After 44 posts and more than 19,000 views, this will be the last post on the Learning Snippets blog. A little over 18 months ago, I took what was for me a brave step into a whole new world and wrote my first ever blog post. Since then, I’ve connected with (even met) many other tremendous people who have challenged my thinking and helped me to become better at what I do. I would like to sincerely thank everyone who has followed along; read; liked; shared; or commented on any of my posts, I’m grateful and really appreciate it. While I’m still figuring this blogging thing out as I write, the act of writing itself helps me to reflect and clarify my thoughts (and I think my writing is getting better too). So, while I’m moving on from this blog, I have started another called Learn. Show. Repeat. The new site has come about as a result of the experiences and influences over the past year and a half and represents how I’ve changed along the way too. I still intend to document what I’m learning but as you’ll see on the new site, I’ll also be showing more of what I’m doing in the eLearning space and sharing some valued members of my PLN that might help you too. I hope that you’ll join me there! Cheers, Matt

At Bottom-Line Performance (owners of the Knowledge Guru platform), we have a "learning game design peer group" that meets a few times per year. I started the group three years ago to help build game design skills and to foster deeper knowledge of the power of games as learning tools. People who design games need to play games to gain perspective and understanding of core dynamics, game mechanics, and game elements and how these all weave together to create a good or poor game experience. Here are three great games we have played within our Peer Group. All three are commercially available; one is marketed explicitly as a learning game. I’ve made a few comments about each one to help people understand the value of playing and evaluating the game design of each one Pandemic - This is a cooperative game rather than a competitive game, which is one reason to play it and evaluate it. It is a complex strategy game where the players work together to stop the spread of four diseases. It’s a difficult game to play - and difficult to learn BUT it’s also incredibly fun. I think playing it brings out a few key questions a learning game designer should ask: When the rules (game mechanics) are pretty complex, what’s the impact to learning the actual knowledge or skill the player is supposed to learn? When does rule complexity actually enhance learning? When rules are PART of understanding process complexity, it can be a good lesson. How would you debrief an experience such as this one with players? Is a game such as this realistic to create for the workplace if players don’t have at least 1/2-day to a full day to play and then debrief the experience? Ticket to Ride - There are a ton of versions of this game, each with slightly tweaked game rules. The basic game goal, regardless of version, is to score the most points by executing the most lucrative train routes.  We explored mechanics that made this game a bit different. These are key questions to ask as you evaluate this game: 1) You didn’t have full knowledge of how you were doing in comparison to your opponents as you didn’t know what tickets they were trying to complete. How could you use this concept in a learning game? 2) There were no limits as to the number of cards you could hold in your hand. You could acquire unlimited resources but you had to give up the opportunity to create a route if you opted to collect a resource. How could you use this concept of choosing between two good actions as a concept in a learning game? 3) You had to gamble a bit when deciding to take a ticket and attempt to complete it. If you failed to complete a ticket by the game’s end, you had to deduct the value of that ticket from your score. Again, how could you leverage this concept within a learning game? Robot Turtles - This game is actually designed for ages 4 and up. It’s a cooperative game as well. No competition involved at all. It is a bona fide learning game designed to teach players programming logic. You have a "game master" who moves turtles on a board at the direction of the players. The turtles and the game master are a metaphor for programming code and a computer. (The computer only does what the code specifies.). We had a group of non-programmers play the game, which was designed to have several "levels" of play. As players mastered a basic level, the game master introduced a more complex element. Key questions we discussed: Would players "get" the comparisons to the true skill being taught without a facilitator/instructor making the connections with them? (We decided "no," which brings up an interesting question about using a learning game as a stand-alone event where there is no set-up or debrief of the experience.) Was the use of levels effective in helping people get started playing fast and then building complexity as people got proficient? We decided yes. We strongly advocate learning game designers to consider the use of a tutorial level or advancing levels of complexity to make it easier for players to learn. Want to dive deeper? Join Karl Kapp and myself at ATD 2015 in Orlando in May where we will deliver a full day workshop on learning game design. Alternately, we’ll be at Learning Solutions (also Orlando) in March. Or…check out the entire "Get Started with Learning Game Design" blog series I wrote: Part 1: Play and Evaluate Games. Part 2: Game Goals and Core Dynamics Part 3: Game Mechanics (aka Rules) Part 4: Game Elements Part 5: More Game Elements to Consider Part 6: Rewards and Scoring Part 7: Think about the learning and then the game The post Designing a Learning Game? Play these 3 Games First appeared first on .

