Unlocking New Levels of Innovation through Collaboration

Enterprise Gamification is the use of game dynamics within organizations to support a collaborative culture that aligns with business objectives.  This creates an agile social business model that can increase chances of success in current competitive markets and future markets.  Applying Enterprise Gamification and implementing game mechanics in enterprise 2.0 platforms plays a very important role in it’s event-driven architecture for capturing the REAL value of enterprise 2.o solutions.  This REAL value is realized by lowering barriers of participation and showing the relationships of people, ideas, and things.  Implementing enterprise gamification strategy should be a part of the complete social business strategy.  Learn more at “The Secret Social Science Sauce of Gamification“.

Demystifying Enterprise Gamification for Business

Gamification describes a series of design principles, processes and systems used to influence, engage and motivate individuals, groups and communities to drive behaviors and effect desired outcomes. Originating from the video game industry, many of these pioneering concepts now play a key role in driving incentive and behavior management for both brands in the consumer world and internal scenarios in the workplace. Enterprise gamification is a user experience (UX) and consumerization of IT (CoIT) trend that will take the market by storm in 2012. Constellation believes that by 2013, more than 50 percent of all social business initiatives will include an enterprise gamification component. Learn more at “Research Summary: Demystifying Enterprise Gamification For Business”

Ray Wang @rwang0 of Constellation Research Inc. shares his thoughts about the value of Social Business Gamification in this video from the IBM Connect event.

It’s great to see Ray’s work on gamification over the course of time, all bundled up into a great presentation!  He makes a good point about how Enterprise Gamification is about engaging and influencing behaviors to drive outcomes that support business objectives.  He also includes some gold nuggets about points and virtual currency, along with how Business Models are changing.  The part about the impact of applying game mechanics to Human Resources (32minute mark in this video) is priceless.

Demystifying Enterprise Gamification – Presented by Badgeville

Constellation Research, Inc. believes that by 2013, more than 50 percent of all social business initiatives will include an enterprise gamification component. Brands and enterprises know that motivation and incentive programs can help produce revenue and productivity gains among internal users and external communities. These business leaders also know it can be time-consuming and difficult to streamline, manage and implement such programs. Join Constellation Research, Inc. CEO, R “Ray” Wang @rwang0 and Badgeville @badgeville for an exploration on how organizations can leverage game mechanics to turbo charge engagement, loyalty, and profitability.  Register for this free webinar today.

Many Things in Motion

The Collective Intelligence of Social Business

We are about to embark on an innovative journey that will transform the workforce.  This new innovation age will blur the lines of work and play.  Integrating internal and external Social Media into Enterprise workflows to support collaborative business intelligence will become more of a priority.  The future of Social Business will empower the workforce, partners, and customers in the process of co-creation that will drive new levels of innovation across multiple markets.  These new business models will begin to harness the power of Collective Intelligence as the Enterprise explores collaboration beyond it’s main silo, the firewall.

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” – Aristotle

The State of Social Business

Jeremiah Owyang’s “State of Social Business” presentation at LeWeb2011 covers why it is important to have a Social Business Strategy in this video.

Social Business Predictions & Trends for 2012

This year will set the stage for the decade of”radical innovation”.  Everyone may not have flying cars in 2022, but business models as we know them today will seem like ancient cave etchings.  There were several interesting predictions and trends in our Collection of Enterprise 2.0 Predictions & Tech Trends for 2011.  This will be the year of the Social Scientist and Data Artist.

• Cloud Computing: Implementing cloud computing in the Enterprise and Government will be a prime focus.  This effort will start to mature beyond private virtual clouds and Software as a Service (SaaS) to include Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and exploring Business Process as a Service (BPaaS).
• Web-Oriented Architecture (WOA): web-oriented architecture extends service-oriented architecture (SOA).  It’s RESTful methods will help support cloud computing across multiple environments and devices.
• Gamification: This is not angry birds in the workplace, but the use of Game Design Thinking for supporting collaboration and innovation.  Social Scientists will help organizations put an emphasis on psychology over technology to help others achieve the state of flow in business processes.
• Mobile: Organizations will make real investments into supporting mobile technologies. Tablets and Smart Phones are slowly replacing the standard computers in the workforce.  The use of web-based apps and widgets on mobile devices will become more standard.
• Big Data: Context will become the new king as organizations leverage internal and external data sources and social networks for business intelligence.
• Enterprise App Stores & Business Intelligence Dashboards: Understanding information at the speed of business will help ensure success.  Visualizing business intelligence will move from IT departments to business departments.  Technologies like JackBe’s Presto Platform empower business leaders with the ability to “assemble” apps like lego blocks to support business decisions.
• Identity Management:  Yes, the silos are crumbling and this includes corporate firewalls.  Supporting collaboration and secure communication across multiple environments and devices will have thought leaders thinking beyond firewalls and the use of Secure Socket Layers (SSL).  This shift from “need to know” to “need to share” will drive the use of intelligent point-to-point controls.  Attribute-Based Access Controls (ABAC) and Policy-Based Access Controls with eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) will be considered as alternatives to Role-Based Controls.  Additional thoughts about Identity Entitlement and Access Management (IdEA) are available at Jericho Forum.

