So let's talk to someone who is actually putting to work these ideas about using gamification for social good. Susan Hunt Stevens is the founder of a site called Practically Green which I'll let her talk about and she's also a long time technology industry executive and entrepreneur. Most recently before this she was the general manager of Boston.com which is part of the New York Times company. And I sat down with Susan to try to get a perspective on the ground about what it's like trying to motivate people to engage in sustainability activities employing gamification as a key technique. Susan, thanks very much for joining us. >> Oh, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. >> Tell me a little bit about, the company that you run, Practically Green and how you use gamification to address, social impact kinds of problems. >> Sure, well the first thing is Factor game was founded with the mission helping motivate inspire people to embrace healthier and more sustainable choices at work, at home, and in the community. But what our secret sauce is essentially, is we're bringing the best of interactive technology to make this happen. Because it can do some things, that frankly, are almost impossible to do offline. Part of that is the power of bringing transparency to the social norms of what's happening in a community. So that if you and I are friends or colleagues we can see what each other is doing and by that either compete, collaborate, learn, share, and if nothing else pat each other on the back for getting something accomplished. But the game elements are really the foundation for creating a scale. Because, if you think about sustainability, there is no scale to step on and say, how green am I? You know, how environmentally healthy am I? And so we really approached it as how do we help people understand where they are on their journey. Are they just getting started at level one, or are they halfway through and they've really made some good progress but they're still around level five or six, or are they just killing it, you know, and they're level nine or ten. And so, to create a leveling system, that's the foundation of a game. The second thing is how do you figure out what to do and how is it going to help you improve? Well that we've created a point system. It's based on science and life cycle assessment data and some art thrown in because we are all still learning what things impact in terms of energy, health, water, and stuff. But we use the point system to help people move up the level as well, that's a game element again. And then the last piece of it that we had to add in is if you think about healthy and sustainable living. Many of the benefits you are not going to see in your wallet or in, you know Avoiding something really bad from a house standpoint. So how do you give people recognition, a sense of celebration, a sense of accomplishment, when they've done something that really is impactful in their real life, and so we used elements from games, challenges, badges you know pats on the back, etcetera, to make that happen. And so, you know, as I stand back now two and a half years later I will be the first to say that I did not going to this saying lets use gamification, to inspire real life behavior change. I really said how do we inspire people to understand where they are, and to move up, and to feel good when they make decisions around this. But the more we started to build it, the more we realized this has so many game elements in it that it also makes it fun. And I think that's a big piece is nobody put fun and sustainability in the same sentence before for around change. It was sacrifice and preaching us and all of these things by bringing fun into this process of learning, engaging, and acting. We're getting a lot more people to participate and particularly a lot more people who would never say I'm a green person. You know? They're just like. >> So what does it take to, make people engage in those long term changes to make these practice really become a habit or something that they just do automatically. >> Well I think that's one of the places where I think it's important to really distinguish between games and gamification. Because the one thing about games, and you know, there are games that people have played for lifetimes, Worlds Warcraft, things like that. But most games have a shelf life of 12 to 18 months, you know, and there's sort of a start and there's kind of a finish, and it isn't an effect that goes on and on and on over worlds and lives and things like that. And I think one thing about about the sort of habits and behaviors that impact your life is that you end up being life long games, or at least large segments of lifelong games, five, ten years and things like that. I think you have to design something very differently when you're thinking about long term play versus getting 10 million people for 18 months on and then moving into to the next game. We really have to think about how do we drive long term engagement, how do we keep people motivated and inspired, how do we use contents, in some ways, in addition to game elements. But in particular, it's the community. And that's the thing I think sometimes, when we talk about gamification we maybe don't spend enough time on, which is really understanding that 80% of people are participating for the social benefits of being part of the community that's doing something together. And that's true whether it's a process of embracing health and sustainability or you know a fitness club or you know a long extended multiplayer game like, like World of Warcraft is the people you're playing with that keep you there and keep you coming back. And so one of the things that we really probably spend as much time if not way more time emphasizing is how are we building that community. How are we creating community, how are letting people interact with each other, motivate, inspire each other and challenge each other. Versus the framework or the elements, the points you know the PDL's etc that your using to make that happen. I'm assuming your books going to be read. So I can say PDLs and people know what I mean. [LAUGH]. >> Well certainly hope people read the book when it comes out. Is there anything different about that kind of community building exercise that you're talking about in this context related to the game mechanics than in other kinds of online contests, because I know you have a lot of experience with social media and, and online media more broadly. >> Yeah, it is different. So there's sort of two pieces of it. One is that, because it's personal information. There is a lot more comfort with trusted groups versus groups of strangers. That is not say that's completely true. There are people who don't have people in their networks who are embracing health and sustainability so they come to Practicallygreen.com to find other people making these changes and connect with them because they're lonely, frankly in real life, doing these things. But in general it's much more impactful to put a program like this into a community that already exists, and to then bring transparency to the social norms. And then get the community that already exists, the workplace, the mother's forum, the green team, you know, etc. Acting together in this framework because now they at least have shared content, shared expectations, shared rules, they understand how to play together. And so they can do, do this over time collaboratively, and really focus on each other and what's happening, as opposed to the tool itself. The rate at which people participate in the system, is very different between trusted communities versus communities of people who don't know each other as well. Impact has turned out to be really different. So, when your playing with people that are