Some people cringe when they hear the words "process" or "procedure." Others appreciate and value them. Either way, processes and procedures are essential to a successful organization. That’s why so much of the training organizations deliver year after year is supposed to help align employees with a process or teach them a procedure they must follow. In an article on process training I wrote for our BLP Lessons on Learning blog, I shared that 41% of respondents to our 2014 Learning and Remembering Survey listed policies, process, and procedures as the primary type of knowledge employees must know on the job. This was the most mentioned training topic! The challenges L&D professionals listed in their survey responses likely sound familiar to anyone involved with process training. Organizations struggle because they have too many processes, too much training for employees to consume, lack of buy-in with key middle managers and lack of real motivation to change habits in the first place. That last reason, getting employees to buy into the "why", is especially important. It’s not so much a matter of learning as it is an issue with motivation. …Let’s assume that your employees are human beings who are intelligent and capable of following basic steps. They could learn the process and follow it if they wanted to, but they have not found a compelling reason that motivates them to do so. - excerpt from "Is Your Process Training "Nice to Know" or "Need to Know"? Many of our customers, Johnson & Johnson and Ally Financial to name a few, use Knowledge Guru games to teach a specific process that learners need to follow. We also create many custom learning solutions that include a gaming component where the goal is process alignment. While games or gamified solutions are sometimes the answer, they can only do so much when you have a process problem instead of a learning problem. How can games and gamification help align processes and procedures? I mentioned above that games may not be the answer if you really have a "process" problem. We sometimes conduct a training needs analysis with clients to discover if this is the case. If the real issue is that employees either A) do not know the process or B) are not motivated to follow the process, games and/or gamification can help. Serious games and gamification can… 1. Help employees remember how to follow the process. We always emphasize the importance of aligning game mechanics to instructional design principles. Our Knowledge Guru platform utilizes spaced learning, repetition and feedback loops, for example. The "Quest" game type includes a Bonus Gate where questions that players missed earlier in the game are shown again. When serious games are aligned with the science of remembering, learners are more likely to retain key facts long after they play. 2. Make Middle Managers Happy… or at Least Happier. In environments such as call centers or factory floors, managers do not want their employees to take large amounts of time away from their work. Training that is distracting or disruptive to the flow of work will often not be supported. Many of the benefits of serious games and gamification can be realized in just minutes a day. Knowledge Guru "Quest" allows administrators to set how frequently players can play and also allows them to "lock" worlds for set lengths of time. An email reminder can be enabled to invite them back. This way, employees only play in small chunks. 3. Motivate employees to learn about the process. Most learning professionals first turn to games or gamification because they hope to engage or motivate their learners. Points, badges and leaderboards can help with this… but they are not often enough to motivate by themselves. Your solution might also incorporate story, avatars, minigames and aesthetics to create an experience employees will find interesting. 4. Help build context and relevance. One of the best way to increase adoption of a process is to show the "why." Any game-based solution should make liberal use of relevant scenarios that ask learners to correctly follow and apply the process. Custom-built games can go even further by incorporating characters, stories and gameplay that mirrors the workplace. Watch out for solutions that present scenarios "at random" or via an algorithm! There is value in controlling the order in which content is seen so that learners can build on past knowledge from previous sections of the game. The post How Games & Gamification Can Help Align Processes and Procedures appeared first on .