Social Business Thought Leaders on Twitter

This Social Business Thought Leader twitter game board represents people focused on sharing ideas about Social Business Strategy.  Connect with more social business thought leaders on this twitter list: Social Business Strategy Leaders.

rwang0

oscarberg

dhinchcliffe

rhappe

rossdawson

krcraft

byAgah

raesmaa

absolutesubzero

A Collection of Social Business Predictions & Tech Trends

• The Future of Cloud Computing: Industry Predictions for 2012
• Dachis Group: Social Business Predictions for 2012
• Michael Wu: Future of Collaborative Enterprise
• CNN: The Top 10 tech trends for 2012
• The brainyard: Social Business In 2012: Enter The Water Dragon
• Gartner: Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users for 2012 and Beyond
• CIO: Top Ten Tech Predictions for 2012
• IBM’s Social Business Predictions for 2012
• Deloitte Predicts the Top 10 Technology Trends for 2012
• Real Story Group: 2012 Technology Predictions
• BCW: Top 5 Network Technology Predictions For 2012
• The Next Web Architecture
• MainStreet: 10 Tech Predictions for 2012

Update 01/01/2012

• 10 Biggest Social Business Stories Of 2011
• 10 Ways Cloud Computing Will Disrupt our Businesses in 2012
• How Digital Business Will Evolve in 2012: 6 Big Ideas
• Tech Trends That’ll Kill It In 2012
• 7 Gamification Predictions for 2012

Social Intranets in Social Business

Collective intelligence structures that harness network effects improve as more people use them.  Learn more from “Social Intranets in Social Business” by Lee Bryant.

This new innovation age in Social Business will remind us of the Industrial Age, but instead of mining for precious gems of gold and silver, we will be mining for precious gems of knowledge.  Instead of factories that pollute our environment will have idea factories that improve our environments.

Open Standards and the W3C

On November 12, 1990 Sir Tim Berners-Lee @timberners_lee submitted a paper that would change the world, this paper was the WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project.  Sir Tim Berners-Lee leads the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).  The W3C is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. Led by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeffrey Jaffe, W3C’s mission is to lead the Web to its full potential.  The W3C is having it’s very first Developer’s Conference (Free Streaming Video Available)  #W3Conf @w3cConf on November 15 – 16, 2011, “W3Conf Developer Conference“.

Data and Services Integration

Integration of heterogeneous data and services has always been a concern for creators and managers of services. With the emergence of the Web, the need for reusing data and services became even stronger, as the number of available services raised.

Cloud-based services are also created using different paradigms and present the same challenges as the ones found in Enterprise Services, or on the Open Web, and the opportunity to create mashups of services using different models.

There is currently extensive deployment experience with Web Services; the Semantic Web is more mature; and the XML Stack has become ubiquitous. The increasing use of JSON-based services and Cloud-based computing combined with experience and maturity of the XML-based services and of the Semantic Web technologies suggests that now is a good time to find ways to bridge and combine these various technologies to make a coherent platform for future business and technical work.  Additional information, reports, and presentations are available from this W3C Workshop.

A paper submitted by IBM to the W3C Data & Services Workshop describes the challenges of multiple data formats and possible solutions for loosely structured data, “Experiences with JSON and XML Transformations“.  This paper explains common problems developers and web service providers face when trying to develop a common interface.  The presenters identified many real-world key problems that left me wondering about a different solution that I hope others elaborate on here.

Web 2.0 App Model with XML AJAX API

Modern Web 2.0 Apps use Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) to create dynamic interactive displays with data.  Many AJAX apps use JSON instead of XML.

What if they used Standard XML leveraging XPATH with cross-platform and language-independent DOM?  This approach could let us use object-oriented programming to work with object-oriented data.

