5 Things a Company Can Do To Stay Ahead

It used to be the case that businesses didn't have worry about strategy, it was enough to simply make a product.  Today's businesses however need a strategy that can pivot incredibly fast.  Below are only a few of the current practices that allow leading businesses to stay ahead.  

• Strive for higher quality products. Quality has always been a competitive advantage but in today's market it is possible to imitate everything from smart phones to cars within a matter months.   Patents and complex manufacturing materials do not provide the shelter they once used to and therefore quality is truly elevated to being the defining feature of a market leader.  
• Part of providing higher quality products is to offer a portfolio of services or products within a single product.  An even better way to think of this is as a platform with add-on capabilities.  Just like a computer operating system is a platform for building software applications on, a business can be a platform for building on top of.  IBM was able to successfully implement this strategy by divesting its single-serving commodity products and then launch their Smarter Planet technology.  They have created a platform for large entities such as cities and corporations to monitor resource usage with no end to the number of nodes that can be built on top of it.  And, by purchasing PWC's consulting practice they are also able to manage implementation, maintenance, and innovation.  
• Offering many services within a single product allows a business to enhance customer experience through frequent touch points.  Today's mobile apps and games are fantastic examples of platforms that offer new maps, new abilities and features, and other add-on capabilities for the user.  However, this also has the effect of providing an interaction between the vendor and the customer. Interactions are important for many reasons such as making the company more relatable and "human" to customers, remaining at the front of a customer's mind through weekly or daily interactions instead of annually (or some larger interval) during product launches, and listening to what customers are saying[1] which in turn leads to faster product innovation, quicker responses to crises, repeat business, and a more comprehensive profile of individual customers.  Establishing a direct connection to customer is essential. 
• Maintaining this level of customer service while growing an ecosystem of products is impossible if internal policies are too tight or if internal information flow is hindered.  A business that successfully implements the above strategy is one that isn't afraid to experiment. Google is often recognized as a leader in product experimentation with their large R&D budget, 20% time for employees, and investments in everything from solar energy to self driving cars.  Yet they stand out as a company that isn't afraid to launch an idea, sometimes only half baked, see where it goes and quickly kill or reinforce it.  The important part of getting this right is creating spaces for creative workers to experiment, having leaders that know how to provide just enough structure to channel that creativity, and then a system for harvesting and promoting the best ideas.  As they say in the start-up world, fail fast and fail forward.  
• Finally, re-think the pricing models of the past.  Today's online businesses have proven that freemium models can and do work, Amazon is proving that selling the hardware below production costs will payoff when customer's purchase everything that feeds into it, and newspapers are slowly working through the mechanics of digital distribution.  There is little that still works in this world "because it's always been done that way".

[1] http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Competing_through_data_Three_experts_offer_their_game_plans_2868?pagenum=1#interactive - Eric Brynjolfsson, 4 minutes and 42 seconds in.  

Business Use Cases for Gamification

Every 4 years the entire world comes together to watch the Olympic Games and if this isn't testament enough to the allure of games then consider that actual wars have halted in order to watch the FIFA World Cup[1]. Games have the power to capture the imagination and enthrall our competitive spirit, but what does it mean to translate these concepts into the business world? The concept of "gamification" is formally defined as "...the use of game design techniques and mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences."[2]

Now, take game principles and apply them to real-world scenarios and you arrive at a much more interesting world to live in. Imagine a world in which people look forward to everyday activities (like work) as much as they look forward to playing games. And if you're unsure what this actually translates to in terms of time, according to Jane McGonigal, gamers have spent more than 5.93 million years playing World of Warcraft and have created the largest wiki in the world on the game -- all voluntarily. Most adult games spend an average of 22 hours per week playing games, basically a part-time job.[3] This is an amazing amount of productivity. I am passionate about McGonigal's dream of directing these efforts towards solving poverty and inequality, but in the meantime, consider some of the other ways that gamification is being used now:

