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Gamification is now live on SCN!

former_member181931
Contributor
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Hi everyone,


I'm part of the SCN team and I've been working on gamifying SCN for the last 12 months. It's been an exciting project, at times challenging, but always worth the hard work! I look forward to hearing from you now that we're live. Do you like it?

Best,

Laure

Accepted Solutions (0)

Answers (17)

Answers (17)

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good job guys..keep it up. big thumbs up

Johan_H
Active Contributor
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For those of us, who are not afraid to have a little laugh at our own expense: Dilbert on gamification.

cientistaflavio
Explorer
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Hello, Laure! Nice to meet you!

At the 'Coffee Corner' http://scn.sap.com/thread/3350684, on

Laure Cetin wrote:

I think it is sad to see people write comments and blogs with no real valuable content, just to get badges or points. It has always been difficult to manage this.

You've just said exactly what I've been thinking about since yesterday, when I began to accumulate these points.

I really welcome SCN Gamification, since its points, badges and level icons remind me about the colored belt system adopted in most martial arts (belts used to be only black or white, and the colored ones were introduced to encourage continued training and to give some early rewards during a lifelong journey). Just like the colored belt system, SCN Gamification created a whole new level of encouragement for the community to participate and contribute.

Unfortunately, this encouragement have some drawbacks. Some people instantly become more concerned about their points than about contributing  to the SCN. In the last few hours, while exploring some pages of the  SCN, I have stumbled upon a couple of blog posts that were, in my opinion, meaningless to the SCN. After reading them  and realizing that they were posted only  for the points, I felt like I've just wasted my time.

With such a vast ocean of interesting contents to be read in the SCN (“If you look at what comes from SAP, it’s really like trying to drink from a fire hose.” -- Thorsten Franz, Software Architect, AOK Systems. http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-23155), wasting time around here seems to be just wrong.

In my opinion, new users should only gain points after some meaningful contributions. For example, instead of giving points right away for a first blog post, the system would give the user points only if the blog post reaches a certain number of likes (five, for example) or if the user has at least five blog posts and the total of likes they received is bigger than, for example, 20. Then, and only then, the user would receive a blogger badge (that could, in turn, also be based on the number of likes). This rule would help reduce some of the "noise" in the SCN and, as a positive side effect, it would also reduce the amount of first blog posts that have been subject to moderation since Gamification went live.

Thanks for your attention and congratulations for the new Gamification system!

Best regards,

Flávio.

former_member181931
Contributor
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Hello Flavio,

Nice to meet you!
Thanks for the feedback. It seems you have tough expectations in terms of who you would like to give points to. That's interesting, I thought we were already tough with who we give badges to 😉

I know Thorsten, yes. And I agree that in a world of big data one should only add to it if it brings value!

Thanks for your words encouragement and the constructive feedback.

Best regards,

Laure

cientistaflavio
Explorer
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Hi, Laure,

Haha! Oh, don't worry! You have been really tough with who you give badges to. 🙂

Thank you for your reply and have a nice weekend!

Best regards,

Flávio.

jogeswararao_kavala
Active Contributor
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Hello Laure and Flávio,

Good Conversation !

As Flávio said, there will be certainly a tendency to 'Noise' in this Gamification section, similar to the fact that there is  scoring tendedency noise in the 'Discussions' with redundant answers. However these are co-lateral issues which might not be very easy to be controlled.

In Gamification area, the 'pre-requisites' feature might be certainly contributing in reducing the 'Noise'. This is a good instrument to control further the posts with less meaning.

At the end, Gamification is certainly a good motivating and encouraging section for the members. Congratulations Laure.

Congratulations to the entire team for an overall excellent rennovated version of SAP knowledge sharing product called SCN.

Jogeswara Rao K

Lakshmipathi
Active Contributor
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Laure

On my reputation tab, I could see the following

Where I need to login and what I need to do.  Please assist.

G. Lakshmipathi

StephenMillard
Active Contributor
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You have already logged in and by doing so you have achieved that particular mission - the first line tells you.

If you hover over a mission badge (in your profile > reputation > missions) and click the half hidden cog icon that appears you can see the high level details of what it takes to complete the mission.

-- Stephen.

former_member181931
Contributor
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You earned the badge G. Lakshmipathi since you're here on SCN writing! That means you logged in 😉

Former Member
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Hi, Laure!

