[MUSIC] Joey, in our last video, you gave us a great overview of gamification. One of the favorite examples that you used in my class is a speeding example from Sweden. We all speed in our cars, but it's great to see how gamecation can actually change that behavior to the positive by doing it the right way. Could you relate a little bit about that story? >> Of course. It's actually one of my favorite examples too. And basically, what happened was back in 2010, Stockholm, Sweden held a contest that they called, The Fun Theory Contest. And the whole purpose was to positively influence social problems using game mechanics. So, there was a guy named Kevin Richardson, and he came up with the idea of the Speed Camera Lottery. So, he found the intersection that had the most speeding offenses for the entire year and he put up a camera and a lottery grid. And every single driver that drove through that intersection got documented and tagged. And anyone that was going under the speed limit entered into a lottery to win the money from the people that had to pay tickets that were speeding through the intersection. So, it was an incredibly smart approach, and ended up dropping the speeding offenses in that intersection 65% in one month, taking it from the most dangerous intersection to the least offensive. >> And so the idea is that, instead of just penalizing people who are speeding, rewarded the people who weren't. And as a result, the speeders were like, I'm not gonna speed and pay somebody else. >> [LAUGH] >> I'd rather just not speed and be on the good side of the lottery. >> Exactly. I wanna get the money that everyone else is having to pay. >> You bet. And I think that's a great example of how gamification can change our behaviors. So, let's talk a little bit about how gamification is used to change behaviors for the better, in our lives and business. >> Sure, and I've got a lot of great examples. And I'll start with some that really deal with how we act as individuals. The first one is mint.com. And I'm not sure if you're familiar with it or if any listeners out there are, but it's an online bank. So, you put your credit cards in there, you can do your budgets through there. It's really tackling the, mainly hated, task of personal finance and money management. So, they use employment goal tracking, visual feedback and graphs, generators, levels, achievements, badges. And they allow you to put in your goals and then incrementally show you how close you're getting and really pushing you towards making the best choices you can with your money. And almost tricking you into spending your money better and more wisely. So, I think it's a fantastic one. And it definitely is a personal benefit to me as someone who does not manage that very well. So, speaking of personal benefits, the second example I wanna talk about are fitness trackers. Now, I don't have a specific company here because there's a wealth of them. Apple Watch Fitbit, Misfit, Speedo, UP MOVE, iFit, Jawbone, you name it. There's a million of them out there. But basically, what they do is use the same mechanics we have been talking about to influence you to get to your personal health goals. If you have an Apple watch, you know that it makes you stand up every single hour, and shows you on the dashboard how close you're getting to your daily movement goals. Things like Fitbit and Misfit, allow you to put in the weights and the BMIs that you wanna get to, and give you achievements along the way. So, badges for taking a certain number of steps, levels for going up and down stairs. And they influence you to get to those goals. Things like Nike plus will put you into a community where other people see what you do and you can have leaderboards and levels along the way. So, it's an incredibly influential movement that's happening now to get us to move. And I just love those examples and I have some myself. [LAUGH] >> Well, that's fantastic. And these are great examples of how gamification can help us personally. But how can it help the community or even the world to be a better place? >> The last two examples I have really do focus on that. The first one is one of my favorites, and I think one of the most brilliant things that has happened in the last decade. And it's called Khan Academy. And it was created by a guy named Salman Khan who wanted to provide free world class education for anyone, anywhere. And if you're familiar with RPG games like Final Fantasy or World of Warcraft, you know exactly the mechanics that this school is built on. But, they're online educational resources. So, videos that you watch, tests that you take, and it's completely for free. But in order to progress through the levels, you have to do the different things. So, for example, you have to pass addition one before you can move on to addition two. And you have to pass addition two before you can move on to multiplication one, or subtraction one. And so eventually, the more you engage with it, you build this web of education, and you're getting smarter along the way, and it's completely for free. And I think the idea behind it is great. And I know, personally, a lot of people who have benefited from it. And that education can really build into other things quite miraculously. And then on the flip side of that in the medical world, there was a thing started by the University of Washington, and they called it FoldIt. And it was an online game that allowed people to fold proteins. And while that on the surface doesn't sound incredibly engaging, what it was, was in age research, in different research that has to do with DNA, there are so many possibilities with how proteins can stack up that it's impossible for a solo team of scientists to figure out apparent solutions. So, they built a game around that that had levels, and scoreboards, and leaderboards. And they put it online, and tens of thousands of gamers jumped in to solve these problems. And they ended up making drastic measures and advances in aids research, that would have taken decades to do. And they did it in a month. And we know more now than we've ever known about how DNA and aids actually work together, because of this one game. >> Those are fantastic examples of how it could be used both individually and for the society in general. Can you tell us one of them that is the most fun gamification example that you have? >> Sure. My favorite, and I've talked about it in your class, is called Mission Alarm Clock. Now, sadly the app isn't around anymore coz the company lost funding. But the premise of it is, it's an alarm clock that you download onto your phone and once you set it you can't hit the snooze button or turn it off until you play a game. And those games can range from shooting skeet, blowing something up a hill, defusing a bomb. There are about five to ten different games that they have. And it's the most annoying alarm you've ever heard, and it just won't shut up until you play the game. And I love it. I used it personally. Sadly, like I said, the company's not around anymore, but there are a lot of other apps that have taken that mechanism and are using it in the same way. So, things like Wake N Shake, FreakyAlarm and some others use that in the same way. So, if you wanna test it out, you definitely can. But yeah, Mission Alarm Clock's my favorite. >> Fantastic. And I know it a did wonders for our children, having them get up in the morning by playing games. It really worked well. Thank you so much Joey for giving us this overview of what is gamemification and these great examples. It is really a powerful tool and you've given us a lot of insight as to how to make it work. Thank you so much. >> Thanks for having me Ray [MUSIC]
