Gamification in HR Summit

I spent the early part of last week in Vienna attending and speaking at the Gamification in HR Summit. My slide deck can be found on slideshare. It was an interesting experience for the two days that I spent at Vienna, meeting gamification experts from multiple organizations.

The theme seemed to be strangely similar – each one spent their initial time within their organization fighting against odds to convince their Management to invest in the concept of gamification. Their journey and struggles in the process struck a common chord with all participants. Hopefully, going forward, gamification will have a better say in every organization.

While the implementation changed from strategic games to specific solutions for groups, Gamification is here to stay. The gamification initiatives can be divided into three categories:

1. External-focused – Initiatives for end-customers e.g. loyalty awards, customer support sites like that of Best Buy.
2. Internal-strategic – Initiatives like the one presented by Maarten Molenaar of Rabobank.
3. Internal-specific – Initiatives like the one presented by Guido Helmerhorst for KLM’s Onboarding process and Anthony Scarpino of Sodexo. The key message here was that Gamification was not about ‘gamification’.

The talks and conversations during the presentation were impressive given the stature of the speakers, providing all of us enough ammunition for new ideas. I am looking forward to the next year’s summit already!

The World Part Deux

The world is a beautiful place to live in but like all creations on the planet, there are imperfections that exist alongside as well. Can we reinvent the world without these irritants that make our lives difficult? Do we have the power to reimagine the world in a new avatar?

Let us look at the five ideas and experiences that will enrich our world further

• World without Borders – Borders tend to divide people and bring in barriers to hinder progress. What if a world did not have any border? People movement will be easy but also increase individual attention towards security. The more you tend to restrict people, more is the tendency to try something sinister. Empower your people and they will take care of everything that is needed.
• Schools with Multi-national, Multi-cultural Teachers – Enlighten your future by having schools with teachers with different cultures and nations. Schools should not have the same teachers – depending on the expertise one brings in, teachers should be able to educate their wards on specialist subjects
• Abolish the religion – Religion started probably as a mechanism to ethically police people but in today’s context, it is more harmful than not. Wouldn’t it be good not to have the concept at all? Take the learnings from all religions but no mention of the religion in the way it exists today
• Is money of any value? Why divide the haves and have-nots? Remove the currency – replace it with good character. One who is good-natured is the most richest person in the world. Without money, there will be no rich nor poor. People will work hard and smart for the global well-being, not for any monetary benefits
• Improved health – This is one idea that needs to be made consistent across all areas within the world. One should be provided the best medicine irrespective of where/who they are.

What do you think about these ideas? Do you agree or is there any other suggestion that can help us improve our world? I am participating in the #TheWorldRemade activity at BlogAdda in association with India Today #Conclave15

Technology Predictions for 2015

Technology has been moving rapidly and every year there is a different set that gets the highest priority. Last year, my bet was on these – some have gained while others have not been so successful.

This year, my pick is straight-forward

1. Application Modernization – In the wake of Digital Transformation, organizations want to finally get away from legacy systems instead of wrapping them with calls and services. Application Modernization software will be in big demand.
2. Master Data Management – MDM as it is known, will help organizations develop the Single Source of Customer that is missing in many of them. Though the first pass will not guarantee 100% clean data, at least the consolidation will help organizations start the journey.
3. Data Monetization – Many organizations have tonnes of data with them without even realizing that they could make  use of it (and make money out of it). Data Analysts have been around for a while now and they will start getting much-promised dollars for their bosses.
4. Web Analytics – Yes, it has been around for a while but in its new avatar, web analytics will start offering more advise to organizations on the customer behavior when they are on  their site. Customer will see better targeted marketing than ever before.
5. Wearables or more broadly Internet of Things – My favorite for a while now, wearables are going to take the world by storm in 2015 with new use-cases that you would have never thought before. IoT is going to be omni-present and organizations will start making sense out of it. There will be product organizations who will provide end-to-end IoT support-as-a-service.

Thoughts from your side?

Before I forget, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you…

The troika that will change the way organizations work

Well, there are many trends that will change organizations think, strategize and operate. But there are three that will stand out in the near future – what are they?

1. Digitization. This term has been loosely defined and most often, people do not seem to understand the difference between digital and online. Therein lies the opportunity…Organizations have to move away from traditional paper-based processes to a more agile, nimble digital model both on the backend operations as well as customer-facing processes. This could imply a lot more changes to systems – moving out of traditional legacy systems (application modernization), creating a robust internal service-oriented architecture, creating mobile-first design standards and so on.
2. IoT adoption. This is still in an infant stage but sure to pick up very rapidly thanks to two consortiums (OIC and AllSeen). Organizations are rushing to jump onto the bandwagon but not much has happened so far. Smartphone, Smart-dashboard, Smart fridges, Wearables and the list goes on. Right now, wearables are the flavor of the season with Google and Apple leading from the front.
3. Gamification.  Gamification has been ‘in vogue’ for the last 18 months with a lot of push coming from consultants and product vendors. This has proved to be successful both in internal and external use-cases. This will provide the missing piece of puzzle to ensure the data generated from the IoT (and consumed by the digital processes within organizations) are meaningful to consumers. This is where the stickiness comes in – if not, there is no value in the tonnes of data generated as well as the change in processes.

These three processes, if implemented properly, will take organizations into the next-generation of customer interaction where not just millennials but customers of any age will feel engaged.

Do you agree? If not, what other trend you see gaining traction in recent times?

LinkedIn Invites

I have received invites from various folks on LinkedIn – people I know and those I haven’t met or heard from. This made me think about the different types of people who make connections on LinkedIn – how many types are they?

• Extremists – these are the profiles who are interested to meet and link to as many people they want. These are the possible ones who want to use their connections to grow in their professional lives
• Socialists – They may not be sure of what they want to do with their connections but they like the number of connections they have on the account. It is like a ego-boost to them – the fact that they have 500 connections signify that they are well connected, as per them.
• Regulars – These are the folks who accept connections as they receive as well as use the ‘People You may Know’ to connect to their friends (not anyone that they have met).
• Un-socialists – These are the folks who have created an account but login once in a while to check and accept invites from those they know only. They will not send any invites on their own!
• Loners – They are not on LinkedIn and probably have never heard of them. They don’t intend to join too unless they see the benefits. Also, it includes people who are circumspect of social media and feel that it intrudes on their privacies.

Do you see any other categories? Let me know.