We’ve just published an article in elearning industry: How Gamification Can Help Overcome Remote Employment issues Here’s an excerpt: "Gamification can solve remote employment issues, if used right. My favorite example is giving feedback, the immediate positive kind. Working remotely denies employees the opportunity to get it; this may lead to the feeling that they are working in a void. Feedback - as in "wow, you’ve managed to get so much done today" - contributes to the employee’s sense of well-being and drives them more. Many game elements can give this feedback - and also document it so a human will also be driven to give feedback too. For instance, think of Karma points, the classic reward for participating in knowledge sharing (think reddit). Collecting Karma points provides an immediate reward - but can also get noticed by a superior or peer and get a positive mention. Completion bars (think LinkedIn profile completion bar) can have the same effect." Regrading solving the communication challenges, we suggest, among other things: "Set goals that can be easily measured through time logging (such as calls made to remote employees), use the current gamification platform to suggest calls to action that involve communication (for instance, each time a customer order is obtained, its existence and special requirements need to be delivered in a skype call to the remote worker), and completion mechanisms similar to those used by linkedin ("you have reached 80% of your personal communication goal for the month"). Communication can also be gamified through pat on the back games, where employees choose "best communicators" and reward them in person, contributing to a good team environment and exemplifying the use of communications channels in accordance with goals. Communications goals can also be set on a team and departmental level." We also suggest thinking about how to reward over-communication (as in active participation in knowledge management scenarios). We then discuss gamification as a great way to track and reward productivity and go on to discuss knowledge management and the corporate culture changes and modifications arising from gamification that targets resolving remote employment issues,  relevant for both telecommuting and scenarios where there are several remote offices. You can read the full article here.    

Our lives are filled with to-do lists. We must deal with endless daily chores (laundry, dishes, lawn mowing, carpooling, and much more). We also have bigger, longer term tasks: all those New Year resolutions we make and seldom carry out such as losing extra pounds, or taking on a healthy habit like running or yoga. Some people are completely task oriented: whatever is on their list gets done, gets a little check sign or erased with a strikethrough, and they are off to the next assignment. Well, most people need a little push. Luckily for us, a nice variety of applications offers this kind of assistance. There are apps to help us get our chores done; others help us keep our diet, apps for maintaining and improving our workout routine, apps to manage our financial activities and more. Some of these apps use gamification to keep users motivated. Let’s see how: HabitRPG Let’s take a look at HabitRPG. The app aims to manage your tasks in a fun and motivating manner. Your boring to do list becomes colorful and game-like. Each of your tasks turns into a little monster you have to defeat. (aren’t most of our daily tasks monsters that must be wrestled to the ground?). You get rewarded with "experience points" for tasks you complete and lose points when you do not. The "experience points" can be spent on in-app purchases to improve your gear and mark your progress in the game as well as in real life. In case sharing with others inspires you, HabitRPG can be used to create a social experience. You can invite your real-life friends to the app so they can cheer you up, advise you and reassure you when the going gets tough. The active community is not only for sharing but can also compete with you, encouraging you to perform. Fitbit While HabitRPG covers most habits and tasks you can think of, Fitbit is all about your fitness: it manages your diet, your exercise routine and your sleeping habits. If you need help in losing weight (who doesn’t?!) or just watch your calories, you could try this app. You need to log the foods you’re consuming each day and report your daily exercise. The app sends notifications throughout the day allowing you to track your calorie balance, while taking into account your personal data, goals, and how intense you wish the plan to be. The gamified elements do not involve role playing or virtual prizes. But the logic is that of a game: a player wants to fulfill the set goal. This is done with a completeness bar which indicates the calories burned through the day and a gauge which indicates whether you are under budget or over it. If you are the type that gets thrilled and motivated by competition, you can share and compete with your Fitbit friends. You can share progress and data and applaud each other, or better yet, compete and learn from a leaderboard how much harder you have to try. Toshl Managing our finances is another one of those "must does" we adults have to deal with. Toshl is an app that aims to help you manage your financial activities. The ‘raison d’être’ behind it is that one’s finances are a serious matter but managing them could be fun. Toshl helps you control your expenses in accordance with your income and a budget you assign: you can add your expenses on the go, classify them, set reminders for bill paying (one time and recurring), get visualization to help you better understand your money handling, and share the info with your spouse or whomever you wish. Naturally, it does not offer information your bank account isn’t providing, but the presentation is more welcoming and the immediate feedback is a great incentive to stay away from extravagant spending.