You need to deliver training to your employees and want it to be "engaging." You’ve read articles and attended webinars that discuss making learning experiences engaging, yet most of the advice seems vague. What is an engaging learning solution? Why do some learners find a certain type of training engaging, while others do not? The challenge you face is even more difficult when your content does not exactly jump off the page. Teaching call center employees how to follow a critical procedure or pushing product information to sales reps in an exciting way is not a simple task. And while learning solutions must include instructional design that purposely leads to retention of this type of content, retention cannot happen if learners are not motivated to learn. …That is, unless we take a look at what truly motivates people. When we consider our learners as human beings who are influenced by culture and driven by common goals, we can begin to see what approaches, stories and themes will truly motivate them. One such theme is The Hero’s Journey. What is the Hero’s Journey? Mythologists (the people who study myths across cultures) will tell you that The Hero’s Journey has been repeated over and over again throughout human history. You’ve seen it before: the hero leaves the safety of home to face great challenges and ultimately overcomes those challenges. She returns home victorious and shares this victory with her people. We see The Hero’s Journey all around us: in movies, in books, in classical myths and modern stories. It’s a classic pattern where the individual inevitably identifies herself as the hero or protagonist. The Hero’s Journey is retold over and over again because it is meaningful to people. It almost always leads to a powerful and inspirational story. That’s why when you are looking for a way to motivate employees to follow a process or learn about a new product, creating a "Hero’s Journey" for them to follow is a great place to start. Here are three ways you can transform your next training initiative from required activity to heroic quest. The approaches work especially well for product knowledge training… and we have seen them used effectively with process training and customer-facing training as well. 1. Start With a Challenge Instead of listing out learning objectives, start your next training experience with a challenge or goal. All of the Knowledge Guru themes we offer start with a goal or "Quest" of some kind. In addition, many customers create a broader theme or narrative that they use within their LMS and throughout email communications sent to players. Every "Legend" game theme starts with a challenge of some kind. Players begin a heroic journey to become a Knowledge Guru.   In the "Quest" game type, players are on a journey to unlock knowledge. The game itself is structured as an extended quest where the learner is the hero.   In this "Hazard Communication" course we developed for Roche, learners are challenged to become a "Safety Sidekick." This becomes their quest throughout the course. The course went on to win a 2014 Horizon Interactive award.   2. Make it Personal While goals and challenges are motivating to learners, unnecessary content is the opposite. Make sure that you are presenting the right content to the right learners throughout the experience by personalizing the learning. At the end of each world in the Knowledge Guru "Quest" game, learners play a minigame that is personalized based on their weakest content areas.   Many of the custom eLearning solutions we create allow learners to select their role and receive content tailored to their individual needs.   3. Make it Last The Hero’s Journey is seldom complete in a day… let alone a 30 minute eLearning course. For example, Johnson & Johnson broke their "Talent Guru" game into a 5-week program with short gameplay sessions and competition each week. By extending your learner’s journey, you also increase the benefits of spaced repetition: learners retain more knowledge when they have the opportunity to apply it multiple times over several days or weeks. Knowledge Guru’s "Quest" game type allows users to lock worlds for a period of time and email players when the world is ready for play. This breaks gameplay into short, manageable chunks over an extended period of time.   The post Turn Your Product Knowledge Training into a "Hero’s Journey" appeared first on .

