102 THE MEETING PROFESSIONAL DECEMBER 2016

MPIWEB.ORG 103

A SPECIAL SECTION BROUGHT TO YOU BY

vent gamification is loosely defined as the use of game mechanics—goals, rules, feedback, and voluntary participation—to meet event objectives. In the event industry, games are being used to enhance the attendee experience, foster

learning, drive engagement and reward participation, among other objectives. Although there are naysayers within the ranks of event organizers, game strategy is becoming more widely discussed and implemented across the event industry. Apparently, fun is catching on at business-to-business events.

B Y M I C H E L L E B R U N O

E

Got Gamification?Meeting Event Goals With Games

There are plenty of reasons why event organizers might be cool to the concept of gamification. For some, it simply crosses over the “one more thing” threshold—one more task for event planners to perform, one more hoop for exhibitors to jump through or one more app that attendees have to download in order to play. Others operate under the assumption that game play isn’t a good fit for their audiences or collecting badges, answering trivia ques-tions and participating in challenges is too much of a distraction in a business set-ting. Nevertheless, such sentiment hasn’t stopped a number of organizations from

giving games a go.

Game Play at Trade ShowsEven as Stephanie German, education and conference associate for the Ameri-can Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and self-described “app junkie,” was discuss-ing the use of a mobile app game with colleagues, reservations surfaced about the impact it would have on attendees. “Some believed it could be a distraction or just one more added thing for attendees to have to do,” she says. Despite its reluc-tance, AWEA wanted to drive traffic and increase engagement between presenters

104 THE MEETING PROFESSIONAL JUNE 2016

and attendees in the poster section of the association’s annual conference, so they took a chance on gamification.

AWEA modified the traditional scav-enger hunt game that came with its con-ference directory app. Rather than collect “things,” participants were required to visit posters and absorb the content well enough to answer questions served up by the app. “It increased exposure for the poster presenters and they loved it,” Ger-man says. “Attendees liked it because it was a challenging and fun way to learn.” The association was also pleased because the game was inclusive—people without a science background or those new to the industry could still succeed at the game.

The National Fire Protection Associa-tion (NFPA) recently gave an iPad Jeopardy wall a try. The group first hosted a series of trivia-style games in its booths at other national exhibitions. The questions were designed to test participants on facets of the National Electrical Code (NEC) for which the association is responsible and select finalists for the NEC Challenge, a competition that takes place at the annual NFPA Conference & Expo. For the 2016 Challenge, NFPA opted to integrate a Jeopardy-style game using 36 iPads mounted on a wall, a buzzer system and a scoreboard. The winner took home $5,000.

Game strategy is a more impactful way to educate practitioners on an other-wise lackluster topic, according to Daniel Whiting, content marketing manager at NFPA. “The NEC code is very dry. It’s black and white,” he says. “There’s no sizzle there when it comes to code.” A game strategy motivated attendees—both those who competed in the challenge and others who observed the contestants—to learn the code in an entertaining way. When the iPad wall wasn’t being used for the NEC Challenge, it stood in the NEC booth test-ing players on the 2017 code, which had been newly introduced. Players received prizes for correct answers.

Gamification served another purpose for NFPA. With a large constituency of Baby Boomers in its ranks, the association was eager to find ways to bring new attendees into the fold. This past year the association invited trainees from the Joint Apprentice Training Center of the local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for a

reception and to play the NEC Jeopardy game. “There was a little bit of something for everyone. For the older demographic, Jeopardy was familiar and the technology blew their minds. For the younger crowd, the iPads and game format were more accessible,” Whiting explains.

Game Play at Corporate EventsRyan Rutan was looking for something bigger than gamifying one element of programming for his event when, as the developer evangelist at Jive Software, he developed the JiveWorld Game Series in 2013. Rutan designed multiple contests for the company’s annual conference: performing specific tasks in exchange for digital badges; taking and sharing pho-

tographs, which qualified participants for badges, entry into a drawing and voting up by the Jive Community; and tweeting about the conference, which earned the top three winners a special badge and iPad Mini tablets.

Rutan sees a tight fit between event objectives and game play. “Overall, I see

gamification as a strategy to reinforce the higher-level business objectives and outcomes that are already in place at an event.   The games are a friendly and approachable way for companies to disclose their ‘agendas,’ the reasons for putting on live events, and raise the level of engagement and user interaction, which is the single most important facet of live events given the advancements in technology.”

There are other reasons why Rutan turned to game play. By assigning partic-ipants with tasks that encapsulated the entire JiveWorld experience—interacting with peers, sharing on social media and learning about new products—the com-pany “reached outcomes aligned with the goals of the conference,” he says. Rutan was also keen to blend the diverse cultures that separate attendees. “We have a lot of millennials coming up in the ranks. We also have Gen Xers at the top. Games and fun tend to have a good harmonizing effect.”

The data that comes out of game play is gold for companies like Jive. Using an enterprise gamification platform to man-age the rules, track participant progress and incorporate other technology like the conference mobile app, Rutan’s firm is able to connect some important dots. “You can look at the event and see things like these 10 people decided to become hot after JiveWorld on products X, Y and Z,” he says. “We can take a look at where they went at JiveWorld, which people they con-nected with, who they followed and how their social graphs changed, and look for commonalities.”