Let’s assume you’ve decided to use gamification - the use of game mechanics to encourage behaviors - such as checking in (foursquare/swarm), selling (CRM scenarios), completing coursework (eLearning). Let’s assume it is in an enterprise gamification context. Maybe you’re gamifying learning, or call center activities, or sales. Now let me ask you question: is your gamification project going to be addictive? or how about this question: should it be addictive? are you hemming and hawing and refraining from an outright answer? I was when I was first asked this. I’ll admit that I myself hesitated when I started to hear these types of questions from gamification novices. After all, isn’t addiction a bad word? Its dictionary definition is "the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity". THAT’S BAD. And if addiction is BAD (notwithstanding addictions to chocolate or coffee or extreme sports), then isn’t gamificaiton kind of diabolical? Well, it IS NOT. I was reading  Erin Hoffman’s post, Life, Addictive Game Mechanics, And The Truth Hiding In Bejeweled. And then it hit me: game mechanics may compel us to act. But they are not addictive or evil, and the sometimes naive portrayals in the business press ("in the future we will go to work and think we are playing a video game, but in fact the big corporate will be playing with our mind") are incorrect. This is why: Game mechanics are not a game; working with game mechanics isn’t play. The implementation of game mechanics (leaderboards, completion bars), narrative gamification metaphors (such as song contests and fantasy sports) and many others does not turn an enterprise application into a game. Employees are not playing with the game mechanics, at least according to the dictionary definition:  "engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose". Their engagement is definitely for serious and practical purposes. Game mechanics work well because we’re human - and humans are compelled by game mechanics - the desire to climb to the top of a leaderboard, win a fantasy sports match, build a virtual city or complete a completion bar. That’s how our brains work. Game mechanics are not play, since we don’t complete the LinkedIn profile completion bar to "play". The activity of filling in our profile has meaning. It is not recreational and shouldn’t be. Game mechanics are a means of communication. But game mechanics are much more that a "trick" to get people to do something. They indicate corporate goals, aspirations and objectives. They signal what’s important and what’s not, they tell employees how to balance the different tasks and goals they have. It’s somewhat of a corporate performance management system (to read more about this, go here).  To put it differently, game elements are becoming part of the user interface of the future. Using them in a corporate setting is about making the user interface work well. And it’s also about giving employees the sense of a job well done. That is almost the opposite of "play" or manipulation. Gamification is not addictive. You may still ask yourself whether gamification is addictive. Here is where Erin Hoffman’s blog post explained something to me, a very good observation about addiction and games. The post says this: "Addictive" is a word we use in game development perhaps too lightly, though I would argue that there is no game designer who doesn’t treat that term with a huge dollop of trepidation. Executives love to hear the phrase "addictive gameplay". Game designers, speaking for myself and those I know (whom I’m sure will correct me if they disagree), find the concept intriguing but simultaneously dangerous …  no one, from executives to game designers to behavioral psychologists, can give you an absolutely clear and quantifiable test for what "addictive" means when applied purely to a behavior or action." The post describes playing Bejwelled, the thrill and satisfaction of it, and analyzes the game mechanics that make it work well. Yet, as the player asks herself "what are other players experiencing when playing this" truth hits: there are other , more complex tasks left to do (aka work and life). Although playing the game satisfies the internal five-year-old, one must get some work done, and one does. And then Hoffman says: "Addiction is not about what you DO, but what you DON’T DO because of the replacement of the addictive behavior". When we say that something is addictive, we want to say that the addictive behavior tells us that we’d rather do it than perform the things we are supposed to do and that we are anxious about avoiding the work/life behaviour. These are huge human questions: what should we do with life?. Hoffman even argues that behind the perception of addiction lie anxiety and depression about not doing what we are "supposed" to do. But this does give us the answer for enterprise gamification: since game mechanics help us do our job, they aren’t addictive, since they don’t make us avoid our work. They help employees work, feel compelled by work, understand what they are doing and, most importantly, feel a sense of accomplishment.

