I found out recently that I will be speaking at the Healthcare (R)evolution conference in Florida on March 7th hosted by the Florida Healthcare Coalition. Given they have specifically requested I talk about “Gamification”, here is the title and topic I am working on:

Gamification is here to stay

Our industry is full of many powerful products built with strong intentions, but fail to achieve scalable outcomes because they lack one thing: Engagement. One possible solution, is gamification.

Gamification is more than a buzzword. It is the use of game dynamics, mechanics and aesthetics to solve real problems and engage audiences in a measurable way. If you peel back the hype, you will find an assortment of techniques that can greatly enhance the journey towards health.

This talk will focus on defining the term, outlining how gamification works, and walking you through 20 ways you might apply it to your health products. 

Gamification is obviously soaring through the hype cycle. Some people are pulling back from the term… not me. I love neologisms like this. Why do people have to be haters? :)

The plan is to walk the audience through some of these concepts given their light exposure. Since I am more of a “gamification applier” than a researcher, I plan to start off introducing them people who I rely on as key thought leaders in the space (Amy Jo Kim, Jon Radoff, Gabe Zichermann, Jane McGonigal), key resources they can follow up on, and then illustrate 20 ways that we are using gamification in MeYou Health’s Daily Challenge to drive engagement. The hope is that by showing 20 specific examples, they can start thinking about how to apply similar patterns to their own products. It is a 40 minute talk with 20 minutes of Q/A at the end. I have never given a talk that long so it should be a challenge!

Stay tuned for updates on how it all shakes out.