Come and join me if you’re in town.
Tags: Belmont University, branding, Facebook Page Creation, Jason Elkins, joetoon, John Morgan, social media, The SMAC Event, Transparent Social Media
This is one of my favorite posts and it’s about a year or more old so I know there are a lot of you who may not have seen it. Today, I’m reposting it in all it’s glory (which a few new fun things added in) for your enjoyment.
“Targeted quote about the subject of my post; something resonating.”
-Someone you’ve heard of (or one I found on Google making me seem learned)
This first paragraph grabs you and pulls you into the blog’s world. Sometimes it’s an anecdote about something I’ve seen (and I hope you’ve seen too) that will relay directly into what the post talks about or a nifty stat that I Googled 5 minutes ago. The post has a short amount of time to draw you in because on average I will lose the most readers after a crappy first paragraph. (Hopefully my relevant and quirky photo to the right will give you the sense this blog is funny and not just full of boring words.) Notice how I use action verbs to make this more entertaining for you?
[Clever Subhead]
The subheads must be clever but not too telling. You are more than likely skimming at this point to decide if this post is “up your alley”. Gotta make you read down into the post.
English teachers across America join hands and cringe at the length and structure of blog paragraphs. No five sentences and a “thought break” here, the readers’ precious time must be attended to.
This paragraph is sure to drop in some buzz words like “community”, “conversation”, “target market” and “social media ROI” so Google Spiders will notice and increase this page’s search ranking during their crawl. It’s neat, because I didn’t even plan that, I’m just writing what’s on my mind. Be sure to click on this link that will open in a separate window; I can’t have you leaving and messing up my Bounce Rate, can I?
Time for another picture.
5 Things In A List
I know you like lists because you don’t want to have to think too hard, so here you go. Isn’t this easy to read? Skim-ready and processed so you don’t have to analyze anything yourself.
You’re welcome.
- First Item In List – You’ve probably heard this point before, but now you that you know this list applies to you, read on.
- A Little Deeper Now – This might not be something you’ve thought of before, but here I am telling you about it. I must be smart, right? Read on.
- The “Jan” Point – This is something I found on Google+ and I don’t know much about, but since it’s in the middle like Jan from The Brady Bunch, you don’t notice it much.
- Winding Down – You can’t become too complacent, so this point is very important and will lead you directly into…
- The Final Point – Last point in the list. I hope you remember this one and it is strategically placed so you will.
[Insert Infographic Found on Mashable Here]
Conclusion
You’ll recognize a point from the first paragraph to let you know things are wrapping up. You’re almost done so don’t stop reading now!
The blog now makes a HUGE POINT about something that I want you to remember/do/buy. This is known as a “Call To Action”, but you don’t have to know that. If done correctly at this point you will want to share this on Twitter or Facebook by clicking the “Tweet This” or “Share” buttons conveniently floating beside you on your screen or around this post.
Here’s me asking you a question and bringing you into the conversation so you will leave a comment. Sound about right? Did I leave anything out?
Clever closing line bringing together everything and making me sound awesome and witty.
Now I’ve brought my post to a close and done everything I needed to, unless I don’t to anything I just said…………
Thoughts?
Tags: blogging, blogging template, buzzword, social media, something you've heard of, tag, the right way to be social, writing for social media
Word play is fun. : )
Tags: cartoon, joetoon, keep off the median, road signs, social media, social median, word play
Artwork: Yue Minjun, Untitled, 2005, watercolor on paper, 140 x 127 cm
I started work on this post last week after we discussed the terminology rampant in our offices. I was almost done when I came across this article in the Harvard Business Review (it’s not the whole article on the website, to read it all you’ll have to buy the magazine like I did). I realized the two of us were discussing the same phenomenon, that employee happiness leads to motivation and improvement, so I’ve adapted this blog post around the points made in the HBR article (and stolen the picture used in it), while keeping my original points in tact, just in a different order.
Enjoy.
More Than Words
Last week, we talked about how the terminology we wrap ourselves in during our work days, precludes that subconsciously we want to have fun at work. We naturally want to enjoy what we do and the people we do it with. We surround ourselves with words that give that impression to subconsciously call to those desires.
But words can only go so far.
The fact that your employees are called a “team” and are encouraged to “get in the game” can honestly only go so far. I wish it were as simple to use the right words to motivate teams to always strive for the best, but it’s not. There are at least four big factors and actions that you need to understand and encorporate (according to the Harvard Business Review), and they have more to do with Gamification than I believe they intended.