• Advertising: One of the most intricate and fascinating examples of gamification is Warner Bros. campaign for the movie Batman - The Dark Knight.  In the months leading up to its release an entire alternate reality game (ARG)[4] was created for fans that would play on the devilishly mischievous nature of the primary antagonist the Joker.  This included a Gotham Times newspaper with clues about the plot of the film, billboards and posters in different cities that tied together to contain clues about the film, and an army of websites including one for those who wanted to gather together to fight crime.  The entire campaign pulled in the likes of Hershey, Comcast, Nokia, Verizon, Kmart, MySpace, and other retailers to cross promote the film and brought together a world wide audience.  The website MovieMarketingMadness.com does a great job of walking through the various components.[5]  
• Solving diseases: The game Foldit is a highly publicized game in which players - usually non scientists - come together to identify the correct structure of specific proteins.  This is no easy task and the answer is unknown, but by working together to identify patterns, gamers were able to uncover the correct structure of proteins that are involved in HIV/AIDS.  The success of this game has led to a revolution in how scientists work to solve the diseases of our day.[6]  
• Crisis response: Brett Horvath outlines an excellent framework for the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative in which the small actions gamers are already doing in video games can be harnessed during crises (such as earthquakes and tsunamis) to organize massive amounts of information so that emergency responders can take action.[7]  
• Terrorism: NPR recently did a piece on how "Islamic extremist websites have borrowed from the gamification playbook by incentivizing participation in terrorist activity."[8] As frightening as this is, it adds weight to the argument that there are an unlimited number of scenarios for leveraging this concept.  

Now consider some of the ways that it could be used:

• Career performance management: It isn't hard to see how Google's new platform Schemer - a social network that allows users to share their personal goals - could be enhanced with a few additional game design features and then be implemented in corporations for employees to develop performance goals.  This wouldn't automatically make work more engaging, but with a little creativity and some employee freedom, an additional layer of fun can be added to what is otherwise often a boring and meaningless environment.   
• Talent acquisition and product development: The giant cosmetics company L'Oreal currently uses a game called Reveal in which prospective employees compete to launch a new product. The success of the player helps the company understand skill sets from talent across the globe and determine a potential career path.  This platform could easily be extended to existing employees to test product launches and marketing campaigns, or even to work together to design completely new products.  It's a scenario that engages employees and creates loyalty and camaraderie while also providing a platform for enhanced knowledge sharing within the firm.  
• Customer engagement: Loyalty programs have been trying for decades to enhance customer engagement and yet they often result in simply paying the customer (in points) to make specific purchasing decisions.  With the money and audience already in place through millions of credit card programs around the world, it wouldn't be hard to tweak these programs to make purchasing decisions more fun.  One of the most successful loyalty programs in the world, Nectar, is already experimenting with incentives not just for purchasing, but also for "green" behaviors such as riding a bike to work and bringing re-usable shopping bags to the grocery store instead of using plastic.  Imagine this being extended to entire sustainability initiatives across a company or across a nation.  
• Health and wellness programs:  Currently, many corporate health insurance companies act like loyalty programs and pay employees to make healthy choices such as exercising regularly or quitting smoking.  And while people do respond positively to monetary incentives, other virtual currencies such as positive feedback from other users, "like" points (think Facebook and LinkedIn), and Facebook credits can be leveraged as well.  The game SuperBetter[9] for example would be an excellent platform for encouraging healthy choices within a broader health and wellness program.  

It is important to remember that using game dynamics to enhance business practices is no easy task and the ideas above don't even begin to scratch the surface in terms of game dynamics and their application.  Decades of trial and error have yielded principles such as virtual currencies, meaningful work, competition vs cooperation, and specific mediums for engagement.  Audiences can be picky, not all programs will work, and subject matter expertise has to come from a team of diverse backgrounds.

Yet the potential for gamification to completely revolutionize the world in which we live is huge by changing our every behavior.  And, hopefully, this goes beyond just influencing consumers, but that the technology actually extends towards making us better people[10].  Whatever the changes, from problems of poverty to worker boredom to gaining a competitive business edge, there are both economic and philosophical reasons to implement these programs.

[1] http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1139402,00.html 

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification

[3] http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game

[5] http://www.moviemarketingmadness.com/blog/2008/07/movie-marketing-madness-the-dark-knight/

[6] http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/09/gamers-discover-protein-structure-relevant-to-hiv-drugs.ars

[7] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIbDkUc2DXg  
[8] http://www.onthemedia.org/2011/may/06/the-gamification-of-jihad/transcript/
[9] http://www.onthemedia.org/2011/sep/30/gaming-back-health/
[10] http://www.ted.com/talks/jesse_schell_when_games_invade_real_life.html