AHC's Peter Nicholas looks at how we react to gamification and how we retain information through different stimuli.
Phew, I've said it.
I don't really know how it happened, but it did.
Maybe it was because I had a little more free time: I'd finished drinking my aged red wine collection (PFO Blog 09/01/15), my table tennis table is now in storage (PFO Blog 06/03/15) and my dog Leroy, R.I.P, no longer needs to be walked (PFO Blog 21/08/15).
So I started spending more time with my teenage daughters - but they had their heads buried in their mobile phones (PFO Blog 05/09/14). In the end it was simply a case of if you can't beat them, join them. If they were playing Candy Crush, then so would I.
Over the past few weeks it has taken hold. I've found myself squeezing in games between meetings, on trains, feeling anxious after failed attempts waiting for my lives to renew so I can do it again. It's addictive!
But really it's not my fault; it's just the neuroscience of gamification stimulating my brain.
I've become a dopamine junkie. Dopamine, so I've discovered, is what our body releases when we receive a reward for some pattern of behaviour.
Rewards are what make games, like Candy Crush, so addictive. The rewards are not simply random, but carefully planned, incremental prizes designed specifically to stimulate dopamine release in the brain.
Our bodies are so good at sensing this stimulation that, within the structure of the game, we learn to anticipate rewards and the release of dopamine. dopamine is released, and, as a result we are motivated to play the game again? and again? and again.
The good news is, I now have a practitioner's perspective on gamification and how it can stimulate member engagement.
The reality is gamification helps maintain focus while learning, stimulates return "play", and gives satisfaction for achievement. Gamification principles, well applied, can dramatically improve knowledge retention.
We've already seen the results of this by developing pension modellers that express the outcome as a weather picture – members effectively 'game' the sunshine by varying their contributions, retirement age and investment risk. Unlike an Excel spreadsheet members return again and again to achieve their optimal weather forecast.
Bottom line: gamification works, even in pension communication. Now I have to go, I'm on level 109 and want to get to 110 before the day is out.
Peter Nicholas, Managing Director/CEO,?AHC
