Employee Engagement For Dummies

Chapter 11

Game On! Driving Engagement with Gamification

In This Chapter

Defining gamification

Understanding what gamification does

Developing a gamification program

Gamification. Say the word, and chances are, the response will be, “Gesundheit!” The fact is, the term just hasn't made it to the mainstream vernacular — although I'm confident it will soon. Before August 2010, almost no one searched for the term gamification on Google. Since January 2011, however, searches for that term have spiked.

If the results of a 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project in conjunction with Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center is any indication, interest in gamification will continue to grow. According to the ensuing report, titled “The Future of Gamification,” 53 percent of respondents agreed that by 2020, there would be significant advances in the adoption and use of gamification. Their reasoning? As one respondent so aptly put it, “Playing beats working. So, if the enjoyment and challenge of playing can be embedded in learning, work, and commerce, then gamification will take off.”

They weren't the only ones. Gartner, the famous technology consultancy, ...