Regardless of what organisation you work for and what industry you’re in, these 4 steps are universal.

Step 1 – Be Proactive

During your first few months of a job, your manager will probably teach you the processes and activities that you need in order to fulfill the basic elements of your job description; the onus is on you to discover everything else.

You need to learn who you can go to for help when you’re struggling with certain tasks, how does each person like to be spoken to, what is the company culture (how things are done around here) etc.

These are the type of things where you can be pointed in the right direction, but ultimately you must go out of your way to learn things that aren’t necessarily within your job description.

Once you’ve got a handle on your role and you’re beginning to understand who is who and how things are done, you notice that there are certain processes that always seem to fall down in the same place, yet nothing is ever done about it.

This is where you can show your initiative.

Don’t just raise the issue with your manager, but actually think up a few potential solutions to the problems.

Your solutions may not fit perfectly  but your boss will be pleased that you are not just relying on her to fix it for you.

Step 2 – Take Responsibility

Mistake happen sometimes, they’re unavoidable and we just have to accept that. They help you to learn, but also provide the opportunity to own up to the blunder.

Most bosses will be pleased that you have the character to own up to your failings and not shirk away from the responsibility.

If there is a blame culture in your company, this may not always work out perfectly. If that’s the case you will definitely be expected to fix the mistake yourself. The best way to deal with this type of organisation is to ensure you have a plan of action to solve the issue.

As well as owning up to mistakes, another virtue is keeping your promises.

Having employees that keep their word is important to any manager. If you say a report will be ready 17:00 on Friday, you better have the polished, proof-read article ready at 16:45. You have to be able to deliver, it is a big sign of  reliability and managers will choose good reliability over inconsistent brilliance every time.

This doesn’t mean saying yes to every project and making promises you can’t deliver on. It’s your responsibility to manage your own workload; if you have a project deadline you’re struggling to meet and your manager asks you for a report which will take time away from your project, you have to be honest about what you can produce.

Often the report you are handed at the last minute is more important to your manager than your project, so you’ll just have to prioritise as best you can in these situations.

Always keep your word and if you can’t produce the work, don’t promise that you can.

Step 3 – Be a Team Player

Everyone works in a team and everyone in that team generally has an equally large workload.

If your team-mate Joe is struggling with building a marketing plan and you just happen to be particularly good at planning, give them a hand.

You’ll not only earn Joe’s gratitude but the respect of the rest of your team. However, be careful not to take over someone else’s job. Know where the boundaries lie and if you’re not sure, ask.

Also, going back to the previous point, make sure you are managing your own workload and don’t offer help if you’re struggling to keep up yourself.

It’s important to not that if you do this too often, your colleagues may begin to take it for granted and it could unofficially become part of your job description.

You’ll find that as you offer help to others, when you are struggling yourself, they will return the favour. People are wired to reciprocate.

As you’re working in a team, your moods will effect everyone else in the team, including your manager. In every job you’ve worked at, I bet you can remember that there was someone always who managed to stay positive, keep a smile on their face and doesn’t complain.

While it might not make you happier, it can prevent morale from lowering.

If you are able to be the person who always have a smile on their face, people will come to you when they are feeling particularly demotivated and look to you for morale support.

You will stand out from the crowd and your attitude will be notice not just by your manager, but managers in other departments too.

Your working environment will improve and you’ll be taking your first step towards a promotion.

Step 4 – Lead

The hardest part of being a leader is protecting your team from the more unpleasant aspects of office life.

Sometimes this might be protection from undue criticism or unnecessary workloads. If you always defend your team and have something good to say about each colleague you will earn the trust of your team and they’ll have your back when things get difficult.

While defence is good, sometimes you’ll need to fight on behalf of your team, whether its for additional benefits, extra resources or to be allocated to that project that everyone wants to be a part of.

Always defend, fight and show that you care about your team. Fight for your team and they will fight for you.

Step 5 – Lead by Example

We all know a manager who sets certain rules for his colleagues but ignores those rules himself.

If you insist that your team team take no longer than 1 hour for their lunch, you can’t leave the office at 13:00 and stroll back in at 14:15.

Summary

Not practicing what you preach leads to resentment and will ultimately undermine your authority. Your team will ask “why should we do that, when you don’t do this?”

One person’s actions, whether they are a team member, supervisor or manager have a huge impact on the rest of the team and reflect on your manager’s own skill. If you follow these steps you will quickly gain impress and gain the respect of your boss, your team and probably your boss’s boss.

When I was first studying business, I used to think that the leader was the person in charge of the company and that the managers were the people he employed.

On reflection, this kind of thinking is understandable as the type of manager who were featured on the news and on the covers of magazines were the one who also happened to be great leaders.

It wasn’t until later that it become obvious that a manager can also be a leader. Leader isn’t a job title like manager, but a point of view and a way of acting.

What are the differences between leaders and managers?

When, Where and How vs. What and Why:

Leaders focus on the organisation’s overall vision and strategy, whereas managers will put their efforts into administrating day-to-day tasks and coordinating their team. Managers have short-term views which focus on Quarter 1- 4, leaders have longer-term perspectives focusing on Year 1-4. Managers always have an eye on their budgets and on the bottom line, leaders have their eyes on the horizon.

Maintenance vs. Development:

A manager will see their role as to maintain performance and sustain the business, but leaders will make it their goal to develop and grow the market. Managers accept and help to maintain the status quo but the leader challenges it.

Processes vs. People

There is a tendency for managers to focus heavily on processes, hierarchies and systems, whereas leaders focus on people and what works best for them. Managers will do things the right way while the leader does the right thing.

Authority vs. Trust

A manager will rely on their job title to give them control and authority to instruct their team. Leaders will achieve authority through trust and respect.

Summary

Is being a leader better than being a manager? Not necessarily, good managers are as important as good leaders. All organisation need good managers, they are the ones who turn the leader’s vision into a reality.

I’d love to hear about your experiences with a good leader or manager, please add your story below.

This was the third and final assignment for the Gamification course taught by Proefessor Kevin Werbach on Coursera and my answer is included.

Project Part III: Design Document

Now that you know the essential concepts about gamification and game design, it’s time to use them. For this final task, we ask you to bring together creativity, technical feasibility, and business realities.

You are approached by Rashmi Horenstein, the CEO of ShareAll, a prominent company in the hot collaborative consumption space. (If you aren’t familiar with the concept, some good resources areCollaborativeConsumption.com and the March 9, 2013 cover story in the Economist.) She knows you are one of the top experts on gamification, which she has heard can revolutionize business.  She asks you to present a proposal for a gamified system to take her business to the next level.

ShareAll’s mission is to make shared use of products and services as common as individual purchases.  It follows the path of companies such as AirBnB, Buzzcar, and Uber, which allow sharing of particular products (cars, housing, etc).  ShareAll’s patented technology makes it easy for consumers and business to share any product or service.  ShareAll has also developed a global virtual currency, called Shares, which can be used to purchase access to any asset in the system. Shares can be exchanged for real money, and users can generate more Shares by sharing items or volunteering their time to complete tasks for others.

ShareAll charges a small transaction fee whenever Shares are generated, traded, or spent. Therefore, the more activity, the more money ShareAll makes. Horenstein tells you that she cares about the social benefits of sustainability.  However, ShareAll is a for-profit company, with investments and partnerships from some of the world’s largest corporations, so profits matter. Horenstein believes gamification could significantly help ShareAll’s business. She is eager to read your ideas.

Provide a detailed description of your proposal, organized according to the design framework described in the lectures in Unit 7:

1. Define business objectives
2. Delineate target behaviors
3. Describe your players
4. Devise activity loops
5. Don’t forget the fun!
6. Deploy the appropriate tools

My answer was as follows:

“Business Objectives

As a for-profit company, ShareAll’s ultimate goal is generating more profit for its partners and backers. Each time a Share (virtual currency) is processed, ShareAll takes a small transaction fee; like PayPal, this is how they make their money. With profit in mind, the primary goal of the gamified system is to encourage player activity; the more Shares that are spent, the more profit ShareAll makes.

The nature of the service is that players will make a little money when they share their items or offer their time. However, Rashmi Horenstein in particularly is very interested in the social benefits of sustainability, so the system should not just focus on players making money.

The goal is an end and gamification is a means to an end, not an end in itself. It would be simple to design a gamified system for ShareAll which engaged customers, but if that system didn’t meet the business goals it would be in the business’s view, useless.

The nature of gamification allows ShareAll to influence the development of habits by providing a progressive experience. If the player has a different experience each time, they will be more encouraged to continue to using the game or system in place. Continued use of the system will help ShareAll to achieve not only their profit targets, but the promotion of sustainability.

In summary, the goals of ShareAll’s gamification strategy are to generate profit by increasing player engagement and activity.

Target Behaviours

There are 5 main behaviours which this system is to encourage:

• Players signing up for an account on ShareAll, this after all the first step
• Posting an item or service for other players to “buy”
• Buy another player’s items or services
• Rating other player’s items or services
• Share positive experiences with the service on Facebook and Twitter and pin relevant item images onto Pinterest.

The measurement of the first 4 behaviours is simple as each action would be recorded against a player’s account. Sharing about the website on social media sites could only really be measured if a link from ShareAll’s website was used to do the sharing.

One easy metric for measuring progress would be a points system. Depending on the importance of the action in relation to the business goals, each action would be assigned points. For example:

• Buying an item/service – 7 points (directly fulfils the business goals)
• Posting an item/service – 5 points (increases the number of listings and possibility of players buying)
• Rating a player – 3 points (increases the chances of other players buying)
• Sharing on social media – 3 points (provides free word of mouth advertising)
• Signing up for an account – 1 point

As one of the goals is continued use of ShareAll, a “win state” would give players a feeling of completion and they may not be as motivated to continue. Also, a player who doesn’t win may have the same negative reaction. The way around this is to introduce a temporary win state, for example being most active player in your local area (similar to Foursquare’s mayoral system). The player with the most points for that week, month or year would receive an appropriate badge which would show on their profile. While badges aren’t the be all and end all of gamification, they would be perfect for this particular mechanic.

Each activity will have its own hierarchy of badges, similar to separation of classes in most RPGs.

As almost all activity happens on-site, the data is readily available for analysis and to optimise the service.

The Players

This system will have 3 types of players:

• Those who believe in sustainability (socialisers)
• Those who want to save money (explorers)
• Those who want to make money (achievers)

It would be difficult to build a system that would appeal to all 3 player segments and the danger of alienating any of the players is too high. As the motivations of each player will be quite different, it is necessary to have 3 systems tailored to each segment. During the sign-up process, players will be asked to select from a number of options what their main reason for choosing the site is:

The eco-warriors will be the easiest to encourage with a gamified system as their motivators are both extrinsic and intrinsic. They have an internal desire to promote and take part in sustainable living, but they also want to be seen to do so. Eco-warriors will be heavily motivated by sharing their activities with their friends and other like-minded individuals on the site and off the site (Facebook, Twitter etc.) Badges to demonstrate their commitment and local leaderboards will be well suited for these players.

Thrifty players will initially use ShareAll because they want to save money and are aware that by sharing items with other players or using their services, they will be paying less than they would if they simply bought the item themselves or paid for professional services. Their motivations are almost wholly intrinsic, they want to save money. These players could be rewarded with free Shares (similar to a Starbucks or Nando’s loyalty card) for them to spend when they hit certain milestones.

The third set of players are the entrepreneurs. Like on Fiverr, these players are looking for new ways to make money from their items or the services they offer. Like the thrifty players, the entrepreneurs are mostly intrinsically motivated; however as most people like their achievements recognised, badges such as “First to make a $1000” etc. may work quite well for these players. Priority listings or featured status could also be earned by players who sell the most in a set period of time.

Activity Loops

Engagement Loops (Motivation > Action > Response)

Below are 3 examples, 1 for each type of player, of engagement loops:

Socialiser Susy want to promote and take part in sustainability >Susy spends on other players’  items > She is rewarded with knowing she is doing her part  for sustainability points and badges which she can share with their friends to show them what she is doing and encourage them to take part.

Explorers Eric wants to save money > Eric buys one of the items/service listed by another player > He is rewarded with points, which contribute towards a loyalty scheme encouraging him to continue using the service and saving money so that he can hit his reward milestone.

Achiever Amy wants to make money > She lists an item/ service that she wants to offer to other players > When another player buys the item/service, Amy is rewarded with points and Shares. The Shares can then be redeemed for money.

While all players will receive the same response from the system (points, milestone rewards, badges etc.) the importance each player gives to each response will differ. This is why there are multiple motivators to each action.

Progression Loops

Moving from Level 1 to Level 2 will be easy for players, so that they are rewarded early on. Once the player has gained a few levels and is invested in the gamified system, each level will get progressively harder to reach and require more points and badges than the previous level.

