Archive for October, 2009

“Successful businesses in the future will redesign work from the gamer’s point of view.”

[From Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete by Byron Reeves and J. Leighton Read, Harvard Business School Press]

Yep, games are already informing the design of work. And friend, it has only just begun. As Reeves and Read express in their book, an army of gamers is penetrating the workplace, fueled by Red Bull and access to a sophisticated online gaming industry that is “staggeringly, stunningly big.”

Reeves and Read explore how the complex virtual worlds and cultural structures engaging this large swath of society will inevitably inform the structure of work. After their first illustrative story, it’s easy to conceive how avatars, guilds, and quests will invigorate employees and orient them around clear personal and organizational tasks. To us, it sounds like heaps of fun.

But while virtual worlds will eventually become the workspace for a large number or worker / players, we at Natron Baxter think you can engage your massively multiplayer workforce right now. Research suggests that even the simplest game inspired mechanisms — like forum ranks and LinkedIn’s profile completeness bar — can bring appreciable results. That’s why our explorations focus on ambient, complementary game overlays to existing enterprise systems. By using connectors to MS Outlook and SharePoint, for example, and tying key performance indicators to game events, we can provide feedback, objectives, and rewards without reinventing work. (For an example, see Garden Sneak Peek: Notifications.) Like it says up top there, every effort can be made rewarding.

As we’ve taken the book as an opportunity to orient and differentiate, we’ll be posting additional bits as we continue to chew on Total Engagement. Cheers to the authors for rallying around the serious power of games. Buy their dang book.

Keywords: Enterprise 2.0, Employee Engagement, Employee Feedback Systems, Games

Things are fast and furious here at Natron Baxter Applied Gaming. We’re in the development trenches. Our socks are wet. Our crackers are stale. But still, like a blade of grass through a crack in the pavement, The Garden grows.

An Organic Approach to Increasing Employee Engagement

The Garden is an ambient gaming overlay for corporate environments. It nudges long-term employee behavior by using an equally long-term “growing game”. The Garden’s integrated desktop interface simulates a playful natural environment (a garden, tada!) designed to evoke an emotional connection with employees (an effect proven by recent psychological research studies noted below).

The following screenshots showcase the notification system prototype. In line with the gardening theme, vigilant player responses to notifications provide the flora with water, sunlight and fertilizer; inaction brings wilting, drought and pests. The garden responds to attention with new plants, critters, and special events, and cleverly and subtly unifies employee behavior with corporate objectives. We also happen to think it looks nice.

Click thumbnails to view full size.

The first screenshot presents a level-up response to employee achievement. The notification reads: “Your team has just surpassed the company record of 425 referrals in one month, set by CLICKCREW in 2009. Enjoy your bonus PTO!”

The second displays a behavioral reminder that unlocks a butterfly. The notification reads: “Butterflies in the garden mean that someone has replied to your blog post. Post a follow-up to make this butterfly a permanent resident.”

The third screenshot displays a response to employee inaction. The notification reads: “You haven’t logged your hours in three weeks. Log them now to bring your garden a much needed rainfall, plus unlock special rejuvenation powers.”

If you’re thinking “When can I see more?” …

Stay tuned for more posts in the coming weeks. The Garden will be available for enterprise configuration and deployment in Q1 2010.

If you’re wondering “What is a digital game overlay?” …

Digital game overlays apply game design features and principles in the workplace with minimal interference with employee tasks. Overlay features include scoreboards, level-ups and achievements (to name a few) that engage employees in a fun way. Each feature is thoughtfully applied with a personality that is appropriate for your company culture.

If you’re the type who needs to see supporting research …

… so are we. Researchers at the University of Rochester reported in fall 2009 that exposure to natural elements, even virtual ones, makes people nicer. [1] Work by Stanford researcher BJ Fogg, founder of the Persuasive Technology Lab, supports the Natron Baxter approach in his Behavioral Model, a framework that is designed to explain how to use technologies to get someone to actually do or contribute something. And Donald Norman, professor emeritus of cognitive science at University of California, San Diego, explains in his book Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things that human decision making is dependent on both conscious cognition and affect (conscious or subconscious emotion), and that enjoyable interfaces put together emotion, heart and mind.

(Incidentally, we are endlessly grateful to the big brains that unknowingly influence the philosophies of Natron Baxter Applied Gaming.)

[1] Can Nature Make Us More Caring? Effects of Immersion in Nature on Intrinsic Aspirations and Generosity

Weinstein et al.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull.2009; 35: 1315-132

This video is getting linkage lately, and it illustrates one of the reasons we take fun so seriously: fun isn’t merely a motivator, it’s an anesthetic.

While redirecting exertion is difficult, it can often be accomplished through traditional usability techniques. Redirecting and multiplying exertion, however, demands a payoff that the participant can appreciate before they’ve even committed any effort. Once they’ve engaged their “player” mindset, they tend to override their body’s reminders that, hey, these are actually a bunch of stairs and I am out of shape.

Atop an undeniable heap of anecdotal evidence, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang nails a few ways in which games are infiltrating our daily lives. Or really, how the culture and language of gaming is influencing the way we go about our otherwise game-free business. He writes:

“…while we are going to see the growth of feedback and incentive systems around everyday activities, they’re not going to really be games. They may borrow some bits and pieces from games — familiar visual tropes, rewards, and the like — but they won’t turn housework into a game, any more than my offering my son a quarter to clean his room turns my family into a labor market.”

Semantic quibbles aside, I think Alex exposes a sweet spot for applied gaming: the crucial point at which those familiar visual tropes and rewards offset the pain and tedium of labor. To be an efficient solution for business, we must first identify when an overlay is juuust gamey enough, and when players are first able to reconsider their opinion of effort. (It’s the same principle that has gotten the garbage taken out by sprinting children everywhere: “I’ll time you.”)

We might then look at the unprompted infiltration of game language and culture — within organizations and among players — as evidence that we, too, have nailed it.