THE GAMIFICATION REVOLUTION

How Leaders Leverage Game Mechanics to Crush the Competition

A recent Gartner study found that 70% of the top 2000 global companies will be using gamification strategies by 2015; and studies show that raising engagement through games also increases revenue and social media traffic. Gamifying aspects of your business strategy can lead to new innovations, new and engaged customers, faithful employees, and revenue growth where you least expected it.

News websites, career searches, retail outlets, music channels – just about any experience you can think of is incorporating aspects of game mechanics into the experience, from points and leaderboards to badges and prizes.

Why gamification, and why now? Leisure time has evaporated in direct inverse to the increased popularity of games, whether XBox, PopCap, Zynga, Angry Birds, or (insert your favorite game here). Entire generations of workers expect some level of game-based interaction from the businesses that engage them. Smart companies are taking advantage of this junction to use gamification techniques to recruit, lower health-care costs, engage customers, even seek and reward innovate thinkers from within.

With case studies from Google, Microsoft, Accenture, Delta, The U.S. Army, and Target, among others, here’s how gamification isn’t just a megatrend, but a social phenomenon.