Today the Pew Research Center released their study about Gamification, “Gamification: Experts expect ‘game layers’ to expand in the future, with positive and negative results” (by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie, May 18, 2012). The Pew Research Center provides information about the “issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.” Pew regularly focuses on popular topics including social networking, teens, technology and more.

The survey results are based on an opt-in, online sample of more than 1,000 technology stakeholders from companies including Google, Nokia, O’Reilly Media, Verzion, Cisco, IBM as well as from schools including MIT, Yale and Harvard University among others. It addresses the meteoric rise of gamification and examines thoughts from many of these technologists and analysts about the use of game mechanics.

Pew Research Survey Highlights: 

• Social networks are just one of the primary drivers for gamification
• 53% of these stakeholders agreed that “…the use of game mechanics, feedback loops, and rewards to spur interaction and boost engagement, loyalty, fun, and/or learning will continue to gain ground between now and 2020.” 
• Additionally 53% of the respondents agreed with the statement that  “By 2020, there will have been significant advances in the adoption and use of gamification.”
• While it has some drawbacks, gamification offers advantages in encouraging behaviors and generating measureable feedback
• “…neuroscientists are discovering more and more about the ways in which humans react to such interactive design elements. They say such elements can cause feel-good chemical reactions, alter human responses to stimuli—increasing reaction times, for instance—and in certain situations can improve learning, participation, and motivation.”
• “…reward and status elements are embedded in implicit and explicit forms in people’s interactions in their engagement in online communities. Game elements and competition are interspersed throughout the platforms that have made social networks like Facebook and Twitter popular.”
• Game-style engagement can bring an element of enjoyment to otherwise dull or challenging tasks, thus it will become a vital aspect of training, personal health, business, and education.

The survey also covered some negative effects of gamification and a few that liken it to manipulation. According to the survey, 42% of the respondents agreed that ”generally the trend will not advance except in specific realms.“ Our favorite negative quote of the survey was, “By 2020, anyone who ever used the term ‘gamification’ will be embarrassed to admit it.”

Whether you’re an enthusiast or not, the survey is worth a read since it addresses many of the positives of gamification as well as perceived negatives.

Posted in: Blog, Gamification

At BigDoor, we believe firmly that a gamification solution without solid analytics and data is doomed to fail. Accurate recording of actions, points and shares ensures that users are seeing the results of their efforts, and companies are able to track and monitor the success of a BigDoor Gamified Rewards Program. Recently, our internal team headed by CTO/Co-founder Jeff Malek made some important updates to our backend databases that ensure BigDoor can handle the large number of transactions, points and data required by our clients as well as free up valuable engineering resources for the internal team.

Previously, our data came from a replicated slave of its MySQL transactional database and aggregated the results on an additional intermediary MySQL host. Following this process data was then pulled into Tableau for reporting. This custom aggregation and ETL was workable in the beginning, but as we grew along with our client base, the problems of this type of solution began to eat up engineer time and energy.

We found our solution with Full 360 and Vertica. The two companies were able to provide us a solution that was quick to implement and able to handle our complex set of data. By moving away from our custom setup, we are now able to monitor and report with much greater speed and reliability in reporting user actions.

To read more about our transition and the custom solution provided to us by Full 360 and Vertica, you can check out their case study here.

Posted in: Blog, Development, Gamification, Improvements, Loyalty, Startups, Technology

Happy Monday! Here is a recap of last week’s gamification news.

Is Gamification A Great Motivator Information Week 5/9/2012 Xerox’s Caroline Avey discusses why she believes games motivate users and why so many businesses are seeking gamification solutions. “The accessibility of information on the Internet and the ability to gather and share information has increased significantly over the past five years,” because of this increased sharing, and increased accessibility companies are competing on a much larger scale to make their product, brand or activity the most appealing. Game mechanics and social loyalty programs are just one way to do that.

4 Tips For Gamifying Your Marketing Plan Mashable 5/7/2012 Gamification and marketing are a match made in heaven. As more and more companies adopt gamification and social loyalty strategies, they are proving time and time again that gamification success can be found among many different demographics and industries. Darren Steele highlights 4 steps to successfully gamifying your next marketing plan.

New business approach borrows from video game design Tallahassee 5/9/2012 Gamification was highlighted as a beneficial emerging technology for entrepreneurs and small businesses. The article discusses four of the universal concepts of game design, behavioral momentum, rewards, blissful productivity and discovery and how they relate to gamification solutions.

Top10 gamification executions  Marketing Mag 5/10/2012 If you were curious about some concrete examples of successful gamification, this is the place to look. Marketing Mag compiled a great list of 10 companies that used game mechanics and social media to promote or solve business problems.

Gamification – It’s Serious Fun MediaPost 5/11/2012 While Facebook games are often what people think of when they talk about gamification, that isn’t the whole picture. As this article points out, B2B companies have a ton of options when thinking about adding gamification to their site and the bottom line is to make it social. Key things to remember; badges have their place, incentives are important and any gamification solution must be relevant to the site content.