I interviewed Paula Rossini, Global Program Manager at Cisco, to learn more about how Cisco uses Knowledge Guru games to teach its sales associates. Cisco’s sales associate training program (CSAP) has won multiple Brandon Hall awards for its innovative approaches, including a 2014 "Gold" award won in partnership with BLP. Can you describe your role at Cisco?  I’m a Global Program Manager. I focus mostly on content development and delivery of different programs within our worldwide sales and partner enablement organization. I focus mostly on new hires and early-in-career employees. The Cisco Sales Associate Training Program (CSAP) is our keystone program along with the Partner Sales Academy (PSA). We also have a new hire acceleration program (SNAP) and a new internship program for university students. What learners do you use Knowledge Guru games with? We first introduced Sales Guru (the name we gave our Knowledge Guru games) games for sales associates and engineers in the CSAP program. It’s used as a reinforcement tool. We now have Sales Guru games for the SNAP new hire acceleration program. While the games are a reinforcement tool in the CSAP program, for SNAP we use it as an assessment tool. You’d think it was daunting to use it as an assessment tool… but SNAP associates already have experience selling, so it’s a more mature audience. They can play the game as often as they want until they pass. How are the games part of a learning solution? What other pieces are involved in the training? In CSAP, the associate goes through synchronous classroom training. This training is taught by a virtual facilitator. The facilitator uses Cisco Telepresence to give the virtual instructor-led training. For example, associates take Data Center as a six-day module. Every day they have 3.5 hours of training, and at the end of Day one the facilitator tells them to play the Sales Guru game in preparation for the next day. There is a schedule posted on the LMS where associates can see exactly when they need to play each game. During each module, associates play part of the game at the end of day one, three and five. There is a frequency by which they are expected to play the game before they do the next one… which is part of how we use the repetition.  At the end of every technical module, we have "technical office hours" where the trainer goes through the entire module in summary format. The Sales Guru prepares associates for the assessment they take at the end of the module. SNAP is an asynchronous virtual program. People go through a series of eLearning modules. For most of the technical eLearning modules, they have a Sales Guru game attached to each of them as a final assessment. Was there a challenge you hoped to address by implementing Knowledge Guru games into the curriculum?  There are lots of highly technical concepts in the solutions we offer that are difficult to assimilate. Associates struggled a lot to understand these concepts. We felt that, through Knowledge Guru’s use of spaced repetition, we could teach the associates and engineers better. We first launched the game with our toughest topic of all: "Data center." Little by little, we rolled it out to other technologies. Knowledge Guru is a reinforcement tool for all of the technologies in the program. What do you want the learners to know or do after playing?   We want them to be able to assimilate the technical content they learned in the module and pass their technical exam. You mentioned to me that many of your learners are virtual. How have you worked to engage and connect learners with technology throughout the program, and how does Knowledge Guru fit into that effort? We use Cisco TelePresence and Cisco WebEx to virtually facilitate the CSAP training. The Knowledge Guru games are launched from the LMS along with the rest of the program materials. We teach the learners virtually so that multiple locations throughout Europe can all be taught by the same facilitator. What did you do to encourage adoption with players? The success of the game really depends on the involvement of the facilitator who leads the session and the "producer". The facilitator teaches the learners while the producer makes sure they are paying attention and completing pre and post work. The producer supports the facilitator on WebEx. The producer encourages learners to play the Sales Guru games throughout the module. The really good producers have some best practices like leaving the leaderboard up, showing the associates who’s winning, and encouraging gameplay. How did players access the games?  Players launch the games from the LMS. During the pre-work, they see what day they need to launch the game. How did Cisco communicate about the games to learners?  All communication happens through the LMS. Associates can see all materials available in a single location. Both the facilitator and the producer encourage gameplay during the session. The games are also integrated into the slide deck of the facilitator… and the producer reminds them, too. Sometimes, the facilitators reward learners with some candy or some other small "prize." What results have you produced from the program with the help of Knowledge Guru?  We received very positive learner feedback from the Data Center game, so we expanded into other modules. After this expansion, we surveyed associates and found that they rated the game 4.93 out of 5 in terms of its value as a learning experience. They rated the repetition in the game a 4.93 out of 5 and said it was highly effective in helping them retain the content. We receive continuous anecdotal feedback that associates really enjoy the game and that it helps them to understand the content better. They say that it really does help them to pass the exam. While not a direct correlation, we do have a 98% pass rate on the technical exam. What have been the keys to successful implementation for you?   