I often see requests, mostly on Quora, to indicate 10 less known gamification examples. Here’s my take: Though the word "gamification" is relatively new (its widespread use dates to 2010), the concept itself is old, and never seems to go out of fashion. Using game mechanics such as competition, rewards and sense of accomplishment, creates engagement (aka fun) and , helps people achieve better outcomes. The US Army for recruiting The U.S. Army uses "America’s Army" a multiplayer shooter game that simulates a real battle - it’s a real game, not an application of game mechanics. Its virtual combat experience is fairly authentic. Players can choose their training (including combat life-saver and Special Forces), receive honors, get injured and … die. Prior to downloading the game the recruit has to subscribe, disclosing factual information. The game is the #1 recruiter tool in the U.S. Army. Treehouse for learning Treehouse teaches the "in-demand technology skills you need to land your dream job or build a startup". You can learn at your own pace, how to build websites and apps, write a code or acquire business expertise. Students may opt for a new skill, or promote an existing career. They decide which track to follow in order to obtain set goals. Along the journey the students are awarded with points and badges, earned through quizzes and interactive code challenges. The points and badges are indicators of the skills the students currently possess and are viewable by anyone online (like potential employers). eLearning (or learnification) can improve greatly with learnification, giving people a sense of mastery and completion. Recyclebank for greener living Recyclebank is a company that inspires and rewards a greener life. Its website is set up to create greater consciousness to environmental issues. The user can earn points for learning online and taking actions like recycling. These points can be redeemed for products, or discounts in the site’s online store, which sells environmental products. The reason behind it is simple - awareness and incentive will encourage people who just need a little nudge - game mechanics can be the perfect nudge. Rewarding teen readers Another gamification example with good cause is a site that encourages teens’ reading habits. The Pierce County Library lets everyone participate, choose categories and badges of interest, but only members may win prizes. The participant earns points as he makes progress and is measured against other readers. The results are displayed on a dashboard and thus create healthy competition as well as a significant increase in library subscribers. I spy …. A pretzel Successful and well established brands need to remind their audience they are still out there. They too have to retain the loyalty of their customers and there’s no better way than promoting engagement. M&M’s published a simple I-spy online game on the company’s Facebook page. A single pretzel was hidden in a full-page graphic design of M&M’s. The low cost operation yielded a boost of engagement which was manifested in a dramatic increase in shares, likes and comments. Nissan Leaf: making better drivers Another company that successfully increased its customer engagement is Nissan. Nissan Leaf is Nissan’s 100% electric car. A special program was designed for the car owners. The program gamifies driving by comparing car owners’ statistics to other local drivers. The results are displayed on a regional leaderboard. Drivers can earn medals from bronze to platinum, according to their performance. Cleaning inboxes: Baydin Emails, emails and then some more emails. Baydin is a productivity web application that created "The Email Game". The tool is designed to help the customer with handling today’s infinite amounts of email in an efficient and structured manner. By "forcing" the user to categorize mail, label it, and take action; by imposing time limits and introducing completeness bars, the user has no other choice but to improve their workflow and productivity.