When a player receives a certain number of points from a specific activity, they will be awarded with a badge related to that activity. In the case of selling services, the badge could be “First Sale” and when players have reached a much higher stage, 100 sales for example a “Budding Entrepreneur” badge could be awarded. Most players, whose main motivation is to make money, would feel a sense of achievement for reaching the milestone and a badge would serve as a reminder of that achievement.

While progression is clear and the rewards are easy to see, they can become predictable, especially when players know which actions lead to each result. To stave off boredom and reduce this predictability, every now and then players will be rewarded with free points or Shares to introduce a level of randomness and variety.

Fun

Aside from the socialisers, most players will be intrinsically motivated to take part in this system, meaning that if all extrinsic pressure and motivation is removed, most players are still likely to use the gamified system.

Appropriate Tools

The majority of the Mechanics and Components used in this system are mention in the above section, however here is a quick summary:

• Points – awarded for completing actions.
• Levels – levels are reached when a certain number of points are acquired.
• Badges – are awarded for received a set number of points from specific activities.
• Leaderboards – players are measured on points and number of actions completed.
• Rewards – are awarded for receiving a set number of points from buying.
• Sharing – players can share purchases, points, badges, levels, achievements and feedback with friends
• Transactions – players can buy or sell to other players.
• Feedback – players provide feedback on the transaction with another player.

Summary

Of course each gamified system needs to be tested, adjusted and improved upon, but I believe the framework outlined above would be well suited to helping ShareAll meet their business objectives.”

I haven’t yet received the results for this assignment as it was only submitted 12 hours ago. I will update the post once I know the results.

The rise of 3D printers owe a debt to brilliant crowd funding website – Kickstarter. To date Kickstarter has helped to launch 17 3D printers and has hosted 37 3D printer projects. These brilliant machines have already started to take off in USA and while they’re quite a while from sitting in every home, 3D printing certainly has garnered a lot of attention lately.

This is all well and good for our American cousins, but what if you live in old Blighty?

Luckily, 3D printing is beginning to break through in the UK and Europe too. You can now get your hands on a 3D printer for as little as £279. With 3D printing being so new to the consumer market, how do we begin to compare models and why do their prices vary so much?

There are a handful available in the UK and I’ll give you a quick walk-through of the pros and cons of each.

Sumpod Basic

(£279) The Sumpod Basic is powered by Arduino and is a budget model for tech enthusiasts to start with. It comes as a kit and takes about a day to assemble. The kit comes either with a wooden frame (£279) or a much dearer aluminium frame.

The printing platform isn’t heated, which can lead to curling of the plastic. It also needs to be thoroughly cleaned between each use.

The print finish isn’t particularly high, but there is an FDM extrusion giving the option of mounting a Dremel and using it as a CNC device to smooth the finish.

Pros

• Low-cost at £279
• Great it you like building things

Cons

• No heated bed
• Low quality print finish
• Has to be assembled

Printrbot Jr (£280)

The Printrbot Jr is like the Sumpob Basic, made of wood, which can be a little unstable. As it’s a budget printer, it can only print with PLA and not with ABS. When the print speed exceeds 210mm per minute, print quality drops significantly.

The Printrbot Jr has some redeeming features; it runs on batteries and can be folded up, so it’s extremely portable. The downside to this is that it will likely exhaust batteries very quickly.

Like the Sumpod, it has no heated bed.

Pros

• Low cost at £280
• Very portable

Cons

• Poor build quality
• Low print quality at higher speeds
• No heated bed

Velleman K8200 3D Printer (£699)

The K8200 is made by Belgian electronics kit specialist Velleman. The K8200 is built with an aluminium frame which gives this printer the build-quality that the Sumpod and Printrbot Jr lack.

The K8200 comes with a heated bed, can print with both PLA and ABS and has very good print quality.According to Velleman a smartphone case takes roughly 30 minutes to print with the K8200.

The printer is compatible with Arduino. To keep costs low, Velleman haven’t focused to much on the aesthetics of the printer, so it does look a little like a prototype. However Velleman will make upgrades available such as a more aesthetically pleasing casing and a second print head to allow 2 colour printing (not mixed).

Pros

• Very good print quality
• High build quality
• Comes with heated bed
• Prints with both PLA and ABS
• Compatible with Arduino

Cons

• Not the best looking printer
• Has to be assembled
• A little slower than some printers

Up! 3D Plus (£1,249)

The Up! 3D Plus is a robust steel printer and looks very industrial. It can print with both ABS and PLA and comes with a heated bed.

