This week’s dev profile from BigDoor introduces Paul Robbins, the Dev-Tester from Florida who enjoys gaming, basketball and contemplating the future of bionic arms.

What do you do for BigDoor?

I break things.  My job as a dev-tester is to take the best code that the other developers have written and poke all the holes I can in it.  I do manual UAT (User Acceptance Testing), write automated UAT tests with Selenium and write some of the unit tests.  Nothing goes out the door without me looking at it first.

What do you like most about BigDoor?

My absolute favorite part about BigDoor is that it’s full of wicked smart people who are working way more than is healthy, but still take the time to answer questions.  In college I spent two years coding by myself as an intern with the government.  I’ve learned more in three months here than I did in those two years because there are people who are willing to teach me, even when they’re in the middle of something else.

I also love how open everyone is.  I can’t imagine many places where I can email the CEO with an idea and have a response within a half hour not only taking me seriously, but asking how I suggest we fix the problem.

Everyone’s ego is checked at the door here because everyone’s goal is to make the company a smashing success and make each other better.

It also doesn’t hurt that we have an arcade machine and a fridge stocked with beer.

Technology you couldn’t live without?

Besides Penicillin?  I’m a huge nerd so it’s hard to imagine living without my XBox 360.  I play video games, stream Netflix and watch ESPN3 on it.

Technology that needs to be invented?

Bionic limbs.  My girlfriend and I always argue about whether we would want to live with our brain in a robot body.  I can’t think of anything cooler.  Her?  Not so much.

iPhone or Android?

iPhone hands down.  I had an iPhone, switched to a Droid and now I can’t wait to switch back.  A lot of people moan about how controlled Apple’s product is but honestly, when I buy a product, I’m shopping for a polished, well-oiled machine.  Having one, single product to focus on means so much more on the quality side.  Droid’s battery life sucks, it’s touch screen buttons get “stuck” and apps crash ALL THE TIME!

Star Trek or Star Wars?

Star Trek: The Next Generation is one of my favorite shows of all time.  But nothing holds a candle to the recent Battlestar Galactica.  It has great writing, great acting, and the creators knew the story they wanted to tell from the very beginning.  After it was over, they didn’t keep dragging it on just to make money.

Favorite Jimmy Johns sandwich?

Gargantuan with no cheese or mayo.

Dog, Cat or Monkey?

A few months ago I would have said dog without hesitation.  But my girlfriend and I just got a cat and she is frickin’ adorable.

Last movie?

The Wrestler with Mickey Rourke.  A fantastic piece of film making and IMO, has the single greatest shot ever filmed.

What was the earliest game you played?

I can’t remember if it was Mario/Duckhunt on my cousin’s NES or Mathblaster on our home PC.

Game you’re currently playing?

None at the moment because I’m spending time with my girlfriend before the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim comes out.  I’ve put down the $150 for the Special edition and probably won’t be leaving the couch for about a month.  I’m a sucker for long, story driven RPGs.  I sunk 120 hours into my main save file in Elder Scrolls IV so if I disappear, well….now you know where I’ll be.

Favorite music to work to?

Depends on what I’m doing.  If I’m trying to concentrate on coding I’ll listen to something relaxing like Norah Jones or The Weepies.  If I’m doing something less brain intensive I’ll rock out to Nightwish or Jedi Mind Tricks.

Other fun facts:

I was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, home of Budweiser.  I’m a die hard NBA fan, and the lockout is killing me, especially since Seattle doesn’t seem to have much of a basketball scene (Seriously, if you know of any place to play, let me know. I will fly there)  They just had one of the most exciting seasons of all time and they’re following it up with…nothing.  A good portion of my free time is spent reading books about basketball.  Read Bill Simmons’ “The Book of Basketball.”  He’s a jerk but you’ll find some of the greatest insights into the game you’ve ever heard.

Human Resource Executive Online: Profiting by Playing Games

BigDoor analytics expert Sean Zhong attended the Tableau Customer Conference last week and brought back a wealth of information. We asked him to share why analytics are important, along with some thoughts on the conference.

