I am a 5-Star GM and former Paizo Venture Captain. Not just a “Pokemon Go on my phone” type of gamer, but the person who has shopped online to order specific Pokemon cards to perfect my deck. I still remember playing an Atari at my neighbor’s house when I was a kid, too young to understand how revolutionary an Atari was. As a family, we played Trivial Pursuit, and I was never good at it, but I always came back and tried again. I also remember my brother’s first Game Boy, and how amazing it was to have games in the palm of your hand.

And many years later, I still play all of these different variations of games. I play consoles, like Playstation and Nintendo. I play many tabletop games, like role-playing games (yes, Dungeons and Dragons!) and board games. And many of my favorite games are still played in the palm of my hand on my phone and Nintendo 3DS. And my reasons for playing each of these games are varied. I love games for a challenge. I’m very competitive, and winning a game or unlocking or achieving a reward is gratifying. Games are also incredibly social. I’ve met many of my closest friends out of a love of gaming.

So why are we talking about gaming? What does this mean for you, Salesforce training, and your business? Well, I believe, just like Jane McGonigal, that games can change the world. Primarily, I think that gamification — using game mechanics (think puzzles, points, trophies) to engage learners in non-game situations — can transform how we do business. And contrary to what you may think, it is not all about playing games at work, just having fun by earning points, badges, and leaderboards. Gamification is all about engagement and results.

Using game mechanics to drive business results and employee engagement is a technique already being used by loads of the top tech companies — each using gamification in different ways, but all having some specific goal or behavior they are rewarding. The concept is used to engage employees, and if it’s fun, too, then that’s a bonus.

Salesforce uses gamification in all kinds of formats (heard of that little thing called a Trailhead badge?). And one way that we gamify is in our Salesforce University Instructor community. With nearly 200 instructors around the globe, from Delhi to São Paulo, our instructors have a wealth of knowledge, but it’s scattered all over the world. Our challenge was to figure out a way to turn that individual knowledge into something more collaborative and collective. And we achieved that through a combination of social learning via Salesforce Chatter and gamification theory.

Our gamified community is centered around Salesforce activities. For example: Did you find a typo on a PowerPoint slide? File a case and earn some points! Did someone help you out with answering a parking lot question from class? Give them #thanks in Chatter to help them earn a new badge!

We started out by defining the goals of the program. What types of achievements did we want to drive through a gamification strategy? Primarily, we wanted to connect our instructors with challenges that would help them engage and get to know each other, and feel more like a team. Next, we wanted to turn individual knowledge into collective learning; creating a place that they could not only ask questions, but also share tips and tricks for teaching Salesforce. Finally, we wanted to refine our training content, and although our content developers are not formalized members of our gamified community, instructors can earn points by engaging them.

Each behavior that we want to encourage — whether it’s answering questions or posting helpful links, filing cases about how to improve the training content, or participating in monthly challenges — is rewarded in some way. Our gamification program has a Rock Star theme. Instructors are split into teams, or bands. They name their band, come up with an album cover, and then they compete in team challenges. Individually, instructors earn points and badges for different tasks. Sometimes, certain badges give bragging rights, like being "Instructor of the Quarter". Other times, instructors can earn points that they can cash in for prizes, like a FitBit or Birchbox.

But at the heart of our program, we use Salesforce as a place for instructors to come together and share knowledge. This ultimately allows the group to grow smarter. As we share our individual knowledge, each of us grows in our role. We are able to bookmark Chatter posts with thoughts and ideas from amazing instructors, like Wendy Braid and Barbara Campos. Our instructors are then able to take these ideas and put them into action in the classroom, leading to some of the most impressive customer satisfaction scores in the training industry.

Our gamification program helps us deliver the world-class training that we’re known for. Because ultimately, it’s all about helping our customers drive their careers through Salesforce. Whether they are taking their very first class, or they are achieving five certifications in one day, we want them to have the best experience, best instructor, and best content that we can provide. And gamification is just one piece of making that possible.

Now please excuse me, my 20-sided die is calling me. See you in The Game!

To see for yourself if you can master every level of Salesforce, learn more about our extensive curriculum of instructor-led courses and register to attend your class today.