Only 18% of those currently in management roles demonstrate a high level of talent for managing others. (source) Advice from John Cashion, Corporate Director, Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: As it states in the Employee Promise of The Ritz-Carlton "Our Ladies and Gentlemen are the most important resource in our service commitment to our guests." In order to fulfill this promise, our leaders around the world must invest in our Ladies and Gentlemen (this is what we call our employees) on a daily basis. Leaders cannot just sit behind their desks. They need to actively engage and nurture the progress of their staff. One of the ways this is accomplished is through training and mentoring—and this includes developing hourly employees into successful managers and then leaders. Managing employees is important, but true leaders guide, inspire excellence and help employees grow. When leaders are committed to the individual aspirations of their teams, they can impact employee engagement, increase employee retention and strengthen the reputation of their organization. ∞ Join us for a one-day symposium on November 12th. The day includes a Ritz-Carlton executive panel with Herve Humler, president & chief operations officer of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. The Blog Post Significant Stat: Management Roles appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Fine.  This is it.  I’m doing it.  I’m going to dedicate it to digital paper.  This blog post is going to focus on Games and Gamification.  This is particularly difficult for me, because there is so much misunderstanding about the difference between the two. So lets get a few things straight first.  I come from a background in Modeling and Simulation (no, I’m not too short for that, thanks though mom).   That means, from my perspective every game is at its core, a simulation.  Every single game.  Tetris?  A simulation of box stacking.  Call of Duty?  A war simulation.  Sonic the Hedgehog?  A simulation of a land far far away where hedgehogs behave that way.  Real or imagined, they are all simulations.  They become games when game characteristics are added to them.  For example, take a simulation of the box stacking, as in Tetris.  Add in score, the ability to control the boxes by rotating and dropping them, color coding, previews of the next box coming, leaderboards, the ability to get rid of rows of boxes, and increasing speed and you get a game.  For Call of Duty, add in a rich story line, the ability to control a character, goals and "quests", the ability to compete with others, great metrics and increasing complexity and you get a game.  These are the fundamentals that create a game.  They aren’t always the same.  They aren’t all fun.  But they have these two things in common, a simulation + game characteristics = game. Then we have gamification.  Gamification is not a game.  It does not take something and make a game of it.  It is a motivational construct.  It motivates a behavior.  Judy Unrein reminded me that learning is not a behavior.  She couldn’t remember who to attribute that little gem to, but I think its an excellent point.  Therefore, gamification is adding a few very specific game characteristics such as points, badges, achievements, even story to a REAL WORLD task.  This is the key element.  Real World Task + selected characteristics (points, badges, achievements, leaderboards) = gamification.  Games are not "gamified" content.  If it’s a game, its not gamification.  Games do have the characteristics that gamification has.  But, they are not the same thing. Examples of gamification include getting gold stars for doing your chores, getting badges like boy scouts for learning new skills, and hitting the high score on your sales charts at work.  These are not games.  They are gamification.  They are things that you are doing in the real world, but you are being rewarded for doing them.  Maybe you wouldn’t do these things if you didn’t get a reward.  Maybe you have to do them anyway.  Doesn’t matter. So why the big hang up for me?  Because people are calling gamification implementations games.  And, quite honestly, they don’t work the same way, and they don’t have the same outcomes.  Basically, I don’t want games to get a bad rap because gamification fails.  The Gartner group reported in 2010 (I think) that in the next 5 years, organizations would spend 50 BILLION dollars on gamification implementations.  They reported in 2012-2013 (I think) that something like 80% of those implementations would fail.  I don’t want the good name of games, and the good work that games are doing to be lumped in with gamification constructs can’t do. Ok, maybe that’s not it.  Buts its apples and oranges.  And the two should not be lumped together.  Additionally, the industry dictates its own categorizations.  The eLearning industry should not create its own terminology that doesn’t cross over.  We wouldn’t like it if another industry started calling eLearning something like webweblooloo would we?  Well, that’s how they feel about us calling anything games by the name gamification.  Let’s not make them call us webweblooloo professionals ok? So, what are games good for?  Games are good for so many things!  But, of course, not everything.  When I work with an organization who is considering games, one of the first questions I ask is do you think your employees could benefit from practicing this skill?  If the answer is yes, then most likely you could benefit from a game.  A well-crafted carefully considered game that is.  Games are great for providing experiential learning, practice opportunities, reinforcement, problem solving, leadership training, and even teaching! Gamification on the other hand is good for different kinds of things.  