Collaborating with Bottom-Line Performance was very important. We had an honest partnership where Sharon (Boller) would tell us up front if she had concerns with how we planned to use the game. That honest collaboration led to success for us. Project management was also important. As soon as we had the green light to proceed, BLP guided us through the process of creating our games. The BLP team helped us hit milestones every step of the way, and it made a really big difference. Now, we are at the point where the games have really become a part of our process, and it’s much easier to create and modify games. The Brandon Hall "gold" award that Cisco won for its use of Knowledge Guru was the second in just a few years for the CSAP program. What do you think sets the program apart? I like to say that, at Cisco, "we drink our own champagne." Cutting edge technology is really important for us. When we have made mistakes along the way, we have taken those and turned them into lessons learned. We reflect on how we’ve done and take feedback very seriously.  Associates and stakeholders in general provide feedback and we take that feedback, change, and go with what makes sense. We continuously evolve, and that is a big part of why we are doing really well.  In short, our keys to success are feedback, technology, not being afraid of change, and learning from mistakes. What advice would you give to others on creating their first Knowledge Guru game, or bringing a serious game into their organization for the first time? Start with the end in mind. Understand or identify what they want to accomplish. Based on those learning objectives, you can find out the best way to implement the game. It’s also important to look around and do your due diligence for looking for the right learning partner. It doesn’t need to be a big one. Pick one that fits your needs the best and with whom you can have an honest conversation where the learning partner genuinely wants you to succeed. Don’t just pick biggest partner out there because they are big and reviews are good. Go with one that will meet your requirements. The post How Cisco Uses Knowledge Guru to Teach Product and Technical Knowledge (Interview) appeared first on .

The Knowledge Guru platform continues to expand its features and functionality using customer feedback as our guide.  The Spring Release is all about usability: the features we have added streamline the user experience, enhance reporting capability, and increase the platform’s versatility. Universal Login Now, TheKnowledgeGuru.com/login is the official starting point for all users. Players, game authors and system administrators all use this simply URL, also available by clicking "Log In" from any page on the Knowledge Guru site, to access their games. There is no need to memorize a specific URL, and users see a list of all games assigned to them after logging in. All users simply log in with an email address and a password. Of course, you can still direct players to a unique game URL to log in for a specific game. More Leaderboards in Quest Consistently we’ve heard customers tell us that they LOVE the new Quest game type… except that they miss all the leaderboards they are used to in the original Legend game type. We’ve revamped Quest to include three leaderboards while retaining the "Around Your Area" board. We’ve adjusted this dashboard view of progress to include more player information as well. See the images below: Resource Links for Individual Questions (Quest Only) We introduced Performance Challenges in the Quest game type… and the ability to link out to resources as part of the challenges. Now, you can link to resources such as websites or PDFs directly from a specific question. When a player clicks the resource link, a new window will open that shows the resource. Here’s what it looks like: A Third Customizable Registration Field (both game types) The customers who are most successful with Knowledge Guru make great use of the platform’s reporting and tracking features. We’ve added a third custom registration field that links to a back-end report. So…if you create a field called SUPERVISOR, you will be able to access a report labeled Supervisor Performance Report from the game author site. The new All-Star report in the Quest game type that identifies players who have earned three stars on every level of a Quest game, along with their total score.  You can use this report as a means of incentivizing players, perhaps offering recognition to all players who earn three-star status across all levels of the game. If you opt to include this third field in your games, you will have a report associated with it. This enhancement is in both game types. The Player Progress Report has been enhanced and now identifies the player’s performance on every question in the game - not just overall performance by objective. This enables a supervisor  to provide pinpoint remediation if needed. This enhancement is in both game types. See What Success Looks like in our Upcoming Webinar Serious Games+ Learning Science = Win: How to Teach Product Knowledge, Policies & Procedures Wednesday, June 10th at 2 pm EDT / 11 am PDT Want to learn more about Knowledge Guru? We’re hosting a webinar that features case studies from four Knowledge Guru customers who are using the platform to drive business results and win awards. Register   The post Knowledge Guru Spring Release Provides More Leaderboards, Expanded Reports, and Easier Login appeared first on .

