This week the Managing Director of Minervation Ltd gave a talk in Leeds about “blogging, social media, gamification & elves”
A number of folk, unsure what gamification is, asked the Managing Director if he might explain. I am glad that they asked as I was equally unsure. This was the reply:
“We use gamification to incentivise people to learn more about mental health. Reading new research, testing their knowledge, tracking their learning and linking it to their professional development.”
I have since come across a number of definitions of ‘gamification’ and the following seems representative:
It is hard not to be struck by the language of business: words like “incentivise”, “engagement”, “marketing” and “product”. The continuing education of health professionals continues to grow as an area of business.
The “game playing” and “point scoring” [included in the definition of ‘gamification’] reminded me of some recent expressions of “college values” by a number of senior British academics and mental health professionals.
In fiction, wood elves have been described as “fickle, capricious and dangerously inconstant to outsiders”.
Woodlands can also be dark.