever any excitement or pleasure that is derived from our 9-5 jobs. More to the point we receive no recognition or achievement for what we accomplish during our workday-so there is absolutely no motivation.

Unfortunately, for many organizations this is an easy place to go and stay stuck in forever, most CEO’s and executives of companies have no idea that there are other possibilities out there for increasing employee engagement and creating more productivity through what we know as gamification.

Gamification Provides a Solution

Every once in a while the average employee will experience a crisis at work such as a huge customer order that must be filled immediately, a problem with a consumer that needs to be fixed right away, etc. When this happens you can see the sudden change in the attitude of the employee; suddenly that employee is excited and motivated and the work is completed in time and efficiently.  This stems from a sort of adrenaline high that the employee experiences knowing that they must immediately tend to the issue or risk losing their job.

So how do we convert that sense of motivation and excitement into an employee’s everyday working life? Simply by using and implementing gamification in to the workplace.

Here are the common elements between the above situations-that created the motivation- and gamification techniques that can be applied to the workplace:

• Focused and Urgent Goals are set
• Strict Project Deadlines
• Creating Independent Teams that are permitted to experiment
• Increased Productivity and Positive Outcomes are Rewarded

Using game-like characteristics and instilling a nature of excitement in the workplace has been proven to increase productivity and the over-all atmosphere of the workplace.

Here’s how to use gamification to make your job fun!

• Set long-term goals
• Cut out smaller short-term goals that need to be done quickly, from the original long-term goals.
• Assign a team to the shorter term goals and have them create a “plan of attack” for each goal.
• The plan should be created with specifics; how it will be done, the exact time it will be done in, etc.
• The teams should be asked to experiment and fun should be encouraged the whole way through.  
• The team should be rewarded for their effort once the goal is accomplished.

If you would like to test the idea of totally changing your work environment and implementing a completely new system, such as game mechanics, you can certainly do that. Start with one goal that needs to be achieved in a few weeks, assign a team to it and use the gamification ideas listed above to get it done. It’s simple and easy to implement no matter what your current system is.

Any job, no matter how boring, can be reformed to include game mechanics or gaming attributes.

Enterprises have an overwhelming need to optimize consumer engagement-which is one of the main factors behind this prediction of significant growth. According to presskontakt.se “Gamification provides an insight into the purchasing-related demand for various products.”   Marketers are using this perception to devise marketing strategies for increased sales of their products and to urge increased consumer engagement for their brand.

The basic definition of Gamification is to use game-thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts in order to engage users; this includes employees and consumers alike. Gamification is applied to company applications and processes to increase user engagement, employee engagement, data quality, learning, ROI and timeliness.

The ultimate goal of gamification is to maximize user brand and product engagement through the enabling of entertainment in which the user directly interacts with the brand in a fun and gratifying manner-thus increasing sales and brand loyalty.

Game mechanics such as leaderboards, achievement awards, and skill-based learning tools are quickly growing in day-to-day business processes. The key when using gamification is to evaluate user behavior patterns as a precursor to employing optimal game mechanics that align with user expectations and behavior.

The global gamification market has increased in a hurry, spreading from consumer and media brands to enterprise brands, healthcare and educational markets. The implementation of game mechanics in non-traditional industries has grown exponentially just in the past year.

In the global gamification market the trend of socialization, including personalization and content sharing via social media and similar platforms has been gaining tremendous power. The end result shows social media marketing with even more significance than ever before and is considered the next marketing platform that most companies are choosing to transition to.

Gamification remains a small part in the total market for video games and gaming, but its swift growth demonstrates the increasing social acceptance of gaming and the overall conclusion that game mechanics can be an influential instrument.

There are several companies that currently lead the global gamification market including: Badgeville Inc., Gigya Inc., Bunchball Inc., and BigDoor Media Inc.

For more information on the global gamification market, see the latest research: Global Gamification Market

Sources: presskontakt.se

Employee and Consumer Engagement may be a lot of things but the end result is trying to get your numbers to increase, whether that is visitor frequency, duration or sales the key is to choose one of these and focus on that. It may be tempting to want it all but choosing one goal and sticking to that will save you a lot of complication. Think simple-when you are gamifying anything what you want is people to look at what you have created and use it.

