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.
