Musings on Tech

In the last post I talked about Gamification and different concepts behind Gamification.   In this post I intend to cover why Gamification has become important. Let us accept it.  Today we live in a world which is increasingly becoming online.  More and more businesses  are moving online and one of the prime focus for these businesses is to sustain and improve the engagement levels of its users.   Gamification acts as key driver in increasing the engagement level. Before we delve into how Gamification impacts engagement; let us try to understand what "Engagement" means.  The dictionary definition of Engagement which would applicable to this scenario will be " emotional involvement or commitment". Given this definition - the first aspect to analyze is what drives this involvement and commitment.  The generally accepted hypothesis is that it is "Motivation" that drives commitment which implies that Motivation is the key contributing factor to increa

Late last year  Deloitte released their report predicting top 10 emerging and disruptive technologies that is expected to play a crucial role in business in 2012.  Gamification was one of them. What is Gamification? Gamification is used as an umbrella term that covers game design thinking, concepts and techniques being applied to non gaming applications to make them more fun and engaging.  The basic goal of Gamification is to use gaming techniques to increase engagement of the users with the application. Gamification is not a new concept.  It has been there for a long time.   Airlines have been using Gamification techniques to attract and retain their user base through frequent flyer programs.  Many retail chains have been using Gamification concepts in their loyalty programs, etc.  But with the explosion of online retail, social media and social marketing, Gamification is becoming a strong tool to attract new customers, retain the user base, and build interesting business