One of the easiest things to do especially in gamification is over-complicate. When it comes to your gamification idea try explaining it in ONE sentence; if you can do that you have a simple idea that will essentially be as effective as you want it to be.

Anything above and beyond that one sentence shows that you have fallen into the temptation of complication and you can spend years and a lot of money going down that road only to have it fail you because it is overly complicated and simply won’t work.

For example Reddit is gamified by Users collecting karma by posting content, which other users vote on and sometimes they unlock trophy badges. We all know the only written rule of Pong is to avoid missing that ball for the highest score. You have to learn to keep things simple.

Knowing that your consumers are not naive will help you create more engagement. Forget about the levels, achievements, badges, etc. and focus on the point. If your users can’t see a point behind all the levels, badges and awards the majority of them will not stick around; these are the three kinds of gamification that you need to know:

1. Validation- Your consumers and users want to be validated; Up-votes, likes, re-tweets, etc. are numbers which tell a user that he or she is popular and they are produced by the quality of what that user has created and posted and then awarded by other users with in that community.

It doesn’t matter what the contribution is, the gamified element is the symbol that says “We Like You” to the user. Validation is one of the strongest elements of quality engagement but it does require that the content or service is taken outside of your control. Learn to be comfortable with that and you can use the validation factor to build a community around your product or service.

2. Completion- A good example of this would be the progress bar on LinkedIn. It tells you that your profile is currently 75 percent complete, and then guides you through the site getting you to complete the necessary steps in order to help you obtain that 100 percent completion.

3. Prizes- If you decide to give prizes you have to go all in; meaning if your service becomes about prizes then it is ONLY about prizes.  If at some point you decide to take away the prizes you will only receive a decline in your engagement and disapproving responses from your users and consumers. Air miles, lotteries, health apps, etc. are appealing because they offer a prize or benefits like upgrades, winning money or losing that last 10 pounds.

These prizes are clear and well-liked because they are familiar and we all know someone who has gained from them.  However, they all involve a type of action and although this can be a wonderful thing for consumer engagement it can also be tougher to maintain long-term interest.

The bottom line is Keep It Simple and you will succeed with your gamification idea; it’s all about a principal action leading to a principal outcome, that’s it!

If you want people to actually use your gamified applications they need to be as addictive as any game on the market today-such as Words with Friends, Angry Birds or the many Facebook games out there that people spend hours playing.

Gamification basically means applying various techniques that game designers use to engage and/or motivate employees, users or customers to use your gamified application and in turn your service or product.  Gamification is a “new” marketing tool with profound effects.

Gabe Zichermann is one of many who outspokenly believe that gamification is real, and really important. He describes it as the culmination of a number of trends in gaming, the theory of “serious games,” and social application design.

Ultimately, Gamification uses the science of how to manipulate people, just like any other marketing technique, there is psychology behind it. For instance, Foursquare flourished because part of it is a sort of game where people compete to check in by location and receive badges or recognition for doing so.

Many businesses have productively applied gamified techniques such as Google (reducing travel expenses) or Target who effectively uses gamification to improve on their cashier’s performance.

Although the psychology behind gamification is important to the overall design, we cannot forget about the technology part of the gamified process.  Gamified applications are increasingly simple to deliver due largely to the availability of technologies like the Facebook and other social networks.  The neat thing too is that application designers can build on already existing gamification platforms like Bunchball, Big Door, and Badgeville.

Using gamification doesn’t essentially mean creating fancy graphics, sound effects, or handing out a ton of badges. However, it can mean keeping score and allowing your users to see their status on a leader board.  

In terms of employee engagement that might mean setting up a leader board for your employees and allowing them to see how close they are to achieving a set goal or securing that bonus; it’s a great way to get a little friendly competition going in the office and increase productivity all at the same time.

The key to creating that element of addiction in your gamified system is to provide random, unpredictable fortification on hitting the jackpot for your users.  Most of us have been to a casino or two in our lives and we all know that the small chance of hitting it big is what keeps us playing the game.  Using this concept in your gamified applications will keep your users engaged, whether it’s your employees or your customers.