Those four areas are:
- Provide Decision-Making Discretion
- Share Information
- Minimize Incivility
- Offer Performance Feedback
Without saying you have to build a satisfying game to motivate your team, let’s look at these factors at their core and see how they all are components of a successful, internal Gamification Strategy.
1. Provide Decision-Making Discretion (AKA – Voluntary Choices)
When we talk about the definition of “Gaming”, specific factors always make themselves present. The first factor is Voluntary Involvement. In his book, Finite and Infinite Games
It is an invariable principle of all play, finite and infinite, that whoever plays, plays freely. Whoever must play, cannot play.
It’s true, that in our main scenario, we’re talking about work and not play, but put that out of your mind for a minute because through Gamification, we’re attempting to bring the aspects and theories of play into a work environment, making them more enjoyable and more motivating.
In their article for the Harvard Business Review, Gretchen Spreitzer and Christine Porath found that employees at all levels within an organization are energized and excited by the ability to make their own decisions and choices regarding areas that affect their work and output. They went on to detail how employees at Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines are empowered to take their responsibilities and decisions into their own hands, creating positive experiences for customers within the understood guidelines, improve company processes. Both companies now boast number one spots for on-time performance and customer service and have full trophy cases.
This goes back to the idea that your entire company framework must work in conjunction with the image you want to portray to your customers. For Gamification to be successful, it has to be build upon a company framework of employee empowerment and freedom of choices. That’s always step one.
2. Share Information (AKA – Know The Rules)
Talking about rules seems like the opposite of fun, but if we’re talking about games and motivation, rules have to be discussed. You act ignorantly when you have a framework of employee empowerment, expecting them to make positive choices, yet you withhold information from them. Employees have no reason to look for innovative solutions when they can’t see the larger impact and they don’t know all the rules and stakes.
In all honesty, rules make a game. If I told you your goal was to get a ball into a goal I could be talking about Football, Soccer, Basketball, Cricket, Golf, etc, etc, etc. Once I specify that you have to bounce the ball at all times and that you can’t physically assault the opponents in any way, the actual game comes more into focus. (It’s Basketball, by the way)
The rules aren’t there to restrict the game, but rather to allow creative freedom and choice to play a larger factor. As Prof. Carse puts it, “In the narrowest sense, rules are not laws; they do not mandate specific behavior, but only restrain the [absolute] freedom of the players, allowing considerable room for choice within those restraints.”
All in all, the rules make the game and knowing the full scope of impact for a company allows you to create situations for employees to thrive within your company restraints.
3. Minimize Incivility (AKA – Play Nice)
This one’s pretty simple: Don’t be a dick.
As Spreitzer and Porath put it in their article, “Managers establish the tone with it comes to civility. A single bad player can set the culture awry.”
Set up the framework in your company for a Gamified system to encourage motivation, not requiring employees to play, and set out to make your company culture a positive experience for your employees. Once your game is created with your KPIs in mind, keep it encouraging and fun and make sure managers aren’t “harshing the buzz” of feedback and impact.
To quote Spreitezer and Porath again,
Corporate culture is inherently contagious; employees assimilate to their environment. In other words, if you hire [and structure] for civility, you’re more likely to breed it into your culture.
When you set up your game, you want it to be encouraging, fun and competitive, but your company culture should be set up in a way where everyone is encouraged and lead to play nice.
4. Offer Performance Feedback (AKA – Show Your Status Bar)
Wired had a great article a couple of issues back that we’ve discussed here that talks about The Feedback Loop. If you don’t remember what The Feedback Loop looks like, it looks like this:
I’m not going to recount what it all means, you can read my post on it if you want to know that, just know that real-time, direct feedback is important for games. That’s why a lot of sites have progress bars and you see your points increase on Super Mario Bros immediately after you jump on a walking mushroom.
A lot of people seem to want to point to the fact that Gamification is a “new craze” to me to prove that it’s merely a fad and will go away. My retort to that is that in our world of constant monitoring and screens (iPads, Android phones, iPhones, Laptops, health monitors, etc), we are finally at a point in history that allows us to have quick, accurate feedback for how we act in life and in business and that is the change that was necessary for Gamification to start to take a hold and breed life in corporate culture. Feedback is the lifeblood of well-crafted games.
Points and Badges may seem like a fad, but “people are hardwired to respond to scores and goals,” says Spreitzer and Porath. “The metrics help keep them energized through the day; essentially, they’re competing against their own numbers [a lot of times].”
Going back to our last point though, Feedback must be given in the correct way: Positively. Employees can feel overwhelmed by the constant nature of feedback when it’s given in an oppressive way. Companies should focus on a hard line of civility and respect for giving employees feedback in how they play, creating a context in which the feedback is energizing and promotes growth.