For the price, the print quality is excellent, though naturally print speed is significantly sacrificed to achieve it.

The supplied software comes with a nifty calculator which gives an estimate  of how long the print will take and how much plastic will be needed.

Pros

• Excellent print quality
• High build quality
• Heated bed

Cons

• Slow print speed
• Higher price

MakerBot Replicator 2 (£1,415)

The Replicator 2 has received the most attention and as such is the most well-known non-industrial 3D printer. The Replicator 2 can print at 100-micron resolution and produces extremely high quality prints. Like the K8200, additional print heads can be purchased to allow printing in 2 colours (but not mixed). The Replicator 2 is one of the best looking 3D printers and combined with it’s excellent quality it’s not difficult to understand why it has garnered so much attention.

Pros

• Extremely high quality prints
• Great build quality
• Looks brilliant
• Print with both PLA and ABS
• Comes with heated bed

Cons

• Out of most hobbyist’s price range

CB Printer (£1,480)

As noted on The Register’s article, the CB Printer looks very steampunk with it’s exposed components. The build shape is designed to aid stability and allow higher print speeds. The printer takes roughly 20 minutes to start up (calibration checks, warming up the head etc.).

Pros

• Strong build quality
• Steampunk look
• Transportable
• Good quality at high print speeds

Cons

• Exposed parts

Formlabs Form 1 (£2,050)

The Form 1 is a stereolithography printer which prints by firing a last into a tank of Acrylate Photopolymer liquid resin. The print quality is outstanding and exceeds that of extruder-based printers as the laser allows accuracy to 25 microns!

All this aside, the printer looks amazing. Aside from the Replicator 2, this is the only printer that looks like it is was designed to sit next to a laptop.

At  £2,050 (almost 3x the price of the K8200 and 7x the price of a Printrbot Jr) this printer is out of reach for all but the most committed hobbyists.

Pros

• Looks incredible
• Incredible print quality
• Incredible print accuracy

Cons

• Very high price

3DTouch™ Double Head 3d Printer (£2,245)

The 3DTouch™ 3D printer can print both ABS and PLA. It can be fitting with 3 heads, allowing you to print 3 colours at once (not mixed).

It is aimed at the education industry and is ideal for the classroom.

Pros

• 3 print heads
• High print quality
• High build quality
• Looks great
• Comes with heated bed

Cons

• Very high price

There you have it, a round-up of the 3D printers you can currently get your hands on in the UK. I know there are other printers which I’ve missed off this list. I tried to focus on the printers that have received the most attention from hobbyists and bloggers.

I’d love to hear how you think 3D printing could change the manufacturing industry, commerce and every day lives. If you have something to say, please do so in the comments section below.

This was the second assignment for the Gamification course taught by Proefessor Kevin Werbach on Coursera and my answer is included.

Project Part II: Motivation

You are approached by Ryan Morrison, the mayor of a medium-sized city in the Midwest of the United States.  He has heard that you know a lot about gamification and believes that gamification techniques can transform city government.

He would like to start with the health of city employees.  The city has 50,000 employees and they happen to have exactly the same rates of obesity as the U.S. average: 34.4% overweight (but not obese) and 33.9% of them are obese.  53.1% of the city’s employees do not meet the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines for aerobic physical activity and 76% of them fail to meet the Guidelines for muscle-strengthening activity.  The city pays for health benefits for its employees and this cost is a huge part of the city budget.  Economists in Mayor Morrison’s office have estimated that a 3% improvement in the average physical fitness of city employees would amount to a US$94 million reduction in annual city health costs; a 5% improvement would save US$188 million.  

Describe in general terms a gamified system that could effectively motivate behavior change to address the challenge presented above. Specifically, explain how the system would effectively incorporate intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, or both. Your answer should address the fact that this is an internal gamification project, targeted at the institutional goals of the city government.  The system can use any technology (or no technology!), so long as the resources required seem justified by the scope of the opportunity.

My answer was as follows:

“The goal of introducing a gamified system would be to increase the health and fitness of the city government’s employees. This should lead to fewer health concerns, therefore lowering the cost of health benefits the government has to pay for its employees.

Health and physical appearance are a huge factor in modern life and the hundreds of thousands of blogs, websites and magazines dedicated the improvement of both is testament to this.  People want to feel healthy and look good.

