Gamification as a Social Business Strategy - What Do You Think?

Greg Lowe

Is gamification good for Social Business? Is it bad? This is the debate that I faced with my new colleagues at Social Edge Consulting in my first week at the company. We get together weekly and discuss and debate the finer points of implementing social business strategies and solutions.

In 2012, I wrote a blog post about gamification in which I laid out the challenges that organizations face by not understanding potential consequences of implementing gamification in a company. What I loved most about that post was the conversation that ensued in the comments. I learned a lot from the discussion. As a result, I re-evaluated my position and softened my stance about gamification.

During our internal discussion, I was reminded that there are many good opportunities to apply gamification to communities and many success stories around driving behavior change, increasing engagement and aligning business goals. Since I'd written that blog post, the market has matured and best practices are evolving thanks to early adopters and companies like BunchBall. We ran out of time long before the discussion was over. As a result, we wanted to include your perspectives as part of the conversation.

Social Edge will be hosting a Twitter Chat (#socbiztalk) on 7/16 (2pm EDT) around gamification. 

We want to get your input and your experiences on effective gamification objectives and best practices, as well any circumstances where gamification shouldn't be used. How do you deal with people who are disinterested in gamification or users that try to 'game the system'?

We want to hear from you, and get your input on topics you think need to be discussed around gamification - tweet them to us (@Social_Edge), or comment on this blogpost.

Please join Oliver Beirne (@oliverbeirne), Kerry Craig (@EclectickA), me (@Greg2dot0) and others as we explore, share and discuss and debate gamification. We would love your thoughts and experiences on these and look forward to you participating.

Other relevant content to start the discussion: