Contrast that with my experience, working on internal web projects in healthcare, finance and utilities, that few people on the frontlines are using these websites unless they absolutely have to. So why does the enterprise social software market continue to grow? If employee engagement and adoption are used as indicators of ROI, then is it worth it and would it continue to grow?

If they build it, will you come? What if it’s a game?

First the students were offered two rewards if we, the parents, watch them without the students - a pencil and a chance in a drawing for some books. Simple enough, but to make sure we watch them a secret word was included in each video. We had to watch the videos, write down the secret words, and then give the words to our daughter to unscramble. Once unscrambled, written on the form and brought to class she gets her reward.

I was impressed with how clever this was - the scavenger hunt for the word inside each video, the puzzle to engage the student, and the reward to get them to follow through. A great way to get us to spend the 20 minutes, and a great case study for other schools, as well as content required by compliance in a corporate setting. Or Dharma.

So what do I mean by gaming reality? Games are powerful. And to be more specific, the elements of games when thoughtfully applied. Game designers have a toolbox of elements or ‘game mechanics’ to engage people — narrative, level-ups, points, data-rich information dashboards, replayability, game clocks, antagonists, social competition, ranks, reputation, achievements, missions, quests, progressive and adaptive levels of difficulty, real-time feedback, scavenger hunts, easter eggs, gear, gold, ‘rares’ and so on — and the elements in this toolbox can be applied to everyday life.

How can they be applied? One way, as my Co-Baxter likes to point out, is overlaying elements of games on top of activities where people are already playing a game or doing an activity that can be gamed, but don’t realize it. Take driving a car or running as examples. Honda uses a game mechanic on their dashboard called Eco-Assist(tm) to nudge people into driving in an environmentally friendly way. The nudge is accomplished thusly:

A sophisticated feedback system uses both ambient color behind the speedometer to indicate efficiency [1] as you drive and an Eco Guide display to provide feedback on your braking and acceleration to help you drive more efficiently [1]. A cumulative Eco Score scoring system provides ongoing support.

Despite the incredibly non-fun, non-game corporate gobbledy gook description, the interface isn’t bad, and has shades of our Garden project.

An exercise-related example is Nike+, which uses challenges, competition and a dashboard to get people to “Set a goal, track your progress and find the motivation to become an even better runner.” Good stuff, this, and I’ll be sure to use it to train if I’m fortunate enough to make the Annapurna Circuit trek before it’s too late.

In these examples driving & running are both acting as game controllers. In our work at NB, we are exploring a bevy of behaviors at school and work that can be turned into game controllers and combined with other game elements to increase engagement. I won’t list them all here (don’t want to give away too much of our thinking), but some mundane but (we believe) powerful examples are keeping a clean email inbox (reduction of corporate email storage costs), timely reporting of billable hours and expenses, regular attention to health and wellness programs and maintenance medications, school attendance, and homework completion.

Let’s shift gears from application of games at school and work and have a look at this amazing example of using games to clean up the environment, courtesy of the Pervasive Games blog: Estonian volunteers of Teeme Ära 2008 cleaned up their whole country in a single day.

Game on indeed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hat Tip for ‘elements of fun’ to Carl Haggarty’s awesome post about increasing citizen engagement with applied gaming in government, World of GovCraft

And thanks dad, for describing this crazy venture as using games to do ‘important work’.

PS I must say that I am flattered that my quote ‘you don’t need virtual worlds when you can game reality’ made it into the EVOKE press release that appeared on the Somali Research & Education Network website. It’s fun to be global, especially when working from my humble abode on an old MacBook in Missouri.

PSS Here’s Jane’s awesome 20-minute TED talk themed ‘Design like you give a damn’, Gaming Can Make a Better World:

“My mother had a friend whose husband worked at a factory that was bombed,” Mrs. Vuong said. “The woman hurried to the factory as soon as she heard the news. She saw that it was smoking - it had burned. She couldn’t see anything. But she wanted to find her husband, even if he was dead. But he wasn’t there. Just ruins.

“She walked through the smoke and ashes, and she saw, lying among the cinders, one finger. A human finger with a ring on it. Their wedding ring! She knew that her husband was dead. She took the finger home and had it buried. She kept the ring. And this year she gave the ring to her son, when he got married.”

New York, New York
September 11, 2001

“My mother had a friend whose husband worked at the World Trade Center,” Mrs. Johnson said. “The woman went to ground zero a few days later. She couldn’t see anything. But she wanted to find her husband, even if he was dead. But he wasn’t there. Just ruins.

“She walked through the smoke and ashes, and she saw, lying among the cinders, one finger. A human finger with a ring on it. Their wedding ring! She knew that her husband was dead. She took the finger home and had it buried. She kept the ring. And this year she gave the ring to her son, when he got married.”

Kabul Afghanistan
October 7, 2001

“My mother had a friend whose husband worked at the airport,” Mrs. Sarobi said. “The woman hurried to the airport as soon as she heard the news. She saw that it was smoking - it had burned. She couldn’t see anything. But she wanted to find her husband, even if he was dead. But he wasn’t there. Just ruins.

“She walked through the smoke and ashes, and she saw, lying among the cinders, one finger. A human finger with a ring on it. Their wedding ring! She knew that her husband was dead. She took the finger home and had it buried. She kept the ring. And this year she gave the ring to her son, when he got married.”

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
April 19, 1995

“My mother had a friend whose husband worked at the Federal building,” Mrs. Bennett said. “The woman hurried to the building as soon as she heard the news. She saw that it was smoking - it had burned. She couldn’t see anything. But she wanted to find her husband, even if he was dead. But he wasn’t there. Just ruins.

“She walked through the smoke and ashes, and she saw, lying among the cinders, one finger. A human finger with a ring on it. Their wedding ring! She knew that her husband was dead. She took the finger home and had it buried. She kept the ring. And this year she gave the ring to her son, when he got married.”

Baghdad, Iraq
March 20, 2003

“My mother had a friend whose husband worked at a factory that was bombed,” Mrs. Zannoun said. “The woman hurried to the factory as soon as she heard the news. She saw that it was smoking - it had burned. She couldn’t see anything. But she wanted to find her husband, even if he was dead. But he wasn’t there. Just ruins.

“She walked through the smoke and ashes, and she saw, lying among the cinders, one finger. A human finger with a ring on it. Their wedding ring! She knew that her husband was dead. She took the finger home and had it buried. She kept the ring. And this year she gave the ring to her son, when he got married.”