Surprise and Delight with Google Photos

IMGP0056 PANO Surprise and Delight with Google Photos

Anyone who follows me on Twitter has, by now, noticed I have been sharing a load of stuff from Google Photos.  For those who don’t know, this is a free service from Google that allows you to basically upload an unlimited number of photos (if you are happy with their “high quality” setting) and store them in the Cloud.

On top of that, Google Photo has some really clever little tricks up its digital sleeve, by way of Auto Awesomeness. It will analyse your images and do all sorts of clever things. It will create panoramas if it finds images in a panoramic sequence. It will create animations of images that have been taken in quick succession. If you have stuff geotagged, it can also create stories based on image sequences and locations. On top of that it will also create montages and filtered images where it sees fit and probably more. As well as that, it categorises things for you and makes your images searchable. You can look for images of faces, of locations, objects and all sorts – which is actually rather handy. Read More ...

A-Z of Gamification

Alphabet 1430830397 A Z of Gamification

This is a total cop-out of an article. However, I would love to hear your versions! It all came about when listening to an advert for a kids show called the Dinosaur Train, where there is a song that teaches A-Z using the names of Dinosaurs!

On a side note, I will be speaking at Gamification World Congress in November. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on topics. I was considering a story about real loyalty, but if you want to hear about User Types again or anything else – let me know in the comments! Read More ...

Don’t be afraid to say no to Gamification

No to gamification Don 8217 t be afraid to say no to Gamification

Here is something that many who know me or know of me would be surprised to hear. Gamification is not always the answer!

There, I said it.

Often gamification is just a concept people have heard of and know may be of use. In these cases they will ask if it can be used as a solution for an issue they have. The trouble is that it is very easy to fall into the trap of just saying yes. As a gamifier, we really want to use gamification to solve business problems. We know the power that games and game elements can have and want to demonstrate this whenever we can. Read More ...

Simple Gamification Framework

Andrzejs Gamification Framework Simple Gamification Framework

Well, this week was going to be some thoughts around a conversation with Ian Bogost. However, that will have to wait until I have more time to actually formulate a decent set of arguments 🙂

In the mean time, I wanted to put out the little “framework” I proposed in the presentation so many of you lovely people have viewed (over 500 on slideshare at last count – so massive thanks!!)

Basically this is a take on many other peoples attempts at defining a simple framework (I read about Kevin Werbach’s D6 framework the day after my presentation for example). It has no clever abbreviations or acronyms (WWW HATTAR seems daft) Read More ...