I' ve been in and around the SCN (the artist formerly known as SDN) for a couple of years (8 or so) now and I' m amazed how dramatically not only the platform itself (technically spoken), but also its user group, its offerings and in the end its goal changed since the my first contact back in 2005.

My impression of the first SDN years was that SAP simply tried to source out the process of solving customer problems away from its company-own support to its user group - the forum, the how to-guides and so on.

With the growing number of users (previously only customers allowed, some years later also anonymous accounts), contributions of (let' s say) different levels of expertise and fields of knowledge, the whole network ran into the risk of becoming somehow unusable for its previous purpose - a platform of experts for experts. I think that this "crisis" has been discussed a lot and lead to some important changes - the moderator system and the different contributor levels, for example.

The enhanced reputation system undoubtedly is another big step forward and hopefully not only drives innovation and quality of content delivery within the platform but also leads to a closer collaboration of people engaged in the community.

And, of course, it allows you to enormously boost your ego, too!

Regards,

Thomas

former_member181931
Contributor
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Thanks for the feedback Thomas!

SCN (the artist formerly known as SDN) for a

LOL!

I'm glad you like the way SCN has evolved over time, it's all about the community, the people and their knowledge.


Best,
Laure

Former Member
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Hi

former_member181931
Contributor
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Hello Madhu,

How about searching SCN and looking for the place where you can find all this information? Here you are in the gamification space and you won't find answers to your questions.

I'm definitely not an SCM expert!

The search works really well, I recommend it.

Good luck,
Laure

Johan_H
Active Contributor
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Hi Laure,

I gave some feedback concerning wording on one of the badges in the chat, and Moshe Naveh asked me to post it here (I guess anyway).

So, when having given a "Correct Answer", you now get the badge "I Was Right". "I Was Right", just sounds too much like "I Told You So", and/or quietly implies "And You Were Wrong". And as I said in the chat, nobody likes a smart-ass.

I would like to suggest a small change in wording of that badge. Just brainstorming:

- I Got One Right

- I Was Really Helpful

- Life Saver

Regards,

Johan

former_member181931
Contributor
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Hi Johan,

I'm always happy to get feedback, thanks for your suggestions.

We wanted to have consistency across different content type missions, therefore we have "I was right", "I blogged", "I shared knowledge".

I think it's fine to be assertive and proud of an achievement, this is gamification after all and one should not be shy of "tooting one's own horn" in this context. But I would like to hear from others, do you like "I was right!"? I will also create a poll here in this space to see what the majority thinks.

Also FYI we should not be too long with the name otherwise the mission tile in the reputation tab (under Missions) will show a truncated mission name... It's not that easy, huh? 😉


Thanks,
Laure

kakshat
Advisor
Advisor
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Hi Laure,

Although I did participate in the poll you created, I wanted to voice out my opinion on this (which would automatically have the implication of revealing what I voted for. No secret ballot here).

I understand 's point about 'I Was Right' sounding a bit arrogant but given the fact that in the grand scheme of things (in other words, the myriad other missions there are and there are going to be), I don't think it could be exploited by anyone. After all, and if my understanding is correct, you get this badge for just getting one answer right. So, if a user has got one answer right and joins the league of hundreds of others who are already there, I don't think they would really want to show off that badge. Plus, in terms of reputation, if someone really wanted to brag, I guess 'tooting one's own horn' riding the lifetime points rather than the badge would make a stronger case for the bragger.

Besides, I share the opinion that 'I was right' sounds assertive (which is good) and serves the purpose of introducing badges (which I believe is to encourage user engagement) better than a less assertive badge.

Regards,

Akshat

former_member181931
Contributor
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HI Akshat,

Thanks for the feedback! I tend to agree with you. For us, when we thought about the name "I was right!" it was more like an exclamation: "Hey, I was right! Someone just said I was right!" Because after all it only happens if someone says you were right.

I saw in the poll that no one could find a better name so I guess we'll stick to it. I think it is fine.

Laure

Former Member
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Great. Can I have my lifetime points back yet? Why would I participate in a platform that wipes out my participation?

moyalynne
Active Contributor
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lifetime points are back and in fact are reflected in the top-of-the page count.   is that not what you're seeing Judson?

Former Member
0 Kudos

Last week I had over 1200 points. Now I have 3. So no, they are not back.

moyalynne
Active Contributor
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if your "lifetime points" (that's what the dropdown at top says for my display) only displays three points and you should have more, seems that's a bug you should look into with the SCN folks.

