How do you define gamification?

Gamification is the process of using game-thinking and game mechanics to engage users and solve problems. Many gamified systems are designed like updated loyalty programs.

How is gamification changing marketing?

Gamification is rewriting economics for marketing, both in terms of customer acquisition and in terms of loyalty programming. Gamification at its core is a process, and it’s different for everybody.

But it’s not like some magic guy behind a curtain who waves this wand and makes everything more fun. It’s incremental. It’s perpetual.

Check out the rest of the article by Laurie Peterson at Econsultancy!

Even without protests in Cairo and Tea Party insouciance, there’s no doubt that most governments eventually lose “sync” with their people. Much like the software process that keeps the contacts, music and photos on our phones up to date with our computers, syncing government with the governed is challenging from a systems perspective. With so many moving parts, money, competing interests and lives at stake, it’s no wonder that sometimes the only way to fix things is to do a complete wipe and reinstall.

But could the solution to reforming government — generally making it more accountable, efficient and representative of its people — be found in technology? Can we move beyond procedural tweaks and yo-yo elections and address some of the fundamental underlying issues that plague our democracy?

I mean, if Apple, Google and Microsoft can’t even figure out a way to keep our address books current and not duplicated, what hope do we have to achieving the same in Washington? The answer may lie in using games — or more specifically, gamification — to understand why our government is so dysfunctional, and then work towards a fix.

Gamification is the use of game-thinking and game mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences, and is being used in fields as diverse as health care, education and advertising to create radical and profound behavior change. The first-ever Gamification Summit was recently held in San Francisco, and a question that was raised several times was, “Why can’t it work in Washington?” It can, and in some cases, already does.

Check out the rest of the article by Gabe Zichermann at The Huffington Post.

Social, the cloud, gamification — it all sounds like consumer-enterprise convergence. It’s not, exactly, but these trends are a sign that enterprise has some catching up to do after a year of massive evolution in consumer gadgets.

Gamification of enterprise apps running on tablets? In 2011, you bet.

With only a day to go until the end of 2010, the lists predicting which technologies will dominate the headlines next year are rampant. Well, I’m throwing my hat into the ring as well, with a list of the top four enterprise tech trends to watch in 2011:

CLOUD COMPUTING Sure, the technology’s been around for years, but when the U.S. Department of Agriculture starts betting the farm on it, you know it’s going mainstream. Expect more federal, state and local agencies to switch to Web-based applications and services in 2011 (the White House has mandated a “cloud-first” policy and plans to cut government data centers by 40 percent over the next five years). The private sector will continue to embrace the cloud as well. While Google’s (GOOG) Gmail for enterprise still commands a tiny portion of the overall corporate email market, it’s no longer just a cost-saving alternative for Silicon Valley startups that can’t afford Microsoft (MSFT) Exchange servers. Still not convinced? Research firm IDC predicts that spending on public IT cloud services will grow more than five times the rate of the IT industry in 2011, up 30% from 2010.

Check out the rest of the article by Michal Lev-Ram at CNNMoney.com Fortune Tech.

Incorporating video games into work training can help people do their jobs better, according to a new study by the University of Colorado in Denver.

The study found that trainees who used video games had a nine percent higher retention rate, an 11 percent higher factual knowledge level and a 14 percent higher skill-based knowledge level, according to an announcement today by the game industry trade group, the  Entertainment Software Association.

The study lends support to the trend toward “gamification,” also known as “serious games,” where non-game applications are made more fun, engaging and memorable by making them more game-like. Employee training is ripe for gamification because it can be so boring. By making it more game-like, employers can communicate with young employees in particular in a medium they can understand.

Check out the rest of the article by Dean Takahashi at The New York Times.

Companies are realizing that “gamification” — using the same mechanics that hook gamers — is an effective way to generate business.

Since the advent of videogames, skeptics have questioned their inherent value: why do players spend hours accruing virtual points working towards intangible rewards?

Chalk it up to basic human behavior, which game makers have been trying to understand and appeal to for decades. The more effective a game resonates with users, the better its sales. The developer’s goal is to design a structure and system of rules in which players will a) enjoy the process or journey, and b) create a sense of added value. As gamers and developers have found, a fun process coupled with a system for incentives or rewards for a job well done can become downright addictive.

So it’s no surprise to some gamers — including yours truly — that the very same game-play mechanics that hook players are slowly wending their way into other parts of the economy, too.

With “gamification,” companies study and identify natural human tendencies and employ game-like mechanisms to give customers a sense that they’re having fun while working towards a rewards-based goal. In doing so, they hope the added value will enable and reinforce positive behavioral change across a wide spectrum of non-game-related issues — healthcare, finance, philanthropy, general lifestyle.

Check out the rest of the article by JP Mangalindan at CNNMoney.com Fortune Tech.

Reality is broken, says Jane McGonigal, and we need to make it work more like a game. Her work shows us how.