Why Gamification for IBM Connections?

Since we launched Kudos Badges ago we have been swamped with clients wanting demos and presentations around the solution. The overwhelming response from clients is that instantly they get it. They understand how gamification can help them drive the adoption and ultimately the business value they get from IBM Connections. However we have also had a few people comment that they don't really understand gamification or don't believe that it works so I thought it was worth putting down why gamification works with IBM Connections.

Gamification or Game Mechanics leverages the fact that all of us have a basic drive to receive status and rewards. It really is simple. Most people like recognition, they like to receive rewards and earn status. People like to progress to the next level and move up ranks. These needs and desires can be leveraged to encourage users to engage in specific behaviour, drive user adoption, and drive performance.

But it isn't just about the rewards either. Kudos Badges for IBM Connections leverages game mechanics to help drive user adoption and participation across the full capabilities of IBM Connections. Through the use of game mechanics Kudos Badges creates a reward and recognition mechanism that not only awards achievements but also helps guide the user on how they can improve their usage of IBM Connections for better business outcomes.

When we designed Kudos Badges for IBM Connections we had 3 primary design goals:

Design Goal 1) Leverage Gamification or Game Mechanics to drive user participation and adoption of IBM Connections. We wanted to reward users that contribute valuable content. We wanted to highlight experts or experienced users so others could learn from them. We wanted to provide users with status and recognition as a direct result of not only their actions in Connections but also the actions of others around the content that they create. For example in you create a blog post in Connections that is great! You earn a Kudos Point. However if a heap of people comment on that blog post, or recommend the blog post, then that content you created has higher value, and hence you might received 5 or 10 Kudos Points.

Design Goal 2) We wanted to not only have people win badges but use the fact that they receive a reward or badge as a mechanism to educated and guide them to use and leverage the more advanced features of IBM Connections. We often find with our Connections clients that users focus on one or two particular areas. Thru Kudos Badges we wanted to expand their understanding of both the business value of using Connections but also guide them to use more advanced features of Connections.

When users "win" rewards such as badges, these badges are designed to not only recognise the good work a person has done, but also to show them the business value of what they have done and to encourage them to expand their usage of Connections with more advanced features. For example when you complete an activity you might receive a "Activity Done!" badge. This is neat off course, however the message that accompanies the badge might then encourage you to consider creating an Activity Template. Or another example might be that if you create a heap of status updates, you might win a Badge that not only recognising that you are contributing, but also suggests that maybe you should create a Blog for the longer status updates. When you upload files you might earn Kudos Points, but the rewards will encourage you to also tag those files, or to group them into folders.

Design Goal 3) We wanted to ensure that Kudos Badges was both customisable as well as extensible. We know that every organisation is different and that the Kudos Point value of some Connections actions would be different for different organisations and different business objectives. We wanted organisations to be able to easily tweak Kudos Badges. We also wanted to allow clients to build their own badges and rewards that drive users to deliver on their business objectives or goals.

We wanted to make Kudos Badges extensible so that organisations can leverage game mechanics drive behavior in other applications. As a part of this we also wanted Kudos Badges to not only be about the behaviour and actions of users within Connections but also outside of Connections. Kudos Badges allows organisations to integrate external applications such as their Sales Force Automation, CRM's, HR Systems, etc so that they can also leverage gamification to drive behaviour within those systems.

ISW has performed many implementations of IBM Connections and we have found that a significant factor in organisations driving real business value is ensuring strong user adoption. In addition, providing guidance to users to leverage all of the capabilities of Connections rather than just individual capabilities is a key success factor. The key is to help users understand "Why?" they should leverage social software to work better. An important strategy for encouraging user adoption is providing reward mechanism's, both tangible and intangible. Kudos Badges for IBM Connections provides this strategy in a very powerful and flexible way.

We are at Lotusphere this week in Orlando so if you would like to catch up for a one on one demo of Kudos Badges get in touch at kudos@kudosbadges.com or ping us on twitter at @kudosbadges

IBM Premier Business Partner, ISW listed in second annual CRN Fast50

ISW just released a press release annoucing their listing in the CRN Fast50. ISW was ranked 18th of the 50 companies listed. The awards list compiled by Haymarket Media’s channel publication CRN ranks the top 50 IT integrators and resellers based on their revenue and growth.

The CRN Fast50 recognises those companies who understand their customers’ business, matching them to the right technologies and doing it faster and better than their competitors so ISW is pumped to be listed up there with the best of them!

More information at: http://bit.ly/9xfxCo

IBM Lotus Sametime 8 Entry and Standard Edn

IBM are releasing on 3rd Dec IBM Lotus Sametime Release 8. They now have Standard and an Entry edition.

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/22698.wss 

Lotus Notes & Domino 8 Testimonial Video

Here is a great video explaining some of the great new features in Notes 8.



Workplace Forms & Workflow-Xpress Demo Site at last!

Well here it is at last. I can't say that it is finished as it seems the more we do the more ideas we come up with to make it better.

Here is a link to the ISW Workplace Forms Demo site. We have a few forms on show however the best area is the Form Gateway. The concept is that organisations can have a Forms Gateway where external (and internal I guess) users can gain access to forms they are allowed to complete. They can fill them in and submit them and they start a Workflow process using Workflow-Xpress. We are pretty happy with the progress however it is really just a proof of concept. The possibilities are great though and it is great to see the products coming together in the exact way we thought they would when we started with Workplace Forms last year.

We have many ideas of what else we can do and essentially I can see this turning into a product offering for organisations that are looking at Workplace Forms and are interested in a Forms Gateway. Feel free to make suggestions/ask questions etc.