Former Member
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I have. No response.

former_member181931
Contributor
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Hello Judson,

I reached out to you per email right when we launched to inform you of your particular situation as we just recently identified an issue with your points. You are active with two user IDs and I found a third ID that may have your points. I'm still investigating and will give you an update per e-mail.
I am sorry that your points were "misplaced" during the migration. They are not lost, but I think they are with a wrong account. The issue is that the platform doesn't support well several accounts for one person, and unfortunately it's a reality when you work with several companies at the same time, or when you change company.

We'll work it out!

And of course it is a priority for us to find a tool to merge IDs, content and points.

Best,
Laure

Former Member
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I'm just bummed about going from the Top Contributor in the SAP ByDesign space to nothing. My customers and colleagues know me as an active contributor, but now they can no longer see that.

Fyi, pretty sure this is me:

Former Member
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The 'other' Judson Wickham is from an older account.

former_member181931
Contributor
0 Kudos

Hello Judson,


I'm about to respond to your email. In my previous email over the weekend I asked you if you had a third user ID, an S user, that seems to have your "lost" points. I will need that information from you so that we can continue investigating.

You will get your points back, and you should not worry about your reputation because I know it is well established. You will get your points back before any of your business partners worries about it, I think.

This morning I spoke with our lead architect Oliver Kohl and we're on it.


Regards,

Laure

former_member181931
Contributor
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Thanks for adding the screenshot Judson, that's helpful. I confirms what I wrote to you just now. This ID seems to have your points, but it's an ID that doesn't exist in Jive. I don't get it!

Sounds like this is going to be our first scavenger hunt ever on SCN 😉

Former Member
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Woo hoo!

moyalynne
Active Contributor
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Had so much fun beta testing this internally - looking forward to carrying the fun externally.  It's looking great, and now that you have your life back you can spend it accumulating new precious minerals

koehntopp
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
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One more idea:

if I hover over people's badges, would it be possible to make them clickable to get to the missions for them?

Frank.

Former Member
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I will note the idea down and see if we can make the hover card more interactive:)

Just fyi, right now what we can do to check someone's missions earned is to click on the user name, which leads to the user's profile, and then go to reputation tab, and click missions on the left.

koehntopp
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
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Short proposal to the Expertise tab in the profile: is it possible to sort that by number of points? Right now it shows all the spaces with 0 points, with others that show more points at the bottom of the list.

I would like it better if it showed expertise sorted by the spaces with the most points (even if it happens to be the Coffee Corner )

Frank.

Former Member
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Hi Frank,

Great point. We did actually raise the requirement during the project, but it turned out that it's the effort of enabling this feature is considerably high from the technical perspective. So no promise here, but we will keep it in our list and address it again in our next phrase of improvement.

fred_verheul
Active Contributor
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Hi Laure,

Congratulations on the project go-live. Always a big moment, when you've been working for so long on something.

Things really look neat, and it'll be interesting to see how engagement develops in the coming months (after the initial excitement is over).

Cheers, Fred

former_member181931
Contributor
0 Kudos

Thanks Fred.

I agree, we'll be monitoring the numbers and also the reaction from the community!

Laure

Former Member
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Hi Laure,

Firstly I'd like to congratulate you and your team on bring this project live - well done to you all My initial thoughts are very positive, I think you have pretty much "hit the nail on the head" and got it right in your first go! I am sure there will be little things people would like to change but for a first attempt I'd have to say you have done a marvellous job.

Here is my one little suggestion : I was wondering if there is a way for the system to alert people of the fact that they have just earned a badge? I just tested out by updating my avatar and while I could see in the background that I earned the new badge I didn't actually see it immediately after performing the task. Some sort of real-time feedback would be cool.

Thanks,

Simon

steverumsby
Active Contributor
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I agree about the more immediate feedback. Other systems I've used like this give you a pop-up or other indication when you earn a new badge. I'm thinking of Foursquare in particular, although that's obviously a mobile app. Not that that necessarily makes it easier.

Overall, though, my impression on day one is very favourable. Good job! It will be interesting to see how it develops in the coming weeks and months.

