Dear Gamificator,

"Donald Duck is the original Angry Bird"

Quack! An eventful couple of weeks have past with the Gamification Summit (Gsummit) in San Francisco and the Gamification Conference in Tokyo having taken place in June. Both events together attracted nearly 1,000 attendees, and the topics discussed showed that gamification is not a niche-topic anymore, but moved right to the center of attention. Both Gabe Zichermann and me had each ˜75 gamification workshop participants in SF.
The videos from all session of the GSummit in SF are availableon Fora.tv.

The events were very energizing, with meeting so many knowledgeable people and people pursuing interesting projects that the event was both totally exhausting and way too short. Still craving for more.
BTW: at the GSummit I won the tweeting contest on the first day! Take this!

Now let me point to a number of things that I think may be of interest for you.

Videos
A number of videos with interesting takes on gamification. First the futuristic and partly creepy video of how gamification will be everywhere; then an entertaining TED talk by Jane McGonigal; and finally Salman Khan from Khan-Academy. All short and worthwhile to watch.
Sight - The future of Gamification
TED: Jane McGonigal: the game that can give you 10 extra years of life
TED: Salman Khan talk at TED 2011

Blogs, Articles, News
Brady Wicken from Slalom Consulting pointed me to a humorous and well-working take on how to encourage his employees to do timelier time reporting.
The Promptitudiness of Time Reporting Through Gamification

Alden Gannon from Six Fish on the other hand showed me his approach on gamified project management. I liked especially the more sophisticated approach that is not just slapping points and badges on that, but emphasizes Dan Pink's Motivation 3.0. Check out the three articles:
PropsToYou Project Management
http://enterprise-gamification.com/index.php/en/blog/4-blog/97-part...
http://enterprise-gamification.com/index.php/en/blog/4-blog/98-part...
http://enterprise-gamification.com/index.php/en/project-management/...

In the Silicon Valley startup founders and VCs are God – or so. I think that there is a chance to apply the venture capital structure to two areas inorganizations. Innovation and Talent Development. Treat both employees and innovative ideas like startups and invest in them. Here are the full versions:
The Venture Capital Model of Talent Management
The Venture Capital Model for Innovation in Organizations

Gamification Platform provider – excuse me: Behavior platform provider Badgeville has launched their own site on gamification in the enterprise: http://www.gamifiedenterprise.com/. A who's who of enterprise gamificators have already published a series of interesting articles. Check them out.

Releases
The folks from Cadalys released Kred for Salesforce, a reputation program for sales reps. Check it out:
http://www.gamificationcommunity.com/xn/detail/6476293:Topic:3093?x...

Gamification Communities
A new gamification community was launched on the SAP Community Network. We are still working on it, but feel free to subscribe to the community with everything on and around gamification that is relevant in the SAP environment.
http://scn.sap.com/community/gamification

Upcoming Events
A number of upcoming gamification events are scheduled for the next 2 months (with many more after that). From webinars, workshops to conferences and certification, there should be missions and quests in there for everyone. Here the picks for you for the next two months:

Webinar: Engaging your Enterprise: Driving Greater Sales Performanc...
Webinar: Interactivity, Games and Gamification (August 7th, 2012)
Conference: Engage 2012 -Measure – Influence - Connect / San Franci...
Workshop: Gamification / London (August 14th, 2012)
Workshop: Gamification / Amsterdam  (August 16th, 2012)
Conference: Got Game Conference 2012 / Amsterdam (August 20th-21st,...
Conference: The Serious Play Conference / Redmond (August 21st-23rd...
Workshop: Enterprise Gamification / Santa Monica  (September 3rd, 2...
Conference: Enterprise Gamification Summit / San Diego (September 1...
Conference: BIZPLAY 2012: Enterprise Gamification Symposium & W...

A full list with all links and more events in Singapore, Israel and other cities, countries and continents can be found here:
http://www.gamificationcommunity.com/events/event/listUpcoming
I keep them updated, if you have a gamification-related event that needs to go in there, let me know. I am happy to post them.

Wanted! Workshop endorsements
Some of you may have attended my gamification workshops. Maybe there is someone amongst you who's willing to make an endorsement and say something (positive, I hope) about the workshop. If you want to, please send me the quote, your name, title and company-name. I'd really appreciate. Thank you in advance!

Books
Thanks to a foot injury that immobilized me for a couple of weeks, I finally went through a bunch of magazines and books. The books where all around games and gamification, and it was worth it. So much that I learned. I compiled a first list to share with you. Check them out:
http://enterprise-gamification.com/index.php/en/component/content/a...

Enterprise Gamification – The book!
Yes, that will be it! I started 2 months my book with a total focus on enterprise gamification. I aim at making it "the bible" for this area, including a practitioner guide with how to do it, why to do it and everything that you have to consider when applying gamification in your organization, including tons of examples. Right now I am halfway done with the book (target: 400 pages), and the scheduled release date will be Q4/2012, right in time for the christmas holidays.
In this book I will include an overview of today's providers of gamification platforms, gamification services, as well as game studios that work in that space. Right now I have an overview of many of them here, but if I am missing some and if you want to provide me with material (descriptions, overview, screenshots) of your platform, services, portfolio, please do so and get in touch with me.

Servus

Mario