close to you, and are participating with people that are close to you, your changes are much more impactful than when your playing with looser affiliations. And we've tested you know friend groups from Facebook, neighbors, rand groups, people who you know, seem like each other, and then sort of these trusted groups. And what we found, interestingly enough, that in the workplace, that is the top of the pyramid. Funny enough, people participate more and are engaged more playing with colleagues. And if you think about it, how much time do we spend at work? We spend more time and days at work than with our kids. You know the next layer down is friends and family. The next level down is some other element of trust, neighborhood, rand affinity, etc., and the last group are people who are sort of participating with others they don't know. [INAUDIBLE] >> Mm hm. So you mentioned the, the, point system, and feedback system. Can you say a little bit more about how exactly getting that kind of information and feedback about their practices, drives people to act in more sustainable ways. >> So if it was just collecting it, it probably wouldn't inspire behavior change, but what it enables us to do is kind of do two things, the first is level up somebody. So are they just getting started, or are they in the middle, or are they an expert. Because that helps make the content that were then, feeding to them through recommended actions and other things more contextual to who they are and what they've already done. And what we know is that, you know, there are patterns, based on a person's gender, age, presence of children in the household, part of the country they live in, etc, about what kinds of things they're going to do and what they're going to be interested in. And so there's a community element that drives it. What is the community interested in what are they doing? But there's also an element that we can, that we can drive by, by knowing data about somebody. So if I know you're just getting started I'm not going to put up a lead home in a solar action, to get you to try and do that, because you're going to get, overwhelmed, demotivated and bail out and not probably play anymore. But if I can get you into, you know, easier accomplished things that get you feedback from the community or a badge or an award, that makes you feel good about what you did, you're more likely to take that next step. And if that next step is then even more impactful we used to think. So it's about, you know, it's the same things you think about in game design, which is how do I, in the beginning, provide reinforcement and rewards to people? And rewards, I don't mean, you know, stuff. I mean status, access power. More information, more capabilities etc. How do you get people in and really give them that feedback loop going, that gets them doing that next thing? That gives them a positive feedback, so they do the next thing that provides the positive feedback. So that then they start being the person who provides positive feedback to others, and go from being a participant, to being a contributor, to then being a loyalist. >> But then how do you avoid them being to focused on the rewards and not any more intrinsically focusing on what they want to do. >> So that's why one of the reasons we don't have redeemable points. So many gameification platforms have a currency around points. Many games do. We have kept that piece out of Practically Green to date for several reasons. But one of which is the more tangible the reward mechanism is, and the more valuable it is, the more incentive there kind of is to cheat and game the system. And so you have to balance the system always to think about why is this person participating? How are they participating and is this participation producing the intended result? And, interesting in our business, a little different than many, is an intended result of people buying more stuff sort of defeats the purpose. [LAUGH] So, It's almost antithetical to the, the behavior change we're creating to put a lot of stuff at the end of it, even if it's green stuff you know. And so what we instead are trying to do is to really think about what are the, intrinsic rewards that we can create, and the intrinsic motivations that we can create versus the extrinsic. So that, that we go from somebody who, who maybe joined initially because they were like, oh I got a pat on the back and. I'm feeling good, and I'm probably an achiever to start with. And so they're going to collect some of the, the levels and the badges and stuff. But then it becomes, I learned a lot and I'm feeling better about the decision that I made in my life so I want to do something else. I got feedback from somebody that's really positive, that I'm feeling like a leader or I'm feeling innovative. And so we think a lot more about how do you give the people, you know, I think, in an industry you'll say status, action, you know, access, recognition and power more than stuff because stuff leads to cheating. Now what's interesting in social is such a big component in our element that it does keep people more honest than in a situation where there's lose social networks and that's another benefit. You should act when your cheating against people you don't know but when you're sitting in a platform at work with your colleagues and you're saying that you are composting in the cafeteria and they all look at you and say no your not your insane [LAUGH] goes way down. And so we found granted it's one of those we have to survey people after the fact of hey you checked off that you did this are you really doing this? etc. That people stick with things for the most part, some people don't. And you can mark it incomplete in the system and they just don't and that;'s something that we, you know, recognize. But, one of the interesting things is we've seen colleagues claiming behaviors that they don't actually practice. We don't get anyone saying that they're seeing that. There just, there just isn't enough reason to do it and too much downside socially. At least in our trusted groups for doing that. >> Do you think that eventually, these kinds of approaches whether we label them gamification or not will become the norm for behavior change, social impact kinds of applications, weather, sustainability or wellness or education, or whatever else. >> It's funny, I started thinking about the foundations for Practically Green, you know, and sort of the pre social media days, my biggest challenge, my primary reason for thinking it wasn't a great idea is I couldn't figure out how to scale it. And couldn't figure out how to bring transparency to this social of what people are doing, do you stick a plaque on their house or. Or drive him around with the score, you know, how do you do it? And what digital media, has done is it's given us a way, and social meetings done, to bring transparency to things that we just didn't know about each other. And with that knowledge and that ease of being able to compete, compare, and collaborate, I do think that it's going to make a huge difference in behavior change. I'm a big believer, however, that offline is as important as online and it's when those two things come together around behavior change that can be really important. And, so, in weight loss, being in a group of people that are helping and inspiring and motivating you with weight loss. Is equally is very powerful and I think there are online programs that can bring that to there and then there are one that just don't match that in [INAUDIBLE]. So, you know, I don't think we ever want to see less of the person to person interaction as a piece of a puzzle, but I think we can use online platforms to motivate that. >> Great, Susan. Thanks so much for participating in this. >> Oh, thank you very much for having me.