Gamification is great for brand loyalty, marketing, stickiness, and motivating a behavior.  Gamification is not good for training or learning.  I will say that again in case you glossed over it.  Gamification is NOT good for Training OR Learning.  Why?  Because learning and training are not behaviors.  Simple right?  Think about it this way.  You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink right?  Same with gamification and learning.  You can motivate someone to interact with your content, but you can’t make them learn it.  The content itself is what results in the learning.  Not the reason you’re taking it.  Additionally, when you motivate using a rewards based system you are eliciting a motivational construct called extrinsic motivation. So, what does this mean?  There are two kinds of motivation within cognitive psychology, Extrinsic and Intrinsic.  Extrinsic motivation has a focus on winning because you want the prize (even if its just a badge or recognition).  Intrinsic motivation has a focus on winning because you are the best at the task.  This means that when you are motivated by anything other than the desire to learn, you may not learn it.  Now this is tough when we are providing any kind of learning organizationally.  How much algebra did you really want to learn in school?  You were motivated to learn it because you wanted to get to the next grade, or you were avoiding the punishment of failing.  Basically all of our education came from an extrinsic motivation.  But, ask yourself, how much algebra did you learn?  I mean, really learn?  Just enough to pass the test?  Or did you learn enough to consider yourself good at it?  For me, it was the latter?  I was motivated to get a passing grade in the course, not to really understand algebra.  Mandatory training like information assurance and sexual harassment are much the same.  Sure, we want people to understand them, but, that’s not up to us entirely.  It’s up to how we create the climate to reward deeper understanding. Crystal clear right?  Don’t worry, I still struggle with it.  Karl Kapp said it best when he said that we shouldn’t get into the business of counting the number of game characteristics that you have to add before something becomes a game vs. gamification.  I agree with his approach completely because to me there is practically no overlap.  I would love to hear your  thoughts on this, but in the meantime, let’s put together a few challenges to see if you can figure out if something is a game or if its gamification!! Monopoly at McDonald’s Games Czar says this is gamification.  This one is a particularly interesting one because monopoly is a game right?  Yes.  Yes it is.  Monopoly at McDonald’s however is not fully a game.  It’s a marketing strategy that rewards your purchase of items in large sizes in order to get pieces.  Now, what do you need those pieces for?  To win prizes. Poker. Games Czar says this is a game.  Now, what is this game simulating?  What game characteristics have been added to this simulation?  Think very hard.  In the meantime, I will too.  I’ll have to get back to you on this one. Horse.  Yes, as in basketball. Games Czar says this is also gamification.  It is again the gamification of a game.  You are trying to make baskets in order to win, you are not playing basketball, which is a game. Ticket to Ride Games Czar says game.  You’re simulating building railroads, you’ve added in competition, challenge, randomness, characters, time, and score. Rockband Games Czar says game.  You’re simulating being a band, you’ve added in competition, challenge, score, customization, quests, characters. As you can see, nothing is cut and dry.  And sometimes gamification is added to an actual game.  And the real world situation in that case is playing the game.  Wild stuff right?

2013 was my second visit to the Games 4 Change (G4C) conference in New York City.  Last year I was so inspired by my trip that I decided to submit a proposal to present at this conference and was very very excited when it was accepted.  The G4C festival represents the Games for Change movement (see prior blog post on Games Movements) and is THE place for truly meaningful games.  This year’s conference was again inspiring.  I met amazing people working on amazing projects and was honored to be included in the speaker population.  The new venue provided some much needed room for a quickly growing conference, and was hands down the coolest place I’ve ever presented. The highlight of this year for me was AMPLIFY project.  This project is dedicated towards Literacy and STEM learning outside of the classroom.  That’s right, casual games for learning.  I love it.  Not only were the games shown here clever and well put together, they were visually gorgeous.  The project brings together national and international game studios to build a variety of games.  My favorite games within this project include: Lexica - a fantastical game designed to get students interested in literature by Schell Games (I don’t agree with their hiring process, but they did a great job on this game). Storycards - a card game of authors and characters by Preloaded. And SimCell - a game by Strange Loop that explores the cells of muscles I met some really great people including people from the Latin America Games for Change initiative and many game developers who really care about the world!  You can check out some of the presentations (including mine I think…eeek….on You Tube!)  The Games 4 Change awards also showcased some really great efforts!  Check them out here http://www.gamesforchange.org/festival2013/games/

Head on over to www.gamification.co to read my post on the dark side of gamification! Thanks to Gabe Zicherman and Ivan Kuo for inviting me to submit!