Competition can be great in the sort term (Leaderboards and Extrinsic Rewards), but those wear off after a while and can go so far as to hurt employee morale. Focus on creating positive, encouraging feedback loops for your employees, always striving to appeal to their internal motivators and fun, rather than competition and oppression.
The Happiness Quotient
Whatever you believe about Gamification and the Psychological Detriments of Motivators (external or internal), there’s one fact that can’t be denied and I think the Harvard Business Review put it really well in their article:
Happy employees produce more than unhappy ones over the long term. They routinely show up at work, they’re less likely to quit, they go above and beyond the call of duty, and they attract people who are just as committed to the job.
Business is about making money to stay in business and happy employees are better for business. It’s a simple as that. What sounds better for creating happiness: Games or Nothing?
That’s the importance of Gamification, managing with an atmosphere of Choice, Knowledge, Empowerment, and Feedback and creating those thriving, growing and happy employees. Gamification is merely the framework built around increasing employee vitality and their ability to learn and grow, it’s up to you as a manager to incite the culture for change and implement those strategies within your team.
Thoughts?
Tags: feedback loop, game dynamics, Game Theory, games at work, gamification, how can I use Gamification?, how to motivate a team, motivating a team, playing at work, social media, what is gamification?
In honor of the closing of another CES, here’s a Friday Haiku for you:
Smart TVs are here
Car apps, Android, Smart Fridges;
All drive us forward.
What were your favorite announcements so far from CES?
Can you put them in haiku form in the comments?
Tags: CES, CES Announcements, Consumer Electronics Show, haikus, social media poetry
There’s news. Well, there’s always news, but this news pertains directly to me. If you follow the Twittersphere, yesterday you saw this Tweet go out:
Opposed to thoughts of the contrary, it is true that I no longer work for Paramore. Without going into the gory details, let’s just say I didn’t piss anybody off or do anything wrong/bad/icky, it’s just the nature of the business that sometimes people get let go. This time, I happened to be that person.
Termination Terminology
It’s a funny thing, the terminology everybody uses for it:
- Getting Laid Off
- Getting Let Go
- Getting Canned
- Getting Fired
- Shown The Door
- Got Axed
- Get Canned
- Terminated
- Permanent Involuntary Separation From Employee
I’ve wrestled with what to call it as well. I can’t tell people I got fired, because that implies I did something wrong or unforgivable. Canned, Axed and Shown the Door has similar negative connotations, so they’re out. Not that this is a positive situation, but I don’t want people thinking that I was stealing office supplies or holding late-night raves in the office.
What I’ve been saying is that I was “Let go” and that seems to be working. Another thing I’ve been telling people instead of the above euphemisms, is that I’m “out of work”.
But that doesn’t really work either.
Time To Get Deep
Are any of us ever really out of work?
The author of this blog and most of the community here are storytellers and communicators of some kind. I may not have permanent employment at the same place I did last week, but the terms “out of work” seem to imply that there’s no work to be had for those willing to find and acquire it. I will always have a story to tell and there will always be people to hear it.
I’ve been in talks with people who are interested in learning more about how a solid social media strategy can help their brands and companies and will be working, even if I’m out of work. I’ll be writing to you and learning and developing strategies, even outside of the hours of 9 to 5, even if I’m out of work. I’ll be reading books, teaching classes and giving speeches, even if I’m out of work. And I’ll still be drawing crappy comics critiquing social media and literature, even if I’m out of work.
I’ll still be working, just out of work.
I think everyone needs to take a minute here and there to work, even when you’re out of work. Grow in your craft. Push yourself. Get uncomfortable and scared.
And then……….
work.
Tags: digital marketing, facebook, got laid off, how does Google+ work, looking for work, Nashville social media, social media consulting Nashville, social media job hunting, twitter
This post is in response to my great conversation mate, Brett Florio‘s, comment on my last big Gamification Post, Gamification: In Defense of a Buzzword. If you weren’t privy to the comments on that post, go read them. Brett and I had a LONG conversation about the merits and uses of Gamification and poked holes at each other using almost more words than were in the post itself. It was a great conversation and I never responded to his last comment. That’s what these posts are. His questions were so good, I thought they would help more people, so I’m attempting to answer them in a series of posts instead of on his comment. Brett, I hope you don’t mind.
Here were the questions he posed that I’ll be tackling in the series: “my concerns are entirely about using gamification to motivate team members. For marketing purposes, I wouldn’t have any concerns with a thoughtfully gamified approach. For any team I’ve ever been a part of though, I have major difficulty imagining the SAPS of gamification, combined with competition, being beneficial to the well-being of my team members. Without resorting to a ‘don’t do it wrong; do it right’ type of answer, can you clarify when you think gamifying a company would be better than addressing underlying problems (like management style, values, culture, hiring/firing, etc.)?”
