After Pokemon GO, a lot of event professionals renewed their interest in games. This article from The Meeting Professional magazine gives some examples and discusses strategies for using gameplay in business events.

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vent gamification is loosely defined as the use
of game mechanics—goals, rules, feedback,
and voluntary participation—to meet event
objectives. In the event industry, games are being
used to enhance the attendee experience, foster
learning, drive engagement and reward participation,
among other objectives. Although there are naysayers
within the ranks of event organizers, game strategy is
becoming more widely discussed and implemented
across the event industry. Apparently, fun is catching on at
business-to-business events.
B Y M I C H E L L E B R U N O
E
GotGamification?
MeetingEventGoalsWithGames
There are plenty of reasons why event
organizers might be cool to the concept
of gamification. For some, it simply crosses
over the“one more thing”threshold—one
more task for event planners to perform,
one more hoop for exhibitors to jump
through or one more app that attendees
have to download in order to play. Others
operate under the assumption that game
play isn’t a good fit for their audiences or
collecting badges, answering trivia ques-
tions and participating in challenges is
too much of a distraction in a business set-
ting. Nevertheless, such sentiment hasn’t
stopped a number of organizations from
giving games a go.
Game Play atTrade Shows
Even as Stephanie German, education
and conference associate for the Ameri-
can Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and
self-described “app junkie,” was discuss-
ing the use of a mobile app game with
colleagues, reservations surfaced about
the impact it would have on attendees.
“Some believed it could be a distraction or
just one more added thing for attendees
to have to do,” she says. Despite its reluc-
tance, AWEA wanted to drive traffic and
increase engagement between presenters

3. 104 THE MEETING PROFESSIONAL JUNE 2016
and attendees in the poster section of the
association’s annual conference, so they
took a chance on gamification.
AWEA modified the traditional scav-
enger hunt game that came with its con-
ference directory app. Rather than collect
“things,” participants were required to
visit posters and absorb the content well
enough to answer questions served up
by the app. “It increased exposure for the
poster presenters and they loved it,” Ger-
man says. “Attendees liked it because it
was a challenging and fun way to learn.”
The association was also pleased because
the game was inclusive—people without
a science background or those new to the
industry could still succeed at the game.
The National Fire Protection Associa-
tion (NFPA) recently gave an iPad Jeopardy
wall a try. The group first hosted a series
of trivia-style games in its booths at other
national exhibitions. The questions were
designed to test participants on facets
of the National Electrical Code (NEC) for
which the association is responsible and
select finalists for the NEC Challenge, a
competition that takes place at the annual
NFPA Conference & Expo. For the 2016
Challenge, NFPA opted to integrate a
Jeopardy-style game using 36 iPads
mounted on a wall, a buzzer system and a
scoreboard.The winner took home $5,000.
Game strategy is a more impactful
way to educate practitioners on an other-
wise lackluster topic, according to Daniel
Whiting, content marketing manager at
NFPA. “The NEC code is very dry. It’s black
and white,”he says.“There’s no sizzle there
when it comes to code.” A game strategy
motivated attendees—both those who
competed in the challenge and others
who observed the contestants—to learn
the code in an entertaining way. When the
iPad wall wasn’t being used for the NEC
Challenge, it stood in the NEC booth test-
ing players on the 2017 code, which had
been newly introduced. Players received
prizes for correct answers.
Gamification served another purpose
for NFPA.With a large constituency of Baby
Boomers in its ranks, the association was
eager to find ways to bring new attendees
into the fold. This past year the association
invited trainees from the Joint Apprentice
Training Center of the local International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for a
reception and to play the NEC Jeopardy
game. “There was a little bit of something
for everyone. For the older demographic,
Jeopardy was familiar and the technology
blew their minds. For the younger crowd,
the iPads and game format were more
accessible,”Whiting explains.