With technology rapidly changing the world around us, businesses that embrace new ways of working are the ones that will succeed. Technological change has always driven changes in working practices. As evocatively captured in Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony for the Olympics, industrialisation brought forth new forms of transport and communication that not only transformed England’s countryside but also the nature of work. The development of the moving assembly line in the early 20th century drove further change through strictly regulated workflow and the efficient division of labour.    Today, we are seeing a transition away from these industrial modes of working. Driven by the proliferation of powerful devices such as smartphones and tablets, coupled with high-speed Internet connectivity, this change will be no less profound than the Industrial Revolution was. For many organisations in both the public and private sector, the build up to the London Olympic and Paralympic Games has accelerated this change as they have sought to minimise the impact to business continuity. But many other organisations have resisted this transition. According to research we carried out before the Olympics, only 10 per cent of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in London had adopted new working practices to minimise potential disruptions. As it has turned out, there has been much less disruption than expected. But this is no argument for complacency. Conditions can change rapidly, as we saw in 2010 when unexpectedly heavy snow cost UK businesses more than £1 billion in lost productivity as staff struggled to make it into work, frequently cancelling or postponing meetings as a result. The affects of the volcanic ash cloud disruption in the same year were felt far wider than just the UK. Over 300 airports across Europe were disrupted, and more than 6.8 million passengers were directly affected. On a global scale, conditions can change just as quickly. A recent survey by International Data Corporation suggests that in the next three years more than one billion workers across the globe will be working remotely. The survey showed that of the 1.3 billion workers, 244.6 million will be in Europe, 212.1 million in the Americas and 838.7 million in emerging economies of the Asia Pacific region. In this new era of work, businesses that have increased their capacity to work flexibly will maintain or even improve productivity, while those that lag behind risk losing everything. Where will your business be?   Photo credit: NASA

Collaboration is an innately social activity. As with anything social, collaboration can be a strong force of change, whether you are communicating with your workplace constituents or your broader influential community. Business collaboration is a natural arm of this new social space defined by products like GoToMeeting. However, it’s the people who use GoToMeeting who truly define the real beauty and purpose of our product by showing us how collaboration really flows within their larger river of life. The incredibly innovative people who understand mechanisms for transforming business through collaboration typically implement a whole host of tech tools that create great efficiencies in how they communicate and lead. Whether they are heading up a weekend beach barbeque with friends or rallying an executive leadership team to adopt new value-improving practices, these folks use technology to define a new way of conducting all aspects of daily existence. For over 20 years, Citrix has consistently placed the desires of customers first by developing products that enable businesses to grow and outperform the market. At the helm of these companies are, of course, very inspired people, and among them are the pure entrepreneurs - the leaders who make our preoccupation with "business" much more interesting. For our serial Meeting Is Believing campaign, our goal is to find out what insights these remarkable GoToMeeting customers hold and how they enact their vision. From a narrative perspective, the Meeting Is Believing campaign is a take on testimonials with an underlying "day in the life" structure. This coupling of lifestyle with pure business creates far more rich content, cultural context, brand affinity and relatability within our target SMB space than fabricated or scripted content do. In other words, we’re tapping into our most vibrant customers and asking them to reach beyond our product use in their daily life. We sought to capture the pure human-interest part of the story first and then allow it to unfold into a greater tale in which GoToMeeting plays a decisive role in empowering communication. Mindjet CMO Jascha Kaykas-Wolff was the perfect protagonist for our first foray into the campaign. His creativity is clearly pervasive in all his pursuits - from "agile marketing movement" leader to serial entrepreneur to imaginative technologist to armchair anthropologist. Additionally, he is always eager to share his ever-emerging thoughts and ideas on his blog, Twitter and Facebook. Look for the campaign in your next issue of Inc and Entrepreneur, in airports and online at Facebook, Twitter and You Tube. Our next installment is in the works at this very moment. In fact, the crew and I are flying to Indianapolis over the weekend to shoot the interview. The entire team is really excited to build on this excellent momentum and deliver many more incredible stories of innovation.

