GamificationInnovationLeadershipTransmedia Storytelling

The Eureka of Gamification and Storytelling (VI)

By March 21, 2013 No Comments

With the addition of this new talent to our ranks in the person of Oscar Garcia-Pañella (by what unit of measurement is talent measured?), we were ending our previous article, It isn’t the video game, stupid! and are now continuing along our Transmedia way, without ever forgetting that what gives our productions meaning is their usefulness.

And therefore, the critical phase in our work as consultants is one in which we probe, enquire, ask and seek out stories in organizations. Stories of conflict between people with different criteria, problems deriving from poor performance, or customer dissatisfaction. Only the right questions can lead us to a new story in order to be deployed in the organization through Transmedia.

Along the way, good fortune once again joined forces with Cookie Box by putting us in the way of more talent. Complementary and global talent, in the heads of good people who are open to sharing and cooperating. So, whilst working on a Project for Relais Chateaux, we met Bill Baker, master of strategic storytelling, who taught us to go a little further, and to know that, on many occasions, it isnt enough to ask questions in order to “hunt for” stories in organizations .

Bill developed a method (StoryFinding) in order to discern, from among the many variables and stories that can be selected at any one time in an organization, what the story that needs to be explained is. The ingredients of the right story, and how to activate it.

Cookie Box is a permeable organization, which is open to talent, to learning every day, to assimilating knowledge and to sharing it. And this is occurring at great speed. Our challenge is to compact it, distill it and put it at the service of organizations which, more than ever, need change facilitators and accelerators. And they need the assurance that their efforts in training, development and communication are going to translate into results.

At this point in the twenty-first century, the score that used to assess the trainer cannot be indicative of anything because the trainer is dead. And the companies that are dedicated to consulting will shortly not be able to shrug their shoulders when the company that hires them asks how can we measure the impact of this effort?

In this regard, here at Cookie Box, we are excited about the Project we are starting with, which is a company from the retail sector: the professionals who work in the shops are going to have a gamified internal training and communication platform, in which for one year, they are going to have to get through a series of set tasks by applying behaviors focused on success, competing and sharing. But with the distinctive feature that the carrying out of the set tasks and their progression in the game, will be totally linked to the store’s management indicators.

The traditional sequence training-plan of action-impact measurement has been superseded by Gamification: a story in which training, action and measurement all take place in the one same experience. And most important of all: a pleasurable experience thanks to art and technology.

Pleasure is an element that has been denied in training processes for years. But the managers and customers of the future are no longer willing to sacrifice either of the two factors

We are mindful of this at Cookie Box and that’s why Projects like Ambient Management appear, which is a spectacular fusion between electronic music and Management led by Dolça Freixes. Or the Barcelona Transmedia Corporate Stories Project 2014, which was thought up by Sergi Corbeto and is led by Marta Dalda.