Game Play at Corporate Events
Ryan Rutan was looking for something
bigger than gamifying one element of
programming for his event when, as the
developer evangelist at Jive Software, he
developed the JiveWorld Game Series in
2013. Rutan designed multiple contests
for the company’s annual conference:
performing specific tasks in exchange for
digital badges; taking and sharing pho-
tographs, which qualified participants for
badges, entry into a drawing and voting
up by the Jive Community; and tweeting
about the conference, which earned the
top three winners a special badge and iPad
Mini tablets.
Rutan sees a tight fit between event
objectives and game play. “Overall, I see
gamification as a strategy to reinforce
the higher-level business objectives and
outcomes that are already in place at
an event. The games are a friendly and
approachable way for companies to disclose
their‘agendas,’thereasonsforputtingonlive
events, and raise the level of engagement
and user interaction, which is the single
mostimportantfacetofliveeventsgiventhe
advancements in technology.”
There are other reasons why Rutan
turned to game play. By assigning partic-
ipants with tasks that encapsulated the
entire JiveWorld experience—interacting
with peers, sharing on social media and
learning about new products—the com-
pany “reached outcomes aligned with the
goals of the conference,” he says. Rutan
was also keen to blend the diverse cultures
that separate attendees. “We have a lot of
millennials coming up in the ranks.We also
have Gen Xers at the top. Games and fun
tend to have a good harmonizing effect.”
The data that comes out of game play
is gold for companies like Jive. Using an
enterprise gamification platform to man-
age the rules, track participant progress
and incorporate other technology like
the conference mobile app, Rutan’s firm is
able to connect some important dots.“You
can look at the event and see things like
these 10 people decided to become hot
after JiveWorld on products X, Y and Z,”
he says. “We can take a look at where they
went at JiveWorld, which people they con-
nected with, who they followed and how
their social graphs changed, and look for
commonalities.”
Rutan turned to game strategy to
extend engagement and its benefits
beyond the two days of JiveWorld. A game
strategy that starts 30 days before the
conference and continues 30 days after is
able to “give the conference a lift in social
marketing and amplify our brand voice,”
he says. After the event, JiveWorld orga-
nizers gamify the return of post-event
surveys and drive conversations into the
Jive Community, the online “water cooler”
supported by the firm’s social intranet soft-
ware, where the game play continues.
Design the Best Event Games
Adi Ben-Nesher, founder and managing
partner of London-based SyncPartners,
a global digital talent and organizational
“Begin at the
onboarding
phase with tasks
that will get
people inter-
ested—nothing
too challenging,
nothing that
requires a huge
commitment,
but things that
can be rewarded
in a small way.”
104 THE MEETING PROFESSIONAL DECEMBER 2016

4. MPIWEB.ORG 105
transformation consultancy, uses gamifi-
cation principles to modify behaviors and
facilitate change management for corpora-
tions. He advises that event organizers first
determine which behaviors and for whom
(games don’t have to apply only to attend-
ees) they want to change—getting more
conference goers onto the trade show
floor, for example, and mapping (then gam-
ifying) the specific steps an attendee takes
when deciding to go from conference to
trade show.
It’s critical that challenge and motivation
evolve as the game progresses.“Begin at the
onboarding phase with tasks that will get
people interested—nothing too challeng-
ing, nothing that requires a huge commit-
ment, but things that can be rewarded in a
small way,” Ben-Nesher says. “Slowly build
on the early interest of the participant by
gradually increasing the challenges and the
rewards.” At a certain point, he suggests,
“turn the rewards from external, like give-
aways or VIP invitations, to internal, such as
recognition for being the‘networking ninja.’”
Tactics that promote game play at an
event are important, Ben-Nesher says. Sim-
ple giveaways such as exclusive badge rib-
bons and metallic or “bedazzled” lanyards
can become coveted items that coax oth-
ers to participate in game play. Team play is
also a strong motivator.“Teams, even if they
are formed by the organizers, are powerful
because individuals can relate to goals that
are larger than themselves,” he says. “Plus,
it’s easier to quit when you’re only playing
for yourself. When you’re part of a team, no
one wants to let the other team members
down, so they actually play harder.”
