Why would IT departments want/need to use gamification?

Why would IT departments want/need to use gamification?

An examination of why gamification is poised to drive further innovation in the IT world

Use of gamification elements have become so widespread that it has literally taken over modern media marketing. Everywhere you turn, you see companies using technology and apps to sell or market their products / services, especially through social media outlets. Social media is an organizations direct connection to the public; and of course, securing a customer base. It's free, and it allows others to drive your marketing machine for you, what's not to love about the social media scene and machine? At the heart of social media however, there are often gamification elements holding everything together, and/or enticing visitors to return. In other words, gamification is in many ways, the glue that holds certain social media together and propels it forward.

Still, what makes gamification even capable of driving future innovations? Are there any specific elements inherent in it (gamification) that make it a likely contender for future IT developments and duties? The answer of course, is absolutely! Under normal operating conditions, duties of both the professional insider and avid user often meet with regularly occurring challenges and problems, many of which could be simplified or altogether eliminated (if gamification was integrated into their system(s)).

Once such area of interest is that of storytelling; especially those businesses that wish to engage in promoting epic concepts or brands, for example. This is often done in order to transform real-life activities of specific users into gripping dramatizations which further drives and motivates players to participate and succeed.

Likewise, gamification allows one to physically manage the overall strength of any challenge, so activities can be customized to a more comparable level of difficulty. This is crucial because businesses need their customers to succeed, but by the same token, cannot simply give away achievements because that would greatly diminish the drive and intrigue in obtaining them.

The idea is to capture customers / users at a certain percentage and retain them for long periods of time. The publicity gained through the touted achievements of specific users should more than make up for any conversion losses gained from potentials that dropped out due to frustration

Challenges need not be long term either; gamification also tends to lean toward presenting users with lots of smaller, bite-sized challenges if you will. This also allows users to more easily digest the content they're presented with as well.

Arguably, the most beneficial aspect of widespread adoption of gamification is its ability to speed up many processes like report gathering, analysis and day-to-day performance. Think of it this way: in a non-gamification engaged scenario, you might have an organization that tabulates its performance on an annual or bi-annual basis. This kind of timetable dictates the rate at which change or progress can be measured and/or implemented. Gamification makes it possible to gather and analyze large volumes of data (including customer surveys, for example) and begin making the changes necessary to further service a customer base (and perhaps capture a larger one in the process).

IT departments can take the data gathered in gamification projects / scenarios and use it to make decisions and estimations about things like equipment purchases or software development concerns as well. Since gamification directly involves interacting with and stimulating customers and potentials, it gives the provider a unique opportunity to perform their own inexpensive 'market research'. The best part of course is that your customers/consumers are enthusiastically participating in the research and are in a much more open state of mind (especially when compared with someone who might have just been asked to fill out a survey, for example).

To top it all off, by keeping your customers/visitors/users smiling, you are fostering an atmosphere that is conducive to making a sale happen. There's simply no end to number of ways that a person or group can utilize gamification, the only true limitation is that of your own creativity.

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To learn more about Gamification and how it can make a difference to your future career in IT, sign up for the Gamification course