GAETSS February 2014 Newsletter

Gamification is a process which shapes the world (achieves goals/objectives)
by influencing the actions, behaviours, characteristics and state of entities within the world (through the use of games strategies and enabling technologies)

January and February have been incredibly busy and insightful months and this is reflected in the volume and type of content this month. I have set out my views on the concept and importance of gamification in a short video called “Gamify or Die”, published a white paper on Immersive Learning Environments and developed a workshop / lecture format for teaching leadership, enterprise and collaboration skills through Gamification and enabling technologies.

I have also reached agreements to collaborate with IORMA, the International Omni Retail Marketing Association as a member of their Advisory Board and to become an Associate of PERA Technology and offer support to SMEs interested in securing funding for their business and/or product development. I am delighted also to be developing connections with two internet broadcasting organisations, Ginicam and TimeTag TV. Over the last 4 weeks I have attended the BETT, Learning Technologies and ICE Exhibitions in London, a Virtual Reality Launch Event and the CLAHRC – Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care Conference on “Healthy Living for Longer”in Loughborough where I met a number of medical professionals with whom I would like to collaborate to address global health issues such as obesity and diabetes.

All this is included in this month’s newsletter along with some of my possibly controversial views on gamification and its impact of business and society.

In this Newsletter

 Gamify or Die (the Ads are at the End) Video

 Knowledge Professionals and Gamification – Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?

 Teaching Leadership, Enterprise, Collaboration and Self Management Skills with the Gamification Workshop

 Immersive Learning Environments White Paper

 The BETT, Learning Technologies and ICE Exhibitions in London

 The “Healthy Living for Longer” CLAHRC Conference at Loughborough University

 The Inition Virtual Reality Networking Event

 The Ginicam Internet Broadcasting Solution for Monetising Knowledge and Brand Development

 TimeTag TV Knowledge Dissemination Technology

 Ingenia – A Gamification Case Study

 PERA Technology Services for Funding and Product Development

 IORMA, the International Omni Retail Marketing Association

 Upcoming Conferences and Seminars

 Slideshare Archives

Gamify or Die (The Ads are at the End) Video

Gamification can be regarded a “New Kid on the Block” or a “Flavour of the Month” in many respects and there are probably as many definitions of Gamifications as there are people and organisations developing Gamification solutions and services. Although I am not fond of the word, “Gamification” is probably the best term to articulate the techniques used since the dawn of time to shape the world we live in today. Each of us as individuals can only succeed in managing our lives and achieving our goals by developing skills and techniques that influence others to support (consciously or unconsciously) those objectives. We do this by identifying and creating “Win-Win” relationships which align our goals with those of others.

I have produced a short video presentation (8 minutes long) to try to articulate my view that Gamification is an essential requirement for Life and that the instinct to Gamify is embedded in our genes. One of the reasons why I believe that the development of gamification skills in all sectors of business and society is that the nature of the world we live in today “de-sensitises” us to some of the really important global challenges in health, education, security and the environment and causes us to “sleepwalk” into potentially disastrous situations for our future. I believe that the development of gamification skills can have a significant impact on business and society and help us to assume more individual control and responsibility for our lives to the benefit of all.

Knowledge Professionals and Gamification
Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?

Especially over the last few years, I have frequently found myself speaking at International Conferences on subjects where I have been the least knowledgeable person. These include conferences on defence, healthcare, geoinformatics, aviation training, climate change. The fact that I am invited to speak at such conferences is not the result of any contribution I might be able to make to advance state of the art knowledge of their discipline but increasingly because I see the impact of the enabling technologies I work with eroding the status of the Knowledge Professional in almost every area of business and society.

This growing phenomenon is seen, amongst many others, in the teaching, medical, legal and defence sectors. Teachers can find themselves knowing less than their students, Doctors less than their patients and so on. This situation arises out of the instant access to knowledge we now have through the internet and a myriad of connected devices and enables those with the motivation, interest and passion to rapidly acquire knowledge and “leap-frog” over the “experts”. Where this phenomenon is accepted as an inevitability and properly understood, knowledge professionals, rather than feeling threatened by the change, can embrace and welcome it by changing their role from “The Sage on the Stage” to more of a facilitation, coaching or “Mentor in the Middle” role.

Many knowledge professionals, especially those where several years of training are required to achieve qualification, are very protective of their knowledge and their status, and trying to open their eyes to the impact of enabling technologies seems like trying to sell Christmas to a Turkey. I had my own eyes opened back in 1998 after I started the ComKnet project in my community only to discover that my milkman, Frank Bingley, had already developed a solution that was very similar in concept to what I had just secured £250k funding for.

I see the growing empowerment of individuals, through the use of enabling technologies, as a very significant development which, rather than threatening teachers, doctors, lawyers and other knowledge professionals, provides a wonderful opportunity for multi-disciplinary collaboration that could contribute to solving the global challenges we face in health, security and the environment. I am convinced, from my own use of lifestyle technologies, that, by collaborating with health professionals and experts on nutrition and exercise, I could benefit the lives of millions of people and save the health service substantial sums of money.

