Build­ing Com­mu­nity While Let­ting Them Play: Gam­ing Dy­nam­ics For Com­mu­nity Building

There are plenty of ways to build a vi­able and thriv­ing on­line community.

Play­ing on the user’s van­ity is one of the most ef­fec­tive, as seen by the pop­u­lar­ity of sites like Face­book. Peo­ple are ex­cited to see their sta­tus mes­sages or posted con­tent ‘liked’, and it fos­ters a new sense of com­mu­nity through a new form of communication.

Sites like Twit­ter, Pin­ter­est and even the more so­cially con­nected ver­sions of tra­di­tional blogs man­age to ex­ploit the same urges.

One method that is just start­ing to re­ally gain trac­tion is us­ing game dy­nam­ics for com­mu­nity build­ing. This is be­ing ap­plied to the same web­sites (think of so­cial games in Face­book that can even be ac­cessed through apps now). Adding a game el­e­ment to the whole process just seems to bet­ter link peo­ple to that com­mu­nity, per­haps be­cause of our com­pet­i­tive na­ture, or maybe just be­cause it is fun.

An­other ex­am­ple can be found on Red­dit. They split posters into teams, with Team Peri­win­kle and Team Or­an­gered. This was all themed to match Team Fortress 2. It was a sim­ple con­cept that man­aged to fos­ter an even greater sense of com­mu­nity than was al­ready present. Peo­ple still have their badges from the ‘game’.

Us­ing Gam­i­fi­ca­tion For Your Own Community

Whether it is on­line or in per­son, such as gam­i­fi­ica­tion for an of­fice set­ting, there are a cou­ple of ways you can start the process.

  • Set Teams - If you were just us­ing gam­i­fi­ca­tion for the sake of mo­ti­va­tion, I would say al­low peo­ple to play as in­di­vid­u­als. But for fos­ter­ing a com­mu­nity, it is bet­ter to have teams of which they can re­late. Set up the teams au­to­mat­i­cally - it will avoid any bad feel­ings stem­ming from be­ing ‘picked last’ - then let them come up with their own names. This is, in and of it­self, a team build­ing and com­mu­nity strength­en­ing exercise.
     
  • Es­tab­lish Re­wards - Don’t use a re­ward sys­tem that is based around some­thing they should have ac­cess to any­way. One of the worst mis­takes a com­pany can make is of­fer, for ex­am­ple, bonuses based on games. You should have other re­wards and in­cen­tives, like gift cards, lit­tle items, free lunches, ect. Re­wards that would be nice to have, but aren’t necessary.
     
  • Cre­ate A Point Sys­tem - Have a pre-es­­tab­lished point sys­tem to base all of this on. You don’t want there to be any con­fu­sion about how much things are worth, how they build, or what con­sti­tutes a reward.
     
  • Make Badges - Badges are just a lot of fun to see. Whether they are on­line or phys­i­cal badges, hav­ing a cool lit­tle rep­re­sen­ta­tion of some­thing you have achieved is per­fect for gam­ing strate­gies. Web­sites like SparkPeo­ple are a good ex­am­ple of this. They have reg­u­lar badges for things like be­ing con­sis­tent with sign­ing on, fit­ness min­utes and things they do around the site. Hav­ing badges that are both pas­sive and ac­tive is a good idea.
     
  • Put Up A Leader­board - Peo­ple should be able to see where they are at all the time. Have a leader­board that is up­dated as needed. This should in­clude both the place­ment of the teams or mem­bers, and the amount of points they cur­rently hold.
     
  • An­nounce Chal­lenges - You should have reg­u­lar chal­lenges as part of your gam­i­fi­ca­tion process. This does­n’t have to make up all of the points made from the teams, which can pas­sively or in­di­vid­u­ally work on their scores. But it should be some­thing struc­tured for oc­ca­sional use, per­haps once a day or week.

Con­clu­sion

Game dy­nam­ics are a great way to es­tab­lish a sense of com­mu­nity and fair­ness. It is also a fun way of get­ting tasks done, and im­prov­ing morale. There are some great teach­ers on the prin­ci­ple you should check out, such as Shar­lene Sy, Se­bas­t­ian De­ter­d­ing and Na­tron Bax­ter. They are liv­ing proof of the preva­lence of gam­i­fi­ca­tion in the world today.

Do you have any ex­am­ples of game dy­nam­ics be­ing used in com­mu­nity build­ing? Any ideas on how to do it your­self? We are al­ways ea­ger to hear from our read­ers, es­pe­cially when it comes to per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence. Let us know in the comments!