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Gamification
Baileyborough
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Right so.
I've been woefully behind in my Extra Punctuation viewing of late, but when I saw this episode yesterday, I was inspired.
Before I get too into this, some background:
I am a nurse. My main background is in Radiology, but I've been qualified for 3 years. Lately, I've seen a career shift to the IT department of my hospital, which has made some major changes to my role. Now, I'm responsible for being the face of the department to other nurses, be their source of information, as well as examine ways in which we can promote a better use of the Electronic Documentation System, so that, at the end of the day, there's a better standard of care for all patients.
Sales pitch aside, I'm really interested in looking into how gamification can be used to improve our current systems. I want to really get my proverbial sheet together first though, as I think this is going to have to be a badass pitch to get past the initial caginess of the big boys and girls.
So I ask you this: Have any of you seen examples of where gamification has been used in the workplace to good effect? Even better, have you seen research to show that it actually has a positive impact?
I think that I'm actually in a position where I can implement some cool change if I can get the facts behind me. And imagine, first London, then the world!!!!! Ahem...
Anyhow, I'd be really excited to see what any of you can suggest or recommend.
Cheers,
Conor.
I've been woefully behind in my Extra Punctuation viewing of late, but when I saw this episode yesterday, I was inspired.
Before I get too into this, some background:
I am a nurse. My main background is in Radiology, but I've been qualified for 3 years. Lately, I've seen a career shift to the IT department of my hospital, which has made some major changes to my role. Now, I'm responsible for being the face of the department to other nurses, be their source of information, as well as examine ways in which we can promote a better use of the Electronic Documentation System, so that, at the end of the day, there's a better standard of care for all patients.
Sales pitch aside, I'm really interested in looking into how gamification can be used to improve our current systems. I want to really get my proverbial sheet together first though, as I think this is going to have to be a badass pitch to get past the initial caginess of the big boys and girls.
So I ask you this: Have any of you seen examples of where gamification has been used in the workplace to good effect? Even better, have you seen research to show that it actually has a positive impact?
I think that I'm actually in a position where I can implement some cool change if I can get the facts behind me. And imagine, first London, then the world!!!!! Ahem...
Anyhow, I'd be really excited to see what any of you can suggest or recommend.
Cheers,
Conor.
"There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. By doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses one still gets wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will get the same soaking. This understanding extends to all things." - Tsunetomo Yamamoto/I]
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Seriously though, I hope you can come up with something. Everything needs more gamification
As a disclaimer, I'd also like to say that I'm Irish, so I'm not actually affiliated with the English too much...
My biggest hurdle is getting numbers, something concrete that I can put in front of my bosses (and apparently, CEO), and say "THIS is the benefit." Research into it seems pretty sparse...
http://www.bunchball.com/gamification-101-1111?gclid=CLW8oI6a8qwCFcoaQgodnHom0w
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/new_management_trend_is_gamification_of_the_workplace/
From what I can see initially, gamification is a good motivational tool in order to foster light-hearted competition among the staff. It can be used to get them to try and outdo their coworkers in respects to how well they use the hospital's EDS without setting them at odds with one another in a negative way. At least I think so, I'm just working with five minutes on google here.
It's okay for work to feel like work. It's okay to take work seriously.
Sure, maybe, somewhere, there's something that says that short-term motivation is increased but at what costs? Do you really want your employees to start treating Nursing as a game? Everything I've seen says gamification is merely a marketing ploy.
Well, if I get to use quicksaves I'm all for it. Especially in nursing
.
Island. Being on fire.
Jokes aside, I'm obviously not looking into interfering with the clinical aspect too much, it's more about getting them to input their data more accurately and effectively, things like that.
Fixed.
My rough theory is that if World of Warcraft uses basic methods to keep people coming back over and over and attached, we could translate those same things into an educational experience to keep students interested and engaged.
I haven't put too much thought into it but a system of some sort where your grades earn you XP and you "level up" unlocking new priveledges or more advanced content, etc. Actual implementation would have issues though. As several have pointed out to me, this fosters competition between students which is not always a good thing, in that some students say "Well, no way I can ever beat the smart kid, so I may as well give up." At least if their levels are available to be seen by all. I don't know how serious an issue that would actually be, but it is a concern.