Alex Plaxen, founder of Little Bird Told,
a conference-engagement consulting firm,
counsels clients to consider gamifying tasks
that are already successful. For example,
attendees at the annual conference of one
of his organizer clients were in the habit of
collecting buttons from other attendees.
“It made sense to create a game out of that
activity so we decided to ask exhibitors to
also give out buttons and all of a sudden
attendees were going to booths to get
the buttons and have conversations with
exhibitors,”he says.
“People like to get free stuff for doing
things they are already planning to do
anyway,” Plaxen says. At Dreamforce, the
mega conference for users of Salesforce
cloud software, actual clients manned
product stations and delivered case stud-
ies on how they used Salesforce. Attendees
were encouraged to listen to the presenta-
tion in exchange for a stamp, which they
redeemed at a refurbished hotdog cart
filled with free t-shirts. “Not only did they
get people to listen to presentations, but
they created walking billboards to promote
the game,”he adds.
When it comes to game strategy, Jive-
World’s Rutan believes in simplicity: min-
imizing onsite logistics, designing games
that are user driven, even keeping the dig-
ital badge design uniform and easily modi-
fiable. “You can start small with something
very simple like a QR code check-in and still
be effective,”he says. In fact, he believes that
simple game mechanics can be as effective
as more advanced tactics.“Advanced strate-
gies have more dependencies, like the types
of phones people are using and whether
they have Bluetooth turned on. There are all
these barriers that come in.”
Game Strategies Can Fail
Game strategy isn’t right for every event.
“It depends on the business,” Plaxen says.
“There are circumstances in which gam-
ification isn’t a good fit. In a high-profile
networking event or a setting in which
half of the attendees are playing and the
other half aren’t, games can not only be
annoying, but border on unprofessional.”
Instead, he says, “Organizers should ask,
‘Will attendees play and does it add value
to the event?’Otherwise, you run the risk of
sucking the life force out of the event just
to do something that doesn’t benefit them.”
The idea that millennials will participate
because they love games is a tired trope
that event organizers would do well to
avoid, Plaxen advises. As a millennial, even
one who loves to play games, he under-
stands the purpose of some game strate-
gies and keeps his distance.“I don’t want to
go to the booth of a product that I’m not
interested in,”he says.“I don’t want to be on
[the exhibitor’s] mailing list and have to get
off of it. I don’t want to surrender all my per-
sonal information to a company that I have
no intention of buying from. If I don’t want
that product sold to me, I don’t want to play
the game.”
Rutan calls it the “whiplash effect.” It’s
the look of surprise, and, in some cases,
frustration, that occurs when attendees
learn there is a game in place on the first
day of the conference. “You can’t just intro-
duce a person to the game on day one and
expect any meaningful results to come
out of it,” he says. Instead, he recommends
onboarding attendees in advance—mak-
ing sure they download the game app (if
there is one) or starting play before the
conference starts. Preparing players with
messaging that is carefully blended in with
the usual pre-show prep is also a must.
Game strategy has been embedded in
events for decades. The exhibition industry
has used priority points to allocate booth-
space selection and reward loyal exhibitors.
Corporate event planners have deployed
everything from attempts at claiming a
spot in the Guinness Book of World Records
to giant board games. As event technology
evolves and the popularity of consumer
games like Pokémon GO (or its successor)
increases, gamification could soon become
an essential component of event program-
ming—one that even the most traditional
event organizers can go for. n
Michelle Bruno is a writer, blogger and
technology journalist. She publishes Event
TechBrief, a weekly newsletter and website
on event technology. You can reach her at
michelle@brunogroup.com or on Twitter
@michellebruno.
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“It’s easier to quit
when you’re only
playing for your-
self. When you’re
part of a team, no
one wants to let
the other team
members down,
so they actually
play harder.”