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 great example of this is one previous employer deciding to buy a Wii for the coffee area. The idea was that putting a Wii in the coffee area would encourage people to have a break, go and play and have some fun. There is a running joke in gamification circles about companies buying pool tables and ping pong tables to inject fun into their companies.
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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 is often beyond the scope of understanding of many parents out there because they have no relevant personal experience to give it all context.
What I want to offer here is a little bit of advice about keeping children safe online and in games, based on my personal experience covering all of those various angles I have mentioned! This is not a definitive list of advice, but I hope it can help some of you.
Relatedness in Single Player Experiences
I love multiplayer games. Very little beats the feeling of taking on real people and working with real people in a game. People provide much less predictable challenges than computer driven opponents.
One thing that many multiplayer games miss is a good story. This isn’t always true, but the deepest narrative experiences tend to be single player only. Think about games such as Walking Dead, 80 Days, Heavy Rain, Her Story etc. Each of this offers a deep story, but on the surface seems to offer nothing that resembles multiplayer elements.
User Type HEXAD Lenses
One of the cool things about working in gamification 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 on Twitter some time ago and then months later discovered we lived on the same street. Since then, I have ended up working in the same company and to save the planet, we car share. The awesome thing about this is I get 2 hours a day to speak to a genuine work psychologist. It has been hugely interesting and has led to many “Ah-Hah!” moments. One of those was the idea of using my User Types HEXAD as a series of lenses rather than specific set in stone types.
4 Simple Questions To Transform Your Gamification Implementation
It is simple to jump to solutioneering as soon as you feel you have a problem that needs fixing. However, taking a step back and asking 4 simple questions can save you time and money in the long run.
- “What is the problem”
- “Why do we need to fix it”
- “What needs to change to fix it”
- “How do we do that”
What is the problem?
First, you need to explore What you are wanting to change. This is the easy bit and is likely to change, but it is a start. Be as specific as you can, but be open minded as you explore further!
Most people already have this in mind when they first go to someone asking for gamification.
Why do we need to fix it?
I have spoken about this in the past, but it is so important that I like to bring it up from time to time.