Can you measure the return on investment (ROI) on your gamification project? You better do that, because when the time comes to make or renew an investment in gamification, it should be justified. But aside from justifying projects to management, there are even better reasons to measure ROI - it can help focus on the areas where gamification can matter. First, choose your KPIs What is return on investment? It is about making something better. What will gamification make better - it will improve key performance indicators (KPIs). Choosing the right KPIs is very important. First of all, by clearly stating the KPIs and measuring them before the gamification project, you have your "control group" - or, to be more precise, the state of affairs as it was before gamification. Additionally, KPIs are important in defining the game rules and, more importantly, in communicating to employees what the corporate goals are. A gamification project is an excellent opportunity to communicate corporate goals to employees and to align them with those goals, similar to the use of Corporate Performance Measurement systems for management. Finally, KPIs will help you assign a monetary value to the project and measure its ROI. You can also try to set an improvement goal, stated as a percentage - where you’d like to improve a certain KPI by a certain percent, as such 10-20% more. In this respect it is important to create a distinction between process KPIs and performance  KPIs. A process KPI is a behavior you’d like to change. For instance, increase quality reporting into the CRM system, which can, in turn, enable you to make better quality sales forecasts. A performance KPI can be the result of a process KPI (but not necessarily) - more sales. Similarly, pay attention to the difference between KSFs (Key Success Factors) and KPIs - key success factors will influence the outcome of the project, while KPIs are how you measure it. Calculate ROI To calculate the return - take the KPI results from a control group or from the period prior to the gamification launch. Compare them to the results after the project implementation. Assign a monetary value to the improvement. This is your return. For non-monetary goals, such as customer satisfaction, set a monetary value. Ask the organization what the value of increased customer satisfaction or better knowledge collaboration is. Record it. Take time into account: if you expect the return to last 12 months, make sure you reflect the projected 12 month gain and not the gain at the time of measurement. Take care to make realistic assessments of the time element - don’t take 10 years into account…. Calculating the investment is even simpler: what are the costs expended by the organization to carry out the project? These may be license costs, integration costs, etc. Divide Return by Investment - and this is your ROI.

The Stanford "marshmallow" test is a famous experiment conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. Its purpose was to measure preschoolers’ ability to delay gratification. The experiment, conducted by psychologists Walter Mischel and Ebbe Ebbesen, consisted of presenting a child with two options: get a reward immediately or a get a larger one later. A child could receive one marshmallow (or another favorite treat - a cookie or pretzel) immediately, or, the child could get two marshmallows later. The two marshmallows were given  only if the child waited for 15-20 minutes to pass, seated alone in a room with a table on which stood a plate with the two marshmallows and a bell. The child could ring the bell to call the researcher back into the room before the allotted time. If the child managed to wait the entire time, they got the two marshmallows. If they called the researcher, they could have just one. Most children chose to delay the reward and not receive the immediate one marshmallow. Of the children that chose to delay the reward, about one-third managed to wait the time required for eligibility for the full two marshmallows. Originally, the purpose of the experiment was to gain a better understanding of how children develop deferred gratification and their strategies for maintaining the ability to wait for a greater reward. Children’s strategies varied - self distraction, imagining the two marshmallows are "just a picture", humming, singing, kicking furniture, rocking on chairs and even turning their back on the marshmallow. The full significance of the marshmallow test was realized in its follow-on studies. In 1988 Mischel found that preschoolers that did well on the original test,  were described by parents, ten years later as more competent adolescents. Later on success in the test was  correlated with higher SAT scores (210 points more compared to the most impatient children), educational attainment and even lower body mass index measurements. Successful delay gratification also correlated with better mental health outcomes. Many people first encountered the marshmallow test in Daniel Goleman’s bestseller, "Emotional Intelligence". Since then it has become a popular, encouraging Cookie Monster to delay its cookie gluttony, getting favorable mentions in The Atlantic and The New Yorker and even inspiring this great TED talk (complete with videos of children trying hard to resist temptation). Most notably, Mischel just published "The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self Control.". You