Marketing Darwinism - by Paul Dunay
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Marketing Darwinism - by Paul Dunay
Crowdsourcing, Gaming, Innovation

How Are Serious Games Reinventing Businesses?

Luke Hohmann

I had a chance to sit down with Luke Hohmann, founder of Conteneo, Inc. and creator of Innovation Games® and Knowsy® to discuss how serious games are changing Sales and Marketing teams at major brands. The following is a transcript of our conversation.

PD:     Talk a little bit about what is a “serious” game.  How does that differ from just a game?

LH:      A serious game is a game that we play to solve a business problem as opposed to any other kind of game typically played for entertainment purposes.  When I’m playing Scrabble with my wife on a Saturday night, we’re just enjoying the company and the time together, and there’s nothing really serious about it. When I play a serious game, I’m trying to solve some kind of a business problem like managing a complex sale or developing a product-marketing plan.

PD:     Why are they becoming so popular?  What’s driving the popularity of some of these games?

LH:      The reason serious games are becoming so popular is because we’re learning that when people are playing games, their brain is literally in a different state. When you’re playing a game like Angry Birds, tiny amounts of dopamine are released every time you achieve the next level in the game or create a new high score. This dopamine, in turn, makes you happy and motivates you to play more – achieve the next level, reach a new high score.

We’re finding we can take some of those feelings of positivity that occur when people accomplish a goal and put them into a work context.  For example, let’s say you need to make choices on where you’re going to invest your marketing dollars across various social media challenges. This is a classic portfolio management question.

Unfortunately, traditional ROI approaches to portfolio management often leaves you feeling beat up and hollow when you’re done, because you’re trying to argue about uncertain futures using only half of your brain.

Our collaborative games-based approach to making these choices leaves you and your entire team feeling energized because in the game you can explore both ROI and non-ROI factors to selecting your social media investments. When you achieve the goal, you’re going to feel great about the result, because along the way the game will induce your brain to release some dopamine while you’re playing.

That’s similar with Knowsy in the sales context.  A traditional way that strategic sales managers determine the priorities of a buyer or get a group of stakeholders that influences the buying decision aligned is usually a sequence of painful meetings in which salespeople interrogate their prospects. Knowsy shortens the buyer alignment process by engaging buyers in a meaningful, collaborative and fun activity that results in people feeling good about the alignments that they’ve created and the paths they agreed to take. And yup, the dopamine released during the game, and the behavioral economics theory that underpins the choices in the game, all help your sales team close complex deals faster.

PD:     Let’s go into some examples of how sales teams have solved potential business problems.

LH:      One of our clients, Serena Software, makes a software application that help large companies manage the flow and upgrade of other software applications on mainframe systems.  So if you’re a bank or insurance company and you have an old mainframe system you want to update, Serena makes software that makes the upgrading process easier. Typically, Serena’s sales involve a number of influencers: the CIO, the head of application development, the head of data security, the head of operations, all of whom need to be comfortable that Serena is the right solution to not only meet their corporate IT needs but also their individual departmental  priorities. The traditional approach of a salesperson trying to make that sale is like herding cats and chasing after one-on-one meetings. The salesperson spends inordinate amount of time setting up interviews  to understand individual stakeholder’s priorities, one at a time. Of course, when the salesperson brings the group together,  he must  present a slide deck that magically shows how his solution is going to meet everyone’s number-one priority.

But if you look at the discussion in that room that ensues, it is slow and painful, because suddenly the buyers realize that while they might know their own individual priorities, they probably do not know the priorities of their peers. And they think: “We’d better talk about our shared priorities, because if we are going to purchase Serena’s solution, it will affect everyone, but individually and as a team. So we’d better figure out what our priorities are and how we want to go forward.” The most effective salespeople know that they need to skillfully facilitate that meeting so the sales process doesn’t stall or slow down due to lack of internal customers’ alignment.

What Knowsy does is it tackles that situation head on. When you’re in a complex sale, the salesperson calls his prospects and says I want to have this meeting. I want to bring in the key players into the room. And I’m going to lead you through a guided activity that will reveal your priorities and help you reach alignment as a team. When that’s done, if the priorities of the group are such that my solution can be useful, we’ll figure it out and we’ll move forward.  If it’s not, we’ll discover this soon enough as a team.. Either way, we all win because the priorities of the individual stakeholders will be revealed, and we’ll be able to see if there’s internal alignment to progress down the buying process.

PD:     Let’s go to marketing team.  Can you give us some examples of how either a corporate team or maybe even a product team might use Knowsy?