For the third straight year, the Bottom-Line Performance team will head to ATD International in support of our Knowledge Guru platform. As usual, our schedule is full of educational sessions and workshops that explore learning science, retention and learning game design. Here’s where we will be in Orlando: Saturday, May 16th Play to Learn: Designing Effective Learning Games: All-day preconference workshop - W103A BLP President and Knowledge Guru creator Sharon Boller and Dr. Karl Kapp Ed.D lead this popular workshop on learning game design all over the US. Participants learn basic game mechanics and game elements and then spend an afternoon prototyping their own game. Monday, May 18th - Wednesday, May 20th Expo Booth 602: Visit us in the expo to see a demo of Knowledge Guru, view some of the custom solutions we create, and pick up a free T-shirt. You’ll also be entered to win a free Knowledge Guru subscription. Tuesday, May 19th When Remembering Really Matters: Learning Strategies for Long-Term Retention 1 pm - 2pm, W311GH Sharon Boller shares the research on remembering, and forgetting, then introduces eight strategies that increase learning and remembering. You’ll see how effective learning strategies helped a hemodialysis manufacturer reduce patient drops from therapy, helped a SaaS company double its sales pipeline for a new product, and decreased employee turnover in a higher education setting. Serious Games + Learning Science = Win: How to Teach Product Knowledge, Policies, and Procedures 3 pm - 4 pm, W107 Join me as I share research on games and learning science, then put theory into practice with four case studies that show how Cisco, Johnson & Johnson, Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud and a Fortune 500 financial services company have used Knowledge Guru to drive business results. The post Follow the Action at #ATD2015 appeared first on .

Are you a do-it-yourselfer? When it comes to serious games, ATD says you probably are. In an ATD survey conducted for its 2014 research report, Playing to Win: Gamification and Serious Games in Organizational Learning (link), 71% of organizations reported that they prefer to develop serious games in-house. 83% said they planned to develop gamification in-house.  I’d say that’s a confident group! In the same survey, only 20% of organizations were already using serious games for learning, while 25% were using gamification. That means most organizations have never used games for learning before and plan to do it without help from a vendor. The challenge of in-house game design One of the reasons serious games are hard to create successfully in-house is the lack of game design skill most organizations have on their teams. Your instructional designers may be good, but have they played lots of games? Have they designed games before? Many instructional designers continue their education and earn masters degrees in instructional design. Can you master game design by taking a one-day workshop? Getting Around Game Design Organizations often get around the lack of in-house game design expertise by using game templates or a full fledged gaming platform. When the platform you use already has gaming built in, all you have to do is think about your content. A platform can make life much easier for your team… but creating the game itself is less than half the battle. You still have to implement your game. And that’s where things really get interesting. If You Build It, They Won’t Come… Unless You Have a Plan No matter how fun your game-based solution is supposed to be, you will still need a plan for launching it, promoting it, and measuring it. How will you communicate about the game? Will you require players to play? How will you incentivize play… or do you need to incentivize? These are all questions you must answer as you implement a serious game or gamification initiative. In my role, I get to collect stories from organizations who wish to submit for industry awards. These are typically the "best of the best." They planned for success, either partnered with us to build a solution or created their own game with Knowledge Guru, and drove meaningful business results from their efforts. What’s interesting about these award-winning implementations is just how similar they are. I find that the companies that are most successful with games and gamification in their organizations take many similar approaches when it comes to implementation. So whether you are preparing to launch your first-ever serious game, or are looking to make your next initiative more successful than your last one, consider these tips for a successful implementation: 1. "Required" works best. Let’s face it: employee time is limited, and most of us only have the energy to focus on the activities that are truly essential to our jobs. Even if your serious game is fun, is it equal or greater than the myriad of entertainment options available to us around the clock? Our experience shows us that the organizations that are most successful with serious games require play. For example, Johnson & Johnson has integrated Knowledge Guru into employee goals & objectives for the year. 2. Blend into a curriculum: use as part of a learning solution. You probably have lots of training initiatives happening in a calendar year. Games might be a great addition to the mix, but you should not plan to replace all of these existing training events with games. The case studies I have gathered all show organizations having the most success when games are part of a larger blended curriculum or strategy. This allows you to narrow the focus of your game to cover a specific skill or set of knowledge. 