relation from gamification world congress 2015
TRANSCRIPT
Holá Barcelona!Who wants to be gamified?
Relation from the Gamification World Congress 2015
A magnetizing speech, strong persuasion, an ability
to motivate others and lead them to success — those
features are not only superpowers of comic heroes.
Those are differentiations of all gamification heroes
that met during the biggest superheroes gathering
— the Gamification World Congress 2015. Sounds
amazing? Sure, it is. It lasted only a few days, but we
are still under the spell of this exciting event.
The organizers gathered people from various countries
and continents in such an inspiring and vivid city as
Barcelona. While there, we met gamification gurus, IT
directors and consultants, UX specialists, startupers,
engagement designers and more. It was a perfect
mixture of competencies and perspectives based on
different backgrounds. We collided our experience and
knowledge during workshops, presentations and every
possible moment of networking.
"Gamification starts with core drivers, not game elements."
Yu-Kai Chou
One of the most unforgettable workshops was held by Yu-Kai Chou, the
founder of the Octalysis Group and the winner of the Gamification Guru
of the Year 2015 award (you rule, Yu-Kai!). He not only turned our minds
into our internal gaming motivators, but he also reminded us one crucial
thing — currently, the awareness of companies about gamification is
getting bigger and bigger. During production of complex IT gamification
projects for them, sometimes there is a risk to forget that the real
engagement starts not with ultra interesting, catchy and jazzy game
elements, but with the core drivers. Game elements picked randomly
and put into a project? It’s not gonna end well, he assured us.
It was also mentioned by Horst Streck aka ‘Gamifier’ from Dutch Games Association who
started his presentation with a thought that engagement can stand even with no game
elements and left us with an amazing and inspiring case on how to use gamification in such a
serious world problem as water waste. Gamifier also pointed out a new important trend for
2016 — the Gamification Social Responsibility.
"Gamification is really a big data discipline. It generates a lots of data from the driven behaviours. It also requires a lots of data for feedback, for reinforcement."
Michael Wu
Other workshops and presentations brought up
many interesting thoughts and cases. We were
fascinated by a really well-designed presentation
by Chris Solarski — an Artist Game Designer
from Solarski Studio. It was a detailed journey
through a dynamic composition and techniques
of shaping emotional experience within game or
gamification. It gave us such a different
perspective and let us understand a huge role of
graphic design in gamification projects. It carried
our minds into new areas of improvement the
same as Juan’s Pablo Ordoñez presentation who
spoke from a perspective of a professor and
Gamification Design Consultant. He presented
an interesting case on how incredible public
learning can be if we forget about standard
methods and add gamified cards. Do you
remember your History lessons? It is not really
interesting for born-with-a-smartphone
teenagers nowadays... We should really think to
redesign it and make it more immersive.
… And then Michael Wu entered the workshops’
classroom. The Chief Scientist from Lithium
defined his perspective in only one sentence:
Gamification means behavioral analytics. The
rest of the workshop was a fast journey without
any stops. Descriptive, predictive, prescriptive
analysis? It is not a question anymore. He
brought our attention to big data analysis that
should be a base of every after-deployment
works in every gamification project.
"Creating a gamification project could be described by the orchestra (which means a cooperation of graphic designers, creative teams, analytics, business people, etc.)."
Chris Solarski
It required a longer break with a small cup of cortado, the
strongest Spanish coffee. The city of Gaudí wakes up at 11
PM and requires a lot of energy to keep up the pace with
citizens. Its magnetic and unique character is visible on each
step — on the top of Parque Güell, between tiny streets in
Gothic Quarter, on golden sandy beaches or inside crowded
tapas bars. Any better place to discuss the notes and
impressions from the workshops? :)
All the people we met confirmed that perfectly served gamification
is an effect of great cooperation between people with different
competencies. It’s like an orchestra that consists of various
musicians and leads to an amazing music that rushes minds and
hearts of its audience. We wholeheartedly agree with that and we
are proud to say that effects of our actions stand for this more than
our words. The Gamification World Congress was not only a place to
improve our knowledge, but also our small moment of glory owing to
Badges — our project prepared for JetBlue’s TrueBlue loyalty
program received the Best Gamification in Retails award during this
conference. Thanks for this distinction and kudos for all the team!