LH:      Even though Knowsy is a tool for salespeople, we’re finding that the people who are bringing our tool into their organizations are, in fact, marketing departments. The marketing team tells us two things. One, they’re never in the room with the salespeople when the salespeople are reviewing prospects’ needs and, therefore, they’re never really sure what messages are resonating, what are the important trends and what are the important priorities. The idea behind Knowsy is that by playing this game in a fun and engaging way, you’re actually feeding a real-time database that the marketing team can use.

On the flipside, the other thing that the marketing departments that we’ve been working with have told us repeatedly is that they have expertise and a point of view about their industry that they want to communicate. Many marketing departments want to establish their employees as thought leaders. So what we do in Knowsy is we take those thought leaders and we put their opinions into the platform about what a prospect might do in a certain situation.  Prospects can compare their opinions individually and/or as a team with recognized thought leaders from the company or the industry.

What that does is it lets the marketing department promote thought leadership in the most direct manner possible, which is when the buyers are most interested in hearing the opinion of an expert.

PD:     Let’s switch to big brands. Can you give us some examples of how big brands are deploying serious games?

LH:      A recent advergame that actually is doing very well is Plantville from Siemens. An advergame is a game that is an advertisement disguised as a game. In this case, Plantville is a thinly-veiled version of Farmville.  In Plantville, you’re a facilities manager inside a manufacturing plant, building your plant and operating it using the same kind of principles of building and operating your farm in FarmVille.  And by playing this simulation game, you learn about Siemens technologies that solve certain problems in plant management, and you can test your knowledge of how to be a good plant manager.

You might assume that the last thing someone who works in a plant all day would want to do is play a game where they operate and manage a plant – and you’d be wrong. What we’re finding is that some of the most-devoted users of Plantville are in fact plant managers of significant facilities who want to demonstrate through various game mechanics that they are really good at their job. Of course, in the process Siemens is getting tremendous brand goodwill and educating the players on new products and features. For example, a plant manager who has an existing set of equipment might not have an ability to explore the operating characteristics of new equipment. But in Plantville, they can try that new equipment and get a sense of what it would do or not do in a simulated environment. It’s a tremendous value to Siemens’ marketing department, of course, to deploy Plantville as a brand engagement tool that effectively reaches its target audience and communicates the features and benefits of Sieman’s products and services.

October 5, 2013by Paul Dunay
Blogging, Communities, Podcast, Social Media, Twitter, Web 2.0

A Podcast with Robert Scoble on Communities, Social Media, Twitter and More

Ubёrblogger Robert Scoble is truly one-of-a-kind. For those who don’t know him, he gained fame as a technology evangelist at Microsoft and then quickly became the company’s most outspoken and influential blogger. He now interviews people like Bill Gates for his blog, and the worldwide media watch his every move.

I got a chance to interview Robert Scoble on the topic of “Communities, Social Media, Twitter and More.” I think his insights into how to get started with blogging are spot on. Just observing his blog and his Flickr and Twitter pages offers lessons in social media incarnation.

Scoble is setting a high watermark for all of us. So B2B marketers out there, let’s listen, learn and get busy!

A Podcast with Robert Scoble on Communities, Social Media, Twitter and More

About the Scobleizer

Robert Scoble is a technical evangelist, writer, and author of the popular blog Scobleizer. He is currently Vice President of Media Development at the Palo Alto-based video-podcast startup company PodTech.net, where among other things he produces the ScobleShow, a series of interviews and stories about, as the site puts it, “geeks, technologists and developers.” Scoble is a lifelong technologist. He grew up just blocks from Apple Computer and played in the garage with electronic gadgets his father brought home from work. Scoble worked for Fawcette Technical Publications, UserLand Software, NEC and TabletPC before landing a job in 2003 with the Channel 9 MSDN Video team producing stories about Microsoft employees and products. During this period, his Scobleizer blog became a favorite of technologists who valued his independence and objectivity. He is a popular speaker and coauthor of Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.

May 30, 2007by Paul Dunay
Communities, Podcast, Social Media, Web 2.0

Communities at Microsoft, a podcast with Sean O’Driscoll

You asked for it, so you got it. The number one most popular podcast in my series of podcasts has been “How to Start a B2B Community” with Mukund Mohan, CEO of Canvas Group. So I shared this information with Mukund and asked who I should interview next. He pointed me to Sean O’Driscoll at Microsoft.

Naturally, I’ve been reading all I can about social media and communities. But honestly, I heard more new ideas from Sean than in all of the articles and blogs I’ve come across on the topic.