The Data

The problem with loosely structured data is identifying target areas. This simple example of a book collection does not have unique identifiers in the data elements. Unique identifiers in the data elements would allow us to use standard methods to work with targeted areas.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<bookstore>
<title owner="webtechman">Top Shelf Book Store</title>
<book category="COOKING">
  <title lang="en">Everyday Italian</title>
  <author>Giada De Laurentiis</author>
  <year>2005</year>
  <price>30.00</price>
</book>
 
<book category="CHILDREN">
  <title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
  <author>J K. Rowling</author>
  <year>2005</year>
  <price>29.99</price>
</book>
 
<book category="WEB">
  <title lang="en">XQuery Kick Start</title>
  <author>James McGovern</author>
  <author>Per Bothner</author>
  <author>Kurt Cagle</author>
  <author>James Linn</author>
  <author>Vaidyanathan Nagarajan</author>
  <year>2003</year>
  <price>49.99</price>
</book>
 
<book category="WEB">
  <title lang="en">Learning XML</title>
  <author>Erik T. Ray</author>
  <year>2003</year>
  <price>39.95</price>
</book>
 
</bookstore>

The Data with NoDeCode Identifiers

This simple example of a book collection has unique identifiers in the data elements. The “XQuery Kick Start” book element now has a unique id, it’s author elements all have unique ids, along with every element in our XML data. Unique identifiers in the data elements allow us to use standard methods to work with targeted areas. No DeCode between JSON and XML is necessary with NoDeCode identifiers.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<bookstore id="0">
<title owner="webtechman" id="1">Top Shelf Book Store</title>
<book category="COOKING" id="2">
  <title lang="en" id="3">Everyday Italian</title>
  <author id="4">Giada De Laurentiis</author>
  <year id="5">2005</year>
  <price id="6">30.00</price>
</book>
 
<book category="CHILDREN" id="7">
  <title lang="en" id="8">Harry Potter</title>
  <author id="9">J K. Rowling</author>
  <year id="10">2005</year>
  <price id="11">29.99</price>
</book>
 
<book category="WEB" id="12">
  <title lang="en" id="13">XQuery Kick Start</title>
  <author id="14">James McGovern</author>
  <author id="15">Per Bothner</author>
  <author id="16">Kurt Cagle</author>
  <author id="17">James Linn</author>
  <author id="18">Vaidyanathan Nagarajan</author>
  <year id="19">2003</year>
  <price id="20">49.99</price>
</book>
 
<book category="WEB" id="21">
  <title lang="en" id="22">Learning XML</title>
  <author id="23">Erik T. Ray</author>
  <year id="24">2003</year>
  <price id="25">39.95</price>
</book>
</bookstore>

The NoDeCode identifiers are added as attributes to the XML DOM object with a few simple lines of code.

//Add nodecode for indexing elements
xmlUtil.prototype.addNodeCode = function(xmlNode){
	for (var i = 0; i < xmlNode.childNodes.length; i++) {//each child node
		if (xmlNode.childNodes[i].nodeType == 1) {//no white spaces
			//add nodecode attribute
			xmlNode.childNodes[i].setAttribute("id", this.getNodeCode());
			//http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-id/
			//setIdAttribute is not supported in common web browsers
			//xmlNode.childNodes[i].setIdAttribute("id", true);
		}
		//recursive to child of children
		this.addNodeCode(xmlNode.childNodes[i]);
	}
}

Simple AJAX Interfaces for Targeted XML DOM Objects

The NoDeCode supports connecting standard user interfaces to targeted data areas in the XML DOM Object supported by standard XPATH methods.  It is important to note that no round trips to the server are taking place at this time.  All the user interactions are taking place in the XML Object on the client.  The data can be manipulated and modified on the client, then the data object can be transformed into a string and posted to the server using standard HTTP protocol.

NoDeCode has been tested in the following web browsers:

• Firefox 7
• Google Chrome 15
• Internet Explorer 8

NoDeCode Supports:

• Standard HTTP protocol to get XML string
• Method to convert XML string to XML object
• Method to convert XML object to XML string
• Methods/Properties to target loosely structured XML
• Methods to connect User Interfaces to XML objects

The NoDeCode AJAX XML XPATH DOM Model demonstrates how to extend existing web browser objects and methods for custom needs.  It also shows how to use Object-Oriented JavaScript programming to create custom objects that can easily be extended to include new methods and properties.  NoDeCode contains many resources in it’s source code and was written in a single HTML page to support fast modifications and quick testing.  The source code along with a sample XML file can be downloaded here, NoDeCode.zip

Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments here.