So I like the concept definitely, but also agree that research into the idea is incredibly lacking. I don't know exactly what aspects one could implement in a nursing field, but I'm sure you could pull something up.
edit: And there's nothing wrong with everyone enjoying their work in the form of a game. Work isn't worth more if it's miserable.
OP: The episodes that you are refering to is S2. Ep 10 and S2 Ep 15. Probably should put that in the first post somewhere so people can easily reference.
S2.E10: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/gamification
S2.E15: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/gamifying-education
What I would ask you is if there is a need for it. For example in your application do you find people are being as brief as they can sometimes instead of filling in as much detail as possible? You can use gamification to encourage people to file detailed and useful information by allowing people to rate the result. Use score thresholds to determine maybe an extra bonus or something. Or it could be something trivial like them getting a free lunch or two. The better the reward the more effective it will be. Also keep in mind to use thresholds and not compitition to determine rewards. You dont want a system where only the top 5 get rewarded. That isn't fair to part timers or people that might not have as many reports to file. This way people are always striving for the next threshold for the next level of reward.
Something like that.
We have been gamifying a long time as a society. We just havent been calling it that.
Our democratic governments are founded on numerous cynical notions though. People are imperfect, both as subjects and rulers, so we have seperation of powers and term limits to limit the damage they can do while in power. The mob is unfit to rule itself as a pure democracy, so we use representative structures instead. People will only consider their own self-interests, thus we have measures to protect minorities from the majority. As such, cynicism is a foundation of good government.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
what do you think is the delineation between incentivizing and gamifying? or, rather- gamifying is a subset of incentivizing, and what do you think it is that makes it less palatable?
certainly the most genuine reason that people act the way they do in professional environments is to receive financial payment. of course professional pride (and ethical attachment) is largely involved, but even pride in the workplace is, i'd argue, a subroutine of your efficacy as a worker- how much payment you deserve. socially we reward the identity of man (gender neutral) as a provider with inherent dignity, pride, and social recognition. i think there's a strong argument for many workplace motivations being associated with the understanding that being upright, being dedicated, and being competent are all linked to eventual reward.
is the difference that the incentives in gamifying are obscured?
The basic problem is that external rewards and punishments only work for a relatively small set of tasks. Specifically, repetitive tasks with clear goal indicators and little decision-making. If you have an assembly line of people making widgets, and you want to increase the number of widgets made, then go ahead, give the widget-assemblers points or bonuses or gift cards for every X number of widgets assembled. Go ahead, gamify widget assembly!
However, external rewards & punishments don't lead to increased productivity in other areas. If a task is not repetitive, if it requires creativity or decision-making, if it doesn't have clear goal indicators, then offering an external reward might decrease productivity. As bad as external rewards are, external punishments are even worse. Want to kill a creative worker's motivation and render him? Punish him for poor performance.
I'm not certain, but I expect, that McGonigal knows this. This paradox is currently well-trod territory in psychology. McGonigal's go-to example for gamification is exercise. Exercise is a good example for it, because it is repetitive and uncreative. But if we want to apply gamification to more thoughtful tasks, we're going to fail unless we figure out a way to do it that doesn't rely on external rewards and punishment.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
This is only true up to a point. You basically need to pay people enough that they don't need to worry about money any more. After that point, workplace motivation can be tied to three elements:
Autonomy - people work better when they're not being micromanaged. People tend to work best when they're given a general goal, some very broad parameters for achieving that goal, and then left alone until they clearly need help.
Efficacy - people work better when they feel like their efforts have an effect on reality. You're unlikely to be motivated if you feel like your efforts are impotent.
Meaning - people want their efforts to have a positive effect on reality. This might mean furthering a social good, or it might mean putting their daughter through college. Most people want to feel like their lives are making the world better.
This doesn't mean that salary becomes meaningless after a certain arbitrary number. This does mean that if you take a poor-performing worker and try to motivate him by offering him a raise (or worse, motivate him by threatening to dock his pay), you are unlikely to get the desired effect unless you simultaneously address the three factors I just described.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'm not sure. The main reason we're talking about this at all is because Jane McGonigal has been touring around promoting her new book on the subject which has stimulated discussion across different websites & forums.
