The Gamification Revolution: How Leaders Leverage Game Mechanics to Crush the Competition

While the author is the CEO of a gaming company and could focus strictly on the game mechanics, he spends a lot of time in his book exploring the reasons people (especially young ones who love games) may be finding it more difficult to engage and stay motivated in their daily pursuits at work, at home and even in the car to and from. It's because we are barraged from all directions and our many devices and forced to pick and choose between what to pay attention to.From that point he makes perhaps too big a jump to observe that Millennials are like that because they've grown up playing video and other kinds of games, and--because of that--there's no other way they can really be engaged. And because they are the focal point and rising leaders in our organizations, the rest of us will be forced to get interested in gaming as well. This is an interesting way to think about how ways of working, being entertained, getting involved and getting promoted transition between generations, and the authors make a great case for it.I decided to read this book because I'm very focused on engaging employees in my organization by whatever means possible. We have a cross-section of employees from young to old, and we just recently brought them together into 5-person teams to talk about the way they think about engaging their customers to buy our products and services. It was an eye-opening experience to see how people like to engage each other and to share their expertise. Back on their jobs these same employees are basically isolated in our stores, so we are looking for ways to continue the in-person sharing of ideas we just observed close-up with a social media design for getting them to post original ideas and videos and to review and discuss each other's ideas. My model for wanting to do this has been this Amazon platform we're all using to post reviews, which uses points, leaderboards, the ability to judge helpfulness and comment. Surprisingly, Zicherman doesn't mention Amazon as one of his examples--probably because there are better game-like examples. But this approach seems like the one to take after he explains how players are motivated by game mechanics.I really liked the way he described how game mechanics made companies like eBay, Nike and Instagram successful, and how websites like Wikipedia had better start engaging contributors in more dynamic ways if they are to stay interested.I think there's more to it than just games that explains how our generations differ, but still, he's right that something has to make our brands and our employee and customer engagement strategies stand out from the "desperate" attempts companies are making to draw attention to themselves. While Zicherman may overdo it with the number of cases he uses through the book, he explains from many different angles why games are a serious way to get attention. For me, this book will provide more than just the general idea that games could engage our employees and customers ... it will help to construct the system that should make it really work. At least until the inevitable time when people get bored and we realize something more is needed to make it fun.

As a man with an Associates in Game Design and pursuing a Bachelors in Marketing, gamification is a closely held passion of mine. This book makes the concept of gamification easily accessible to the target market: people who have no idea what gamification is. While it may be considered basic knowledge to those in the game design industry, to the marketing VP in his 40's wanting to tackle employee and customer engagement, this book is perfect. The book explains in detail the pillars of gamification, using real-world advertising and marketing examples where each was used successfully. I strongly recommend this book to anyone wanting to take their company to the next level.

Just a brief note to say that the book is eye-opening, stimulating and useful. I have never been a "game" person but have watch my daughter being fascinated by Mind game. Now I want to prepare an educational program for my book on teaching children to think creatively and have found this book to be a major source of ideas related to gamifying my program.Definitely worth reading

Filled with so many real world examples you can't help but say "aha!"! and smile. Gamification is all around us and is only going to become more prevalent. No more one way marketing and talking heads. There is now a way to not only pull customers into the conversation but get them to spread the word in a fun and engaging manner. Reading this book is not about staying ahead of the curve, it's about not getting run over. Do yourself a favor and give it a read.

As I started reading the book, I got excited ... I already did some things that I classified as gamification and I hoped those ideas would be reinforced and expounded on by the book. They never were. The author keeps going on and on about what other companies do in general terms and concepts but never goes into specific suggestions that would help a smaller business like mine. For example, we use a simple gamification technique - we put sales charts on the wall so employees can see our increased sales and progress. He never discusses anything like that. I believe he has the concept right - just give us something useful!

The best part about this book is that all the claims made regarding the past advances and the upcoming future of gamification are backed up with solid case studies. This provides deep insights into how the principles of gamification operate in the real world and not just on paper. I would definitely recommend this book.

The book is related with strategies and tactics promoting a certain degree of employee and customer engagement, which can make a great succes or failure for any company. It is related to a mixture of loyalty programs, economics and game design as the mechanics to drive innovation and increase the revenue.

Good book on Gamification. It has some good cases of succesful examples using Gamification. It gives the reader a good understanding of when to use Gamification.

Provides an interesting perspective on gamification.

very good book certaintly worth money spend for it

Achei o conteúdo bem relevante. A leitura é fácil e traz de forma clara a forma como as empresas utilizam gamification para melhorar sua cultura, processos internos e externos. No entanto, achei alguns capítulos um tanto quanto enrolados e sem ir direto ao ponto. Fora isso, a leitura é ótima e super recomendada.

The right mix of information and tales.Only comment: I didn't feel like playing the game of the book :)But I felt motivated to write a review, something I never did, it's merit of the book

OK