Farnham's UCA has kindly agreed to host Digital Surrey once again. Thank you!   On 26th May at 7pm, Michael Wu PhD (@mich8elwu) of Lithium Technologies will be joining us to discuss the science of gamification. Here is a summary from Michael's abstract which provides an window into what the talk will cover:   "Despite the long skepticism about games in the business world,... [read more]

 Farnham's UCA has kindly agreed to host Digital Surrey once again. Thank you!   On 26th May at 7pm, Michael Wu PhD (@mich8elwu) of Lithium Technologies will be joining us to discuss the science of gamification. Here is a summary from Michael's abstract which provides an window into what the talk will cover:   "Despite the long skepticism about games in the business world, their recent success cannot be denied. The success of social gaming such FarmVille, and mobile social network such as FourSquare is now forcing the industry to take a serious look at games. As with anything new, there is much hype about the seemingly magical power of gamification, which can make people do something that they normally wouldn’t do.We will define some basic terminologies used in gamification. We'll systematically understand why gamification is able to drive actions so effectively and predictably through the lens of behavioral psychology. We will introduce a unifying behavior model that involves the temporal convergence of three factors: motivation, ability, and trigger, in order to bring about a behavior or an action. This behavior model is the magic potion underlying all the game mechanics and game dynamics. And it will explain why each game mechanics/dynamics work, and how are able to turn an abhorred chore into something desirable. Finally, gamification is really no magic. Not all games are equally desirable. It isn’t just as simple as slapping on some points and badges, and people will go crazy about it. It can fail just like any other initiatives. Upon understanding the science of gamification, we will have a better understand the failure modes of gamification process, so we can guard against them."   The lovely people at Dell will be again sponsoring our first drinks and nibbles - thank you.  And thank you to Guy Stephens (@guy1067) for inviting Michael to attend Digital Surrey.