Something that was neat about this class was the fact that the topic was initially regarded with skepticism. Gamification always is. That's why it's probably better to call it an "Engagement Platform."
In any case, I was half expecting this, so I decided to run an experiment. The experiment consisted of placing small challenges in some of the slides. These challenges would lead to some level of engagement with social media platforms. Even if my presentation was terrible, the audience would be somewhat excited to deliver on my challenges and I would generate new leads.
In a way, I was hoping that this would happen because then I could make a really great point on how gamification principles apply to even the greatest skeptics. Lo and behold, people were surprisingly engaged in my presentation but also by my challenges. I had a great response from the audience.
I gave a presentation to a room with 20+ students, and came out with six new followers on tweeter, three new contacts on LinkedIn, and 12 new visitors to my website. This was a great conclusion to my presentation because I just talked about a concept that fascinates me and I was able to drive a behavioral change where people volunteered certain information that they would not normally volunteer.
Gamification is real, but it is not easy to apply. You really need to understand what you want to get out of gamifying something, what motivates your audience, and how you are going to keep them engaged.
Here are my slides. Please contact me with any questions as I am really passionate about the subject and I would love to get any feedback, opinions, leads, etc. I would also love to ENGAGE with other people who feel strongly about the subject. Get it. Engage?!
Anyway, here is a picture of Maracas playing hard to get.
