Information Technology Reference
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This little scene happened 2years ago. Steven had already forgotten it. It did not
have any consequences for him anyway since his boss actually had already left the
office and hence didn't even notice that Steven didn't deliver this report on time.
Just suddenly, Steven had a little déjà vu. He had just woken up from yet another
short power nap at work—disturbed by the loud buzzing of his email client. It was
an email from the enterprise bookmarking system which was recently enriched with
some game design elements. A point system, virtual badges for special activities and
a leaderboard. Especially recommending bookmarks to colleagues are rewarded with
the highest number of points but only if the colleague confirms the bookmark as an
interesting one for him. Steven had heard that they called it gamification, meaning
applying game techniques to non-gaming environments.
Steven had a closer look at the message that he had just received. Scott, one of his
colleagues, who was also a good friend, recommended Steven a link on procrasti-
nation research and the top anti-procrastination smart phone apps. Scott knew about
Steven's problem with getting things done and also falling asleep at work. “Inter-
esting,” Steven thought bemused. “I never thought that this bookmarking system
would ever be of any use.” He smiled when he remembered that one day when he
hoped hat this system might help him in preparing a report. What a deserted piece
of software it was back then. No comparison to today at all. Ever since they gami-
fied the bookmarking system, he and his colleagues had used it extensively. It was
a fun competition in his office. Who would end up on top of the leaderboard at the
end of the month? He smiled again and clicked on the link that Scott had sent him.
“Okay Scott, you can have these points for recommending the link to me. But be
assured, I will find something to return to you.” After all, it was a tight race for the
top leaderboard position. He also made a mental note to complain about bullying at
the workplace the next time he would meet Scott.
9.1 Introduction
User engagement, participation, crowdsourcing, the “Wisdom of the crowd.” In the
beginning of this century, the ever-growing number of active online users raised hopes
that big, information-rich, interactive online archives could be created with the help
of these users. Although various popular portals (e.g., Wikipedia, Youtube, or Flickr)
exist in theWeb that are built around user content, Nielsen [ 26 ] and Stewart et al. [ 31 ]
argue that many companies suffer from the participation inequality problem. Based
on this observation, we assume that in almost every company, at least one software
system exists that needs more user activity to provide a remarkable benefit for the
employees and the management.
This leads us to the question of what kind of software or system is engaging and
motivating to its users, especially in the long term. Long-term motivation also plays
an important role in the gaming business. Well-designed board and video games pro-
vide various means to incentivize their players to continue playing. Considering the
success of such games, it is worth investigating whether these methods and principles
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