What Business Leaders Can Learn From Online Gamers

by Rod Collins

 

In the summer of 2011, Firas Khatib, a biochemist at the University of Washington felt something needed to be done to accelerate the progress of solving a molecular puzzle in AIDS research that had stumped the world’s best scientists for more than a decade. A few years earlier, the University had developed an online community, called Foldit, which used video gaming technology to solve difficult biochemical problems. Khatib thought the molecular challenge was a good fit for the Foldit game community and invited the gamers to have a crack at solving the puzzle. Remarkably, what had evaded the world’s best individual scientific experts for ten years was solved by the gamers in only ten days. In our post-digital world, we are discovering that sometimes the best way to work is to play a game.

That’s the premise of Jane McGonigal’s recent book, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. According to McGonigal, twenty-first century technology has transformed games from entertainment diversions into innovative strategies for solving the most complex problems of our time. Unfortunately, traditional organizations and their leaders are missing out on the benefits of this new strategic capacity because most people born before 1990 think games are merely recreational distractions and have no relevance for business productivity. However, those born 1990 and later and who have grown up with the Internet have a very different perspective. They understand that games are a powerful and highly productive venue for mass collaboration.

McGonigal suggests new developments in online video games can make significant contributions to boosting the productivity of many business organizations. That’s because today’s online games are increasingly collaborative efforts and have two things in common with successful businesses: “a clear goal and actionable steps toward achieving that goal.” Furthermore, well-designed online games enable all the same attributes that businesses need to create engaged workplaces: having a clear sense of purpose, making an obvious impact, experiencing continuous progress, enjoying a good chance of success, and, most importantly, sharing the pride of mutual achievement.

McGonigal cites a real world example of how one business used gaming technology to quickly solve what appeared to be an insurmountable problem. In the early summer of 2009, the Guardian newspaper had obtained leaked documents that pointed to widespread expense fraud among the members of the British Parliament (MPs). To appease public outrage, the MPs engaged in a bit of gamesmanship by providing the newspaper with an unsorted electronic data dump of more than a million expense forms for claims from the previous four years.  Knowing it was impossible for their reporters to make any sense of the data dump, the Guardian decided it would crowdsource the effort by developing a game called “Investigate Your MP’s Expenses,” and invite all British citizens to participate.

The response was astounding, Within a few days, more than 20,000 participants were able to quickly sort through the records and identify several probable perpetrators among the MPs. The collaborative work of the game players led to the resignation of at least twenty-eight MPs, criminal proceedings against four MPs and the repayment of 1.12 million British pounds by hundreds of other MPs.  Much to politicians’ surprise, the Guardian’s online game solidly trumped their clever attempt at political gamesmanship.

McGonigal’s book is clear evidence that our newfound capacity for mass collaboration has suddenly thrust us into a new world with a very different set of rules, and one of these new rules is that nobody is smarter or faster than everybody. As we’ve learned from both the Foldit and the Guardian crowdsourcing successes, there are definitely times when gameplay can be a highly productive platform for doing business.

 

Rod Collins  @collinsrod is Director of Innovation at Optimity Advisors and author of Wiki Management: A Revolutionary New Model for a Rapidly Changing and Collaborative World.