As a child, I remember getting stamps from the local grocery store. Those stamps were like gold, allowing a full card of stamps to buy additional things when a sale was on certain items. The stamps for many people were the first introduction to gamification and rewards programs that we know and love today. It creates loyalty as well as a sense of belonging.
A recent enterprise social chat on Twitter sparked an interest in the differences in gamification and rewards. It’s also interesting to see how they are used across SharePoint, Yammer and other social networks in some of the same ways.
Let’s define the terms. Gamification uses game mechanics in a non-game format in order to engage users to solve a problem or increase contributions. It’s not only a way to learn a particular concept, but to be able to apply it while learning. Anyone who has facilitated a group of people in a meeting can relate to the few people who are constantly checking their phone, not paying attention or contributing. Gamification is one of those techniques that get people involved, gets them collaborating and excited about a meeting.
Rewards are a little different. Typically, there’s not an element of learning involved. It’s simply a prize or a reward for recognition or for reaching a level of distinction. Similar to the grocery store stamps, rewards programs from credit cards, hotel chains, and airlines there’s an element of loyalty and a reward associated with that loyalty.
SharePoint, Yammer and many other social tools use more gamification techniques. The gamification techniques are typically very easy to follow but could walk someone thru a particular feature or something complex. For instance, LinkedIn uses a profile completeness or strength rating. The more information you have completed on your profile, the higher the rating. The ease of this game is that it walks you thru questions to build out your profile, something that maybe you wouldn’t take the time to do, but because it’s so easy and rewards you with higher profile strength, people are drawn to it and more apt to complete it.
Gamification and rewards in SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online are most apparent in the Community Site. By participating in the community, you gain reputation points, by starting discussions and replying to them, liking a post and even identifying best replies for use in building a knowledge base. Not only is this very easy to accomplish, but it builds confidence, following and engagement as more actions are taken. Additionally, these versions of SharePoint can show “Top Contributors” or even the number of replies and likes, and the site administrator can create badges and assign them to members as “kudos” to reward or recognize the for their contributions.
Similarly, in Yammer there are likes and comments. In an article on psychologytoday.com, those likes and comments equate to “decreased feelings of loneliness, as it conveys a sense of empathy and caring.” What better to way to increase a social culture of collaboration by starting with empathy and caring that is already built into the application!
Ever check out a leaderboard in Yammer? In much the same way as the “Top Contributors” in SharePoint, there’s a leaderboard to show things like “most liked” members, “most replied” to members and even those with “most posts”. This is just a little friendly competition, added to a seemingly agnostic environment, and the best part is that you don’t even really know you are playing.
Leaderboards
Much like the badges in SharePoint, there are Praises in Yammer, little icons that use a @mention of a person in conjunction with the post to share with others a way of recognizing someone. This is a great way to reinforce the culture of inclusion and recognition in an organization.
Even if you are not still collecting grocery store stamps, recognize the rewards programs and gamification that has impacted our social culture as well as provided a platform for easy learning and rewarding good behavior.
Socialized! by Mark Fidelman
About the Author: Liz Sundet
Liz Sundet
Liz was bit by the SharePoint bug in 2007 while working on an ERP project. Since then, she has worked with a variety of SharePoint platforms from 2003, to her most recent project of combining four 2010 sites into one 2013 site as companies merged together. Using tools and techniques from a variety of disciplines including project management, change management, business analysis, training, and lean six sigma she works to extend out of the box capabilities to meet business needs. Exciting users thru training and evangelism on all the possibilities of business transformation using SharePoint is her passion.
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