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…and I’m disappointed.

I’m mean I guess I shouldn’t be…it’s one of those books you pick up at the airport for $5.99 just before your flight takes off because you realized you’re iPad is running low on battery and you’re afraid of being stuck on a very long flight with horrible in-flight entertainment (or worst, no entertainment at all).

It’s not that I’m saying you shouldn’t read the book…go ahead, read it…it should take you a few hours and you may find some useful references. But realize the following:

There isn’t a single original thought in the entire book that is the author’s. Daniel Pink is an extremely talented storyteller and demagogue…and he makes a really great case against what he calls Motivation 2.0 and in favor of Motivation 3.o. But unlike books such as Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational where it is clear that the work and ideas presented in the book are the author’s, in Pink’s case, his contribution to the book is the research and editing of a handful of scientific papers about motivation published in the last century. In fact, most of the book is a bird’s eye view of Self Determination Theory and its application to our ever-changing business world.

So, original thinking aside, the book also makes a gross error in structuring the idea of motivation in favor of appealing to the average reader. More specifically, Pink uses the overused metaphor from software development to refer to Motivation 1.0, 2.0, and finally 3.0. (Too) Many books use the “x.0″ version metaphor to refer to a process of evolution. Pink uses it to say that man started with Motivation 1.0 – the need to survive – where hunger, sex, etc. where the key motivators. Then man evolved and came up with production lines and the need to motivate workers so he invented Motivation 2.0 – extrinsic motivation – carrots and sticks to get workers more motivated. Finally, our society evolved into current day information workers who are not motivated by carrots and sticks anymore, so man invented Motivation 3.0 – intrinsic motivation – built upon a sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

That’s a nice story. But it’s not true. Motivation 3.0 is not the evolution of Motivation 2.o in the same way that Motivation 2.o is not the evolution of Motivation 1.0. All three were always there, inside each and every one of us…it’s just that different environments and context tend to bring out the different types of motivation.

Here’s how I think motivation should be framed:

The structure of motivation

Motivation can be separated into extrinsic vs. intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation achieves the best results when it supports a well-defined goal, one with a clear path which can be broken into a set of discrete steps. This is because extrinsic motivators tend to narrow our focus. Extrinsic motivators can be divided into contingent (if-then, “strings attached”) and non-contingent (“no strings attached”). I make this distinction because extrinsic motivators produce very different results when strings are attached vs. when no strings are attached. The rule of thumb is that if you’re going to use extrinsic motivators, it’s better to leave the strings unattached and instead surprise your users with a reward (as opposed to saying “if you do this, you’ll get that”). Intrinsic motivation in the diagram above is based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and includes Pink’s Motivation 1.0 (physiological + safety needs) and Motivation 3.0 (love, belonging, esteem, self-actualization). It’s also where Self-Determination (autonomy, mastery, purpose) fits in on the upper part of the pyramid. Intrinsic motivation is best suited for goals that require creativity because they don’t have a clear path to completion.

A final note about efficacy. Intrinsic motivation is generally regarded as more powerful than its extrinsic counterpart. I like to intuitively think about intrinsic motivation = need + action where in extrinsic motivation there’s only the action (going after something that’s outside of you, without having that internal drive to keep you going).

References:

How Small Wins Unleash Creativity

The Progress Principle

Self-Determination Theory in Virtual Environments and Video Games

Richard Bartle

It’s 1996 and Bartle publishes a paper titled Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit Muds in which he describes how he identified four player types – achievers, explorers, socializers, and killers – by analyzing a “…long, heated discussion which ran from November 1989 to May 1990 between the wizzes (ie. highly experienced players, of rank wizard or witch) on one particular commercial MUD in the UK (Bartle, 1985).”

Fast forward some 15 years…

It’s 2012 and Bartle delivers a talk about his work on player types at GSummit, the biggest event in the gamification industry (see featured video). Watching the video, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad for Bartle. All the British irony and accent, couldn’t mask the hurt I heard in Bartle’s voice as he stood on stage and tried to explain (perhaps for the millionth time) the following key points:

Gamification is NOT a game

Most game designers / experts / theorists / writers / researchers can’t stand the notion of Gamification. Even the mention of the word, makes them feel uncomfortable. For them, gamification can be compared to someone claiming they can conduct an orchestra by flapping their hands around. Bartle is a skillful conductor who orchestrated a beautiful piece about player types which was unfortunately mixed by some Gamification DJ into a best selling pop hit. Gamification, in its misinterpretation of Bartle’s work, catapulted Bartle into the spotlight of a community he never wanted to be part of.