can read an interview with him about the book here. But sometimes eating the marshmallow makes a lot of sense. David Ogilvy, the famous advertising man, commented on one such instance: "When I was a boy, I always saved the cherry on my pudding for last. Then, one day, my sister stole it. From then on, I always ate the cherry first." Mischel has a similar thought in this well-written book. "When preschoolers have an experience with a promise maker who fails to keep his promise, not surprisingly they are much less likely to be willing to wait for two marshmallows than to take one now" Working in Trinidad and administering a similar test to adolescents there, Mischel started to think maybe there was an additional element to consider: trust. "Perhaps those that came from homes with absent fathers … had fewer experiences with men who kept their promises. If so, they would have less trust that the stranger - me - would ever really show up later with the promised delayed reward. There’s no good reason for anyone to forgo the "now" unless there is trust that the "later" will materialize. In fact, when I compared the two … groups by looking only at the children who had a man living in the household, the differences between the groups disappeared". So, trust is important if you want to reward people for delayed gratification. Lack of trust (or fairness) can induce adverse outcomes. Why am I writing this? I am the CEO of an enterprise gamification company. I believe that enterprise gamification (and indeed any dialogue with employees) should be based on trust and fairness. Gamification, the practice of using game mechanics to encourage employee behavior, requires trust too. Reading Mischel’s book I was struck by how important it is to keep the game rules straight, fair and achievable. After all, we are requesting employees to defer their gratification, modify  their behavior, doing what they perhaps would rather do less or not do (completing CRM information, working better at customer service, elearning and more). In his book Mischel describes another experiment, to answer the question "would those who delayed more in the first session be less likely to give in to a strong temptation in a different situation - one in which cheating was the only way to succeed?" Thia experiment uses badges to reward children for a game of skill (gamification reminder, anyone?). There’s one catch: the game rules are not fair. To do this, children were introduced to a game of skill - using a "ray gun" to destroy a "rocket" target (this being the 1960s). "Above the target, a row of five lights illuminated the number of points earned after each shot. Three brightly colored sportsmen badges ( marksman, sharpshooter and expert) were flashed and offered as prizes, to be awarded on the basis of the total number of points obtained." But the game rules were "wrong". The number of points a child could get for each shot was random and had no connection to their skill level. The score they received did not make them eligible for  any badge. The only way to get a badge was to falsify their scores. As the boys played and kept their scores (and cheated) researchers tracked it all. The results were correlated with the delayed rewards: those that weren’t good at delay gratification cheated earlier, but"if the boys who had preferred the delayed rewards did cheat, they waited much longer". What’s the takeaway for employers? Keep employee trust high - it translates into "willpower" (the synonym many use when asked what the marshmallow test tests). When using rewards, gamification, anything, keep the rules of the game honest and fair. Otherwise, you’ll create a game that rewards cheaters.

"The Power of Habit - Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business" is a New York Times Bestseller by Charles Duhigg. It shows us recent scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be transformed. It follows corporations and individuals that achieved success by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives - transforming habits. Most of the choices we make each and every day are not the products of well-considered choices. They are the products of habit; we are creatures of habit. Habits range from small gestures: like what how we say goodbye to our kids in the morning to complex habits, such as backing a car from a driveway. According to the book, a Duke University researcher found that more than 40 percent of the actions people performed each day weren’t actual decisions but rather habits. The book examines recent research and insights on the power of habit: how habits emerge in our life, what it takes to build new habits and change old ones. It also examines the habits that makes companies and organizations successful, from Starbucks to Alcoa. Habits - acquired behavior patterns that are regularly followed until they become, in a sense, involuntary - have an enormous impact on our lives. Bad habits can turn someone’s life upside down and earn them social disdain. Good habits - from interpersonal exchanges to willpower and perseverance - are the cornerstone of success. "Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. Left to its own devices, the brain will try to make almost any routine into a habit, because habits allow our minds to ramp down more often. This effort-saving instinct is a huge advantage… An efficient brain also allows us to stop thinking