Gamification as a tool to maximize the success of crowdsourcing projects...

I’ve been spending some time researching the ‘gamification of business’ trend.  Except for the case of Marriott's (see previous blog) I found it rather hard to find some convincing examples that this is going to be a crucial thing for businesses. The 10 examples provided by Forbes are not all about using a ‘game context’ for business practices, which is perhaps an evidence for the difficulty of finding enough good examples.

The excellent platform gamification.co offers some good insights into the trend, amongst others this interesting video from a panel debate at the first gamification congress earlier this year.  (if the video beneath doesn't show try to go to the ForaTV posting directly):

Apart for some examples and do's and dont's, the video touches one aspect of gamification which I think might be of immediate benefit to businesses: it’s use in crowdsourcing projects. No doubt putting crowdsourcing projects into a game format would attract many more contributors to the table, and if they have fun with it they’re more likely to contribute for free… I’m not saying it would help for all type of crowdsourcing, but at least for the creative projects.

Looking at the benefits of gamification as listed by research company Gartner, I can only conclude that these would highly benefit crowdsourcing projects as well:

1. Accelerated feedback cycles. In the real world, feedback loops are slow (e.g., annual performance appraisals) with long periods between milestones. Gamification increases the velocity of feedback loops to maintain engagement.
2. Clear goals and rules of play. In the real world, where goals are fuzzy and rules selectively applied, gamification provides clear goals and well-defined rules of play to ensure players feel empowered to achieve goals.
3. A compelling narrative. While real-world activities are rarely compelling, gamification builds a narrative that engages players to participate and achieve the goals of the activity.
4. Tasks that are challenging but achievable. While there is no shortage of challenges in the real world, they tend to be large and long-term. Gamification provides many short-term, achievable goals to maintain engagement.