Just because something works, DOESN’T make it right

If you watch Bartle’s talk, he starts by saying that his player type methodology was intended for games but somehow works for gamification. BUT (and this is a BIG but), just because something works doesn’t make it right. Gamification has taken Bartle’s player type methodology at face value. There isn’t a single presentation on gamification these days that doesn’t include the (in)famous Bartle player types graph. The world is divided into two kinds of people – those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t. Bartle’s player types graph appeals to our need for order, for categorization, for putting people into “boxes” so that we can cater to their needs, so that we know how to interact with them, and we can anticipate their next move. I’ve yet to see a presentation that included Bartle’s player types slide and then followed up with a slide that says what you can actually do after you’ve figured out that your target audience includes achievers, explorers, socializers, and killers. It’s like saying that you’re target audience includes men and women.

The (in)famous player types graph by Richard Bartle

A methodology, NOT a solution

Here’s the punch line. Walk into any boardroom full of suits trying to figure out if gamification is good for their business and tell them about Bartle’s four player types. You should be saying something like “In order to successfully integrate gamification into your business you must first UNDERSTAND your users. According to Richard Bartle (a distinguished professor, yada, yada, yada) there are four player types – achievers, explorers, socializers, and…”. I guarantee you that by the time you hit them with “Killers”, they’ll be eating out of your hand. Instantly, their eyes will open wide and they’ll start jamming together on this piece of anecdotal science you just introduced into their boring lives. Now add something about how killers love competition and you can sell them on the idea of adding a leaderboard to their website. Congratulations, you made a sale! That is the real reason why Bartle’s player types work for gamification…because it sells gamification.

Why is that so bad you may ask…and that’s a very good question.

It’s because it makes us (gamification folks) lazy. Why work hard to understand Bartle’s work when he’s already done the hard work for us? Bartle created a methodology for understand player types in games because he was curious about who plays games and why. The four player types he uncovered are but ONE instance of his methodology which is really a way of segmenting the world around us (into categories) based on certain characteristics / attributes. Machine learning algorithms do it automatically and in multiple dimensions (not just x and y) as part of many applications we used today…they do it to “make sense” of the world, to show you just the right ad, propose the right music, and more.

If we continue to make mindless use of research in general, and Bartle’s work specifically, two things are sure to happen:

1. People will get tired of hearing about the same thing over and over again. Once clients realize that besides the cool sounding descriptive types, there’s no real methodology in place that they can use to create a more appealing / successful gamification project…well, let’s just say I don’t think they’ll be happy…

2. Gamification research will stagnate – there won’t be a need to find new ways of understanding users, players, or people in general, because we’ll always revert back to our true and tested “science.”

Instead, we need ways to personalize the gamified experience, to step away from clearly delineating our users / players, to understand that it’s not just about the player but also about the environment / context and the relationship between the two. Our users / players are members of more than one type “cluster” – they may belong to multiple types – at any given situation / context. For example, they may be achievers when it comes to making a sale, but they are explorers when it comes to engaging others in a meeting. I think they deserve a personalized, context-aware, gamified experience. Or we could just call them “killers” and be done with it.

Building a Gamification strategy for WomenLEAD was challenging for many reasons, but most challenging of all was the fact that this platform was targeting a very specific audience – businesswomen.

While games are played by both men and women, there is a stark difference in what types of games and gamification approaches men and women prefer. Studies have shown that while men prefer games that emphasize competition, mastery, destruction, violence, trial and error, and spatial puzzles (amongst others), women prefer emotion, nurturing, real world connection, learning by example, and dialog and verbal puzzles. In general women represent 42% of all video-gamers, while for mobile and social games women are the majority in the range of 60-70%. (source: enterprise-gamification.com)

Studies and statistics are great. They help us generalize certain a certain “Truth” about the world which can guide our approach to a specific problem. However, take these generalizations with a grain of salt and look for what’s right for your users. In the case of WomenLEAD, we wanted to know if our businesswomen played games and if they did what games were they playing and why. We decided to conduct several focus groups to get some answers to these questions.

In an age of sophisticated data mining technologies, it’s amazing what you can learn simply by talking to your users. For example, we learned that many of our users play casual games on Facebook and almost all of them play Farmville. That’s not surprising because 53-percent of Zynga players are women between 25 and 44 (source). However, when we asked the women in our focus group why they played Farmville and what kept them coming back, they told us that it was finding out a friend had visited their farm and helped them out that made their playing experience meaningful. If you haven’t played Farmville, visiting a friend’s farm and helping them out (like watering their crops) is one way of earning credit in the game. But for the women playing Farmville, it wasn’t about the credits, it wasn’t about competition (i.e., who can earn the most credits), it was about Relatedness, Acknowledgement, and Embellishment.

