Play in a “Serious” Environment

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Take the Ludic Spirit Player Type Quiz

Play is essential for development. There is a wealth of information about this especially for childhood development.

  1. Cognitive Development: Play contributes to the cognitive well-being of children and youth. It stimulates their imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength¹.
  2. Physical Development: Active play is crucial for physical development and health. It helps children build strong bones and muscles, control their body, and maintain a healthy weight¹.
  3. Social and Emotional Development: Play is an opportunity to promote the social-emotional well-being of children and youth. It allows children to interact with the world around them, helping them to build new competencies that lead to enhanced confidence and the resiliency they will need to face future challenges².
  4. Language and Self-regulation Skills: Play with parents and peers is a singular opportunity to promote language and self-regulation skills that build executive function and a prosocial brain².

(1) The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and ….
(2) The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young ….

Serious Play

The issue is, that the word “Play” doesn’t tend to go down well in a “serious” environment – such as work.

I recently found myself feeling like I needed to justify my use of the word play when speaking with a client. I said something like “Once we have finished, you can go and play with this yourself” Read More ...

10 Years of HEXAD

10 years of hexad 10 Years of HEXAD

Well, I just realised that I may have missed the 10-year anniversary of the HEXAD!! (Try the new 12 question quiz!!)

I think I actually created the HEXAD in 2013 – but it is a bit fluffy as it went through so many iterations before the HEXAD was finalised! Below you can see some of the evolution. There was much more than this of course.

One of the things building this taught me was that you are not always right! I too many missteps and had a lot of help. Richard Bartle, Amy Jo Kim and Nicole Lazaro all gave me loads and loads of help as I developed the types. Read More ...

The 4 Pillars of Change in Gamification, Optimisation and Behaviour Change

The 4 Pillars of Change The 4 Pillars of Change in Gamification Optimisation and Behaviour Change

In my new world, I focus on optimisation a lot in the realms of e-commerce performance. Testing, personalisation etc. It has taken a very long time for me to realise that my new world is almost identical to my old world of gamification. At their most basic, they both rely on 4 key pillars to succeed as they are both focused on behavioural change.

I wanted to just explore those briefly here with you, as much as a way of consolidating the thought process as much as anything else!!

The four pillars are. Read More ...

Expert’s Warning: Master AI, Data, and Gamification or Risk Going Out of Business in 5 Years!

JLZTCGLE8NBBVv2qqzET 1 zaxo8 2x Expert 8217 s Warning Master AI Data and Gamification or Risk Going Out of Business in 5 Years

Made you look, made you stare, made you mess your underwear!

We have all seen the headlines like “Expert says if you don’t know AI, you won’t be in business next week”. But the truth is, that’s bollocks.

Now, you may not be in as great a shape as those in a similar line of work that do understand AI, but you won’t be out of business if you remember this one simple rule. People make a business.

The truth is that most people don’t even understand what any of this stuff is. AI isn’t AI for the most part, it is just clever algorithms (even ChatGTP agrees with me there – see the end of this post). Very few people really understand data and big data, they just think it is Google Analytics. Even fewer seem to understand Gamification still, relying on parlour tricks rather than good game and behaviour-based design. Read More ...

What Is the Opposite of Engagement?

Disengaged 2 What Is the Opposite of Engagement

In gamification, we talk about engagement a lot! After all, the whole point of gamification is to engage people and get them to do more of something!

But what is the opposite of engagement and why is it important to know this?

Firstly, let’s get our definition of engagement. I like to use the one offered by Macey and Schneider in 2008, which whilst focused on employee engagement, I think fits generally for many gamification purposes.

Employee engagement is “a desirable condition that has an organizational purpose and connotes involvement, commitment, passion, enthusiasm, focused effort, and energy”. In other words, engagement is when employees are fully invested in their work and feel a sense of purpose and fulfillment. Read More ...