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While the world gets on with doing hard stuff, often without expectation of reward, “Millenials” invented gamification to help them to use the stairs and reduce the amount of waste in their lives.In Stockholm in 2009, a group of students noted that no-one seemed to take the stairs at a Subway exit. They decided to apply a theory which says if you make mundane tasks more “fun” people are more likely to perform them. As you can see from the video, it appears to have worked. [update: what I missed was this was a clever marketing ploy by Volkswagen]
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And hey, even as someone who uses the stairs so I can fulfil my daily exercise quota, I’m sure I’d enjoy it too. But wait, wasn’t there an easier way?
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“HOW ABOUT THEY JUST GET RID OF THE ESCALATOR? THAT’LL MAKE THEM USE THE STAIRS
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This years “Imagine” event for IT professionals presented by Westcon Group included a wide array of typical IT focused presentations as well a few interesting distractions. These included economist Paul Bloxham using graph and data porn on the past, current and possible future of the Australian and Global economies to illustrate the possibilities for IT investment decisions.
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The “Piano Stairs” example quoted above appeared in the session on gamification. The speaker also referred extensively to the 2002 Lancaster and Stillman study on the different behaviours of the various generations currently alive. In the study they avow that:
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Apparently I’m “Gen X” so I have different preferences for a reward (generally some $ to buy food, drink and to pay for my house will do thanks), and so perhaps I don’t understand. But as a parent, and even if my kids are too young to be classified as “millennial”, it’s clear to me that if the only way I can get them to do something is by offering rewards I better start a Carrot Club pretty damn quickly. No longer will money for a CD or a contribution toward some clothes be enough to get a result. I’ll be buying investment bonds and Porsches just to get them to do the washing up!
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“IMAGINE IF ALL OF LIFES BEHAVIOUR WAS PREDICATED BY CARROTS OR STICKS. #SHEEP
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The move toward aligned with the idea we’re moving toward a future where the only way we’ll get our kids to change their own children’s nappies is by ensuring some reward makes me shudder. Are we encouraging the idea that accomplishing something or doing something good is never enough of a reason to do it?
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Virtue is its own reward – Idioms – by the Free Dictionary, Thesaurus …
Definition of Virtue is its own reward in the Idioms Dictionary. Virtue is its own reward phrase. What does Virtue is its own reward ex… -
Life is full of mundane activities. It’s also full of fun events. I’m all for the idea of reducing the mundanity and increasing the fun, but with caveats. Educating people to think that the only reason they should do something is because it is fun or because there is a short term reward is likely to be counter-intuitive in the long run.
I instead hope the gamification proponents are instead misreading society spectacularly badly rather than being morally bankrupt snake oil salesmen as Stilgherrian said many months back
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Stilgherrian · The 9pm Edict #13
Westpac forgets that banks are meant to be about trust, and just bullshits us during a major outage. Sony too. Snake-oil salesfolk tell u… -
Perhaps as they grow up and add more responsibilities to their lives, they’ll realise there are times for fun and times for reward. Those times tend to help make the rest of this thing called life liveable.
Making Hay 
Westcon Group’s Imagine series continues in Melbourne on Tuesday 15th November – This free event from the IT inudustry’s leading vendors welcomes you to register at http://www.westcongroupimagine.com.au