There are basically two questions here under the umbrella of using gamification effectively to motivate a team within a company. I’ll attempt to address both.
Here we go!
Before I delve into some deeper components of Brett’s question, let me address something he asked at the very end: Gamification should never be used in lieu of addressing underlying structural problems in a company (i.e. management style, values, culture, hiring/firing, etc.). I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating, Gamification is not a fix-all for crappy internal processes. If your company has a terrible management style based off nothing but fear of punishment and losing one’s job, adding teams and power levels won’t help. If a company has no core values/culture and merely exists to increase the stock options of the CEO, employees be damned, then Status motivations will do nothing but exacerbate the malicious competitive contempt already rampant under the surface.
Having got that out of the way, let’s begin looking at some ways I believe Gamification can successfully be used to motivate team members.
Playing With Words
In the first part of my answer, let’s take a look at the terminology that surrounds the issue. I’m starting here for two reasons:
- I believe while it’s important, it’s less important than the other issues we’ll discuss in Part 2, so I want to get it out of the way first, and
- No matter how you shake it, words are important to our culture and how we act (even subconsciously), so it’s important we take a look.
It’s no surprise that gaming terminology makes its way into business life. After all, gaming is a huge part of our history and culture, so it’s only natural for there to be some bleed-over. Business dealings are done over games of golf and in an average week, you’ll hear phrases like, “We won that account,” or “Johnson totally hit it out of the park” in most companies across the country (assuming, of course, that there is someone named Johnson that works there and they are a reliable source of work and value).
So yeah, game talk and business talk cross paths, but have you really though how much? We use terms like Points, Par Value (Par for the Course), Sales Pitch, Gameplan, Ballpark, the talent, and the one we’ll focus on here: Team. They are your sales Team and your business Team. When projects go off correctly, it’s chalked up to teamwork and when you work well with others, you’re considered a Team “Player”.
You never hear them called Sales Units or Company Groups. No one’s in a Corporate Gaggle or Company Herd. There are no Accounting Colonies, Operations Droves, or HR Swarms. You’d be hard-pressed to find an Target Troop, Foster’s Flange, or Kinko’s Congress. (I’m sure you get the point, but I’ve got a few more). It’s not a Sales Cete, Battery, Shoal, Cloud, Cluster, Hive, Culture, Sloth, Coalition, Litter, Brood, Peep, Band, Bushel, Pack, Cast, Nest, Troop, School, Pod, Plague, Array, Gang, Tower, Bazaar, Flock, Parcel, Brace, Sounder, Chain, Flutter, Mob, Drift, or Army. It’s an F-ing Team.
The English language has NO shortage of words to describe a group of things working together towards the same goal, but when it comes to business, since the beginning of time, we went with the gameplay verbiage. Coincidence? Mayby, but I doubt it.
Work as a Team, Play as a Team
A lot of things have been ingrained in us throughout our lives and this idea of work as teamwork is merely one of them. Most of the time when people talk about Gamification they talk about the competitive aspects of it, even Forbes has an article on gamification last month. The idea of Gamification inspiring teamwork gets lost in translation because the idea of competition is admittedly more exciting. But, it our chosen vernacular has anything to say about it, company groups subconsciously want to be entered into game-like cooperation by accepting their label as a team and their collaboration as teamwork.
We’ve talked about The Bartle Test previously on this blog, but one thing observed by Richard Bartle is that a small percentage of people come to play with the specific purpose of competition (actually only 5% of gamers focus exclusively on competition as opposed to 75% who focus on collaboration). Most teams are driven by the collaborative aspects presented to them in games and since most business units have accepted the moniker of “team”, they can be approached the same way. They may actually be hoping to be approached that way by you.
This line of discussion actually leads us into the second part of this discussion (going live next Monday), which talks about the effective ways to motivate your teams without succumbing to pure competitive-driven game dynamics (which have been proven to be effective in the short term, but detrimental over long periods). Here’s what we’ll be discussing next time:
- The difference between competitive and collaborative gamified systems (and the pros and cons of each)
- What companies lend themselves better to internally-based gamified structures
Alright, so that was a long post and bear in mind that there is more to this argument coming next week, but do you have any specifics thoughts or questions about Part 1?
It’s your turn. : )
Tags: game dynamics, gamification, how to effectively use gamification, internal gamification, motivating sales teams, motivating teams, sales teams, social media, what is gamification?
