Notes from our webinar, led by guest expert, Scott Ward. Play the video to watch or listen to the conversation.

Gamification products / services: Badgeville; RedCritter; Big Door; Bunchball. But there’s a lot you can do with just Yammer.

We’re talking about behaviour here, but Scott says that “Gamification is really about data, and storytelling with data”.

The gamification products you can buy and use can be quite expensive, it can be more practical to build your own gamification elements.

ROI can be in the millions when you decrease collaboration costs and communication delays, and increase sales.

Gamification incentives:

• Status – awards and visibility
• Access – to senior management or other perks
• Power – enable autonomy
• Stuff – prizes.

Scott has used a ‘stock market’ report to show which departments and teams are making the best use of the tools. We’ve used a weather analogy to display stats – encouraging people to reduce rain clouds and increase the sunshine. Visual representation is clear and fun.

Scott’s used animated green and red fish on digital displays around the organisation. Staff knew that they wanted to see more green fish – while visitors don’t know what the digital fish indicated!

There’s always a sense of pride around the number of followers you have.

‘Quests’ are a good way to encourage behaviour.

One idea – convert ‘praise’ into ‘beans’ that you can use with the coffee shop downstairs for coffee.

For an external example of leader boards, take a look at rise.global now.

(The conversation gets derailed as we discuss Nerf guns and the foam ammo.)

We’ve found that leaders can get really enthusiastic about the stats and leader boards. They’ve driven engagement.

Further, we’ve found that key motivators are status and praise. Specifically, we’ve asked employees to nominate colleagues who have done something brilliant that exemplifies the company values. The kudos of making the nomination, and receiving nominations, was highly valued.

Different people, different cultures, like different incentives. Designers like badges, while IT people like levels – levelling up the leader board.

But all this is just to express the user-journey – the work and mastery of the employee.

See Badgeville’s motivation model (blue and green boxes).

But you should also consider Daniel Pink’s motivation theory (autonomy, mastery, purpose).

When to use extrinsic motivation and real incentives? When the process you’re rewarding is dull or unpopular. But you’ll need to improve the reward over time, as prize value erodes for these unpopular tasks.

To disincentives behaviour, take away their SAPS – reduce their status, take away their red-carpet access, disempower them, and take away their stuff. The carrot and stick debate rages on –  disincentivising is a contentious matter, and may come across as punishment rather than discipline.

(Imagine the serious side – compliance matters. Disincentivising dangerous or financially risky behaviour may well be appropriate.)

“People learn how to game the game.” So you have to find the goal that can’t be gamed.

Scott says he’s had complaints from people about the gamification criteria, and sometimes the complaints have been valid, and things have needed to be tweaked, but often the complaints come from people who need to improve their behaviour if they’re to match company standards.

[Read more about our ‘I am Ethicon’ awards and gamification.]

You must take a look at BJ Fogg’s models – he says you need a motivator, the ability to act, and a trigger to start you off. If you’re gamification can provide the motivators and triggers, then all you need to ensure is that people have the access, skills, training, and general ability to perform.

Trigger? Think notifications, alerts, and internal communications. A trigger might only encourage a small behaviour – further triggers are needed to continue the journey towards the strategic goal.

I’d like to ask you how people might feel if they are a bit ‘late to the party’ and can’t catch up to those employees high up on the leader boards or those who have thousands of followers and get loads of praise. How can we best manage the risk of disengaging people who don’t prioritise following ‘quests’? What do you think?

Take a look at how we’ve helped clients with Yammer and SharePoint.