Analytics is the practice of using historical data to understand the past and present, and to predict the future. In gamification, analytics is incredibly useful and important to designing tailored gamified solutions. Without analytics, we can’t possibly keep track of what is working, what isn’t and what we can expect in the future. Obviously we need a collection of valid data for any kind of analytics.  Once there is data, the challenge is to summarize and present the data in a way that people can understand and make decisions on.  Predictive algorithms can be applied to the data to provide further insight into the future behavior of the subjects. Good gamification requires focus on the user. With good analytics, information on user actions can be used to make decisions with measurable ROI.

Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, I headed down to Las Vegas to attend the Tableau Customer Conference 2011. For those of you who are not familiar with Tableau, they make a great data visualization tool with an optional server component.

Heading out of Seattle, we flew by an amazing view of Mt. Rainier:

At the conference, the first Keynote was by the Tableau CEO Christian Chabot. Christian announced that Tableau is planning to spend another $200 million on research and development in addition to launching Tableau 7. I wondered if Tableau is planning to invade the world of SAS. While SAS and Matlab are great tools, their UX cannot, in my opinion, be compared to that of Tableau.

Another noted speaker was Jock Mackinlay, director of visual analysis at Tableau. He presented on the effectiveness of different visual cues for different types of data. His slide on ranking of encodings by data type will be pinned to my monitor.

I had been encouraged to see Guy Kawasaki a notable author, brand evangelist and entrepreneur. He did a really fun and interesting presentation on enchantment from a business perspective. The premortem idea really stuck out to me. Contrary to post mortem, it means to talk about analyzing failures before anything fails.

On the BI side, Macy’s presented their data processing architecture centered around Hadoop and SAS. I got some insights into performance expectations of this kind of system with respect to the scale of data flow.

Finally, there was a really interesting presentation from a stock security firm. They are using Tableau as a rapid prototyping tool to develop their own stock forecasting system. They graphed when their algorithm thought to buy or sell AAPL. They found that none of the available DB solutions are fast enough for their purpose, so they wrote their own columnar database. For those of you who are thinking about day trading, do you think you can compete with this kind of automation?

Thank you to the Tableau team for putting together such an informative conference. I’m looking forward to next year.

This week in gamification news, we see quite a few large companies embracing and using gamification successfully. Enjoy!

Rules of Engagement: How Gamification is Changing the World Playmatics 10/10/2011 Margaret Wallace, CEO of Playmatics put together a fantastic presentation covering everything from ‘what is gamification?’ to ‘where will gamification end up?’ With great use of examples this is worth a look for anyone interested in gamification.

5 Companies That Are Using Big Data & Gamification to Disrupt Market Research GreenBook 10/16/2011 Looking for more ways gamification can help businesses? Leonard Murphy takes a look at the ways 5 big companies have used gamification to satisfy market research needs. Marcel Holsheimer who works in the enterprise marketing management division of IBM says of using new online technologies, “failing to adapt your business to the online world could mean eventual demise”.

Pepsi Launches Social-Viewing Platforms for ‘X Factor’ Advertising Age 10/18/2011 Pepsi is stepping up its online community for X Factor with the launch of Pepsi Pulse and Pepsi Sound Off. The two platforms provide a way for fans of the show to discuss, share and view other consumer conversations related to X Factor in exchange for bottle caps (used as a virtual currency) and status.

Geekwire: TechMoves: BigDoor adds staff

This week, we wanted to introduce you to one of the people that helps keep everything running around here, Erik Blas. Erik has been with BigDoor since October 2010.

What do you do for BigDoor?

I’m Dev-Ops and general infrastructure maintenance. Everything from the office printers and wifi to our production cloud environment.

What do you like most about BigDoor?

The fact that I’m surrounded by some of the most capable and focused engineers I’ve come across. These cats exude “we got this,” and they do.

Technology you couldn’t live without?

Wireless. Being able roam freely (for the most part) and interact with objects in the world from huge distances is fairly spiffy.

Technology that needs to be invented?

Replicators. We’re getting there though.

iPhone or Android?

Right now, Android. I glance back to the iphone every now and then.

Star Trek or Star Wars?

