06th October 2018
A Workshop Summary: What we can Learn in Engagement from the World of Gaming.
Its time to talk about our first ever workshop on gamification with our partners Totem!
At the beginning Ruth got us to write down our expectations and what we wanted to come away from the workshop having learnt. The 2 main expectations that everyone agreed on were:
- To be able to understand gamification and explain it to someone else
- To be able to use gamification appropriately in future
Before attending the workshop I have to admit that gamification seemed super cool and innovative, but I didn’t really understand it. I’ve never been that interested in, or any good at games and have come last every time I’ve played Mario Kart with the guys at Totem (actual pic of me losing horrendously below). So, I really wasn’t sure how gamification would ever really be something that was relevant to me, my job, or my life.
But believe me if I can come out of the workshop a gamification enthusiast, it proves that the techniques really are simple to implement..
What makes games so powerful is their ability to drive behaviour. If CEOs of huge businesses who have thousands of commitments and very little time will set alarms throughout the night to tend to their virtual farms, there is something really important to be learnt.
How do you get people to want to do things they don’t necessarily enjoy to reach an end goal? That’s what gamification is.
I had always assumed gamification is complicated and something that you would need an expert to hand hold you through. Whilst its definitely true that having experts who really understand user behavior will get you to your end goal very quickly, there are some very simple changes that anyone can make which will make a difference!
During the problem solving part of the workshop Harry took us through real life problems that we have/ have had and showed us how we can use gamification to solve them. The great thing was by this point although Harry was steering us in the right direction, we came up with most of the solutions ourselves! Ruth and I we’re scribbling away as our minds filled with loads of things we can do in future with the Alliance – keep your eyes peeled!
It’s impossible to put all the learning’s into one short blogpost but the session was so successful that we will be running it again! Contact me at [email protected] to register your interest.