As far as intrinsic motivation goes, being healthy and attractive is possibly the biggest motivator there is. People want to be healthy not only because it makes them feel better biologically, but because being fit and healthy generally makes people happier.  Whether the achievement is weight loss, improved cholesterol or increased fitness, badges can be an effective way of reminding people of their progress and urging them to continue.

The feeling of WANTING to change should be the basis of any gamified system aimed at improving health.

There are two main ways to improve the health of the employees; diet and exercise. Luckily, both of these are functions of habit and one of gamification biggest strengths is its ability to aid the formation of new habits.

When trying to change habits, public declarations can massively increase the chances of changing behaviour as you become accountable not only to yourself, but to the people with whom you have shared your goals. This is where extrinsic motivation comes into play.

When a person is extrinsically motivated, it’s because they have been compelled to act in a certain way due to factors external to themselves (partner, friends, employer etc.

A gamified system which allows and encourages people to share their eating and exercise habits with others can help them to compare with friends, work together and feel motivated by each other’s success. The idea of being congratulated by your peers is a huge reason to share your success and a socially connected application or system would better enable that motivation.

Aside from friends and colleagues, the employer (the city government) could further motivate employees by rewarding them for their success. This reward could be in many forms, the simplest of which is financial. While money isn’t always the best motivator, when used in combination with other extrinsic motivators, it can tip the balance.

A system which allows the user to record and share their progress and be rewarded for hitting certain milestones or undertaking specific actions, combined with the possibility of financial or other career rewards stands a good chance of helping users to change their behaviour and form new healthier habits, thereby reducing health risks and lowering the cost of health benefits provided by the city government.”

The results?:

“Your grade is 6, which was calculated based on a combination of the grade you received from your peers and the grade you gave yourself.

What I Liked Was:

One thing I noticed was that marketing degrees have a heavy focus on strategy and top line thinking.

Degrees tend to veer towards preparing you for senior management roles with responsibility for shaping a company’s entire marketing strategy, but let’s face it; you’re highly unlikely to walk straight from your graduation ceremony into a senior position in even the smallest company.

If you’re very good at your job, you might become a middle manager after 5 years.

So what about the first 5 years then? Your first position will usually have one of the following job titles:

• Marketing Assistant
• Marketing Coordinator
• Marketing Officer
• Marketing Executive

So you’ve graduated with a marketing degree and are ready to step into one of the above jobs…but hold up. Have you looked at job descriptions for entry-level online marketing positions recently?

Here’s a list of essential skills which are beginning to feature on most job adverts:

• Pay-Per-Click Campaigns
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Web Analytics
• Copywriting
• Social Media Management
• Affiliate Management
• HTML knowledge

I don’t know about you, but at university I learned about SWOT analysis, Porter’s Five Forces and Ansoff’s Matrix, I didn’t have any classes on PPC or SEO. The majority of these skills are practical and so unless you completed an extremely vocational degree, you’ll have to learn them as you go along. I learnt most of the above skills through trial and error and others reading books and blogs, such as:

• Web Analitcs: Web Analytics: An Hour a Day
• SEO: The Art of SEO
• Copywriting: Write To Sell: The Ultimate Guide to Great Copywriting
• Social Media: The Thank You Economy
• Branding & Positioning: The 22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing

As the commercial world becomes more interconnected, with omnichannel experience being not a competitive strategy, but an essential component, universities will have to adapt quickly to keep their curriculum up to date.

Warning:

With that in mind, I’ll start this post with a simple statement:

I wouldn’t want to be the average middle-aged Marketing Director in 2010′s.

It might be an odd statement, but I do have my reasons. I’ve got absolutely nothing again middle-aged Marketing Directors or Senior Marketing Managers, the majority of them are in that position BECAUSE they helped to build the company into the success it is today. Unfortunately there’s a decent chunk of marketers who may not be best suited to build tomorrow’s successes and they tend to have the same Achilles heels:

• Omnichannel
• Digital Natives

When I say omnichannel, I’m referring to the fact that no activity is isolated, everything is connected in a way that it wasn’t even 5 years ago. Many Marketing Directors don’t understand the meaning of omnichannel and more importantly don’t understand the rapidly growing demographic of digital natives.

Omnichannel strategies depends on a single message spread throughout each channel. Whether a customer is on your Facebook page, website, in your store or on the phone to your call centre, they should have the same impression of the brand. Digital natives understand this not because they are fussy by just, but because they’ve grown up with inter-connectivity as the norm, they don’t just want it, they expect it.

