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I happened upon Sebastian Deterding’s Slideshare “Meaningful Play Getting Gamification Right” (Thx Giuliano) and was struck how it resonated with Dan Pink’s talk “Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us“.

Dan puts forth modern behavioral studies which show that for higher level tasks, ones that require more thought that mere repetition, rewards such as cash (points?) do not motivate. There are three things that motivate people on these higher level functions:

• Mastery, to learn and get better at something.
• Autonomy,  to choose one’s own path
• Contribution, to give to a larger effort.

Deterding tells us what makes for a good game. His list is:

• Mastery-  the goals, rules, and feedback to allow one to learn more and more about the game
• Autonomy- the ability to explore areas of the game that are not fully scripted, the feeling of not being controlled, to make one’s own purpose.
• Meaning- the foundation that the game is built upon is already important to us.

I think one could easily make the case the the Dan’s idea of contribution could easily fit with Sebastian notion of meaning.  And after reading the citations on Dan’s slides, it is easy to tell his ideas were based on behavioral research.

For those interested in games, Dan Pink’s talk is an excellent background as to why Sebastian Deterding’s recommendations are important.

I’m passionate about the use of online communities, with people helping each other in the area of healthcare.  Below is a  list of some of the research I have done, and put up on the web, concerning healthcare community management:

365 Tweets for Healthcare Orgs

365 microblogging suggestions  for local healthcare organizations. Plus my slideshare on the same topic, “@mayoclinic has good info, why should I listen to you?”

“The Growth and Direction of Healthcare Support Groups in Virtual Worlds” Vol 2, No 2: 3D Virtual Worlds for Health and Healthcare http://jvwresearch.org

Peer reviewed paper comparing healthcare support groups in Second Life, Twinity, Kaneva, and There.

Introduction to virtual world group tools for online healthcare support groups.

For those who already run online support, but are interested in the opportunities/difficulties virtual worlds hold.  Not an introduction to virtual worlds, but the tools and issues surrounding groups.  Second Life is used as an example.

Statistics for Second Life Healthcare Support Groups.

A snapshot of 150 groups in Second Life.  Looking at types of issues, membership numbers, and analysis.  Comparison to real life support group communities.

Statistics for IMVU Healthcare Support Groups.

A snapshop of over 100 groups in the virtual world of IMVU.  Similar data and analysis as the Second Life paper. Additional data and analysis surrounding the creation rates of groups.

Systems that identify ‘experts’ in online communities.

Overview of many healthcare related communities and the systems for identifying ‘experts’ on their sites.

Asynchronous communication system for patients and  providers.

Proposed systems to assist patients and providers communicate with each other online, asynchronously.

Complex Adaptive Systems- an online reading list.

Complex Adaptive Systems are those in which multiple agents act, learn, and change.  (Much like an online community.)  They are hard to predict and require a particular approach in order to ‘manage’ them.

Organizational Cultures- I.T. Vs Clinical.

By looking at the differences between Information Technology and Clinical culture, and how they collide, one can better understand how to have them work toward a common goal.

Providers and PHRs.

How might providers deal with patient created information?  What is the value and power in a PHR?  I take a look at Dossia as an example.

Use of privacy and ethics statements in virtual land.

The use of privacy and ethics statements on webpages is well known.  Should this carried over to virtual world land?

Virtual World Design and Healthcare – Beyond walking a web page

Thoughts on creating a virtual world portal to self-help groups.  It’s not a list but more like a Disney ride.

More details on my professional background.

More posts on Collaboration and Community.

Is a health org’s social media a Marketing or Public Health initiative? I know I’ve seem a lot more of the former than the later.

Perhaps this is a false dichotomy, you say, and indeed it may be. However, from what budget does your social media fall under? Where on the org chart does the staff sit? What metrics are reported for ROI? Might these fundamentals skew one’s efforts one way or another?

To go a step further, the more direct promotion, such as “we have the shortest waits in ER” are not even oriented at establishing a connection with the community. To the contrary, most everyone has an opinion about peas, or at least has another vegetable they could chime in with. What could have been the more direct promotion “Eat Ur vegetables”, is turned into an invitation to play and engage.

My guess is that one’s local community may appreciate more the chance for added value in their daily lives and the opportunity to engage and see others engage. That is in a round-and-about way, promotion.

Moving from the familiar desktop metaphor, with it’s storing files in folders, to metadata can be difficult, if not traumatizing for those used to the more spacial way of putting things in context.  To help introduce and explain, I came up with this cartoon (feel free to use).

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