Farm Art

Relatedness

One of the principles of Self-Determination Theory, relatedness symbolizes the fact that we’re inherently social beings and are motivated by a need to interact with others, make connections, and be part of some community. Being able to visit other farms, gave female players the opportunity to satisfy their need for social interaction in a way that required very little effort on their end (visiting another farm is just a mouse click away). Being able to help out once on someone’s farm, made the social interaction meaningful (visiting without the option of action / helping, would have changed the nature of this game dynamic from emotion (= social connection) to exploration (= curious about what’s out there)…making it less attractive for female players.

Acknowledgement

A powerful intrinsic motivator…we all want to be acknowledged for who we are, the things we’re good at, something we’ve done. In real life, it’s often difficult to satisfy the need for acknowledgement. There are so many ways in which to get recognition that people often drown in the noise. Farmville makes it easy for players to stand out by offering a fixed number of actions and objects from which to choose and a stage ( = farm) on which to shine. That means every player has the same inventory to work with and an open channel to a huge community. Acknowledgement results from doing something creative with the inventory you’ve been given and attracting people to your farm. The women in our focus group craved acknowledgement…most of them played short sessions of Farmville while at work as a way of getting a quick acknowledgment “fix.”

Embellishment

Whether it’s an avatar, a farm, or both…we love to decorate, design, and customize ourselves and the objects we own. Embellishment is not necessarily bad, in fact, when done in moderation it’s an excellent outlet for creativity and uniqueness.

Takeaway message:

Bunchball’s Psych Club (source)

So how can you translate the concepts we discussed above from Game to Gamification? Bunchball used a room metaphor for USA Network’s Psych Club allowing fans to create and customize their own room with trophies, memorabilia, and more.

A player’s room on Club Psych

When you have an asthma attack, you can’t breathe. When you can’t breathe, you can hardly talk. To make a sentence all you get is the air in your lungs. Which isn’t much. Three to six words, if that. You learn the value of words. You rummage through the jumble in your head. Choose the crucial ones–those cost you, too. Let healthy people toss out whatever comes to mind, the way you throw out the garbage. When an asthmatic says “I love you,” and when an asthmatic says “I love you madly,” there’s a difference. The difference of a word. A word’s a lot. It could be “stop,” or “inhaler.” It could be “ambulance.”

GeckoCap is an up and coming startup that has set out to revolutionize the way people manage their asthma. The (Gecko) cap itself is a small glowing smart button that can be easily added to any asthma inhaler. The fun, colorful, and durable design is made for kids. There are no batteries to replace, cables, or hassle. What’s really awesome is that the cap starts glowing when the next dose is due.

I recently learned that people with asthma have, not one, but two distinct inhalers – one called maintenance and the other rescue. This came as a surprise because my understanding of asthma was mostly shaped by characters like Mikey from the movie The Goonies who puffed on his inhaler whenever something scary or exciting was about to happen. For years, I was under the impression that this was how asthma patients dealt with their condition – by puffing on an inhaler whenever asthma flared up. But like so many other Hollywood-induced misconceptions , that’s not how it works and Mikey was displaying a blatant non adherence to the prescribed medical regimen. In other words, Mickey wasn’t using his maintenance inhaler like he should have.

Patient adherence to medical regimens is a major problem in chronic disease management. Adherence to asthma medication regimens tends to be very poor, with the reported rates of non adherence ranging from 30 to 70 percent. That’s an insanely high number.

What is the medication regimen for asthma?

Long-term asthma control medications: Taken regularly to control chronic symptoms and prevent asthma attacks — the most important type of treatment for most people with asthma. This is the maintenance inhaler which contains corticosteroids (to relieve symptoms).

Quick-relief: Taken as needed for rapid, short-term relief of symptoms — used to prevent or treat an asthma attack. This is the rescue inhaler which contains short-acting beta agonists (to open airways).

Doctors instruct their asthma patients to use the maintenance inhaler once (sometimes twice) a day on a daily basis and only use the rescue inhaler in case of an attack. But most patients don’t use the maintenance inhaler and only carry the rescue inhaler to “treat” attacks.

Why?

The Behavioral Psychology explanation

Dan Ariely, professor of behavioral economics at Dukes University, says that it’s hard for us to act based on future reward. We’re just not programmed to endure a long wait time in anticipation of a reward. Ariely says there’s no use fighting our human inclination to procrastinate. Instead, he proposes to associate an unpleasant task with an immediate reward. For asthma patients, the relief brought on by the rescue inhaler is physical, emotional, it’s the immediate reward of your airways opening up and allowing you to breath. It’s an intense experience, that I can only imagine. What is the reward of using the maintenance inhaler? Well, it’s decreasing the chance of an attack in the long term. But remember, we’re not programmed to act based on long term rewards. We’re impatient. We want it now. The rescue inhaler provides that causal relationship between our asthma and its relief.