I conducted an interview with Sean O’ Driscoll to learn what it is like to have thousands of communities to listen to and manage. And I wanted to learn how you harness these communities for product launches as part of an integrated marketing campaign. Enjoy …

Communities at Microsoft, a podcast with Sean O’Driscoll

About Sean

Sean O’Driscoll is general manager of the Customer Service and Support Community and the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Program at Microsoft Corp. He is responsible for developing community-based support models and leading the worldwide MVP Program. The MVP Program is designed to honor and recognize amazing individuals in technical communities around the globe who share a passion for technology and the spirit of community.

For more information on Sean please visit his blog or view some of his posts we discuss on the podcast:

Post with the 5 methods for convincing the unconverted on communities

Post on HD DVD

Post on JetBlue/Turner Apology

 

May 23, 2007by Paul Dunay
Communities, Enterprise 2.0, Podcast, Wiki

Marketing in a Wikinomics World, a podcast with Don Tapscott

I love my iPod, but apparently so do scores of tenacious hackers. These rogues have created a number of iPod hacks even though Apple hasn’t opened its architecture. The iPod’s closed architecture is good at keeping competitors at bay. But it also limits what users can ultimately do with the device.

But here’s the real question: Is a business model that locks in customers and discourages user innovation genuinely sustainable? According to my instincts, and the principles of Wikinomics, I say no.

To explore this further, I conducted an interview with Don Tapscott, co-author of Wikinomics. Don helped me understand more about this emerging economy and what role marketing needs to play in it to be successful! Enjoy …

Marketing in a Wikinomics World, a podcast with Don Tapscott

About Don

Don Tapscott is a speaker, author and consultant based in Toronto. He specializes in business strategy and organizational transformation. Don is Chief Executive of New Paradigm, which he founded in 1993, and Adjunct Professor of Management, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He holds a B.Sc. in Psychology and Statistics, and an M.Ed. specializing in Research Methodology. He also holds two honorary Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) granted by the University of Alberta in 2001, and Trent University in 2006. Don lives in Toronto, Ontario with his wife, Ana Lopes, and his two children: Nicole Tapscott and Alex Tapscott.

 

May 9, 2007by Paul Dunay
Podcast, Web 2.0

Getting the Scoop on Top Web 2.0 Tools

Can you name the most popular blogging tool? Do you know what’s best for RSS? How about podcasting tools?

Well, I wondered, too. So I’ve teamed up with Robert Lesser, President of Direct Impact Marketing, to find some answers. We’ve produced a survey of Web 2.0 tools that is going to help tons of marketers get their Web 2.0 efforts under way. If you have an opinion or some experience with Web 2.0, this is your chance to share! Please listen to this podcast, join the conversation and take our Web 2.0 tools survey

Getting the Scoop on Top Web 2.0 Tools

About Robert Lesser

Before launching Direct Impact Marketing in 1998, Robert spent nearly a decade in marketing in the technology, packaged goods and retail sectors. He holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business and an Honours Bachelor of Commerce from the DeGroote School of Business.

April 9, 2007by Paul Dunay
Podcast, Social Networking

How to Start a B2B Community

If you love Web 2.0 tools the way I do, you probably came to the quick realization that they’re powerful tools for creating a community

But added together they don’t equal a community. You can launch all the Web 2.0 tools you can think of and still not have a community. So the question quickly becomes: How do you create a community, especially in B2B? It’s easy to see opportunities in B2C around, say, yacht racing, NASCAR and even beer drinking (yes, Budweiser just launched bud.tv).

But what does it take to get a B2B community under way?

To answer this question, I enlisted the help of expert community builder Mukund Mohan. He’s the CEO of Canvas Group and a fellow blogger who publishes BestEngagingCommunities. He will take us through the 3 reasons to start a B2B community, provide 3 examples of existing B2B communities, and dig into the what, when and how of community building. I hope you enjoy hearing this one as much as I enjoyed producing it!

How to Start a B2B Community a podcast with Mukund Mohan

About Mukund

Mukund Mohan is CEO of Canvas Group. Before Canvas Group, he founded and sold 2 successful startups. Prior to that, he was head of product marketing for Mercury Interactive with responsibility for the direction and customer success of the company’s application management solutions. Mukund also was Vice President of Operations at Consilient, a software company focused on process automation. In that role, he managed a team of sales and services personnel and was responsible for customer success. In addition, he has held product and management positions at Ariba and Asera. He began his career at Cisco Systems.

March 28, 2007by Paul Dunay

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Welcome to my blog, my name is Paul Dunay and I lead Red Hat's Financial Services Marketing team Globally, I am also a Certified Professional Coach, Author and Award-Winning B2B Marketing Expert. Any views expressed are my own.

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