Depends on whether I want space opera or morality tales in space.

Favorite Jimmy Johns sandwich?

The one with bacon.

Dog, Cat or Monkey?

I always wanted a monkey. I have 2 dogs 4 cats.

Last movie?

Big Trouble in Little China

What was the earliest game you played?

Mordor. A MUD (multi user dungeon).

Game you’re currently playing?

Alice: Madness Returns

Favorite music to work to?

I stopped listening to music. I use a white noise generator and listen to oscillating static.

Other fun facts:

I moved from Florida to work for BigDoor a year ago. Still enjoying the ride.

Is there anything better than enjoying your work? We are seeing more and more examples of companies gamifying the workplace to increase employee satisfaction and output. One company that has taken workplace gamification to a new level is Cisco Systems. Carlos Dominguez, Senior Vice President, offers some insight on adopting early technologies, “If you want to be a true innovator you have to embrace it early. You have to experiment you and to learn from those experiments and measure and ultimately you get to leverage it.”

The awesome folks over at Cisco put together this video to highlight why gamification of the workplace can be successful. We totally agree and cannot wait to see more implementations of workplace gamification!

As a busy startup, most of our employees spend lunch darting out to the closest sandwich place and rushing back to eat in front of their computers. The location of our office, and the amount of time most of us have to eat lunch, has deeply limited the lunch options available. Recently, our neighborhood has seen a rush of new food options, in the form of food trucks.

At BigDoor, we enjoy and support the food trucks, which have opened up cheap, fast and delicious food options for many neighborhoods limited by space.   That’s why, when a few local food truck owners came to us asking for support to park on public streets, we did what we could, including signing documents allowing certain food truck employees access to our bathrooms. We are pleased that the movement has been a success, with the Seattle City Council voting to allow food trucks in public parking spots, as well as relaxing previous limitations on types of food served by trucks. We join the ranks of cities like Portland, Austin and New York, with thriving food truck options readily available.

We still support and visit local restaurants when the time is available, but how can we resist loving the food trucks with options like: Where Ya At Matt? (Creole Soul Food), Marination Mobile (Hawaiian/Korean BBQ), Curry Now (Indian), Lumpia World (Filipino) and our favorite Raney Brothers BBQ. For any foodie, the options presented by the local food truck culture are too good to be true.

Now, who’s hungry?

We announced a few weeks ago our involvement in Dell World powering the gamification of the mobile app. Paige Petersen (Account Manager), one of the newest BigDoor team members gave us a little update on what Dell World was like.

As a new addition to the BigDoor family, I was so excited to attend the inaugural Dell World Conference in Austin, TX on behalf of BigDoor! Not only was it fantastic to hear keynote speakers such as Michael Dell, Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO), and my personal favorite, Vivek Kundra (CIO of the United States), but our gamification platform really did increase engagement among the attendees. While at Dell World, participants could download the mobile app which displayed the agenda for the day, various notifications, QR scanners for codes spread throughout the conference, and of course, BigDoor’s game layer that rewarded users with points, badges, and rewards for checking in at breakout sessions, participating in surveys, tweeting their thoughts about the conference, and connecting with other conference attendees.

Dell also pulled out all the stops when it came to entertainment and creating a great experience for the group beyond the 8-5 conference. Apart from the various live music acts, I’d say my favorite experience was visiting each of the food trucks set up during the festivities (Austin is well known for their food trucks). The food was fantastic and I was able to try the best burrito and the best cupcake I’ve ever had!

My last comment has to give props to the Dell team. Not only was it a pleasure to work with them on the mobile application prior to the conference, but I couldn’t help but notice that the entire conference was staffed with a multitude of Dell employees ready to help and answer questions at any moment. All in all, I’d say the conference was a success and I was glad to experience the first Dell World!

Yesterday we posted this about our player team’s second official Tie Tuesday. We couldn’t resist sharing this image of the guys bonding, over nothing less than a game, during a quick break from work. As a gamification company spontaneous games often happen at work but we’re not sure if it was the lack of oxygen from the ties that lead to street gambling or not! Want to get in on the action? We’re looking for a few more to play!