Seth Priebatsch on CNN, writing about Louisiana State Penitentiary (a.k.a. Angola), a prison which reduced inmate violence by introducing meaningful rewards they could earn through good behavior – such as an epic rodeo:
Prisoners are willing to face serious injury for the chance to be cheered on by thousands of onlookers. The event represents both an earned right and a true challenge to overcome.
Earned right and true challenge. Well said. A neat badge with a picture of a bull would be laughable here.
You don’t need an app or a product or a business to use game mechanics. You just need a person or a group of people with a behavior that you’d like to change.
Yep – game mechanics aren’t a feature, they’re a way of approaching a problem. They overlap but are not the same as the product; either because the rules could be spread and enforced differently (e.g. without an app); also because the right reward might not be within the product scope. You still want a way to give that reward.
Let your users earn rodeo.