Data Visualization

Data visualization is the study of the visual representation of data, meaning “information which has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information”.  According to Friedman (2008) the “main goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means. It doesn’t mean that data visualization needs to look boring to be functional or extremely sophisticated to look beautiful.

Data Visualization Strategy

Edward Tufte @EdwardTufte delivered a great presentation about data visualization strategy for the star studded Tech@State event audience.   Tech@State ( @techATstate ) connects tech innovators and those interested in diplomacy and development to enable 21st century statecraft by improving education, health and welfare of the world’s population.   The Edward Tufte: Beautiful Evidence (Highlights) video is available here. Edward Tufte’s complete data visualization strategy presentation video is available here, his presentation begins at 14:24.

If your display isn’t worth 1000 words, to hell with it – @EdwardTufte

Data Visualization Tools & Services

Google Data Visualization Services

Google Data Visualization Service provides a variety of charts that are optimized to address your data visualization needs. These charts are based on pure HTML5/SVG technology (adopting VML for old IE versions), so no plugins are required.

Sencha ExtJS Data Visualization Tools

It has always been hard to draw things in web applications. HTML is really not cut out for creating charts and other richly interactive imagery, but Sencha ExtJS 4 supports data visualizations HTML applications. Typically this need has been met with Adobe Flash, but this gave Sencha two problems: most people like writing code in JavaScript, and Flash isn’t available on all devices. The ExtJS 4 solution to these problems is a pure-JavaScript drawing library that can create incredibly rich charting and graphics. It works everywhere – from IE6 to iOS – and will also be available as an add-on for Sencha Touch (mobile).

Highcharts Data Visualization Tools

Highcharts is a charting library written in pure JavaScript, offering intuitive, interactive charts to your web site or web application. Highcharts currently supports line, spline, area, areaspline, column, bar, pie and scatter chart types.  You can also you create stock or general timeline charts in pure JavaScript, including sophisticated navigation options like a small navigator series, preset date ranges, date picker, scrolling and panning with Highstock.

Current Data Visualization Twitter Game Board

Diversity fuels innovation. Sports fanatics have their fantasy football teams. This is my fantasy innovation team. This Data Visualization twitter game board represents people focused on sharing ideas about how to make data make sense.

EdwardTufte

NoelDickover

JohnFMoore

SuzKPH

techATstate

StateDept

lovisatalk

visualisingdata

noahi

Accelerating Innovation with Engaged Employees

Would you use this device for listening or speaking?

Organizations that harness the power of “Social Business” with engaged employees driven to add value to their market will increase their levels of success moving into the future.

During one of OpenText’s Exploring Organizational Purpose events, I had an opportunity to talk with Scott from OpenText about real innovation in the Enterprise.  I don’t have the authorization to write about all of his amazing thoughts, however, I can summarize it in one word.  The single word that summarizes real innovation in the Enterprise is, “Connected“.

Breakfast with Michael Edson

Michael Edson ( @mpedson ) gave an entertaining and intelligent presentation at the Exploring Organizational Purpose #purposeBiz event in Washington, DC.  Michael is a living example of “passion with purpose”.  He shared his ideas about the “power of now” and how to fan the flames of passion in organizations to fuel real innovation.

His presentation along with additional text and links is available here.

Michael also shared additional thoughts about “Crowd Accelerated Innovation” and Openess here.

Marisa Peacock (@marisacp51) wrote about this event in her article, “Going Boldly Into the Present with Michael Edson“.

Breakfast with John Seely Brown

John Seely Brown ( @jseelybrown ) is Co-Director of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge. His research and insight into how we as a society are learning to live in an age of constant flux is masterfully structured and presented. [more]

I am a huge fan of John Seely Brown’s work and believe you will discover many tips and ideas you can apply to your organization in this video, “Collaborative Innovation by John Seely Brown“.

The hotel where this event was hosted had internet issues, but John’s video should be available soon. In the meantime you can see John sharing how tech is changing education and society in this video.

Breakfast with Andrew McAfee

Andrew McAfee ( @amcafee ) coined the Term Enterprise 2.0 five years ago. Since then, he has researched, written and reported widely on the capacity of individuals and teams, the types of problems collaboration can solve.  This event scheduled for November 1, 2011 will sell out fast, so RSVP now.

What If?

These events sponsored by OpenText show us the future of Social Business.  Organizations that seek to deeply engage with their community will emerge as leaders in their field.