Rutan turned to game strategy to extend engagement and its benefits beyond the two days of JiveWorld. A game strategy that starts 30 days before the conference and continues 30 days after is able to “give the conference a lift in social marketing and amplify our brand voice,” he says. After the event, JiveWorld orga-nizers gamify the return of post-event surveys and drive conversations into the Jive Community, the online “water cooler” supported by the firm’s social intranet soft-ware, where the game play continues.

Design the Best Event GamesAdi Ben-Nesher, founder and managing partner of London-based SyncPartners, a global digital talent and organizational

“Begin at the onboarding phase with tasks that will get people inter-ested—nothing too challenging, nothing that requires a huge commitment, but things that can be rewarded in a small way.”

104 THE MEETING PROFESSIONAL DECEMBER 2016

MPIWEB.ORG 105

transformation consultancy, uses gamifi-cation principles to modify behaviors and facilitate change management for corpora-tions. He advises that event organizers first determine which behaviors and for whom (games don’t have to apply only to attend-ees) they want to change—getting more conference goers onto the trade show floor, for example, and mapping (then gam-ifying) the specific steps an attendee takes when deciding to go from conference to trade show.

It’s critical that challenge and motivation evolve as the game progresses. “Begin at the onboarding phase with tasks that will get people interested—nothing too challeng-ing, nothing that requires a huge commit-ment, but things that can be rewarded in a small way,” Ben-Nesher says. “Slowly build on the early interest of the participant by gradually increasing the challenges and the rewards.” At a certain point, he suggests, “turn the rewards from external, like give-aways or VIP invitations, to internal, such as recognition for being the ‘networking ninja.’”

Tactics that promote game play at an event are important, Ben-Nesher says. Sim-ple giveaways such as exclusive badge rib-bons and metallic or “bedazzled” lanyards can become coveted items that coax oth-ers to participate in game play. Team play is also a strong motivator. “Teams, even if they are formed by the organizers, are powerful because individuals can relate to goals that are larger than themselves,” he says. “Plus, it’s easier to quit when you’re only playing for yourself. When you’re part of a team, no one wants to let the other team members down, so they actually play harder.”

Alex Plaxen, founder of Little Bird Told, a conference-engagement consulting firm, counsels clients to consider gamifying tasks that are already successful. For example, attendees at the annual conference of one of his organizer clients were in the habit of collecting buttons from other attendees. “It made sense to create a game out of that activity so we decided to ask exhibitors to also give out buttons and all of a sudden attendees were going to booths to get the buttons and have conversations with exhibitors,” he says.

“People like to get free stuff for doing things they are already planning to do anyway,” Plaxen says. At Dreamforce, the mega conference for users of Salesforce

cloud software, actual clients manned product stations and delivered case stud-ies on how they used Salesforce. Attendees were encouraged to listen to the presenta-tion in exchange for a stamp, which they redeemed at a refurbished hotdog cart filled with free t-shirts. “Not only did they get people to listen to presentations, but they created walking billboards to promote the game,” he adds.

When it comes to game strategy, Jive-World’s Rutan believes in simplicity: min-imizing onsite logistics, designing games that are user driven, even keeping the dig-ital badge design uniform and easily modi-fiable. “You can start small with something very simple like a QR code check-in and still be effective,” he says. In fact, he believes that simple game mechanics can be as effective as more advanced tactics. “Advanced strate-gies have more dependencies, like the types of phones people are using and whether they have Bluetooth turned on. There are all these barriers that come in.”

Game Strategies Can FailGame strategy isn’t right for every event. “It depends on the business,” Plaxen says. “There are circumstances in which gam-ification isn’t a good fit. In a high-profile networking event or a setting in which half of the attendees are playing and the other half aren’t, games can not only be annoying, but border on unprofessional.”

Instead, he says, “Organizers should ask, ‘Will attendees play and does it add value to the event?’ Otherwise, you run the risk of sucking the life force out of the event just to do something that doesn’t benefit them.”

The idea that millennials will participate because they love games is a tired trope that event organizers would do well to avoid, Plaxen advises. As a millennial, even one who loves to play games, he under-stands the purpose of some game strate-gies and keeps his distance. “I don’t want to go to the booth of a product that I’m not interested in,” he says. “I don’t want to be on [the exhibitor’s] mailing list and have to get off of it. I don’t want to surrender all my per-sonal information to a company that I have no intention of buying from. If I don’t want that product sold to me, I don’t want to play the game.”

Rutan calls it the “whiplash effect.” It’s the look of surprise, and, in some cases, frustration, that occurs when attendees learn there is a game in place on the first day of the conference. “You can’t just intro-duce a person to the game on day one and expect any meaningful results to come out of it,” he says. Instead, he recommends onboarding attendees in advance—mak-ing sure they download the game app (if there is one) or starting play before the conference starts. Preparing players with messaging that is carefully blended in with the usual pre-show prep is also a must.

Game strategy has been embedded in events for decades. The exhibition industry has used priority points to allocate booth-space selection and reward loyal exhibitors. Corporate event planners have deployed everything from attempts at claiming a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records to giant board games. As event technology evolves and the popularity of consumer games like Pokémon GO (or its successor) increases, gamification could soon become an essential component of event program-ming—one that even the most traditional event organizers can go for. n

Michelle Bruno is a writer, blogger and technology journalist. She publishes Event Tech Brief, a weekly newsletter and website on event technology. You can reach her at michelle@brunogroup.com or on Twitter @michellebruno.

SPECIAL SECTION

“It’s easier to quit when you’re only playing for your-self. When you’re part of a team, no one wants to let the other team members down, so they actually play harder.”