Actuate's Presentation on Gamification, Given at Evans Data Corp's Developer Relations Conference 2012.

1. “Shall We Play A Game?”
Using Game Mechanics to
Build Community
Nobby Akiha, SVP Marketing
Ray Gans, Community Manager
Actuate Corporation

2. Agenda
• Introduction and Community Objectives
• Concepts
• What Is Gamification?
• Rewards
• Plans & Accomplishments
• Business Objectives
• Roll Out
• Future Directions
• Get Started

3. Actuate and BIRT
Actuate proposed and started Actuate Joins
Eclipse Foundation
BIRT as Strategic Developer
Business Intelligence and Board Member
and Reporting Tools Project
Adds BI and Reporting
… a top-level Eclipse project as Open Source Project
Professional open source
Primary development resources
funded by Actuate
Contributions from many sources
IBM, Innovent Solutions and community AUGUST
2004

4. Business Perspective
Enterprise Solutions Enterprise-wide
Deployment by
Large Corporations
Commercial
Development Tools Expanded
Development by
Any Organization
Open Source
Early Adoption by a
Eclipse BIRT Million Developers
- Free -

5. Why Invest in a Community?
• Provide medium to expose
commercial products
• Find new customers
• Leverage outside expertise to
increase site value
• Create new content
• Provide support
• Receive feedback
• Build buzz and excitement
• One stop shop for sharing:
• News & Events
• Technical content & expertise
• Show appreciation
• Recognize and reward
desired behavior

6. Shall We Play A Game?

7. What is “Gamification”
• Creating games to advertise products or services
• Building reward systems to foster brand loyalty
• Using games to educate or drive behavior
• “The use of game thinking and game mechanics to
engage users and solve problems.”
– Gabe Zichermann

8. Gamification: What It’s Not…

9. It’s Not About Playing Games
• Gamification is not entertainment but…
• Applying appealing aspects of games for business
and/or learning purposes
to improve…
• Customer Engagement
• Product or Brand Loyalty & Buzz
• Expert Retention
• Use “fun” to engage the interest of an audience
and make what you’re selling/teaching exciting
• Reward them for their successes

10. Rewards Most Humans Crave
• Satisfying Work
• Games give us clearer missions and more satisfying, hands-
on work
• The Experience (or at least hope) of Success
• Games eliminate our fear of failure and improve our chances
for success
• Social Connection
• Games build stronger social bonds and lead to more active
social networks
• Meaning
• Games make us part of something bigger and give epic
meaning to our actions
– from “Reality Is Broken” by Jane McGonigal

11. Recognition is “Coin of the Realm”

12. Rewards That Work – SAPS
• Status
• Badges, Trophies and Leaderboards
• Access
• Premium content
• Exclusive beta programs
• Conference/trade show perks
• Power
• Control (over others or over site content)
• Stuff
• Prizes & Earned Incentives (monetary or material)
• Can be powerful but probably least effective long term
– “from Gamification By Design” by Zichermann & Cunningham

13. Game Mechanics and Constructs
• Points
• Levels
• Leaderboards
• Badges & Trophies
• Virtual Currency
• Karma
• Customization
• Onboarding
• Challenges and Quests
• Social Engagement Loops

14. Social Engagement Loop
Motivating
Emotion
Visible
External
Progress
Response
or Reward
Social Call
to Action
…adapted from Gamification by Design

15. Sage Advice
“Just make people better at something they want to be
better at.
When your goals and your user’s goals are truly aligned, you
don’t need pixie dust. Don’t out-spend, don’t out-friend, and
please don’t out-badge. There is a world of difference
between helping someone *appear* more awesome and
helping them actually BE more awesome.”
–Kathy Sierra

16. Gamification by Design
• Good introduction to
concepts and mechanics
• 3 hour companion video:
Gamification Master Class
with Gabe Zichermann
Authors
• Gabe Zichermann
• Christopher Cunningham

17. Reality Is Broken
• Explains why games are
psychologically important
• Heavy video game focus
• Promotes restructuring
work/life to become more
personally rewarding
Author
• Jane McGonigal

18. What We’ve Done at Actuate

19. Business Objectives
• Increase registrations
• Learn more about our community
• Demographics
• Motivations
• Interests
• Increase contributions
• Improve “stickiness”
• Understand what will keep people coming back

20. Roll Out
• Leaderboard
• Badging System
• Weekly Polls
• Contests
• Levels (planned)
• Challenges (planned)
• Dashboard (planned)
• Affiliations (planned)
• Social Networking (planned)

21. Leaderboard
• Monthly compilation
• Badges awarded
• 1st, 5th, 10th, …
• All contributions get points
• Start forum thread
• Answer forum question
• Submit technical article
• Comment on blog post
• etc.
• All leaders thanked via
personal e-mail

22. Badges
• Awarded for contributions
and participation
• Leaderboard appearances
• Forum posts
• Contest wins
• Technical submissions
• Voted in a poll?
• etc.
• Easy to get the first one
• Assigned in real time
• Linked to award info

23. Polls
• Nice way to get feedback
• Exploratory award
• Badge for first vote

24. Contests
Developer Contests
• Typically just appeals to
developers who have time
• Explain specifically what
you want – give examples
• Can be good for
jumpstarting interest
• Protect yourself in the
contest rules – involve legal

25. Where To Next

26. Future Directions
• Social Networking
• Leverage game mechanics to Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
• Customer Engagement and Evangelism
• Investigate “fun” ways to get customer feedback
• Look at means to recognize customer champions
• Advertising and Brand Loyalty
• Tie marketing efforts to appropriate “gamified” activities
• Training and Certification
• Create paths towards developer certification through
learning activities and earned training credits
• Product Demos and Trials
• Look into rewards for commercial product evaluation

27. How To Get Started
• Books
• Gamification by Design by Zichermann & Cunningham
• Reality Is Broken by Jane McGongigal
• Videos
• Gamification Master Class with Gabe Zichermann
from O’Reilly Media
• Conferences
• Gamification Summit – June 19-21, 2012 @ San Francisco
http://gsummit.com
• Vendors
• Badgeville – http://badgeville.com/
• Bunchball – http://www.bunchball.com/
• BigDoor – http://www.bigdoor.com/

28. It’s Your Move… But Don’t Rush It