Gaming Business or Gamification of Business?

By Jacob Morgan (@jacobm) Jan 24, 2011

We all know that work and play are both separate, but do they have to be? Is it possible to take game mechanics and theory and apply it to the workplace? That's what gamification is all about, but can it work?

This past week I had the privilege of attending the Gamification Summit in San Francisco. It’s the first year for the conference and it was completely sold out (awesome job Gabe!). Brands, game developers, gaming platforms and anyone interested in gaming concepts and mechanics were present at this event. Everyone wanted to discuss how they can "gamify" their business. I know what you're thinking,

What is Gamifcation?

According to Wikipedia:

Gamification is the use of game play mechanics for non-game applications (also known as "funware"), particularly consumer-oriented web and mobile sites, in order to encourage people to adopt the applications. It also strives to encourage users to engage in desired behaviors in connection with the applications. Gamification works by making technology more engaging, and by encouraging desired behaviors, taking advantage of humans' psychological predisposition to engage in gaming. The technique can encourage people to perform chores that they ordinarily consider boring, such as completing surveys, shopping, or reading web sites.

Gabe Zichermann, the founder of the conference states that today we have a very clear differentiation between work and play and that most people consider the two very separate. I completely agree. We always tend to view the two as separate which is quite apparent in the quote, "work before play." However, Gabe states that this doesn’t have to be the case and in fact we can have fun and enjoy work by incorporating gaming concepts and ideas into how we run and operate businesses. Why can't we work AND play?

Examples of Gamification

You’re probably already familiar with examples of gamification. Think of your frequent flyer program or your hotel rewards program or perhaps that Starbucks card that is waiting for you in your wallet. All of these are designed around rewarding desired customer behaviors. Some loyalty programs are great such as Southwest Airlines, others…not so much (such as Virgin America). In the past few years we have seen other more modern types of gamification such as:

Foursquare, where users are rewarded and achieve a certain status by accomplishing tasks via “checking-in” at locations.
Twitter, which uses the follower count as a form of game where users are always striving to increase the amount of followers they have.
Lithium, which is a community platform used by many large brands to help reward and motivate users based on engagement and interaction with the brand.

Silicon.com also talks about two examples of how gamification concepts are used to help people take their medicine and help entertain commuters when they are stuck in traffic. While it seems as though the concept of gamification is gaining more traction, it also seems as though many of the examples we are seeing are consumer facing. What about using the concepts of gamification within the enterprise? Is it possible to use game concepts and ideas to “gamify” work?