3. Use the game as a reinforcement (most of the time). Games and gamification make great reinforcement tools. In fact, most organizations we have worked with position games as either a reinforcement, or a motivating first exposure to content that will be covered in greater detail later. It is also easier to launch a game as a reinforcement when you are attempting your first go-around with serious games. 4. Offer incentives and/or provide sufficient motivation. No matter how you dress it up, completing a serious game is still training that is part of a job. Unless your learners are highly intrinsically motivated, we recommend providing prizes and rewards. Encouragement from senior leadership can be even more effective. The grand prize winner of a Knowledge Guru game hosted by one of our Financial Services clients specifically cited how meaningful it was to be recognized by company leaders as part of winning the game. 5. Create a communications strategy around the game. Learning and Development leaders need to think more like marketers when implementing all types of training. Every single case study I have seen of a successful Knowledge Guru implementation incorporates some sort of multi-part communications strategy to get the word out about the game. This could include many things, from advertisements in a call center to a series of emails or even a collection of advertisements placed throughout a company intranet site. 6. Use reporting and adapt the training. Most organizations first get interested in games because they want to motivate or engage their employees. This is only part of why games are powerful organizational learning tools, though. For example, Johnson & Johnson was able to identify a specific learning objective that learners were missing as a group, then adjust their overall training to better focus on the weak process step. The organizations that are successful with serious games and gamification take advantage of the data they gather on learners and act quickly to adapt their training and processes. 7. Gather insights via surveys. It is not uncommon to survey learners after a training initiative is completed… especially after a pilot. Games are no different. The surveys conducted by Knowledge Guru customers have revealed many valuable insights that impact future games. In one survey, a player commented that they learned a more effective way to do their job through the game that had not been covered in company-wide training. Our client was able to take this information and launch new training to teach the effective process to the rest of the department. See Four Case Studies In Our Recorded Webinar Want to learn more about how to implement effective serious games? I cover these implementation tips in the recorded webinar below, adapted from my ATD International 2015 presentation. You’ll also see four case studies from organizations that have implemented a serious game that drove real results. Access "Serious Games + Learning Science = Win" The post 7 Steps to an Effective Serious Game or Gamification Implementation appeared first on .

The Knowledge Guru platform continues to expand its features and functionality using customer feedback as our guide.  Our Summer 2015 Release is all about expanding your options globally. We are introducing six new languages so you can expand your coverage to non-English speaking learners across the globe. We have also expanded the ways you can use spaced repetition within our Quest game type to maximize retention. Six New Languages available; Spanish for Everyone! With the Summer Release, Enterprise subscribers now automatically have six new languages to choose from in addition to standard English: Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.  If you are a current customer, you will find these options in your Game Author tool, under the Customize tab.  Just click the drop-down box for Theme and select the one you need. Standard and Premium subscribers have also been updated with the Spanish language option. More options for Game Spacing in Quest The most powerful feature of Knowledge Guru’s award-winning design is the spaced repetition it provides. In our Quest game type, administrators have already been able to turn on automatic spacing so that players can only play one topic per week. This design maximizes knowledge retention and encourages gameplay in short chunks. But while weekly spacing is optimal from a learning science standpoint, it is not always practical in real-world implementations. Thanks to some helpful feedback from our customers, we’ve added a new spacing option that allows players to play an entire world in a single day, then return the next day to play another world. This allows players to complete a game quickly while still benefitting from the spaced repetition of the platform. Updated Knowledge Base Articles We have added several new articles in our knowledge base to help you get the most out of your Knowledge Guru subscription. Remember, you can access the Knowledge Base at any time by clicking the "Getting Started" tab in your Game Author tool, and selecting Knowledge Base. Want to help inform the Fall Release? Our Fall 2015 release will be here before you know it… and we have some exciting new features planned. Part of the release will be an integration with Salesforce, and we would love to consider your feedback as we continue development. Fill out our four question Salesforce Integration Survey to let us know what features you would like to see in a Salesforce integration.           The post Knowledge Guru Summer Release Adds 6 New Languages and Another Game Spacing Option appeared first on .