What if every organization offered events where people can connect and share ideas?

This could unlock real innovation to solve problems in our everyday lives.

Current Social Business Innovation Twitter Game Board

Diversity fuels innovation. Sports fanatics have their fantasy football teams. This is my fantasy innovation team. This Social Business Innovation twitter game board represents people focused on Innovation in Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business now.

mpedson

deb_lavoy

jseelybrown

mixtmedia

amcafee

bhc3

lovisatalk

jimworth

dhinchcliffe

with Gabe Zichermann

Game Design Thinking can improve engagement, loyalty and strengthen communities. Gabe Zichermann delivers innovative strategies derived from multiple leaders in the field of Gamification in his “Gamification Master Class video collection. The “Implementation, Agile Processes & Gaming the System” section is worth the total cost of the complete video collection. This segment about “Engagement Loops” and “Gaming the System” will help you think differently about the “User Experience. The strategy outlined within these two topics can save people and organizations a tremendous about of time and money. Investing less than $100 dollars on this collection of Gamification Strategy videos can help you and your team improve the odds of achieving the desired goals from your systems and services.

How can game mechanics and game design help you deliver an engaging, sticky and viral experience to your customers?   Gamification expert Gabe Zichermann [@gzicherm] uses this collections of videos to show you how to take advantage of gamification—the secret ingredient that’s fueled the success of Foursquare, Nike, Groupon, and many other websites.  These videos demonstrate the design strategy and tactics you need for integrating game mechanics into any kind of consumer-facing website or app, whether new or existing.  Learn more here, “Gamification Master Class Videos”.

Gamification Promotional Video

Gamification Master Class Collection

The content in this collection is professionally presented in the following sections:

1. Introduction to Gamification: Gamfiication is radically changing businesses both large and small, in industries as diverse as healthcare, education, software and travel. In this introduction, well lay out some thought exercises and overarching structure to help us tackle this design process. Well also define gamification for the purposes of our work together.
2. Foundation & Basics: How do we leverage gamification and its key elements? In this section, well explain what the basics of gamification are – and arent – and what kinds of problems can be solved with these exciting techniques. Well also look at why gamification is receiving such attention today, how to measure engagement, and how others have leveraged it in their business.
3. Player Motivation: Because gamification is at the intersection of motivational design, game design and human psychology, its critical to understand what drives people to play and engage with complex systems. That understanding underlies everything we design and build. Why do players choose to dedicate so many hours and dollars to the pursuit of challenges? Well pull together relevant theory and practice here to shed light on what drives all of us.
4. Player Types: In his famous taxonomy of players, Richard Bartle outlines a series of player motivations and types (Achiever, Explorer, Socializer, Killer) that help us understand the canonical players and what kinds of behavior to expect. This also helps us start to shape our reward and incentive design. Well also complete exercises designed to help us think about our target players and how to motivate them.
5. Progression to Mastery: One theory of user engagement with complex systems is that they seek mastery – the sense of fulfillment and achievement from getting control over the world around them (or their internal state). In Progression to Mastery, well explore the stages of mastery and how to apply these to your product, service or idea.
6. Be the Sherpa: If you want to build gamified systems that scale and create long-term engagement, you need to align yourself with your users progression to mastery, design a system they can follow, and be their sherpa throughout the process. In this section, well tackle that idea and how you can build design the feels natural and challenging at the same time.
7. Point Systems: In the first of our game mechanics sections, well look at point systems – the most important of all. They are present in almost all gamified designs – even if they arent always presented to the user. Well look at five different kinds of point systems and how they can be leveraged to create engagement, and work on one of the core exercises that frame a gamified project – point assignment.
8. Levels: How we mark progress is critical – and levels are one of the most commonly used techniques. They take many forms in gamified systems, but in this section well explore the most common designs for levels and work through a model for designing levels that drive user behavior in your system.
9. Leaderboards: Controversial but powerful, leaderboards are used in most systems with an element of competition. When are they appropriate in your design, and what are the latest/greatest techniques for turning the leaderboards of old into the motivational powerhouses of the social era? Find out in this section.
10. Badges & Customization: Badges may be loved and hated – but they are elemental techniques that exist in the world outside of games and have for centuries. While theyve taken center stage in most gamified designs, theyre typically not enough for most interactions. Find out how to make the most of badges by looking at great and weak patterns to develop your own badging system. Well also take a look at customization and some of the challenges in desinging for it.
11. Onboarding: You may not know it, but the first minute of your users experience with your product, service or brand is critical. Games have developed highly refined ways of turning that first minute into powerful training and reinforcement tools that can create long term engagement and loyalty out of the gate. Find out how these exciting techniques can be used in your business in this section that explores onboarding from the inside out.
12. Challenges & Engagement Loops: Most products, services and ideas benefit from virality. Gamified designs take virality and embed it intrinsically into the design of the system. In this section, well explore the classic viral loop and how to apply it to your environment. Well also look at challenges and how successful games leverage them to drive and reinforce user behavior.
13. Implementation, Agile Processes & Gaming the System: One of the most common concerns about gamification is that users will game the system to gain unfair advantage or rewards. While we have reason to be concerned, this section shares a simple rubric that can be used to clarify the approach to systemic protection that maximizes consumer engagement. Well also look at implementation concepts, including how to meld agile with gamification design.
14. Technical Consideration & Next Steps: Finally, well concern ourselves with a few key technical considerations, including vendor analysis and recommendations for how best to proceed.

