Group items tagged

A collection of play-tested, fun group games, sorted by type: action oriented games, icebreakers, stationary games, and team building exercises. See below for a description of each game type.

The inspiration for this first event on Serious Games comes from Jane McGonigal's TED talk on Serious Games, and David Helgason's declaration of the 'Year of Gamification'. The event will examine how games and games technologies are being brought into 'serious' areas, as well as how serious tasks are being made more game-like. There are three ways that games can be adopted by other sectors: * by generating positive side effects from gameplay; * by creating technology that can be reused; * and by increasing engagement with a problem or activity. Mary Matthews from Blitz Games Studios and Alex Fleetwood from Hide and Seek, will discuss future opportunities and the event will be chaired by Stian Westlake, Director of Policy & Research Unit, NESTA.

Play the Games, change the web. When you play a game at Gwap you aren't just having fun.

"Gamification has emerged as a significant trend in recent years. Gamification uses game mechanics and game design techniques in non-gaming context - it's a powerful tool to engage employees, customers and the public to change behaviors, develop skills and drive innovation. Our Special Report evaluates the trends, how gamification is being applied in various industries and explores its future opportunities."

"Gamification is a novel idea, and while the label itself may not endear itself to the nature of law, the concept is spot on: using the concept of games to drive user engagement and solve problems…If we as an industry can tap into [lawyers'] competitive nature to drive change…then we'll be in a better place."

"Simply put, it's the application of game attributes (prizes, points, achievement levels, etc.) to things that aren't outrightly seen as potential games."

"Gamification, as research firm Forrester defines it, is "the insertion of game dynamics and mechanics into non-game activities to drive a desired behavior." To be successful, businesses need to engage their communities in ways that match business goals, whether that's by increasing communication with employees and customers, reducing support costs, or promoting a greater sense of community and recognition."

A computer program has beaten the world champion of one of civilisation's oldest board games for the first time in history.  Lee Se-dol, a 33-year-old South Korean, resigned the first of five matches of the fiendishly complex strategy game against the AlphaGo program, which is built by the Google-owned British company DeepMind.

"Gamification is the process of applying game theory to everyday life - including business life."

"The company of the future - and indeed the company of the present - needs new instruments to adapt to a changing reality. The new generation of digital natives is progressively being incorporated to the world of work. We are talking about a generation that has lived most of its life within the technological revolution that has occurred in the last two decades. It has connected people, who spend more time on the Internet than in front of the television and who have lived with the emergence of video games. It is not to judge whether that is good or bad, it's simply real and nothing will change it."

Looking at the HiSocial offering, I can't help but wonder about unintended consequences. The digital natives are savvy and will naturally find ways of 'gaming' the system. If you simple reward actions such as visiting intranet pages or 'downloading corporate material', you are in no way increasing the sum total knowledge, helping efficiency or decision making. What's needed is reward that stimulates participation and qualitative contribution, not just transactions.

Link provided by Steve Robson of Lloyds Register. Paper references Wenger's CoPs as well as Blitz Games triage, featured at the KIN Knowledge Assets Roundtable on 22nd April.

As automation technologies such as machine learning and robotics play an increasingly great role in everyday life, their potential effect on the workplace has, unsurprisingly, become a major focus of research and public concern. The discussion tends toward a Manichean guessing game: which jobs will or won't be replaced by machines?

Although we'll be writing a lot here about the potential of social media to help people tell their stories, share ideas, start and continue conversations, it is seldom enough on its own. In fact, it is still very much a minority medium in the field of local community action - however powerful it can be, as shown by the work of hyperlocal bloggers (examples here, and we'll be mapping more).

Gamification expert Yu-Kai Chou has developed a framework that takes a human-centered approach to analyzing gaming strategies. This changes the focus to how the user interacts with the training program or business application as well as the rewards, gains or detriments that can occur. He created a framework called Octalysis, which can be used to assess and visually represent how well strategies are implemented based on core drives, which then fall into quadrants of deeper understanding.

"Six to Start was given a six-figure budget from the Government to build the game after winning a competition to design an app to combat obesity."

" This article from New Scientist shows how a bit of showmanship can get an innovation rapidly adopted."

" "These days, more than ever, size matters in the innovation game," said John Kao, a former professor at the Harvard business school and an innovation consultant to governments and corporations.In its economic recovery package, the Obama administration is financing programs to generate innovation with technology in health care and energy....."