The Intrinsic Motivation Fallacy
“All you need is autonomy to be happy in work” This is a quote I have heard on more than one occasion in my life as a gamification consultant. I have even had a...
Category: Education
The Game Thinking Spectrum
A quick thought around my original Game Thinking content from a few years back. I often listen to others talking about gamification, serious games and the like, as if they had no relationship to...
Behaviour and Behaviour Change
One of the things you often hear around talk of gamification is the term “Behaviour Change”. At one time, gamification experts and platform providers began to get nervous of the word gamification and started...
Contextual Relevance in Gamification
People often say that “Content is King”. I have always maintained that whilst that is true, “Context is Queen”, and we all know who really wears the pants in a relationship! When you create...
Gamification: When Badges are Better than Badgers
Many years ago, I made a typo in a tweet when I mentioned badgers instead of badges. I even turned it into a blog, “Adding badgers would be more gamification than badges.” It was...
Cognitive Dissonance and Gamification
A few years ago, I was sat in a talk by a chap by the name of Mark Sorrell. He was discussing gamification and some of the issues with it. He himself worked in...
Forced to have Fun
Every office I have worked in has, at some point, tried to do something “fun” with their employees – usually whether the employees want it or not and often with the best of intentions! A...
Keeping Children Safe in the Internet Age
The world children are growing up in now is very different to the world their parents grew up in. Whilst many of the dangers may have stayed the same, the way they present themselves...
User Type HEXAD Lenses
One of the cool things about working at Motivait, is having access to some very cool and very intelligent people! One of those is a chap by the name of Carl Eacott. We met...
Her Story, Gone Home and Narrative Atoms
Last week I wrote about Narrative Atoms in some details. They are basically small nuggets of narrative that can stand on their own but together build the bigger story. Two obvious examples that I...
Narrative Atoms and The Soap Hero’s Journey
Narrative atoms are small units of narrative or story that can, within the context of the overall narrative, stand alone. That does not mean they need to be completely self-explanatory, just sit comfortably on...
School Grades Are The Wrong Way Around
I often hear people say that school is just a badly designed game. I have to agree. I also hear a lot that part of the problems is people chasing grades rather than mastery...
Gamification Design Framework Toolkit
Gamification Design Framework toolkit has been created as a way to help you design better gamified solutions. It is based on my Gamification Design Framework, a systematic way of building solutions that I have developed over the years.
The Paradox of Play
Play from the Start When we are born, we don’t have a set of predefined rules imprinted on us about what we should and shouldn’t do or how we should and shouldn’t do it!...