Reviews

“good value for some outside the box brain food” – John Brady

“Gabe does a very good job at explaining Gamification with real live examples and exercises after each lesson” – Yousuf

“Gamification Master Class is a top-notch, three-hour introduction to an exciting movement in software design and marketing” – Aaron Sumner

Bonus

The purchase of “Gamification Master Class Videos” includes bonus material and a mini-workbook that help you achieve meaningful engagement.

Gamification is a new item in the Gartner 2011 Technology Hype Cycle.  Organizations can leverage “Game Mechanics” and “Motivational Design” to drive real engagement.  Social Business Gamification strategies include the psychology and social science of game dynamics to support Behavioral Economics.

FUNdamentals of Real Engagement

The Game Mechanics Engagement Playdeck

SCVNGR has proven the value of using game mechanics for results driven business in their TheLeveUp platform.  Others can unlock new levels of engagement by learning how to think differently, from the customer’s perspective with “SCVNGR’s Game Mechanics Playdeck“.  People can print their own version of SCVNGR’s Game Mechanics Flash Cards. Here are a few concepts from this deck that can help other achieve the game-frame mind:

Epic Meanings

Definition: players will be highly motivated if they believe they are working to achieve something great, something awe-inspiring, something bigger than themselves.

Example: From Jane McGonical’s Ted Talk where she discusses Warcraft’s ongoing story line and “epic meaning” that involves each individual has motivated players to participate outside the game and create the second largest wiki in the world to help them achieve their individual quests and collectively their epic meanings.

Micro Leader-boards

Definition: The rankings of all individuals in a micro-set. Often great for distributed game dynamics where you want many micro-competitions or desire to induce loyalty.

Example: Be the top scorers at Joe’s bar this week and get a free appetizer.

Fixed-Interval Reward Schedules

Definition: Fixed interval schedules provide a reward after a fixed amount of time, say 30 minutes. This tends to create a low engagement after a reward, and then gradually increasing activity until a reward is given, followed by another lull in engagement.

Example: Farmville, wait 30 minutes, crops have appeared.

Social Business Gamification

Get Your Game Mechanics Playdeck Flash Cards Here

“It’s not the technology, it’s the psychology”

Anyone that has ever been on a diet or has worked on creating healthy lifestyle habits can tell you that changing behavior is not easy. The path to success usually involves positive reinforcement from within and others. Negative behaviors from within or others can easily keep us from achieving our goals. This human behavior also applies to “Motivational Design”, as in the use of “Gamification” to help guide players through desired behaviors to achieve goals.

It’s not the technology, it’s the psychology

Innovation Gamification

Gamification combined with Design Thinking can help us think differently about innovation. Leveraging this process with Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) provides new levels of engagement for supporting desired behaviors. The seven phases of design thinking and a video about teaching design thinking through gamification are available here, “Design Thinking Gamification for Accelerating Innovation“.

Beyond Gamification of Healthy Behaviors

Gartner predicts that by 2015, more than 50% of organizations that manage innovation processes will Gamify those processes, “The Gamification of Innovation in the Enterprise“. Gartner also added Gamification in their 2011 Technology Hype Cycle report. Gamification does have a lot of hype, but can also be used for good.

Robert Scoble recorded an amazing interview with keas‘ Adam Bosworth that goes beyond Gamification for healthy behaviors. Adam candidly talks about the jagged rocks of failure scattered along the curves on the road to success. He also mentions numerous stats and facts, this within itself shows the value of understanding your audience and measuring what is important. There are a LIFETIME of lessons packed in this 41 minute video.

