Top 10 Gamification Gurus

What better way to eat our own dog food than to calculate a leaderboard for gamification gurus. You know all those people who stand up at conferences and tell you what gamification is (and isn’t).

This month I used  PeerIndex to calculate a top ten list, based on their scores and my own list of gamification gurus (about 20 in all so far). Drumroll please. The top ten as it stands today is:

	User		PeerIndex	Aut.	Act.	Aud.	Twitter
1.		Gabe Zichermann	53	49	47	64	@gzicherm
2.		Keith Smith	50	48	70	50	@chiefdoorman
3.		Ian Bogost	49	44	47	67	@ibogost
4.		Jane McGonigal	49	41	38	78	@avantgame
5.		Michael Wu Ph.D.	48	45	47	56	@mich8elwu
6.		JP Rangaswami	47	41	45	67	@jobsworth
7.		Amy Jo Kim	46	40	44	66	@amyjokim
8.		Sebastian Deterding	46	44	43	55	@dingstweets
9.		Paulina Bozek	44	43	46	46	@paulinabees
10.		Kes Sampanthar	32	28	42	42	@kessampanthar

Gabe at the top? Is this a fair reflection of “guru-ness”?

Well, it’s hard to say. As a relative newcomer to the gamification industry (since June this year) from personal experience I know that Gabe was one of the first people I tuned into, and even popped over to New York for his gamification summit.  Others will of course have a different experience.

What is a guru anyway?

Good question. Definitely needs a definition, anyone?

Is this really gamification of work?

Yes of course it is. It might be slightly in the pointsification category but most people would recognise this as a leaderboard of some sort. That’s a game mechanic and thought leadership isn’t a game for those who play it. The rewards for being at the top are lucrative consulting contracts, book deals and fully paid speaker trips to exotic locations. (Ha! As if. – Ed)

I would call this list a gamification of your PeerIndex scores. Whoever is a gamification speaker and has a high PeerIndex gets to the top of the ratings.

Will the list change?

Well, knowing the recent politics its interesting to see Gabe Zichermann at the top of the list while Sebastian Deterding  comes in at number 8.  If Sebastian moves up in the rankings next month, and Gabe moves down, then perhaps we’ll get a glimpse of the political fall out from that spat. Who is to say?

Who’s missing?

If I don’t get too much political fall out of my own from this post I’ll add people  to the list, and do it again next month – tell me in the comments below or via twitter @tobyberesford.

Gamification of gamification gurus, yay what fun… ;o)

Toby Beresford

Toby is a startup founder based in Google Campus, London, UK. He is a founder of Leaderboarded which you can use to create your own dynamic leaderboard. In the past he developed social games on Facebook for big brands, community software for small groups and enterprise web apps for massive corporations. Follow him on twitter @tobyberesford and Subscribe to this blog at Gamification Of Work blog feed

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