Technology & Gamification

Ever since I attended the Justmeans social media and technology conference on 1 November in New York I have found that I have become even more smitten with the whole idea of 'gamification' and how it will filter into other sectors. I am passionate about the 'gamification of education'. Not just because I am a parent that is about to embark on this odyssey with my three year old, but because I personally hated school. It said nothing to me about my life and I believe between the ages of 11 and 16 I found traditional education took away my creative thinking, allowing me to look at things differently. This is why I love Alan Gershenfeld's company, E-Line Media. It has a new game franchise called, Talkers and Doers, which is about entrepreneurship for at-risk teens and young adults. Plus I wish that one day Lee Sheldon's decision to replace marks with points on his game design course at Indiana University is extended to every school globally - a far better and healthier incentive for learning.

Scottish game's company 3MRT is bringing its technology of online education quizzes to the iPhone. The InQuizitor app has been around for a few years, providing GCSE syllabus questions in a gaming context. 3MRT will soon launch 12 iPhone and iPod Touch apps based around subjects on the UK national curriculum, combining question and answer sessions with game-play rewards. While, American Express has launched its first UK iPhone game, Cash IQ. Players complete a range of brain training mini-games designed to test ones mathematical and memory skills. Developed by experienced mobile games studio Fishlabs, it's quite diverting, even if it is a veiled advert for the Platinum Cashback Credit Card! It represents the gamification of financial services and the gamification of marketing.

My other favourite gamification is food. In New York, 4Food, a healthy fast food joint gets hungry New Yorkers to use technology and go to their website to create their own sandwiches and burgers from a list of ingredients and then pick their order up from the restaurant. If their creation is good, they can share the concept with friends online, and when anyone else orders one, the amateur burger chef responsible earns points. Collect enough and you can claim free food!

While, a more worthy concept comes from the product development company, Teague where its designers were worried about water consumption among workmates, so they used technology and rigged up a simple meter to the office taps, they then added an iPad app which measured and compared the amounts each worker got through, effectively shaming guzzlers and rewarding thrifty H2O hoarders with peer respect.

Whether or not any of the above concepts and technology actually qualify as games is debatable...I would personally prefer to live in a world where we experience points rather than grades, in which every task, however menial, could benefit me with un-lockable achievements. Certainly, in my experience, school might have been a whole lot more fun!

Photo Credit: E-Line Media Website