Recently the term “Gamification” has been surrounded by a lot of excitement. For those of you that may not know, Gamification uses rewards, incentives and loyalty services to produce user and employee engagement in the chaotic world of apps, marketing and online life.

However, Gartner states in a new study that by 2014, 80% of all gamified apps will fail to do what they’ve set out to do.  According to Gartner research VP, Brian Burke, it comes down to bad design.  We see it often enough; companies & developers become obsessed with points and badges, instead of focusing on creating meaningful motivations and objectives to keep the user engaged.

The whole point of gamification is to engage the user and the only way to do that is to create objectives that motivate the user. 

The prediction made by Gartner, if proven to be true has some possibly discouraging consequences for gamified startup companies and possibly larger companies interested in using gamification. A few of the  companies that have or are currently using gamification either in their business models or via third-party apps are Foursquare,  Bunchball , Badgeville , SCVNGR, BigDoor,  and shopkick.

We are now seeing consolidation in companies using gamification. For instance, Gowalla sold to Facebook for $3 million and there is prediction that gamification platforms will be the next acquisition target for companies that sell services to enterprises. 

What we see here is that consumer apps have the highest profiles, and to that end enterprises have become some of the largest adopters of gamification techniques.   According to Gartner by 2015, some 40% of Global 1000 organizations will use gamification techniques to gain employee engagement in order to become more productive and gain more business.

All in all Gamification isn’t bad, once we get past all the hysteria and hot air surrounding gamification we can finally focus on the practical ideas and gamification techniques that work.

Using badges in the classroom, really? Several games and web tools, like Edmodo, contain the capability of awarding student badges in order to encourage students to engage and thrive independently. However, classrooms are not being totally gamified, just yet, even with the amount of tools that have become recently available for this very thing. 

Let’s consider for a moment why awarding badges to students may be better than our current standard letter grades.

Badges are more specific than a letter grade; Badges directly point out what your student has accomplished and focus directly on the positive by providing a clear image to students and parents alike.  With a letter grade it is much less specific and although it may allocate the student to a certain level of success, it does not, however point out any specific or distinctive strengths.

Badges stimulate, motivate and encourage; they provide specific memories of past learning experiences for students and support all their current skills and understanding in the education world.  Badges compel the students, teachers and parents alike to become more involved and find out what does this badge represent?

A conventional report card does not encourage this type of awareness for students, parents or teachers in order to become higher educated or start a career when the time comes.

Plus, and probably the best part for the students, Badges are super fun! They are cute, colorful and fun to show off, essentially creating much more engagement and interest in school work. 

According to many, and we here at Tigga Studios tend to agree, Badges are an excellent “grading system” that beats out your conventional report card bar none.  Badges create memories linking each student to their own unique individuality.  What a wonderful example of how gamification can be used to better our world and create more engagement!

Whether you want to see it or not in today’s world everything is being gamified.  Our favorite TV shows, our social media, our favorite fast food restaurants, etc.  What are the benefits of gamification both for the consumer and the companies that are implementing these techniques? Is it ethical?

If you are considering implementing gamification into your marketing strategies or loyalty programs in order to create more consumer engagement there are a few things you might want to consider when doing so.

1. Make sure that the consumer/player knows they are playing a game. No one wants to go into something not knowing the basis behind it and wake up and realize it was just all a game.
2. If you wouldn’t play the game you are designing for your consumers don’t expect them to play it.
3. Don’t steal the game architecture used or designed by another company and try to claim it as your own-be inspired but always give credit where it’s due.

There are many positive aspects to using gamification in your business, brand, service or product.  Gamification techniques create customer loyalty and engagement and can help build a good base of involved and loyal consumers.

You can use games, contests and the like to boost and even create opportunities for sponsorships, partnerships and even networking.

 Gamification forms opportunities marketers to communicate and engage with their audiences and consumers.  This works in two ways, it allows the marketers to gain data on their consumers thus being able to form campaigns geared towards consumers more accurately.  It also allows the consumer to feel a sense of loyalty to the brand, product or service due to the heightened sense of engagement the consumer feels from the company.

The engagement the consumer feels will then be spread to friends, colleagues and networks from the brand loyalists that participate. This is an extremely easy and cost effective way to reach new consumers.