San Francisco, the City by the Bay, is one of the top travel destinations in the world. Home to Silicon Valley, the Bay Area is also the birthplace and continual pacesetter for everything tech. For the first installment of GoToMeeting’s serial Meeting Is Believing campaign, we (clearly) couldn’t resist including some of the city’s most stunning features to frame our story of the thoughtful technology marketer Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, chief marketing officer of Mindjet. If you are not familiar with San Fran (not "Frisco," unless you want to make a native wince), we staged the beginning and end of this "day in the life" against photogenic landmarks. In the morning shot, Jascha is greeted by the historic "Port of San Francisco" neon sign hanging over the Ferry Building - a throwback to when it was a thriving shipping hub. Disembarking, he strolls across Justin Herman Plaza towards Lower Market Street on his way to the Mindjet office in Levi’s Plaza, just a short distance away. Finally, the Golden Gate Bridge graces the backdrop of the evening ride home. Throughout the filming, Director/Producer Jeff den Broeder and Director of Photography Alex Kopps capture key visual elements of the unique environment where some of our most innovative customers live and work. These scenes play critical roles in making the story compelling by adding texture, meaning, depth and culture. Through this approach, we sought to immerse the viewers in the personality and vision of the customer to create a real connection. Ultimately, we get to see a true human interest story that reveals what it’s like inside the minds of people at the top of their game. In addition to recording live action, we asked Laura Flippen to shoot still photos of Jascha around the Mindjet office using primarily natural light. Though we scouted the location a few days prior and followed a shot list, we left ourselves open to capturing unexpected moments over the course of the shoot. Relaxing and having some fun has a great and desirable effect on the final images. The goal is to project very consistent, natural energy - the same look and feel we seek to capture with live action - only in a static format. This consistency across media types strengthens the clarity and force of our story and directly affects how the market perceives our campaign. Advertising requires more than just coming up with an idea and creating a set of tactical touch points to increase trial volume. It’s about having a vision, understanding the long-term marketing, business and cultural challenges, acknowledging the fierceness of the marketplace, and making sure the idea has legs to support the needs of a big organization like Citrix. Perhaps most important for us, though, is understanding how we can maintain the quality, content and narrative thread of the GoToMeeting brand in a way that is relevant to our audiences for years to come.

I love HDFaces. As a Citrix employee, I’m supposed to love it. But as a remote employee, I really love it. You see, I’ve been with Citrix for six years. For five of those, I’ve worked from my home office in Santa Rosa, CA (the #5 city in the U.S. for teleworkers!). There are a lot of things about working from home that are amazing - number one being that I am able to see my 10-month-old son more often. (He’s that cute skeleton in the photo above.) But, as anyone who works from home could tell you, it gets a little lonely. You miss out on the water-cooler talk, the gossip and the spontaneous fun that makes you feel like part of the team. HDFaces video conferencing helps you get some of that back. Having a webcam makes you feel more connected - you get to soak up the background and notice little things like a person’s haircut or the scarf they are wearing. You see the person behind the voice. For me, HDFaces makes meetings more fun. You can probably guess from the photo what’s coming next! In the name of fun and team building, GoToMeeting is hosting a little contest this All Hallows’ Eve. How to participate: Here’s how it works. On Halloween, schedule a GoToMeeting session with your team. Get costumed up and turn your webcams on! Then: Take a screenshot or photo of your HDFaces session. Post it on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #MakeMeetingsFun. Fill out this webform. Easy as that! The winner will be the team with the most creative costumes. (Yes, it’s subjective.) Prizes The winning team will have their photo published in all the GoToMeeting social channels, and each team member (up to 6 people) will receive a $50 Visa gift card. Eligibility You and everyone in the photo must be over 18 years of age. You must be a U.S. resident. You can read the full legal rules here (PDF). Not a GoToMeeting customer? Don’t worry - you can still participate. Sign up for a free trial. Happy Halloween - now let’s see those costumes! UPDATE: Check out our new photos from today on the GoToMeeting Facebook page.