Quick Quotes

• “Never start a web project as a platform problem”
• “What are we really trying to do?”
• “It’s not the technology, it’s the psychology”

Powerful Persuasive Points

1. Help Solve Real Problems
2. Positive Reinforcement is Powerful
3. Make. Measure. Modify.
4. Surface Specific Steps
5. Think People Over Technology
6. Seek First to Understand
7. Practice Persuasive Design
8. Group Size Affects Engagement
9. ???

How Gamification of Health Works

The “Power of Play” guides behavior and changes attitudes about goals. See how keas works and why gamification of health is important in this video.

Twitter Gamification Gameboard

Gamification and the art of Motivational Design are complex topics, but there are many smart people and organizations willing to help. Here are several people and organizations on Twitter that are focused on Gamification, Game Mechanics, and Game Theory for engagement on this Twitter Gamification Gameboard. People can also connect with others by following this Gamification Twitter List.
marigo Seriosity mbjorn gzicherm dingstweets amyjokim mich8elwu mmartoccia GrahamHill

Creating Persuasive Experiences

Adam Bosworth talks about creating persuasive technology during the process of creating keas in his video interview. Persuasive Technology is broadly defined as technology that is designed to change attitudes or behaviors of the users through persuasion and social influence, but not through coercion (Fogg 2002). Such technologies are regularly used in sales, diplomacy, politics, religion, military training, public health, and management, and may potentially be used in any area of human-human or human-computer interaction.

Here are a few resources for developing a strategy on creating persuasive experiences.

Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab: By empowering millions of people to create persuasive experiences with technology, we will have thousands, and perhaps millions, of forces working toward the better in the world.

Stanford Behavior Design: The best design solutions today change human behavior. Yet despite decades of research, challenges remain for people who design to influence. First, “persuasion” seems a dirty word. It shouldn’t be. We should now embrace that we’re in the business of behavior change. Next problem: conceptual confusion. The landscape of persuasion can be disorienting, muddied by impractical theories and over-hyped techniques. Our new work provides a clear view of behavior change, including language that is simple yet accurate.

Stanford Game Theory: Game theory is the study of the ways in which strategic interactions among economic agents produce outcomes with respect to the preferences (or utilities) of those agents, where the outcomes in question might have been intended by none of the agents.

The Gamification Summit NYC is the must-attend event that shows you how to use the power of games to create breakthrough engagement with your customers and employees. Companies like Gilt Groupe, Google, Microsoft, NBC/Universal, MTV, Recyclebank and Aetna have leveraged gamification to transform their businesses, and will share startling insights, statistics and hands-on workshops at GSummit NYC.

Are REAL Players Thinking Differently?

While visiting several Smithsonian museums in Washington DC, I was awestruck by this Nation of Innovation.  Extraordinary innovations from seemingly ordinary people.  These great innovators (creators of print, electricity, human flight, …) are actually very similar to people we see everyday.  So, what makes a great innovator?  Were these innovative players design thinkers?  Did they accomplish these great achievements by leveraging science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), core technological underpinnings of an advanced society, and apply Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)?

Design Thinking

Unlike analytical thinking, design thinking is a creative process based around the “building up” of ideas. There are no judgments early on in design thinking. This eliminates the fear of failure and encourages maximum input and participation in the ideation and prototype phases. Outside the box thinking is encouraged in these earlier processes since this can often lead to creative solutions.  An example of a design thinking process could have seven stages: define, research, ideate, prototype, choose, implement, and learn. Within these seven steps, problems can be framed, the right questions can be asked, more ideas can be created, and the best answers can be chosen. The steps aren’t linear; they can occur simultaneously and can be repeated.

Teaching design thinking through gamification

Design Ethnography is  a discipline which teaches you how to observe what people do in order to identify hidden needs for which you can design new solutions. It’s one of a group of skills that have never been part of the early educational curriculum before. Recent experiments in imparting these skills using “game dynamics” show that it’s astonishingly easy to quickly turn places where learning motivation is often almost unattainable into a hive of surprisingly self-motivated promising design-thinking innovators.

Mickey McManus is president, CEO, and principal of MAYA Design, Inc.  He shares examples of STEM SEL Design Thinking in the video.

