Gamification – good or bad?

[This post was originally posted in Swedish on Capgemini Swedens Business Technology blog 2012-02-19]

I recently wrote a post on social intranets and on 2012-02-17 Swedish newspaper Computer Sweden wrote in an article that companies are getting more and more social thru services and social intranets. To continue on the subject of the next generation of intranets I would like to dedicate this post to gamification.

A short definition from Wikipedia says that “gamification is the use of game design techniques and mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences”. The concept as such isn’t new and has been used in other forms by stores to promote reoccurring customers but is starting to be adopted in other places such as intranets and e-commerce.

So in reality, what does this mean for intranets and e-commerce? A common implementation is that users receive some kind of virtual reward when you have done something one or more times. A popular site for us developers is Stack Overflow  where anyone can ask a programing related questions  and get answers from anyone. The creators of this site has introduced a system of badges as awards that are handed out when for  example a users enters all information on his or hers profile. All available badges are clearly visible on a special page so you know what you can get.

Something similar can be adopted in together with some of the functions I mentioned in my post on social intranets. The user can get a badge ones the profile is updated, she shares information a couple of times or when an article is commented. The same is applicable for e-commerce. When a customer shares a couple of articles on Facebook or shops for a certain amount. These badges can then give the holder discounts or perhaps access to pre-release items.

Is this good or bad? When you read what is written on this subject then there is both positive and negative criticism. The positive side is that users in many ways are driven by a will to win, get more or collect things, and this can lead to an increased activity and participation on intranets and more sales on e-commerce sites. One downside is that on intranets, competitive instinct can lead to users not sharing when striving to reach certain badges.

In the end I believe that this can lead to something good and to start and activate users. But the important thing is how the awards and what they lead to. Thru the design of the awards and the game itself you can control and work against the negative aspects described. I can only look to myself and a system like that on Stack Overflow which triggers me to contribute and creates a sense of usefulness and a quest to do better.

EDIT:

The original post on Capgemini Swedens Business Technology  blog sparked some comments proving the duality and many opinions on this subject. The consensus of the comments where that it’s important to not just buy gamification as a plugin or quick fix. And the hard part is not developing the technical solution but designing the game itself.

As I said before. Be sure that you now why and what you want to achieve and by all means hire someone to help you. There are lots of creative and experienced professionals in this area.

Social intranets

[This post was originally posted in Swedish on Capgemini Swedens Business Technology blog 2012-02-05]

How many times have you ever heard someone in your organization say something like:

Person 1: Where are the instructions on who to do a travel claim?
Person 2: It’s on the intranet. Somewhere. You’ll have to look.

Person 1 will then open his or hers browser and go out on a quest to find a document that so many before has searched for. Perhaps by clicking in some menus that seems to have something to do with the subject or by trying his or her luck on the intranet search engine. In many cases it’ll probably just end with an email to accounting.

A study executed by AIIM (www.aiim.org) showed that 71% of the users thought that it was easier to find information on the internet than on their own intranet  (© AIIM 2009, http://www.aiim.org).

What has this to do with social intranets? Well, lets start at the beginning. Last fall I was doing my first integration between a clients intranet and their Yammer. What I did led to updates on the companies Yammer appeared on the intranet so that the users didn’t need to leave the intranet to see what was going on.

What I noticed was that information posted on the clients, and Capgeminis for that matters, Yammer was much free and relevant information and tips was encouraged by the other users. On the down side, everything was new so for users with problems of filtering information it can easily become an overload.

Compare this to a traditional intranet where information is published by editors and categorized in menus and hierarchical structures. Informational structures that are logical once you’ve learnt them  and most users tend to rely on the search engine (that doesn’t always keep up).

To answer my question on what hard to find information has to do with social intranets it’s, in my opinion, about companies needing to find a new, a bit more just way of dealing, categorizing and publish information. One shouldn’t exclude the other cause the structure and categories need to be there but take the best of the Yammer or Facebook thinking and let your users share, like and comment on information but most importantly, make it easier to create their own.

And don’t let this just be a minor change on the surface like many companies just adding the possibility to comment on information and news. It won’t help to let the users comment on information if no one can find it. So if you’re planning an upgrade the let these thoughts seep thru your designs and structures.

A lot has been written, and said, on social intranets but now i believe that it’s time for companies to start taking it seriously. There’s a lot you can do to make and intranet a new social intranet with a more equal information flow. You don’t have to throw out the old and take something completely new or refer all that “social stuff” to external sites like Yammer or Facebook. Integrate instead. Then hopefully, person 2 from the opening example, can refer person 1 to his or her profile where the link is saved as a favorite or do a search on the internal hash-tag #expenses.

Open for discussion on this subject so if you have anything to add or think I should write more on this then please contact me!!

Mobile first

[This post was originally posted in Swedish on Capgemini Swedens Business Technology blog 2012-01-22]

In the beginning of a new year it’s something of a tradition to summarize the old and look into the future. A new year of new trends and technologies. As a Capgemini Business Technology-blogger one of my missions are to apply Capgeminis TechnoVision. What it means is that we watch and track the latest technologies, trends and innovations to help our customers and give advice on how we think technologies will evolve and where to invest.

I will start with to trends that picked-up last year. The first one is increased focus on mobile access to website and the related phrase “mobile-first”. The second is the new generation of intranets, the social intranets, that are trending.

In this first post I choose to share my view on mobile first and will return to the intranets in my second post. During 2011 it was clear that PC sales decreased and sale of mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones increased (source: IDC, source: Gartner). With out any scientific proof I’ll guess that most of those devices were sold with some kind of subscription plan with free surf or similar.

This will in turn lead to an increase in number of visitors from some kind of mobile device instead of traditional PCs with all that follows (such as smaller screens and other ways of interaction). As you might have read in Mikael Hultmans post Retail’s Big Show 2012 the dominating trend on that fair was mobile and that the year 2012 is the year where everything is mobile.

In 2009 Luke Wroblewski wrote and introduce the phrase mobile first on his blog. In his post he states that many websites built today are primarily built for traditional browsers then you make sure it works on a mobile device.

His believes that you should be doing the opposite and first focus on the mobile platform. His arguments are as follows:

1. Mobile is exploding – mobile access increases and companies should be well prepared for this channel.
2. Mobile forces you to focus – since resources such as screen estate is limited the designer has to focus on content and the most important features.
3. Mobile extends your capabilities – thru these new mobile platforms we get all new possibilities to interaction between the user and the page. An example of this is GPS-positioning and rotation of device.

Source: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?933

When i surf the web on my phone it interesting to see that sites specifically design for mobile devices or mobiles apps are often more focused and therefore easier to use than their traditional counterpart. It’s almost as if they are treated as to separate worlds, ordered by different parts of the company and on different budgets.

So if you’re about to start-up a new web project this year, think mobile first. Have a clear strategy for what’s most important on your website regardless on what platform you’re visiting from. Don’t view mobile devices and visits as something the marketing department can handled whilst the IT-department deals with the traditional site, let them use each other. Take for example to of the biggest CMSs available today, Sharepoint and EPiServer. Both of those has the possibility to serve customized pages to both mobile and regular browsers.

If done correctly you’ll have a great user experience regardless of platform and are well prepared for 2012 with increased mobile access and where everything is mobile!