constantly about basic behaviors, such as walking and choosing what to eat, so we can devote mental energy to inventing spears, irrigation systems, and, eventually, airplanes and video games." Dhuigg then goes on to explain how habits work, taking an example of a rat that hears a click, goes down the same route in a maze and then discovers chocolate at the same corner. At first the rat is startled by the click and is unsure what to do in the maze. After a while, a habit forms. A cue (the click) tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. The routine tells you what to do (wait for the door into the maze to open and hang right) The reward (chocolate, a sense of satisfaction) helps your brain remember the habit and reinforce it. In the same way when a ping alerts you that you’ve got email, the routine is to check it immediately, and the reward is distraction. Over time the habit forms a craving - in this case for distraction - which is enabled anytime there is a cue (phone pings), and satisfied only after the routine (checking the email) is followed. That’s why emails and instant messages sometimes become distractions that cannot be ignored. Over time the cue, routine and reward loop become more and more automatic. The cue and reward are so interlinked in the brain that once the cue is given the reward is expected and going through the routine is automatic. Duhigg then describes habit changes: since the cue, craving and the reward are difficult to change, some people focus on changing the routine that follows the cue. The classic example is eating a carrot when a craving for a cigarette is cued by an external factor (sitting with friends in a bar, for instance). Enterprise Gamification, the practice of using game mechanics to promote behavioral change, is also about habit formation and changing habits. And changing organizational habits, by focus on a keystone habit, as Duhigg explains, can bring on tremendous organizational change. Let’s say your sales people have one great habit: when a customer sounds doubtful, they immediately flood him with sales materials such as brochures and white papers. But their sales managers are not happy: they would also like the sales person to properly update the CRM about the customer’s doubts- that information is needed so that they can make meaningful forecasts. However, no requests, demands or threats make salespeople update the forecast regularly. Perhaps driving sales people to update the CRM requires formation of a new habit - and also requires managers to think about the reward: will a sense of completion emerge or will salespeople will actually be rewarded? Or, perhaps the habit is reverse: when a customer expresses doubt, maybe sales people disengage. In this case the cue is there (fear of customer loss) but the routine and reward need to change. One more thing about habits is that they take time to form and require repetition to be acquired and mastered. Desired behaviors need to morph into the automatic activity that requires little or no thought to perform. Gamification can be the tool that drives repetition and makes desired behaviors into habits, effectively removing the need for gamification since the activity has become intrinsically motivated.

Update: we’ve published a fairly extensive white paper about enterprise gamification for CRM. You can download it here or read the blog post… or do both! We’ve already written about the 6 bad habits sales people have and how that can mess up your pipeline. The main issue is simple: to make a good pipeline, the CRM has to include quality up to date information. Sales people would rather not spend their time doing the quality up to date thing. They would rather do something else. Below you will find some guidelines about the best ways to use gamification to improve data quality, timeliness and, as a result, the quality of your pipeline management. 1. Gamify Performance Gamification is the use of game mechanics (such as narratives, points, leaderboards, completion bars etc) and game rules to modify behavior by driving employees to change their actions based on the cues given through gamification. Enterprise gamification is the use of game mechanics in conjunction with enterprise apps, such as CRM. Using enterprise gamification together with CRM can have surprising results, creating lasting changes in employee behavior. 2. Don’t let leaderboards confuse you The immediate thought for most people, when they think about gamification and sales, is a leaderboard. But leaderboards are just one of a large arsenal of game mechanics.  They can be great for the person who is at the top of the board - the best sales person - but can be discouraging for the rest. Leaderboards are also focused on the bottom line - sales - and won’t necessarily work well to promote the actions that will make your sales pipeline management better. More about that in item number 3. 3. Don’t forget the small actions What are small actions? Let’s begin by defining the "big action" - this one is pretty straightforward when thinking about sales and CRM gamification. In this case, the big action is "sell more". But for pipeline management quality data that timely is all about the "small actions" - update a lost deal, insert more information about the customer, make a realistic estimate of the deal size and more.  