5 Discovery Skills of Great Innovators

So what makes innovators different from the rest of us?  Innovators engage the following behavioral skills more frequently:

1. Connecting. Innovators connect fields, problems, or ideas that others find unrelated
2. Questioning. Innovators are consummate questioners who show a passion for inquiry.
3. Observing. Innovators are also intense observers.
4. Networking. Innovators spend a lot of time and energy finding and testing ideas through a diverse network of individuals who vary wildly in their backgrounds and perspectives.
5. Experimenting. Finally, innovators are constantly trying out new experiences and piloting new ideas.

8 Pillars of Innovation

Google’s Susan Wojcicki says the key to innovation is, “Nurturing a culture that allows for innovation”.  She went on to share these foundational 8 Pillars of Innovation.

1. Have a Mission that­ Matters
2. Think Big but Start Small
3. Strive for Continual Innovation, not Instant Perfection
4. Look for Ideas Everywhere
5. Share Everything
6. Spark with Imagination, Fuel with Data
7. Be a Platform
8. Never Fail to Fail

What if Problem Solving was Fun?

The Gamification of World Peace

Most people think their problems are a world crisis.  What if solving real problems was fun?  John Hunter shares his experience of the world peace game in this enlightening video.

Tools and Resources

Social Innovation Toolkit

The Innovator’s Toolkit provides system-level change strategies, tips and tools culled from the experience of innovators driving change in communities across the country.  The Innovator’s Toolkit is also based on a framework for advancing innovation.

Mozilla Open Badges Project

Today’s learning happens everywhere, not just in the classroom. But it’s often difficult to get credit for it.  Mozilla and Peer 2 Peer University are working to solve this problem by developing an Open Badges infrastructure.  Learn more here.

Creating the Immersive Personal Experience (IPX)

User Experience (UX)

User experience (UX) is about how a person feels about using a product, system or service. User experience highlights the experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership, but it also includes a person’s perceptions of the practical aspects such as utility, ease of use and efficiency of the system.

User Interface (UI)

User interface (UI) design is about achieving the goal of human-machine interaction engineering, which is to produce a user interface which makes it easy, efficient, and enjoyable to operate a machine in the way which produces the desired result. This generally means that the operator needs to provide minimal input to achieve the desired output, and also that the machine minimizes undesired outputs to the human.

Immersive Personal Experience (IPX)

Immersive Personal Experience (IPX) is accomplishing the ultimate goal of helping the user achieve the Immersive Personal experience (IPX) by design.

Wireframes & Mockups

Mockups, wireframes and prototypes are not so cleanly distinguished in software and systems engineering, where mockups are a way of designing user interfaces on paper or in computer images. A software mockup will thus look like the real thing, but will not do useful work beyond what the user sees. A software prototype, on the other hand, will look and work just like the real thing. In many cases it is best to design or prototype the user interface before source code is written or hardware is built, to avoid having to go back and make expensive changes.

Free Wireframe & Mockup Tools for UX & UI Designs

SimpleDiagrams is a small desktop application that helps you express your ideas quickly and simply. There’s just enough functionality to describe a thought or capture a process.

iPhoneMockup is a web-based application for creating quick mockups for iPhone.

Gliffy helps you to easily create professional-quality flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical drawings, and more!

MockupTiger helps you build wireframes, mockups and prototypes. It is very unique web based Rapid prototyping application and offers the best widgets to build Dashboard Wireframes or website Mockups. Provides scalable library of vector Icons, powerful Text widgets, containers and boxes and Dashboard Chart widgets.

MockFlow helps to design interactive UI mockups for Desktop Software, Rich Internet Apps and Web sites.

Mockingbird is an online tool that makes it easy for you to create, link together, preview, and share mockups of your website or application.

The Pencil Project’s unique mission is to build a free and opensource tool for making diagrams and GUI prototyping that everyone can use.

Cacoo is a user friendly online drawing tool that allows you to create a variety of diagrams such as site maps, wire frames, UML and network charts. Cacoo can be used free of charge.

Serena Prototype Composer provides a completely new way of gathering requirements. Serena Prototype Composer makes it possible to simulate how an application will look and function before any code is ever written.

Lumzy is a quick mockup creation and prototyping tool.

More Free Resources for Wireframes & Mockups

Tools for UX & UI Designs

• Comparison Matrix of Mockup and Wireframing Design Tools
• 50 Free Web UI, Mobile UI, Wireframe Kits And Source Files For Designers
• 50 More Free UI and Web Design Wireframing Kits, Resources and Source Files
• 30 Helpful Wireframe Tools
• 10 Completely Free Wireframe and Mockup Applications