It is not an easy task to persuade knowledge professionals of the reality of the impact of enabling technologies but I am encouraged by such developments as British Gas offering “Smart Meters” to their customers to reduce their usage of energy. At first sight, this would seem counter-intuitive from British Gas’s perspective. I remember trying to sell the “Smart Meter” idea to them almost 6 years ago but at last they realise that using technology to build “win-win” relationships with their customers is the best way to develop sustainable and profitable commercial relationships.

I hope that knowledge professionals in other areas will begin to embrace this notion and see that building “win-win” relationships with those they seek to serve by using Gamification and Enabling Technologies is a positive way ahead.

Teaching Leadership, Enterprise, Collaboration and Self Management Skills with the Gamification Workshop

The GAITTS Gamification and Enabling Technologies workshop is a highly interactive and personalised two day set of activities designed to enhance participant gamification skills and their understanding and capacity to deploy enabling technologies to achieve personal or organisational goals.

It is a multidisciplinary workshop intended to deliver improvements in :-

 Leadership skills

 Enterprise and innovation

 Relationship building

 Collaboration skills

 Self development

The workshop can be provided in a variety of formats ranging from an introductory one hour boardroom briefing or lecture to a 2-3 day intensive workshop packed with personalised exercises and brainstorming sessions designed to create visible impact and improvement on participant skills.

I have published a workshop flyer draft which can easily be downloaded from Slideshare

Immersive Learning Environments White Paper

I was commissioned to write a white paper on Immersive Learning Environments (ILE) by London-based specialists Immerse Learning who have been pioneering facilitated ILEs, especially for language training for some years. They originally worked with the Second Life platform but now have developed some very interesting and functional ILEs with Unity. The Unity platform is rapidly becoming a kind of de facto standard for serious games and Immersive Learning Applications and has been used for a number of projects that I have been involved in with my Italian games-based learning partner, Imaginary.

Writing a White Paper on ILEs proved to be an interesting exercise that caused me to reflect on how many years I have been working with a multiplicity of facilitated learning environments to deliver webinars and hybrid conferences.

I have published the White Paper on Slideshare and, coincidentally, Birmingham based Daden have also published their own White Paper on the same topic. The Daden White Paper is available for download at http://www.daden.co.uk/downloads/Immersive%20Learning%20Education%20and%20Training%20v1.pdf

The BETT, Learning Technologies and ICE Exhibitions in London

Late January and Early February is the traditional time for some of the most established and largest conferences and exhibitions on Gamification Enabling Technologies. I made my annual pilgrimage to the BETT and Learning Technologies Shows which focus on educational applications.

Although I did not attend any of the keynote presentations or workshop sessions, wandering round the exhibitions gave me a very good idea of some of the trends in educational technologies and I saw the growing focus on cloud-based services and tools to support assessment of students.

There were also many examples of different types of classroom technologies which have been gradually maturing over the years, such as interactive whiteboards and projectors. Games-based learning applications also continue to increase in penetration.

What caught my attention at the Educational Technology shows was a stand on the Learning Technologies Show featuring a cloud based service called “TimeTag TV”, featured in more depth later in this newsletter.

The real “eye-opener” as far as Gamification is concerned was a visit tom the “ICE” show at the Excel Arena. I was invited by Kevin Williams, Founder of the DNA initiative and one of the world’s leading experts on “Out of Home” Digital Entertainment technologies. The ICE exhibition largely focuses on the Gaming industry and is heavily populated with gambling technologies such as slot machines and the latest in interactive gaming solutions. The ICE show is one of the very few exhibitions capable of attracting enough exhibitors to fill both sides of the Excel Arena and I witnessed the use of advanced technologies such as 3D holography. The technologies that are commercially developed for these highly lucrative industries will find their way into homes and businesses in the future as the become increasing consumerised and embedded into our daily lives.

The “Healthy Living for Longer” CLAHRC Conference at Loughborough University

A Valentine’s Day theme was very much in evidence when I registered for the “Healthy Living for Longer” conference organised by the East Midlands Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) network. I think I was the only person at the conference who was not either from or trained in medical practices. My reason for attending was principally to meet Professor Kamil Khunti who is one of the leading experts in Diabetes and to open up a collaboration dialogue to try to leverage my expertise and experience in gamification and enabling technologies to address health issues such as obesity and diabetes where a healthy lifestyle can make a substantial contribution to the health of our global community.

The Keynote presentation was delivered by Professor Sir Muir Gray of BVHC (Better Value Healthcare) in Oxford. His was an inspirational keynote which resonated very strongly with my views on the impact of technologies such as the smartphone. The conference was a very valuable opportunity to learn about CLAHRC and its strategy for collaboration. I very much hope to build fruitful partnership projects with Prof Khunti (Preventative Actions), Prof Sally Singh (Chronic Condition Management) and Prof Sir Muir Gray (Cost Effective Healthcare)

The  Inition Virtual Reality Networking Event

This virtual reality networking event took place at Inition offices in Hoxton, London and included a serious number of VR demonstrators with many opportunities to try out VR headsets and motion tracking with 3D technology used for entertainment, commercial and health applications. The event also included augmented and blended reality applications with a few demonstrators that also included sensory experiences such as a simulated parachute jump complete with wind blowing your hair.