But until we can read her book, I can only speculate how nuanced her position is. She's smart, though, and her TED talk and one of the articles I read hinted at something a little deeper than just operant conditioning.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Of course, this may make certain problems worse, but they're not anything new, so....
right, i was asking EM because he seemed to find gamification inherently off putting
i don't really have an opinion on it i guess
No shit?
Goddamn it.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Something like that could work, but actually designing and testing one is expensive and difficult. Getting a school to risk trying it out is also expensive and difficult. There's just not enough research or tested methods on this. I am insanely curious if you could do something like that though. In my mind coming to class every day, logging in and continuing to fight the French Revolution with my friends sounds awesome.
However, can you also implement this gamification without the use of external software? Especially in a classroom? Sorry to derail into education so much, it's just my field and the concept seems to apply so well.
So... you read it?
Any other thoughts?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Feral: I also think it's self-congratulory and that her use of games is restricted to placing a game-like layer of rules over unpleasant activities, resulting in a shallow facade of interactivity and very little of the promised transcendental power; in fact, one could view her reduction of various issues and solutions to game mechanics as a dehumanizing and cynical understanding of humanity, one that rewards statistical optimization and assumes that goal to be the only one worth pursuing.
But don't take my word for it.
The other night I was making a Stouffer's frozen pizza, and I saw on the box that I could rack up "Stouffer's Dinner Points" or whatever shit to make my sad, frozen-pizza-for-one existence MORE EXCITING! What the fuck is that. Frozen dinner does not need to be gamified. Adding points or badges won't make a fundamentally meaningless experience any more meaningful. Some of Jane McGonigal's projects have been genuinely interesting, like the game she ran at the New York Public Library, which was like a real-life mystery-solving locked-in-overnight-at-the-library ARG type of thing, in order to encourage creativity, interactivity, and participation in institutions like public libraries which are generally though of as boring and stuffy, and thus in danger of disappearing altogether. That's a cool idea, because McGonigal, though her book is certainly not perfect, at least understands that there's more to "turn it into a game" than "add points to it".
I saw your post and immediately thought of the "Achievement unlocked: 6,000,000 kills!" picture.
Click to become smarter
I did a scavenger hunt/puzzle game that was put on by her, before I knew who she was. That was pretty fun. If I found out she was doing another real-life ARG-y type thing in my area, I'd hella go.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I heard there's an exploit where you can get that achievement with only 1,000,000 kills.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I've been playing Foursquare for a little over a month, because I am hopelessly competitive and easily persuaded by both peer pressure and achievements. If a game which, by itself, offers no physical rewards, can program me to routinely "check-in" my current location by GPS... imagine what potential that has to influence decision-making and, for example, things like spending habits, in order to score more points by visiting new locations, or revisiting places you go regularly to get the "mayorship" of these places. Not all of that potential is positive, but certainly there could be plausible ways to make it work. (In jobs like commissioned sales, for example, the game structure is already in place. it could be argued that the competitive nature of banking and funds may have led to the current state of things in finance, but that isn't an argument I am prepared to back up with stats.)
The question becomes... How do we game-ify achievement on decidedly uneven playing fields like education? I am not sure how that could be made successful without a lot of adjustment; the current system in the US is oriented on performance statistics with a lot of emphasis on "results" that don't necessarily measure beyond rote learning and ability to correctly guess an answer from the ones provided.
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
the capitalist/wage labour model is profoundly cynical as well. i am at heart a filthy marxist so it's another example of the same thing.
maybe what bothers me about gamification is it's so similar to wage labour but more insidious - instead of material coercion and exploitation and alienation combined with financial incentives and their trappings, which is sort of a blunt form of manipulation, "gamification" (if it works as it is purported to) reaches past the world of volition and decision and material necessity and starts fiddling with your motivations, your desires, your patterns, your habits, etc.
I don't actually have a problem with this at all as long as it 1) works and 2) results in more desirable circumstances and 3) we're honest about what we're doing.
We basically fiddle with each other's motivations all the time and it's not really a moral issue.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'm sorry, but the PA forums are not here to help you with your homework.