Where do you work? If you’re a workshifter like me, the answer to that question is a pretty long list. I mostly work from my home office, but sometimes, like today, I set up camp in my living room in front of the fireplace. Occasionally, when I’m stir-crazy, I work from coffee shops, or when it’s sunny, from my backyard. The spring before last, I once worked from a car while riding cross-country. Point is, these days work can take place anywhere - and it does. Here at Citrix, we believe work is a thing you do, not a place you go. I fully agree, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go places that are fun to work from! As the community manager for the Online Services division of Citrix, I get to interact with real people using our products. One of my favorite things is when customers share photos of where they workshift from. This happens often with people in the GoToMyPC community, who take advantage of remote access to work anywhere. In fact, we recently released an updated Android app for GoToMyPC that offers greater mobile support, so you can now connect to your Mac or PC from your iPad, iPhone, Android device or even Kindle Fire. To celebrate, we’re hosting a photo contest! How to participate Here’s how it works. Over the next five weeks, take photos of the interesting places you work - you can be in the picture or you can snap the photo of your view. Then: Post your photos to Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #Workshifting and mention @GoToMyPC. Fill out this webform. Easy as that! Submit as many photos as you want, but remember you can only win once. The winners will be those who managed to work from the most unique places. (Yes, it’s subjective. Prizes The winners get a $50 Amazon gift card and bragging rights. Each Monday until December 17, we’ll announce the "Workshifter of the Week" and feature his or her photo on the GoToMyPC Facebook page.  Eligibility You must be over 18 years of age. You must be a U.S. resident. You can read the full legal rules here (PDF). Not a GoToMyPC customer? Don’t worry - you can still participate. And if you want to try GoToMyPC, sign up for a free trial. Need help brainstorming cool places to work from? Check out Workshifting.com - it’s got tons of tips and resources to help you workshift anywhere. We look forward to seeing your photos!

Today, we have a guest post from Gihan Perera. Gihan is a consultant, speaker and author who helps professional speakers, trainers, thought leaders and other business professionals to leverage their products, services and business practices - particularly with their online strategy. He is also the author of the books Secrets of Internet Business Success and Webinar Smarts, among many others. Find out more about Gihan and see more here. The workplace of the 21st century is no longer a "place" where employees congregate from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. The growth of telecommuting, outsourcing, off-shoring and globally dispersed teams means the modern leader needs to work effectively with an "invisible workforce," a trend that is only going to increase. Here’s two big reasons for this trend: The virtual workforce gives organizations a competitive advantage in reducing fixed costs and recruiting the best talent. Remote workers are more productive than in-office workers. This changing landscape poses challenges for managers, who admit they don’t know how to manage and lead virtual teams effectively. Team leaders cite issues of trust, communication, managing deadlines and achieving consensus in decision-making. In fact, even though two-thirds of leaders consider it important for their managers to be able to lead virtual teams, few (22%) admit those managers have the necessary skills. One of the biggest challenges leaders face with virtual teams is creating trust - absolutely crucial for an effective team. In-person teams build trust through physical interactions and engaging at a personal level. For example, team members might spend time with each other, share meals, have personal conversations and even socialize outside work. Leaders struggle to foster these same interactions in virtual teams, and might even be rebuffed if they try. For example, online meetings tend to be more efficient and focused than in-person meetings, so participants often don’t want to "waste time" with personal chitchat, playful banter or lingering after the meeting ends. The solution is not to try harder, but to do it differently! Virtual teams build trust through work-related performance - for example, reliability, consistency, integrity (keeping promises) and responsiveness. This is good news for leaders, because these factors also improve productivity and results! At first glance, it seems these factors should be important for all teams, and that’s true. However, in-person teams can sometimes be more tolerant of failure in these areas. For example, somebody in an office can walk over to a colleague’s desk to check that a task is on track. Virtual team members don’t have that luxury, so have to rely on their colleagues keeping their promises to deliver on time. Leaders can leverage technology to facilitate these trust interactions in virtual teams. For example: Email to communicate needs, promises and actions Online project management tools for tracking and transparency Online meetings for real-time collaboration Discussion forums, bulletin boards, blogs and wikis for managing and sharing the team’s knowledge Webinars and slidecasts for disseminating information and prompting discussion These are all useful, but online collaboration tools are probably the most important. Indeed, the majority of leaders say collaboration software is important or even mission critical for their teams. This is not surprising, because these tools help to build trust at both the personal and professional levels. If you’re leading a virtual team, don’t rely on what’s worked in the past with your in-person teams. Instead, plan carefully the tools and rules you’ll put in place to foster trust. What are you strategies for keeping in touch with a virtual team? Tweet your tips to @GoToMeeting. Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography via Compfight cc