Much like Jesse ‘I wouldn’t enter the Voice’ J, I’m not someone who likes entering of public awards programs. It may seem odd coming from a gamification person, but it’s mainly because the investment-reward ratio for the participants is so often rubbish.
Typically you put in anything from 1 to 100 hours work to prepare and submit your award pitch. Only to discover you are going head to head with the judge’s pet favorite, you get to the final and they decide not to award the prize (this happening to me last year) or you aren’t really qualified anyway. Then you don’t really get anything back except – “sorry we didn’t like you, you didn’t win this time, thanks for playing”.
It won’t surprise you to learn that I am not really a fan of nationalised lottery schemes – “a tax on the stupid” (see Stupid Tax) is pretty accurate. I know people need hope in their lives but lotteries sell false hope.
Ok, my blogger ‘two cents’ over, here’s the low down on the Gamification Summit‘s newly announced award program – GAwards – which rather than a lengthy application process, pushes the investment of time into the hands of the voters rather than the entrants, for which we can applaud the organisers.
You can vote for best use of Gamification in the following categories:
- Consumer Facing App/Site
- Education
- Enterprise (HR/HCI)
- Health & Wellness
- Social Good
- Overall Greatest Impact
If you’re looking for someone to vote for / my predictions then I suggest:
- Consumer Facing App/Site - Foursquare
- Education – CodeAcademy
- Enterprise (HR/HCI) – Rypple
- Health & Wellness – SuperBetter
- Social Good – Sega Toylet (ok ok this is just a joke, feel free to suggest ….
- Overall Greatest Impact – Foursquare
