Green Gamification

Device with a Twist

At my company’s new year kick-off everyone got a present which at first sight does not have much in common with our daily work: Creating rich intranets based on SharePoint. It might be even seen as a pure geek gadget: a DIN A4 sized solar panel and a rechargeable battery. The solar panel is used to charge the battery. And the battery then can be used to charge for example your mobile phone.
But now comes the twist. Changers, the company behind it, has created an online community which allows you to upload your CO2 savings by charging your devices with solar energy. And this community provides multiple incentives to regularly use your device. You can
  1. Track how much CO2 you have saved by charging your mobile devices with solar energy.
  2. Track how many watt-hours of energy you have created.
  3. Earn badges by achieving certain energy saving levels
  4. Start a green energy competition with your peers, e.g. colleagues or friends.
  5. Earn credits and redeem those at partner shops.
  6. Post about your achievements into your social networks.
  7. and more
All of the above incentives are typical for gamification. By making the path to the environmental objective use green energy more enjoyable the founders of Changers bait you into this direction.

Drive Engagement

A similar strategy is used by many online communities and social networks. They aim for an increase in user numbers as well as a high engagement rate of existing users. The Microsoft Developer Network for example has an extensive Recognition System which covers many areas of community interactions. From points , over bronze, silver and gold medals to achievements you there are many ways to reward you. The overall objective: User engagement.
Something comparable can be achieved with SharePoint 2013’s Reputation System. The Reputation System allows to reward users for their contribution to a community. And consequently the engagement and the quality of the SharePoint community sites should increase. But before you begin, you should definitely check the default settings which activities are rewarded. Because otherwise you might end-up with unwanted user behavior of due to wrong incentives.

Heavy Cloudy with a Chance of…

Looking out of my window I realize that the sun is still hiding somewhere behind clouds and the weather forecast for the next days is not much better. I am pretty much on the verge in building my green energy credit empire. So let’s hope for sunny days.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How long does "Delay for..." really wait?

Image
First looking at the action "Pause for..." I was thinking think that I could configure the delay period precisely to the minute. However, when I used this activity I discovered that the activity did not behave as I as expected. This was especially true when I entered an interval shorter than five minutes. I always waited longer than configured. Looking deeper, I found out that the cause for this is the SPTimerJob job-workflow  which controls the triggers for " Pause for... ". This timer job runs with the standard configuration every five minutes. If you set " Pause for... " to a shorter interval, the trigger send by the timer job will be sent every five minutes anyway. The same applies when you set the action to pause the workflow for any period of time that lies between the configured schedule for job-workflow . Of course, an option to solve this issue is to reconfigure the timer job to run in shorter intervals. But ask yourself if this is really nece
Read more

How to Handle Environment Variables with Nintex Workflow

Image
A topic you sure will run across is how to handle environment variables when you deploy workflows designed with Nintex Workflow. The values are by definition just valid for one specific environment, and have to be changed in order to deploy the workflow into another environment. Example for environment variables are URLs of web services or service accounts, which are different between development, test and production system. Basically, there are three ways how you can handle this information: store the information within the workflow activity create a workflow variable create a workflow constant Most people start with alternative 1 . The environment specific information is directly configured on the workflow activities. This has one advantage: You are pretty fast when you configure the activities the first time. But in the long run the disadvantages outweigh. After deploying the workflow from environment to the next stage, you have to update all affected activities. Beside th
Read more

Run Now in Nintex Workflow 2010

Image
With version 2.3 Nintex introduced Run Now into Nintex Workflow 2010. Nintex promises that with Run Now the integration with other system will be easier, because workflow designers can test actions with Run Now support already during the design stage. It is not necessary to start and step through the workflow until you reach the actions. Can it keep up to the promise? Run Now can be accesed on all supported actions during the workflow design stage. Start with a new blank workflow and then drag an integration action into the design area. I will be using Query LDAP for the rest of this post. The other actions work alike. After you have configured the action select "Run Now" in the ribbon. A new window is displayed where you can test the configuration. If you are using workflow variables for the configuration you can replace them with actual values. And remember: As soon as you press execute the target system will behave as if you execute the action from the workfl
Read more