For more details go to http://www.meetup.com/London-Oculus-Rift-VR-Developer-Meetup/

The  Ginicam Internet Broadcasting Solution for Monetising Knowledge and Brand Development

I was first introduced to Ginicam at a taster event a couple of years ago. Now that the product is nearing launch, I recently resumed discussions with the originators of Ginicam and grow increasingly excited at the potential of this internet broadcasting solution to revolutionise opportunities for knowledge professionals to generate income and adopt a totally new business model for monetising knowledge.

The Founders of Ginicam are also offering an investment opportunity which is shown below :-

Ginicam allows people around the globe to engage online in live interactive conversations, presentations or entertainment for free or on a pay per view basis charged by the minute or session. Please click here for the Ginicam introduction and overview document. 

Please click on the film links below to gain more detailed information about Ginicam and examples of use:
A presentation about Ginicam and Gininet
Olympic athlete Dwain Chambers undertakes the first transaction on Ginicam
Actress Gillian Taylforth giving advice about acting

We are about to commence trading with celebrity led content on Eventbrite and Groupon. We are unlike most other tech start-ups in that we generate trading revenue from the time of go-live.

We have agreed to build white label Gininet websites for the ISMM – Institute of Sales and Marketing Management, IPM – Institute of Promotional Marketing and the CIPR – Chartered Institute of Public Relations. We already have created a cash generating test version VIA World – Virtual Incubator and Accelerator World. This is a project to bring organisations in the start-up tech space together on a global basis. You can see this at viaworld.org.

We are currently selling shares at £10 each and the minimum investment is just £1,000. We have up to £250,000 shares available. Ginicam Limited is a private limited company. All of the shares are ordinary shares of which there are one Million. The IP, patent pending and all of the trading entities and URL’s sit within Ginicam Limited. We have ensured that we can sell shares to bring in investment to get the business fully live and trading without any of the current shareholders having to dilute. Please note that we will increase the cost price of shares to £20 each once we are live. If you would like to invest or have recently expressed an interest in investing, please contact me.

We keep investors updated with progress through our shareholder updates, which are sent out every 2 to 3 weeks. There are other shareholder benefits in that you receive 1.5% of gross trading revenues of any people or organisations you introduce to Ginicam.

We have a business prospectus, 5 year cash flow projection, IP valuation and are happy to share with you. Please feel free to contact me if you require any further information or have questions.

Yours sincerely,
Steve Sampson
CEO
Ginicam
Email: Steve@ginicam.com

I plan to visit the Technical Team developing Ginicam and provide a report in a future newsletter

TimeTag TV  Knowledge Dissemination Technology

I visited the TimeTag TV stand at Learning Technologies recently and was impressed by its potential to make knowledge more accessible by using speech to text technology to automatically create metatags for video presentations and sub-titles. This, like Ginicam, has massive potential implications for any applications which involve the sharing of rich knowledge.

For more details, contact Stephen Clee at steve@timetag.tv or visit www.timetag.tv

Ingenie – A Gamification Case Study

I came across Ingenie by accident when I was browsing the web. I believe it is an excellent case study example of the enabling technologies of measurement and feedback (telematics) can be used to gamify an industry to create fresh “win-win” opportunities by empowering the customer to take responsibility for managing their own situation, in this case young driver insurance.

The Ingenie proposition involves fitting a driver monitoring device in the car and using a variety of feedback channels to let the young driver know how he/she is performing and provide incentives in the form of insurance discounts for good driving behaviours.

This same concept can be applied across many sectors to give competitive advantage through gamification strategies

PERA  Technology Services for Funding and Product Development

I attended a workshop at the HQ of PERA Technology in Melton Mowbray to register my interest in becoming an Associate Consultant for their LEAP programme. PERA have an enviable track record for securing European funding and with the launch of the Horizon 2020 programme, the EU will be providing substantial funding to encourage SMEs to innovate new products. Through PERA’s LEAP programme, I can get access to their specialist resources for product development, public funding, consultancy and advice on tax relief for R&D.

If you would like to find out more, email me at david@gaitss.net

IORMA - the International Omni Retail Marketing Association

This month, I also accepted an invitation to join the Advisory Board of Iorma, and Association which provides a range of services and specialist expertise around the future of commerce and the impact of technology on the way we do business. I hope to provide my thoughts on the role of Gamification and Enabling Technologies and am very excited at being involved with so many and varied experts in this field.

To learn more about IORMA, visit their web site at www.iorma.com

Upcoming Conferences

To access the latest list of upcoming conferences http://www.davidwortley.com/events.html

Archived Presentations, Images and Videos

I am archiving as many of my previous presentation, videos and event images as possible. You can access these from my web site at :- http://www.davidwortley.com/conferences.html or visit my Slideshare page at :- http://www.slideshare.net/dwortley/

If you would like any presentations, videos or documents circulated to my network, I am happy to provide this service free of charge for any material relevant to readers of this newsletter. If you are interested, contact me at david@davidwortley.com.