Steve.

former_member181931
Contributor
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Hi Steve and Simon,

Yes it would me much better to have 1/ pop up notifications for each badge earned and each new level reached and 2/ email notifications for big achievements such as leveling up. These are call "toast notifications" for 1/ and "email notifications" for 2/

Unfortunately Bunchball's platform for Jive doesn't offer these functionalities for now, but it's on our list for future enhancements - check out the list of known issues.

Thanks!

Laure

kakshat
Advisor
Advisor
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Just testing if posting this earns me a 'First Steps' badge

Nah, just kidding. Although it will take some time to explore the gamified SCN and provide more useful feedback, my first reaction is that it is a welcome and refreshing change. Those badges and missions look interesting! However, if I am correct, it seems the badges don't get automatically assigned based on a member's history. For example, if someone had already written a blog before SCN's gamification, they don't get the 'I Blogged' badge automatically but perhaps would get it on their first new blog post.

former_member181931
Contributor
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Hi Kumar,


Yes you're right we all start from scratch, except for a couple of badges for speakers at event etc. I think it's more fun that we, we get to discover the missions now real time as we complete them.

And of course, it would have been a bigger migration effort to count previous achievements towards mission completion. Don't think we could have made it.


Best,

Laure

steverumsby
Active Contributor
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The initial set of missions seem to be designed to encourage people to get started, which is of course the whole point. It will be interesting to see what missions come along to keep people going. I'm sure you've got plans for that

I was expecting the missions and badges to be a little more prominent. I don't think I would have noticed them at all, for a while at least, if you hadn't mentioned it! On the other hand, it is good that they aren't too "in your face" so that people who want to just ignore them and get on with using SCN as they always have can do so easily. Maybe you've got it about right?

Steve.

former_member181931
Contributor
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Hi Steve,


Thanks for the feedback. The interesting thing is that you don't see all the missions yet. It's a bit deceptive, but it's on purpose to keep you interested and surprised along the way. We have the concept of "progression missions" and you have to earn mission #1 first before you see mission #2 appear in your reputation tab. For example, there's 5 different missions for blogs and documents. Right now you only see the first one. The easiest one 😉

And yes of course it's up to us to keep introducing new missions very regularly and quickly so that you guys don't get bored!

As for prominence of missions, it's interesting that you say that. I agree. We have mission widgets that we could place on space overview pages, but we haven't looked at it yet. Right now the missions we introduced today are SCN-wide missions. Soon, in about two months, we'll be offering badges for activity in specific spaces. That's when I think we could have more prominent mission information in the spaces. We'll see. There's a lot of opportunities ahead!

Best,

Laure

fred_verheul
Active Contributor
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I was just thinking about the follow-up missions. Right now I also noticed the first blog/doc mission in my reputation tab, which struck me as odd considering I've been blogging in the past already. I suppose these could not have been personalized at the start? This feels a bit like having to start over from scratch (at least where missions are involved), not challenging me at my own level. Onboarding is imporrtant to get right, but here we've got a history already, so it's not really about onboarding only IMO.

Cheers, Fred

StephenMillard
Active Contributor
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I noticed that whilst I can see "current" missions (i.e. the ones I have progressed to) in the missions view of my profile's reputation tab I can also see a number of greyed out missions (that appear to be later progression missions) on the bio tab of my profile.

Johan_H
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Hi Laure,

The implementation of mission progression, as is, has one small draw back. For example, I only  bookmark content when I feel it actually has continued value (for me). The second mission apparently requires this though. So apparently none of my accomplishments get rewarded, unless I perform a task (that in reality I have performed several times already), just for the sake of having to prove that I know how to. That does not sound fun, that sounds a little pedantic.

Might I suggest a tweak, perhaps not have all missions be progressive, but only ones that are logically progressively related, like for example the "Sharing Knowledge" series.

Alternatively, (never mind me)

Would it possible to mark missions as (partially) completed based on user history ?

On a complimentary note: Gamification, I like it ! Well done !

Regards,

Johan

nabheetscn
Active Contributor
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I logged in after a long time and was surpised to see this change. Looks interesting. Well done

former_member181931
Contributor
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Cool Nabheet! I hope you'll come more often from now on 🙂

0 Kudos

agreed

Former Member
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Looks really good! Congratulations to you and the SCN team!

Earned my first points by changing my avatar/profile pic. Hope you like it

former_member181931
Contributor
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Thanks Roel! I like it a lot as well. We put a lot of thoughts into the missions. Some, I think, are going to be hard! There's a bit of everything for everyone already.

0 Kudos

cogratz for your points