Basic HTML Version
Page 8
se of gamification elements have become
so widespread that it has literally taken over
modern media marketing. Everywhere you
turn, you see companies using technology and apps
to sell or market their products / services, especially
through social media outlets. Social media is an
organizations direct connection to the public; and
of course, securing a customer base. It’s free, and it
allows others to drive your marketing machine for you,
what’s not to love about the social media scene and
machine? At the heart of social media however, there
are often gamification elements holding everything
together, and/or enticing visitors to return. In other
words, gamification is in many ways, the glue that holds
certain social media together and propels it forward.
Still, what makes gamification even capable of
driving future innovations? Are there any specific
elements inherent in it (gamification) that make it
a likely contender for future IT developments and
duties? The answer of course, is absolutely! Under
normal operating conditions, duties of both the
professional insider and avid user often meet with
regularly occurring challenges and problems, many of
which could be simplified or altogether eliminated (if
gamification was integrated into their system(s)).
Once such area of interest is that of storytelling;
especially those businesses that wish to engage in
promoting epic concepts or brands, for example. This
is often done in order to transform real-life activities
of specific users into gripping dramatizations which
further drives and motivates players to participate and
succeed.
Likewise, gamification allows one to physically manage
the overall strength of any challenge, so activities can
be customized to a more comparable level of difficulty.
This is crucial because businesses need their customers
to succeed, but by the same token, cannot simply
give away achievements because that would greatly
diminish the drive and intrigue in obtaining them.
The idea is to capture customers / users at a certain
percentage and retain them for long periods of time.
The publicity gained through the touted achievements
of specific users should more than make up for any
conversion losses gained from potentials that dropped
out due to frustration
Challenges need not be long term either; gamification
also tends to lean toward presenting users with lots
of smaller, bite-sized challenges if you will. This also
allows users to more easily digest the content they’re
presented with as well.
Arguably, the most beneficial aspect of widespread
adoption of gamification is its ability to speed up many
processes like report gathering, analysis and day-to-day
performance. Think of it this way: in a non-gamification
engaged scenario, you might have an organization
that tabulates its performance on an annual or bi-
annual basis. This kind of timetable dictates the rate
at which change or progress can be measured and/or
implemented. Gamification makes it possible to gather
and analyze large volumes of data (including customer
surveys, for example) and begin making the changes
necessary to further service a customer base (and
perhaps capture a larger one in the process).
IT departments can take the data gathered in
gamification projects / scenarios and use it to make
decisions and estimations about things like equipment
purchases or software development concerns as well.
Since gamification directly involves interacting with
and stimulating customers and potentials, it gives the
provider a unique opportunity to perform their own
inexpensive “market research”. The best part of course
is that your customers/consumers are enthusiastically
participating in the research and are in a much more
open state of mind (especially when compared with
someone who might have just been asked to fill out a
survey, for example).
To top it all off, by keeping your customers/visitors/
users smiling, you are fostering an atmosphere that is
conducive to making a sale happen. There’s simply
no end to number of ways that a person or group can
utilize gamification, the only true limitation is that of
your own creativity.
An examination of why gamification is poised to drive
further innovation in the IT world
U
Why would IT departments want/need to use
gamification?
Brad Andrews