The Brain & Cognitive Science explanation

A team of researchers at MIT, led by Institute Professor Ann Graybiel — who is also an investigator at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research — decided to study how dopamine changes during a maze task approximating work for delayed gratification. The researchers trained rats to navigate a maze to reach a reward. During each trial a rat would hear a tone instructing it to turn either right or left at an intersection to find a chocolate milk reward. Previous studies have linked dopamine to rewards, and have shown that dopamine neurons show brief bursts of activity when animals receive an unexpected reward. These dopamine signals are believed to be important for reinforcement learning, the process by which an animal learns to perform actions that lead to reward. From previous work, the researchers expected that they might see pulses of dopamine released at different times in the trial, “but in fact we found something much more surprising,” Graybiel says: The level of dopamine increased steadily throughout each trial, peaking as the animal approached its goal — as if in anticipation of a reward. I’d be shocked if something similar were not happening in our own brains.” It’s known that Parkinson’s patients, in whom dopamine signaling is impaired, often appear to be apathetic, and have difficulty in sustaining motivation to complete a long task. “Maybe that’s because they can’t produce this slow ramping dopamine signal,” Graybiel says.

If we accept Graybiel’s hypothesis that the same dopamine ramping effect happens in humans, we have to ask ourselves: For how long? How much dopamine is our brain able to produce in order to sustain our engagement toward an anticipated reward? An hour? A day? Maybe a month? Trying to answer this question might start to explain the typical procrastination behavior Ariely describes when people are faced with long-term goals. Is it really likely that the brain can sustain an increasing (!) level of dopamine over the span of a week or a month? I’d bet our hypothalamus would burn out long before it was able to produce that much dopamine. What’s more likely is that when we set out to conquer a goal our brain produces dopamine to get us fired up but as time passes dopamine levels drop and we procrastinate.

Takeaway message:

• Associate an unpleasant tasks with an immediate reward or replace a negative reward with a positive one (for example, it’s been shown that dieting with friends / others is more effective because it replaces a negative reward, i.e., unhealthy eating, with a positive reward, i.e., social connection and relatedness).
• Break a long-term goal into smaller short-term goals (or milestones) allowing for more opportunities to reward (or correct a behavior in case of failure).

References:

http://www.uptodate.com/contents/enhancing-patient-adherence-to-asthma-therapy

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8298770

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/how-brain-remains-focused-on-long-term-goals-0804.html

The paper explores (as the title suggests) the relationship between player matching, mastery, and engagement in skill-based games (there’s a link at the end, in case you want to download the original paper). In the paper, we make the following claim:

Player matching that is fair (= players are on the same skill level), gives players a sense of progress (= on the path to mastery), which in turn keeps them engaged.

For example, if you match a strong player with a weak player, the strong player will get bored (not enough challenge), whereas, the weak player will get frustrated (to much challenge). Either way, the likelihood that both players will keep playing (= engaged) is very small.

Challenge vs. Skill

The approach we proposed for the player matching problem was an algorithm based on the Elo rating system, a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in competitor-versus-competitor games such as chess, named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-born American physics professor. Intuitively, our approach says that a higher rated player gains fewer rating points by beating a lower rated player, and a lower rated player gains more rating points by beating a higher rated player. Over time, players reach their relative skill level. We use this approach to model players’ skill and relative rankings, as well as, modify ratings once players have played against one another, resulting in fair matches between players with the same skill level.

Although the focus of this research was skill-based games, we believe our approach (and claim) has implications for Gamification, that is, to increase fairness in gamification by matching users and tasks based on skill level. For example, we know that if places on a leaderboard are calculated relative to first place, then the leaderboard in not balanced which may cause occasional users to stop playing, and new players to not play at all. Our approach can segment users into groups based on their ratings calculated from points awarded, badges earned, missions completed, etc. These weighted groups can then be fitted with custom leaderboards that display a player’s place relative to others in the group. Furthermore, users in gamified applications are required to complete various tasks. Our approach can be used to ensure that users are on the path to mastery (= engaged) by matching them with tasks that are within their skill level.

Takeaway message:

Make sure that user-to-task matching within your gamified environment follows the Goldilocks principle, i.e., if a task is too difficult, a user will likely get discouraged and quit. Moreover, if a task is too easy, a user will not feel challenged and quit. A fair user-to-task match ensures that a user remains on the path to mastery and, therefore, engaged.

Download the full paper