Gamification
I came across a new term I had not heard of before which I found very interesting. It's not a new term, in-fact according to Wikipedia the term was coined in 2002 but only begun becoming popular in 2010.
What is Gamification?
Gamification (pronounced Game-if-e-cation) is the concept of using and applying game design/mechanics in a non-game context. It's used to improve user engagement and learning. E.g. using a Leader board as a means of determining who your top sales person is for the week. These kinds of techniques are not new, but there are more companies and organisations today studying this field in order to help them increase engagement or improve strategy.
We have a problem where I work with certain areas of our data which is either incomplete or just not there, so I'm really keen to explore how Gamification can be used within the enterprise to improve data capturing and cleansing; mundane tasks that nobody really likes doing.
Examples
Here are a few examples of Gamification in action:
**Enterprise** - Hoopla.Net provide an ESPN style Stats and Leader board application to encourage friendly competition between team members.
**Marketing** - McDonalds set up an interactive billboard in Stockholm, Sweden, with a simple game of pong that the public could play, live. I thought this was an innovative way to boost the brand, I'm sure sales of hamburgers went up by a lot that day in Stockholm.
**Social Study** - Piano Stairs
Last, but not least.
I'll leave you with this really cool video I found on YouTube that plays with the concept of visualising all the day-to-day tasks you do as a video game.