Last week, a colleague asked me what sales process I use. I was at a loss for words because the process I use has become so natural to me that it doesn’t feel like a process. My sales process feels more like a second language… though I’m still working to master it. I strongly believe that this particular process works—I’ve experienced the success it has brought me over the years. Achieving is believing. What about your sales reps? Has your process become so embedded into their vocabulary that it is clearly driving higher revenue? Have they become believers? No? You’re not sure? If they aren’t using a sound sales process or sales language, then they aren’t driving the revenue you could be realizing. Sandler Rule #20: The bottom line of professional selling is going to the bank. Show me the money! How do we get sales rep to know the process, use the process (or see results) and ultimately believe in the process? Many organizations I work with are turning to serious games to accomplish this… with measurable results. Know the Process Before a sales rep has their first conversation with a prospect, the process they need to follow must be known ‘cold’ from memory.   Reps generally don’t have the time to consult job aids or resources while they are in the middle of a conversation. Here’s where techniques like spacing and repetition incorporated in an effective serious game can have the greatest impact. Take Cisco for example: Their use of games drove an 86.6% knowledge transfer rate for new sales reps who played. Cisco sales associates cited the use of spaced repetition in the games as pivotal to passing the required certification tests. Spacing and repetition are keys to long-term memory retrieval so that reps can truly talk the talk. Do the process Of course, once reps know the process, we must allow them sufficient time to practice the process. This is no different than any sports team: practice and more practice make for a winning team! Games that leverage additional performance challenges within the game allow players to ‘do’ the process (and make mistakes) before they talk to clients. Performance challenges can be particularly effective as reps are able to contextualize the process into their everyday sales world and conversations. Next, back-end analytics included with many serious games allow trainers to identify any knowledge gaps for the group or spot coaching opportunities with individuals. Like getting ready for a big game, the practice will allow reps to feel comfortable with the process and have a clear pathway to success. Then it’s all touchdowns and dancing in the end zone! Believe the Process If reps know and do the process, will they automatically believe in it, too? We often say that a motivated and engaged learner who is rewarded for their efforts can help in this endeavor. Games inherently engage learners with competitive elements such as status on the leaderboard, badges, trophies and power-ups. These elements motivate players to keep playing… and simultaneously gain confidence with the process. Once confident, reps can sell confidently. And, once they start to see their sales grow, it won’t take a leap of faith to make them believers. It Starts With Your Leaders Like your sales process, game-based learning can drive measurable results when combined with support from senior leadership. Many companies I work with have large PR campaigns surrounding new game-based learning initiatives. Organizations who require game play, while still offering great prizes and incentives, are more successful than companies who leave it up to decide if they will play or not. If company leaders don’t make the game a priority, neither will your learners. The same will happen with your sales process. If it is optional to know, do or believe in, many reps might leave it at a prospect’s door and revenues could suffer as a result. What leader would be happy about that? With well-trained and confident reps, you will see higher rep performance and increased revenues. Your CEO will be so proud. The post Is Your Sales Process a Second Language Yet? appeared first on .