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With that battle won (at least according to Priebatsch), the next battle is over gaming. But we're not talking about simple video games and the like - we're talking about a "game layer on top of the world."

"The game layer is he next decade of human technological interaction," he explained. "Unlike the social layer, which trafficked in connections, the game layer traffics in influence. The game layer seeks to act on individual motivation - where we go, how we do it and why we do it."

Priebatsch says that the game layer could be 10 times as large as the social layer and that, used correctly, could help to solve the world's problems.

To prove his point, he then ended the session with a game - a massive game involving the entire several hundred member audience. As each person entered the room, they were given anywhere from one to three cards with different colors on each side. Each card had one of three colors on each side and were handed out randomly. To win the game, each row of the audience had to self organize to show only one color by trading with the audience members around them. That is, the entire room had to move from chaos to order, with each row only showing one color, within 180 seconds. If they did this, he said, SCVNGR would donate $10,000 to the National Wildlife Federation. One minute after he started the clock, he stopped it. The audience had self-organized, despite a variety of problems, in just one minute.

Priebatsch compared the various rules and problems faced by its players into ones the world population might face in solving global issues. There was a lack of communication, there were micro-trading issues, different allocations of resources from player to player, restricted movement decentralized leadership, and even different "countries," as aisles served as "oceans" between the rows. The audience did, however, have two things to work with - a countdown and a common goal. Despite these various factors, and through the proper motivation, a large problem was solved quickly through applied game mechanics.

Humans, like the mice in Skinner’s box, crave predictability and struggle to find patterns, even when none exist. Variability is the brain’s cognitive nemesis and our minds make deduction of cause and effect a priority over other functions like self-control and moderation.

Recent neuroscience has revealed that our dopamine system works not to provide us with rewards for our efforts, but to keep us searching by inducing a semi-stressful response we call desire.

Email, for example, is addictive because it provides all three reward types at random intervals. First, we have a social obligation to answer our emails (the tribe). We are also conditioned to know that an email may tell us information about a potential business opportunity (the hunt). And finally, our email seems to call for us to complete the task of removing the unopened item notification in a sort of challenge to gain control over it (the self). Interestingly, these motivations go away as soon as we’ve actually opened all our emails and the mystery disappears. We’re addicted to checking email while there is still variability of reward and once that’s gone, emails languish in our inboxes.

We’re meant to be part of a tribe so our brains seek out rewards that make us feel accepted, important, attractive, and included.

But as sociable as we are, our individual need for sustenance is even more crucial. The need to acquire physical things, such as food and supplies, is part of the brain’s operating system and we clearly wouldn’t have survived the millennia without this impulse. But where we once hunted for food, today we hunt for deals and information. The same compulsion that kept us searching for food coerces us to open emails from Groupon and Appsumo. New shopping startups make the hunt for products entertaining by introducing variability to what the user may find next. Pinterest and Wanelo keep users searching with an endless supply of eye candy, a trove of dopamine flooding desirables. To see an example of how the hunt for information engages users, look no further then the right side of this page. There, you will find a listing of popular posts. Using intriguing images and short, attention-grabbing text, the list is a variable reward mechanism designed to keep you hunting for your next discovery.

We also seek mastery of the world around us. Game mechanics, found everywhere from Zynga games to business productivity apps like to-do lists, provide a variable rewards system built around our need to control, dominate, and complete challenges. Slaying new messages in your inbox stimulates neurons similar to those stimulated by playing StarCraft.

Variable rewards come in three types and involve the persistent pursuit of: rewards of the tribe, rewards of the hunt, and rewards of the self.

As B.F. Skinner discovered over 50 years ago, variable rewards are a powerful inducement to creating compulsions.

No celebrations. Individuals throughout the organization may contribute to some very crucial project. But when the project succeeds — and there is a new jet engine or a new drug — very few of those people will enjoy the exhilaration of a personal win.

Long time spans. In their personal lives people enjoy activities with shorter and shorter time spans — sports events, computer games, texting and so on — whereas at work they must live through glacial planning cycles.

When there are sudden customer orders that must get shipped, or power outages, or fires and other emergencies, most employees come to life and get things done with spirit and enthusiasm.

These must-do situations all have some common elements that evoke the remarkable performance: A sharply focused, urgent goal A very tight deadline Autonomous team encouraged to experiment Results clearly noticed and celebrated

by designing jobs with these game-like characteristics and infusing a spirit of fun it is possible to enliven work and produce the kind of high-level, zesty behavior provoked by crises.

No matter how long-term a goal may be, carve off some sub-goals that have to be accomplished in a short time — 10 or 15 weeks not 6 months or a year. For each goal a team should be asked to plan an approach and carry it out. The whole effort should encourage some fun and creativity along the way. People should be encouraged to experiment. Success at the end should be celebrated.