Welcome to Gamification

By Caitlin Donaldson, Data Analyst

I began working as a Data Analyst at Bunchball 4 months ago so I’m still relatively new to the world of gamification.  From the first time I learned of the concept, I was fascinated by its potential.  It is an idea that has been around for years with examples like the Girl Scouts and airplane loyalty programs.  Gamification is not only refining this form of motivation, but also adapting it to the digital world we live in today.

Here are some common misconceptions I’ve found that may help your understanding of gamification:

• It’s about the application of game mechanics, not playing games
• It’s impact is not limited to specific demographics; gamification captivates human desires inherent to all of us
• It can be used in a wide variety of situations, from audience engagement to employee motivation
   

I discovered more about human behavior from gamification than I initially believed I could get in such a short period of time.  I learned the importance of reduced feedback loops to help maintain consistent, or growing, levels of interest.  I have learned the variety of factors needed to be included in the design, including sufficient rewards and increasingly difficult challenges from application of the Theory of Flow.  Gamification only works in the long term if it is done right. (Barry Kirk wrote an especially insightful article about the importance of design here.)

My background in Economics, including a Master’s degree, has me well versed in how important the right motivation factor is in human behavior.  Economics has a strong focus on why people act in the way they do.  Just look at opportunity cost, a concept you learn in Economics 101.  This is the idea that people will make a decision to do something based off of the next best alternative.  How much am I willing to give up for something?  Opportunity cost weighs heavily in gamification through loss aversion.  For example, the decision not to become involved in a community on a website or become familiar with a CRM solution is made difficult with gamification due to the potential loss of status and recognition earned through leaderboards, badges, and points.

Although I may be new to gamification, I am not new to analytics.  I have 5 years of experience in the field.  This experience allows me to know how impressive the numbers I am seeing are.  Various measures are constantly showing us how integration of Nitro and great design can make a big impact.  I am amazed at the effect gamification has in both the short and long term.  Companies are realizing greater engagement, with users taking 20 – 530% more actions.  MTV is one great example with 530% more page views.  On the enterprise side, there is increased adoption of enterprise tools such as Jive and Salesforce.  Month-over-month Bluewolf’s employees visit their site 20% more than before instituting gamification.    

Analysis of big data is constantly progressing and I look forward to experiencing how we will continue to evolve around gamification practice and workforce analytics.

Source: http://www.bunchball.com 

Nitro 5.0 by Bunchball: focus on enterprise gamification

by Dean Takahashi,Venturebeat 
 

Bunchball has led the way as a pioneer in “gamification,” or creating more engagement by putting game mechanics in non-game applications. Now the company is shifting more into the enterprise market as corporate customers embrace the trend to boost sales or motivate employees. And the latest release of its platform, Nitro 5.0, reflects this shift.

With the new Nitro, Bunchball has simplified its user interface so more people in an enterprise can create their own gamification programs, where sales managers can set the rules for a gamified sales experience and then proceed to fill out an easy-to-understand menu in order to launch the campaign.

While gamification has proven its worth in anecdotal examples, skeptics are plentiful. Market research firm Gartner recently predicted that by 2014, about 80 percent of current gamified apps will fail to meet business objectives because of poor design. Bunchball begs to differ.

Nitro first launched in 2007, but it hasn’t been particularly easy to use. Now it has a full set of functions and a dashboard that makes implementing campaigns easier, said Rajat Paharia, the founder of Bunchball, in an interview with GamesBeat. By 2010, more enterprises bought into the idea of gamification, and they began adopting it. One new feature is Nitro Studio, which has a more consumer-like feel for the user interface. At the end of 2011, Bunchball’s customer base was 90 percent consumer and 10 percent employee motivation. At the end of 2012, the ratio shifted to 60 percent employee motivation and 40 percent consumer.

“It provides a dashboard to capture everything you want to know about a campaign in one easy page,” Dan Katz, the director of product management at Bunchball, told GamesBeat.

The studio features a global search capability to access information, and it makes it easy to create challenges and then come back to them later again for use as templates for campaigns. It also has a lot of analytics and notification templates. And Nitro 5.0 is optimized for mobile devices.

Nitro’s platform reaches 70 million unique users and monitors 2.3 billion actions each month.

Katz and Paharia said they believe that gamification works well when you take an idea from games and apply it to enterprise activities. But creators of these campaigns have to be careful to make sure they measure and reward the right behavior. They believe gamification tactics are broadly applicable to a lot of companies, but the campaigns are not one-size-fits-all.

“It all has to be personalized,” Katz said. Paharia added, “You can’t take components, like Foursquare badges, and slap them on each other. You have to modify it for the context.”

Source: http://venturebeat.com  
Images sources:  http://venturebeat.com, 
                          http://venturebeat.com/events/gamesbeat2013/