3 Engaging Platforms

Last week in “Engagement by Design” I wrote about how marketers can use Funware – game mechanics in non-game contexts – to motivate and engage customers and create sustainable customer loyalty. Today I want to tell you about three software companies – Seriosity, Spigit and Lithium Technologies – that are integrating game mechanics in their products to help companies motivate and engage beyond the marketing function. Their customers are demonstrating that game mechanics drive innovation, collaboration and engagement.

Seriosity helps companies apply games mechanics “to overcome the difficulties of working life in the 21st Century.” Byron Reeves, Ph.D and founder at Seriosity, explains in Wired’s “How games can change ordinary life”, “What we’ve proven is that games can change behavior.” Seriosity creates “a synthetic economy, tailor-made for today’s information-intensive enterprise.” Their Attent product values scarce attention resources through their virtual currency “Serios”. Instead of just sending an email, you have to apply judgment about how much you value the task involved. This allows everyone to see which of their 10,000 tasks are most important – a key element of a successful business execution culture as I discussed in “How to get out of fire drill mode”.

Spigit, an enterprise innovation software platform, integrates game mechanics like contests, leader-boards, badges and “customizable currency” that motivate employees to get involved, and to keep them involved. Hutch Carpenter, Spigit’s VP of Product, blogged this description back when he joined the company, “The Spigit platform incorporates game theory into the process of identifying promising ideas and individuals who are good at seeing them. People can “invest” in ideas they believe in. If the company picks up the idea, everyone who invested in the idea earns incentive rewards.” This allows companies to lower the barrier to innovation by making the process more transparent and visible.

I was a corporate innovator and, for me, it always started with a question. “Why are we manually entering all that information from system A into system B?” or “Why are we running this entire multi-billion business on a spreadsheet?” I wasn’t the only person to notice these things– what made me an “innovator” was that I was willing to arm wrestle the organization until I landed the solution. But this is not a foundation for a successful business execution culture. Companies need a way to nurture and develop the ideas that have legs. Spigit has figured out integrating game mechanics into social networking can help companies like AT&T, MedPlus and Pfizer lower the innovation barrier and create a garden of innovation, instead of a wresting match.

Lithium Technologies’ use of game mechanics in their Social CRM offerings  was discussed by David Needle in “How Gaming Pros Help Big Companies – Are companies missing a fantastic asset in their customer base?” Lithium’s CEO Lyle Fong said Lithium has been able to attract more business as companies realize traditional marketing methods aren’t enough. Lithium’s reputation engine incorporates “behavioral science, a result of our gaming heritage.”  Cynthia Typaldos, now founder of Kachingle, wrote in her seminal “12 Principles of Community” that ”reputation lies at the juncture between identity and trust”.  Reputation is the cornerstone of a vibrant online community. Reputation has been an afterthought in most online communities, and the community value has suffered. Our local town newspaper has an online community, Palo Alto Town Square, that is dominated by rants and flames because the community does not build identify, trust and reputation.

In “How Best Buy’s Social Media Story”, I wrote about how Best Buy uses vibrant online communities to extend their corporate values beyond the organization to motivate and reward their customers for supporting those values. When customers can build reputation, they are more engaged and add more value. The benefits for Best Buy include improved first contact resolution and deeper customer loyalty. Lithium’s understanding of game mechanics has informed the deep reputation engine of their CRM platform powering many notable communities like Best Buy’s Forum and Dell’s customer community.

Engagement by design is about expanding today’s narrow definition of motivation which disconnects employees and customers. Game mechanics, and the behavioral science they represent, are tools worth adding to your business execution culture tool kit.

Tagged as: Funware, game mechanics, Lithium Technologies, Seriosity, Spigit