Unfortunately too many Marketing Directors only understand a few of the channels, usually stores, the call centre, the website and  the catalogue. The purpose of social media evades them. Facebook is just a way to post about the products, Twitter is a channel to let customers to link to the website and gamification is either a silly idea or should be applied to everything.

There are a number of Marketing Directors way past their 40′s who do just “get it”, but these are sadly few and far between. The ones that embrace the activity, often don’t understand that the goal of a social media strategy is to build long-term brand engagement, not short-term sales.

Luckily, a Marketing Director doesn’t need to know everything and doesn’t need to understand in detail every new activity or behaviour, but if they don’t, they definitely need to hire and trust the staff that do.

David Ogivly famously said:

 ”If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”

This is where digitial natives come in. With marketing experience and a lifetime of exposure to the web, digital native marketers are a god-send. Unfortunately, once you’ve been doing the job, and doing it well for 30 years, you start to wonder how anyone young enough to be your child could possibly know more than you about online marketing.

If the Marketing Director is the translator with 30 years experience, the digital native marketer is the bilingual 22-year-old.

A Marketing Director who embraces the knowledge of their 20-30 year old marketing executives, stands a much better chance of continuing their success. Of course, I’m not saying that being a 25 year old marketer instantly makes you an omnichannel experts, just that good marketers who are also digital natives tend to have a deeper understanding of omnichannel and social media than the good marketers who aren’t.

I understand that this post won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I’m sure many 20-30 year-old markets will instantly identify with the situation set out above and most 40+ year olds will scoff at a young marketer having the cheek to say even think it. Whichever side you sit on, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Gamification can be described as using game design principles to solve non-game problems.

Gamification is a brilliant strategy to use if you’re trying to develop better relationships with your customers, build loyalty and encourage engagement with your brand or products.

Gamification is also perfectly placed to form communities through the opportunities to interact and share with other users. The principles of social proof (everyone is doing it) also help massively with this.

Foursquare is the most widely known example of successfully gamifying your product. While external gamification has been around for 2 or 3 years, it is still a a young discipline. The first business course on gamification was given only 1 year ago.

There is a great deal of attention given to gamification and it’s been estimated that  by 2014, over 70% of Global 2000 organisations will have at least one “gamified” application. It’s not hard to see why, though I believe this is a slight exaggeration.

The advantages of gamification are obvious even at a glance.

The nature of such game thinking allows marketers to influence the development of habits by providing a progressive experience. If the user has a different experience each time, they will be more encouraged to continue to using the game or system in place. Tying this continual use into eating breakfast would help users to form new habits and increase the market.

This ties in very closely with engagement. If users are motivated to take part in the gamified system, they will naturally become more engaged with the brand as they repeatedly interact with it.

Gamification is a fantastic strategy to implement and a god-send for marketers, but it isn’t a catch-all solution for all marketing problems.

Some products or services just can’t be gamified, they can’t be made fun e.g. choosing a loved one’s headstone. Gamification only works in situations where fun can be injected and they support your business goals.

In fact in some situations, gamifying your business can actually alienate your customers.

Imagine for example you are an online retailer and you are trying to gamify your feedback and reviews system. To encourage customers to review as many purchases as possible, you introduce a leaderboard where the person at #1 gets a prize every month.

As a new customer, if you come to the site after the system has been in place for 6 months, you would feel that getting tot eh top of the leaderboard is pretty unattainable and actually be DE-motivated to join in. In this type of situation, the top 20 customers would be extremely engaged, but most others would feel alienated.

Not every company should or can gamify. So when SHOULD you gamify?

• Can the process be made more fun and meaningful?
• Will the results of the activities contribute towards your business goals?
• Will the proposed system create engagement and be involving?
• Are there any barriers to customers taking part?

As I said before, gamifying your business doesn’t fit for every company, but when it does, the opportunities it can create are too good to ignore.

This was the first assignment for the Gamification course taught by Proefessor Kevin Werbach on Coursera and my answer is included.

Project Part I: Definition
You are an employee of Cereals Incorporated, a large manufacturer of breakfast food products.  Your supervisor, Madison County, approaches you because she knows you recently took a course on gamification, which she has heard will revolutionize marketing.