Smaller actions are sharing leads and eliminating duplicates. When you think about gamifying the small actions, you can also see why leaderboards aren’t best here. It isn’t about competition - it is about the satisfaction that comes from completion. This is where game mechanics that reward completion work well. 4. Reward Speed Aside from the quality of the data, the data also needs to be timely, or else the pipeline will be based on old data. Salespeople can be rewarded for timely updates of the CRM by implementing a simple game rule: the faster the update, the better. Let’s say a sales person just finished qualifying a lead. If they put the data into the CRM earlier, they will get more points than if they had taken several days to update. An ancillary benefit here is that salespeople will also, as a result, try to do their job quicker, creating more momentum in the sales process. 5. Gamification is an opportunity to communicate One of the great benefits of gamification, a benefit that is often missed, is that game rules, calls to actions and game mechanics are all great ways to convey messages about corporate objectives and what’s the best way to achieve them. People pay attention to game rules. Game rules let them know what’s important - and they often convey this message better than through exhortations and lecturing. Messages can be about the importance of a live demo, if the game rules reward that, about the importance of actually visiting with customers or about pursuing cross and up sale opportunities. Using a gamification avatar  (like Gameffective’s) which pulls in data from several enterprise systems can suggest calls to action that span several applications. 6. Think about the learning moment Not doing well on a game or being unable to complete a suggested course of action aren’t necessarily regarded as failure in a gamified world. Sometimes they can be gateways into learning and training opportunities. Want to have your sales people offer more of that new, complex product? Gamify the offering and tie gamification into the training systems you have in place - when a sales person will suspect they are not doing well, they can stop and learn more. Other sales people can earn points by helping others engage with the new products. 7. Think about forming habits Gamification can form habits - good ones. It can suggest new behaviors to replace the habits that come when certain cues are made, and can also offer the reward, a sense of mastery and completion. 8. Use Karma Rather than viewing your sales force as a bunch of hyper competitive individuals, think of a game rule that involves "karma"  - rewarding people for their contributions to others’ success, for their assistance, information and examples loaded on corporate knowledge management systems and activity on corporate social networks. 9. Use Narratives   Narrative based gamification lets  you set weekly matches (like fantasy sports) based on the achievements of the previous week. These events are fun - they are also very good at communicating the message that every week is a new one and should be approached with energy. Gamification Narratives are also a way of driving complex and nuanced behaviors. 10. Avoid vanity KPIs Whatever you do, think about the behavior you want to encourage and that matters, and not about amorphous "metrics" that look good but matter less. Conclusion Some people say that CRM lacks process - that it is a good system for tracking customer interactions but not for ensuring that opportunities and leads are sold to. Gamification can insert this process component into the use of CRM and encourage reporting. In this way the CRM stops being a data repository and becomes a living system. Gamification is not an external leaderboard or reward system that is nailed on top of your CRM. It can turn CRM from a data store of customer data into a process oriented application,  and support continuous optimization, giving managers information that they can trust.

Using narratives in enterprise gamification for sales, training, service and more from GamEffective

We just published a whitepaper about best enterprise gamification practices for CRM - specifically the art and science of pipeline management. In it, we’re taking a close look at how gamification can help with ensuring that the sales pipeline is good…. Salespeople are salespeople. They are into selling. They love the rush they get when they close a deal. Sales people are not interested in a "data entry" job, and if you had an opening for one, they probably would not be a good choice. They would find it frustrating and boring: no competitive or winning instincts are satisfied when all CRM data requirements are accurately completed. On the other hand, sales managers need real data, in real time, so they can make accurate forecasts and manage a sales pipeline that is in touch with reality. Otherwise, they have a GIGO problem: garbage-in-garbage-out. In this white paper, we’ll take a look at the key challenges sales managers face when tasked with keeping their CRM system garbage-free: Distorted forecasts Duplicate leads Stale information The no-lead sharing economy The "Opportunities are never lost" problem Avoiding data entry at all costs We’ll then show how gamification can be used, simply and elegantly, to address these challenges, communicate corporate objectives and help with process. After all, we want to keep salespeople and their sales managers happy. Go here to download the white paper.