Posted in: Blog, Game Mechanics, Gamification, Gamification Tips

Our business development team has made some changes recently to streamline their processes and continue to quickly scale for our partners. We asked Paige Petersen, Account Manager on the business development team, to detail some of those processes and how they have affected the team’s success. 

As BigDoor’s Gamified Rewards Program grows larger and scales to manage more partners, we often forget that the business development team, us folks you might see at conferences or chat with on the phone, also need to adjust to deal with the influx of inquiries and new partners. Since we announced our new product in early April, we’ve been busy, really busy! We embarked on an attempt to streamline our processes, focus on validated learning’s, and constant iteration. Interestingly, we turned to our dev team and their use of the SCRUM/Agile method to streamline and organize our onboarding of new partners.

When the idea to incorporate a SCRUM/Agile methodology and put into practice a few key aspects from Eric Reis’ The Lean Startup, there was some skepticism. Several questions surfaced right away: “Won’t this take up even more time, instead of save it?” And “Isn’t SCRUM/agile for developers?” But despite the skepticism, we decided to give it a try.

In the initial weeks, our planning meetings and daily stand-ups were far too long rather than quick updates on progress and sticking points. However about a month in to the experiment we saw a turning point. Not only have some important sticking points been identified, but we’ve also been able to recognize where time is being spent, re-prioritize, and/or brainstorm more efficient ways to reach the same result. Time to fix an issue that might arise has gone from a matter of weeks to a few days.

We’ve been able to…

• Identify sticking points in our pipeline
• Iterate on messaging and identify key features that resonate with our audience
• Visually see/track the incremental development of each project
• Digest customer feedback daily with the team which has helped re-prioritize specific development efforts

Startups are like giant testing environments, whether we are testing a specific product, service, message or related concept –our team is always trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. The BizDev team has adopted a “test-measure-learn-iterate-test again” philosophy. We’ve been able to test assumptions we’ve made about our business, our partners and what features are really important to them. While we are still in trial mode, it appears that the SCRUM/Agile method may not be just for the devs anymore! Incorporating these methods has produced excellent results and is truly making us a ‘leaner’ startup.

Posted in: Blog, Development, Startups, Success, Technology

Happy Monday! There were quite a few conferences last week that highlighted gamification and motivation. If you lost track of the news or recaps, be sure to catch up below.

Gamification: What Motivates Users to Play in Non-Game Contexts Business2Community 5/4/2012 We have talked about intrinsic motivation on mygamification.com before as one of the key concepts to understand in gamification. A new study done by Queensland University of Technology delves deeper into the ‘self-determination theory’ a theory that claims autonomy, competence and relatedness are necessary for intrinsic motivation (and internal satisfaction). This is a great read for anyone interested in the psychology of motivation.

Gamification’s not just about silly badges, it can make you healthier and smarter The Next Web 5/2/2012 At The Next Web conference last week, gamification expert Gabe Zicherman gave a great talk about the power of gamification to make self-improvement. While he discusses the success and possibilities available with gamification, he also makes the point that gamification is “not just about crappy badges.”

Onboarding is the most crucial element in gamification Vator News 5/4/2012 The Vator Spark conference also took place last week, bringing together some of the top minds in gamification including our CEO Keith Smith. Keith talked about monetizing gamification and the importance of onboarding new users in that process. On new members, Keith said, “Be able to communicate your service and benefits quickly so you don’t lose new members.”

The Death of Gamification Business2Community 5/4/2012 While the title might be a bit negative for what we normally post, we couldn’t ignore this article on gamification. Andrzej Marczewski has done quite a few positive pieces on gamification and this one is really no different. He cautions against over complicating gamification and making what should be a quick and fast way to influence behavior a complex system that drives users away. “What you have to keep in mind is what best suits the needs of the users, clients, task or whatever. If all that is needed is a badge or two, then use them.” We totally agree! Gamification can often be very simple and publishers should really look at what they seek to achieve and how to do so simply.

Bike Challenge and Endomondo empower cyclists with data SF Gate  5/2/2012 Measurement of health success is a trend that has been on the rise for quite some time. With heart rate monitors, running log apps and other various tools, users can easily keep track of nearly all levels of fitness and health usually with a bit of gamification as well. But all this data can become overwhelming and meaningless if it is not delivered in a way that everyday users can understand. Endomondo, a Swedish mobile app uses GPS to track various physical activities and provide real time feedback in a meaningful (re: how many cheeseburgers you have burned) way.  The app also has numerous ‘challenges’ nationally and locally for users to participate in and share with their friends when completed. Measurement and motivation combined in one app? Awesome.

Posted in: Blog, Game Mechanics, Gamification, Gamification Tips, Loyalty, Monetization