As part of our G-List – the who’s-who of the gamification space – today we are happy to have Kris Duggan, founder of Badgeville and panelist for our upcoming Gamification Summit in New York. Follow @gamificationco for updates and submit questions with hashtag #gsummit to get Kris’s insight into gamification and consumer engagement.
Keep reading below, and be sure to tune in for the next chat on Twitter with #gsummit!
 KRIS DUGGAN is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for building innovative, fast-growing SaaS companies with thousands of delighted customers. He is dedicated to helping brands on the web increase user engagement by leveraging proven techniques in social gaming and loyalty. A sought-after speaker on gamification, analytics and user engagement, Kris is a thought leader of innovative ways to incorporate game mechanics and social loyalty programs into web and mobile experiences. Prior to founding Badgeville, Kris Duggan worked in leadership roles at a variety of successful companies, including WebEx, and across a wide variety of verticals. |
Edited for readability.
 @kduggan Thanks for taking the time to chat! Ready to get started?
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 kduggan Kris Duggan Yes! Let’s get started… Looking forward to all your questions.
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Great! To get rolling, how did you first arrive at the idea behind @Badgeville?
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kduggan Kris Duggan My co-founder Wedge Martin and I saw the need for a powerful, flexible software platform to reward user behavior. We spent a lot of time looking at social gaming and why it was so successful in driving behavior and growth. We spoke with hundreds of business execs, marketers, to find out how to apply those techniques to grow real business objectives.
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We discovered that by bringing together the worlds of #SocialGaming and #Analytics for non-gaming sites, we could help businesses. I’m really excited to see how fast #gamification has grown since we launched in September after a year of development.
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Badgeville launched at TCDisrupt last [September]. Is that model of competition in the tech world reflected in #gamification?
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kduggan Kris Duggan Launching at TechCrunch Disrupt was appropriate for us — it was – a game experience, and was great to win Audience Choice! More and more tech conferences (such at TCDisrupt, Launch, Twiistup and others) make launching a startup more about competition.
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Ultimately winning these events isn’t everything. There are a lot of ways to “win” at a conference like that. Everyone can win. TechCrunch also enabled us to launch our business with $15M in capital over the last 12 months w/ 75+ customers.
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With that boost and @Badgeville‘s accelerating success, how do you maintain quality along-side rapid expansion?
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kduggan Kris Duggan It all comes down to the team. I have some great people working for me from Zynga, Playdom, American Express, Lithium, Salesforce. Every deployment we do, makes us much smarter. We’re all about feedback loops and learning and iterating.
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The Badgeville Team members focus on building the most flexible, powerful, lightweight and scalable platform for our customers. We always strive to add features that enhance the scalability and social interactions of our platform. This is key to us. Plus our capital from Norwest Venture Partners and ElDorado Ventures gives us ability to add resources in a unique way.
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Both internal and external, what are some of the best examples of #gamification you’ve seen so far?
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kduggan Kris Duggan There are a lot of attempts at #gamification that aren’t done well right now. But a few have stood out to me as good examples. There are interesting examples of #gamification in the health & fitness space –Nike+, Active.com, Keas, MapMyRun. In education, Khan Academy and Beat the GMAT are great examples of how gamification can drive positive learning behaviors.
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| One thing is for sure, in 2012 we will see thousands of gamified experiences, and many of them will improve on what exists today. We work closely with our customers across retail, health, education, finance, media, for high-quality gamification programs. |
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What is your biggest criticism of #gamification? How do you address it in your product?
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A big problem with Gamification is misunderstanding the role of the user. Tony Ventrice from Zynga has done a lot of research here. [A] gamification program succeeds or fails as an experience within the mind of the user. The key to success is in understanding the context of the interaction and building a program to support that.
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As the industry leader @Badgeville is learning & documenting best practices, incorporating them into our software & services.
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With all of the back and forth about badges, does it help or hurt to have them in your name?
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kduggan Kris Duggan It gets the point across. We have to remember most of the world doesn’t know about #gamification and it starts a great conversation. Whether it’s engagement, loyalty, reptuation, the conversation then goes what are you really trying to achieve.
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From there, where is #gamification headed? What do you think the industry will look like in 18 months?
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kduggan Kris Duggan Gamification is going to build stronger social networks and social experiences on the web…. Not massive, shouting-fest networks like Facebook & Twitter, but focused, collaborative, competitive and themed social networks. We’re investing heavily into social, keep your eyes on @badgeville next month for a big announcement in this space.
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 @kduggan Great answers! What’s @Badgeville doing in terms of #CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)
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kduggan Kris Duggan
@stogiemonster We work with a lot of companies in the non-profit, education and health spaces. Gamification works very well here. Make sure you all follow us at @badgeville and @kduggan, and download our case studies at www.badgeville.com
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 inacaxe Israel Nacaxe
@kduggan What is the best success case of #gamification done right in your opinion? Could you share some results?
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To wrap up our questions, in <140 chars, how is #gamification important to @Badgeville?
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kduggan Kris Duggan #Gamification is the future of the Internet. Done right, it’s a powerful marketing strategy for the modern, social web experience
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gamificationco gamificationco Great answer. Big thanks to @KDuggan! Be sure to catch Kris at #GSummit Sep 15-16 http://gsummit.com
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Check out our past interviews:
- Daniel Debow, CEO and Founder of Rypple. Visit Daniel’s G-List page for the full interview, and come back for more updates!
- We held our second tweetchat with Kiip CEO, Brian Wong. Check out the full interview on the G-List.
- Bunchball founder, Rajat Paharia shared his unique insight into gamification’s roots and its future. Check the full interview.
- Keith Smith, Founder of BigDoor, spoke with us about the engagement economy and fostering connections to consumers with gamification.
Gamification Co will be hosting it’s second Gamification Summit in New York on September 15-16. Join keynotes and design intensives from top businesses and creative professionals to learn how the new science of engagement is rewriting the rules of product design. For Gamification Blog readers, use discount code GCOBLOG for 25% off athttp://gsummit.com/register. We look forward to seeing you there!
