In today’s workplace, there are five generations of employees.  Finding the right technology for every generation and working style has been a significant challenge, no matter the industry, the department, or the company culture.

Yet, let’s think about it on a consumer level.  What is a technology that every person working today has touched in his or her lifetime?  Yes - Electronic Gaming.  Atari was founded in 1972, touching 3 generations alone with their Pong & PacMan games.  Then, Atari’s various early sports games gave rise to the ever-popular EA Sports’ Madden Football, NHL, NBA, FIFA & (Tiger Woods’) PGA editions in the 90’s impacting the Millennial generation, leading to present-day Mobile Gaming and its $30B industry.     

With this kind of far-reaching impact and shared experience in the consumer world, doesn’t it make sense to consider using “Gamification” in the workplace?   

Gamification is actually a term that was coined by a British computer programmer in 2002; but, by his own admission, he invented it too early.  In fact, Scrimmage was an early innovator of it for the workplace, adding it to its mobile platform to engage learners, reinforce knowledge, be social and encourage team-building – all of which have the supporting analytics and proof. 

it is interesting to note that gamification on an enterprise level is still burgeoning, and in some organizations BOOMING.

Now, in 2016, it is interesting to note that gamification on an enterprise level is still burgeoning, and in some organizations BOOMING.  A recent eLearning Guild research study found that nearly half of their respondents “believed that gamification is nice to have, but not required in a future LMS.”  On the other side of the spectrum, Wharton’s Legal Studies and Business Ethics professor, Kevin Werbach, who frequently writes, teaches and sponsors meetings on the topic, found in his conversations that “very senior executives of very large companies that you wouldn’t think would be interested — are saying, "We get it; you don’t have to convince me there’s a real opportunity here." 

So, which is it?  

I would argue the latter, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has embraced this in a huge way.  This week’s news has Zuckerberg talking up his $2B bet on Virtual Reality and Gaming.  He sees it as part of an immersive and the ultimate social collaboration platform, as a shared experience people can have together.  I saw it first hand a few weeks ago at Peter Diamandis' Abundance360 event.  Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) will elevate gaming and social in the enterprise, and make us consumers of great content on a whole new level.

This idea carries over to another aspect of gamification today, as a learning tool – it puts people together in the same space to learn and play together. Isn’t this a huge aspiration of companies today, the goal in the enterprise to have all of these generations learn and play together, as well as learn from and collaborate with each other?

Here is the article referenced: http://www.wired.com/2016/02/mark-zuckerberg-plays-zero-gravity-ping-pong-president-indonesia/?mbid=nl_22216  

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