I'll admit it... I roll my eyes when people talk about gamifying their event.
But I've recently given it a second look as my understanding has expanded beyond giving people points in the mobile app for accomplishing tasks.
Gamification means rewarding attendees for taking action, and -get this- it DOESN'T have to mean creating leaderboards or sending people on human scavenger hunts to collect points.
It leverages the brain's natural reward system by offering points, badges, or levels for completing tasks. This release of dopamine motivates continued engagement and participation and it doesn't have to be digital!
What turned me around was the realization that my whole life is already gamified and that's a natural part of life.
👉 Birthdays move us to the next "level."
👉 School progresses up a grade.
👉 Heck, even remembering to put the garbage out on Tuesday mornings is a little dopamine hit for me each week!
We all want to achieve something, and helping people feel a sense of accomplishment actually increases their feeling of belonging.
So it turns out that gamifying parts of your event or content might just be extra healthy for your attendees' brains.
A few ways you can gamify your events to trigger that dopamine release include:
Certificates of completion
Creating content that moves attendees up to the next level (like a college class going from 101 to 201 to 301)
Setting (and hitting) learning objectives for your content, even measuring achievements with quizzes
Moving community members into smaller, more intimate circles, like going from the outer circle to the inner circle based on quantifiable metrics (like tenure in the group or hours spent volunteering)
Inside Club Ichi, we gamify a number of things:
We celebrate milestone membership numbers when people join the Slack channel.
When a community member becomes an Insider, they get a surprise in the mail and special access to experiences.
Our Ichi Academy classes offer certificates of completion to give you a sense of accomplishment, and also help you earn CEUs (another gamified experience run by your certifying organization of choice).
How are you gamifying your events?
I think it depends on how you gamify and the purpose it plays for who. I was at a trade show last year and I went to speak to an exhibitor as I was curious to speak to them. I walked up and the first thing they said was, 'oh you want your sticker'. When I said I don't play games, they were shocked and then I was taken back because they were so defeated from everyone coming up to them that it was a bit to get the conversation going. Of course, as I was speaking with them, someone came up to them, interjected themself into our conversation giving an opinion that was not super on topic of what…