Gamification cuts down on company marketing costs.

Gamification has tons of benefits and what is listed above is only a few of the many benefits you can get from using gamification techniques. However, when doing so there are things to consider, although gamification is a great tool, you want to make sure you are using it in the right way.

Make sure your consumers don’t forget about the main reason they are playing and engaging with your company. For instance, Nike+ offers a great example of gamification that encourages an active lifestyle and they have created it in such a way that reminds their consumers why they are playing rather than buying a whole bunch of shoes to score points and forgetting the main objective which is to motivate their consumers to exercise.  Anyone considering gamification can take notes from the Nike+ app. 

An ethically questionable example of gamification would be McDonalds Pick & Play which essentially encourages consumers to eat a poor diet and lots of it, which is the last thing we need in the U.S.

When considering gamification ethics you need to be judicious of the game or contest you are creating and verify that it does not waste your consumers’ time or promote your brand incorrectly, or to the wrong audience.

Right now Gen Y is entering the workforce at an alarming rate and they have different ideas about the relationship between Employer and Employee.  Gen Y was raised on video games as their form of entertainment, so to them the world works much better if it is fast paced and fun.

Because of this, and as employers, we need to redesign the Business to Employee relationship and improve the workplace environment so we can attract, keep and motivate the Gen Y employees. 

Every generation brings with it positives and negatives, but it’s your job as business owners to make the most out of the positives and reduce the ineffectiveness.  Using gamified techniques and user-centered thinking, employee engagement and relations can and will become more beneficial to your business goals and objectives.

Gen X & Y love the idea of gamification, essentially using game design elements such as points, badges, leaderboards, and social elements.  What you want here is to create a workplace that everyone can identify with and that encourages positive growth in your employee’s skills or career path.

With four generations of people all working together under the same roof it’s hard to keep everyone on the same page and communicating effectively.   We now live and work in a world filled with social media, globalization, and demographics so how does an entire company work together to deliver successful products and services?

Every company big or small has a different approach to their business methods.  As a company if you want to be successful with engaged employees the need to focus on social responsibility both individually and as a whole is vital.  Creating an environment where everyone understands that you are all working together for the growth and success not only of the company, your fellow employees but also for each individual will push forward huge growth and a sense of social conscience thus creating a tight-knit workplace.

When it comes to today’s consumers we are highly rewarded for our loyalty.  For instance, Foursquare rewards you for checking in with badges or mayor status, Mega Jump rewards you with coupons if you reach a new level, do an online survey and you get a gift card, etc. 

Lately you may have noticed that your collaboration with services, products and brands have become more and more gamified in both our personal and professional lives; it seems that gamification has extended itself into almost everything.

Gamification has shown that it is an irrefutably effective tool when it comes to marketing by creating loyalty, devotion and engagement with consumers and employees alike.  Years ago, loyalty programs consisted of more big ticket items such as big screen TV’s, exotic family trips, etc. 

However, these items did not come without a price and in the end it was more of a pain than it was worth; it did not create the engagement that it needed to and many times the reward experience ended up being an off-putting one indeed.

Our expectations as consumers have transformed into something more convenient and immediate.  As consumers we want instant gratification and that is what creates loyalty; if our service requests are immediately answered and our rewards are immediately received.

Using gamification and loyalty programs provides companies with exceedingly rich data on their consumers.  Gamification and loyalty programs allow your company to benefit from enhanced visibility, tracking, and measurement of how consumers use services, products and brands, plus engagement levels, and tons more. 

This data can be influenced into improved rewards, superior offers, and most of all profound consumer loyalty. Gamification provides companies the tools they need to align business and product incentives with consumer needs.

We are seeing gamification as a form of engagement everywhere; a new nifty tool that is being used is being able to directly interact with your favorite TV shows on FOX, NBC, etc.  You earn points when you answer questions about your favorite characters or share content from the show on Twitter or Facebook. 

The beauty of this is that the more into it you are the more points you earn and the more likely you are to top a leaderboard and win!  This is just one example and there are tons more, if you look closely enough you will see new things like this that create engagement all over; creating a very new environment filled with thousands of possibilities including being able to skip ads, engage directly in something you already enjoyed, and be rewarded directly and immediately.