She tells you that Cereals Inc. is about to release a new line of ready-to-eat breakfast pastries, and she wants to know whether to use gamification as part of the marketing strategy.  The breakfast pastries will be aimed at the 18-35 age bracket. Surveys show members of this demographic often skip breakfast because they don’t want to eat the typical cereals of their youth, and they are too active to cook their own breakfasts.  Market research indicates that the pastries are likely to appeal more to women than men by a 65%-35% ratio. Cereals Inc. has a 35% share of the overall breakfast food market, but only a 10% share of the fragmented ready-to-eat segment.

Provide as many reasons as you can why gamification could be a useful technique to apply to the situation your manager has presented to you.  Explain why these reasons address the specific scenario provided.  At this stage, focus on the problem rather than the solution.  In other words, describe the goals of the project, not the particular game elements or other techniques you plan to use.  We strongly encourage you to watch this week’s lecture segments before attempting this assignment.

My answer was as follows:

“Cereals Inc. have identified 3 problems with their target market:

• The 18-35 market often skips breakfast. If they skip breakfast, then they are extremely unlikely to buy and eat the new cereal.

• There is a lack of engagement and enthusiasm for breakfast cereals which hints that there is likely very little loyalty to brands, beyond convenience.

• The 18-35 year old market is fragmented, making it necessary to try and group them or target each segment individually.

While gamification isn’t a catch-all solution for modern marketers, it fits the situation perfectly. Many of the 18-35 years old will be digital natives, who have grown up with the use of apps, social networks and an increasingly interconnected world.

The introduction of gamification into the Cereals Inc. marketing strategy provides the perfect opportunity to combat all of the above concerns.

Skipping breakfast is a habit that requires continual effort to break. The nature of gamification allows marketers to influence the development of habits by providing a progressive experience. If the user has a different experience each time, they will be more encouraged to continue to using the game or system in place. Tying this continual use into eating breakfast would help users to form new habits and increase the market.

This ties in very closely with engagement. If users are motivated to take part in the gamified system, they will naturally become more engaged with the brand as they repeatedly interact with it.

Gamification is also perfectly placed to build communities through the opportunities to interact and share with other users. The principles of social proof (everyone is doing it) also help massively with this.”

The results?:

“Your grade is 10, which was calculated based on a combination of the grade you received from your peers and the grade you gave yourself.

What I Liked Was:

• peer 1 → A clearly laid out, and well written answer – meeting the brief of what was a very limited wordcount. I wish it had been my answer
• peer 2 → - arguments are closely tied to problems – i found the same general aspects, i.e. habit, social, engagement gap so I feel like I was on the right track there
• peer 3 → Clear, got the idea, nice examples for gamifing cereals.
• peer 4 → I loved the way this answer clearly identified the key issues with the target market and then answered them clearly, stating the way that gamification could be used. Very clear and succinct!”

What could have made this submission better was:

• peer 1 → blank
• peer 2 → blank
• peer 3 → blank
• peer 4 → I’m not sure it could be improved on. I really liked this clear and concise answer.”

I’m pretty pleased with how the first assignment went. Here was the second assignment.

On April 1st I opened an account on Coursera. In case that’s a foreign word to you, Coursera is an education company that partners with the top universities and organisations in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. I enrolled for a course on Gamification, which when it opened last year was the first business course that dealt with the growing trend of gamification.

The course is taught by Professor Kevin Werbach of The Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania and author of For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business.

Regarding the detail and difficulty of the course,  the following statement is made “This is a real university-level course. It is free and not for University of Pennsylvania credit, but we have designed it to offer comparable rigor and detail to an in-person class. We encourage you to treat it that way.”

The course is split into 12 lecture subjects, each roughly 1 hour long:

1. What is Gamification
2. Games
3. Game Thinking
4. Game Elements
5. Motivation & Psychology (1)
6. Motivation & Psychology (2)
7. Gamification Design Framework
8. Design Choices
9. Enterprise Gamification
10. Social Impact & Behaviour Change
11. Criticisms and Risks
12. Beyond the Basics

The course is assessed as follows:

• 4 Homework Quizzes (multiple choice) – 35% of final grade
• 3 Written Assignments (peer assessed) – 5%, 10%, and 20%, for a total of 35% of final grade
• Final Exam (multiple choice, covering the entire course with emphasis on the second half) – 30% of final grade

I have listed the assignments I have submitted in separate posts, I have linked to them below:

• Written Assignment 1
• Written Assignment 2
• Written Assignment 3