So with all these cool new things happening what does that mean for you as a consumer? I think it’s obvious that we are now entering a world where instant gratification and fun are becoming the norm, we are also able to engage directly with brands, products, services and even TV shows that we already know and love.  We are rewarded for almost every little thing we do and we get to have fun doing it!

For companies alike if you are implementing gamification into your marketing and loyalty programs you will find that your company is engaging more with your consumer and you are spending less doing it! Using digital delivery for things like gift cards and other rewards has made it cheaper and faster to reward your consumers; creating instant gratification all around by simply using a few gamified techniques.

1. Syrum-created to appeal to anyone who is into science, this neat little game provides you with the fun experience of creating your own lab, creating new medicines and stopping deadly diseases! Syrum’s original intent on gamifying the pharmaceutical industry came from a way to educate doctors about the practice of medicines as well as the everyday general public about how to take and manage their prescription drugs.

The game advanced into a type of social game where each player can team up with friends, send them gifts, and receive rewards when they check in on Facebook.  This game is both educational and tons of fun!

1. Klash- is a mobile app that lets you challenge your friends or strangers, as well as accept challenges. So here is what you do: Log into the app with Facebook, Your “Klash” is your Challenge so you then need to decide what your “Klash” will be.  Once you have decided you then send the “Klash” to a specific person or everyone, and you are then able to choose a reward. You can always follow and share the results no matter if you are accepting a challenge or challenging someone else.

The gamified concept of this app came from two guys who dared a third guy to surf for the first time and he was rewarded with a beer.  Those three guys met up with the final two of the group and created Klash so everyone could enjoy a good dare and be rewarded for it!

1. SaveUp-this handy tool is a website that essentially a free rewards program that rewards you for the money you save and securely links to your bank account.  So whenever you successfully save money, pay your bills or reduce debt, you earn points.   For extra points you can actually participate in daily challenges by viewing financially educational content or inviting your friends to join.  Right now this is a single-user application but the company does have plans to turn it into a social experience where you can compete with your friends.

I am sure you are curious about what rewards this handy website dishes out…well you won’t be disappointed.   The points you earn go towards rewards like gift cards, a car, makeovers for your home or wardrobe, and the BIG one; a chance to win the $2 million dollar grand prize!  Obviously, this app is so worth it, plus at the end of the day you will have a nice nest egg from all the money you saved while playing even if you didn’t win the Grand Prize.

1. CheckinLine- is a fascinating app that allows you to virtually your place in line for things like Concert Tickets, Sporting Events and more.    So how it works is once you have reserved your place in line you have to then “check in” periodically over seven days by

Once you reserve your spot in the line, you are required to “check in” over a period of seven days by accomplishing research or promotional-based tasks. You may not be excited about all the tasks you have to complete but the rewards seem well worth it.   So if you answer questions you get the first pick on the best tickets and the more often you “check-in” the closer to the top of the line you will be.  Hey even if you have to answer a few questions so that other companies find out what you like it sure beats out standing in line with tons of people on a hot muggy day or a cold snowy one!

1. Zamzee – is a small meter that you can put into your pocket and a child-friendly website that tracks and measures the duration and intensity of any activity you perform through the day. After you have created your Zamzee account you then connect the meter to your computer with a USB and it will upload your progress to the website.  Once it uploads you will see an activity graph that compares today’s activity with the days prior and then showing you how many Pointz you have earned.  This tool is geared towards kids and helping them become more active.  Kids are able to view how many Pointz they get for taking a walk with the dog, walking to school or the grocery store, etc.

With the Pointz you can also compete against friends or family and earn badges, accept challenges and increase levels.  The challenges are super fun story-based adventures that let you earn Zamz which are the form of currency in the Zamezee world.  The rewards include gift cards, tech gadgets, fun collectibles or charitable donations. 

Just in case you are still not convinced on the results of Zamezee; a study conducted by HopeLab, a non-profit organization that works to improve health in young people, showed  Zamezee increased physical activity in kids by 59% on average over the six-month study period.  That’s pretty amazing results in a day and age we need it most.