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INDUSTRY
70
JUNE 2012
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
AWORLDWITHOUTWOMENWOULD BE
EMPTY AND SAD. AND BROKE.
I
f you’re already envious of your buddy
who works in an office full of single
women, here’s some worse news: A new
study suggests that your friend is probably
richer than you, too.
In an experiment conducted at the University
of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management,
male subjects who read fake news articles claiming that
men outnumbered women in the local population elected to save
42 percent less from a hypothetical paycheck—and borrow 84
percent more on a hypothetical credit card—than those who read
articles claiming that women outnumbered men. Even when the
subjects just looked at images containing fewer ladies, they were
more likely to choose an immediate reward ($20 at the end of the
experiment) than to wait a month for something larger ($30).
Ladies in the Red
this month’s
AMAZING
FACT
!
having been funded by the same
venture capital firms that first helped
Google. Scvngr is a prime example of the
next wave of social media, something that
very smart people are calling the “gamifica-
tion of the real world.”
Gamification, in this sense, isnot playing
FarmvilleorMafiaWarswithyourFacebook
friends. Gamifying real life ismore evolved
thanthat: It’saboutweavinggames intoour
real-world interactions, games that are so
alluring they changeour behavior. Inaway,
the airlines and credit card companies that
introduced points programs a generation
ago were the first to understand this. But
today’s Web- or mobile-based firms use
games much more overtly to accomplish
everything fromraising revenue to tackling
societal ills. This emerging industry is pre-
dicted tobeworth$2billionwithin thenext
fewyears, saysTimothyChang, amanaging
directorof theMayfieldFund,which invests
in gamified companies.
One of those companies is HealthTap.
On the Silicon Valley firm’s website, users
post healthquestions that real-life doctors
respond to. The physicians aren’t paid
for their expertise; instead, they receive
points, climbing through HealthTap’s
gamelike levels and earning honorifics like
the “It’s Not Brain Surgery” prize, which
is bestowed on a doctor who answers 21
questions at the site.
WHILEHEALTHTAPMAYSEEM
like aminor
innovation, it actually represents a signifi-
cant breakthrough. For years, businesses in
the healthcare sector have looked forways
to grab and hold doctors’ a ention away
from the office. “The problem is they’re
super-busy,” Chang says. “And people
always tried tousemoneyas anenticement
to get doctors tohelp them.” ButHealthTap
suggests doctors don’t necessarily want
money. They want esteem. The genius of
the site is that doctors post their answers
for everyone to see, including their peers.
A doctor’s expertise, eloquence—it’s all on
display. Add in the game layers and the
inherent drive to compete, and nowyou’re
getting at doctors’ egos, too. As a result,
HealthTap has grown from 5,000 partici-
pating doctors to 10,000 in just one year.
“Gamification has unlocked the truism
that consumers are pleasure-seeking
creatures and, given an option, will always
choose the activity that they find more
fun or pleasurable,” Gabe Zichermann,
co-author of
Game-BasedMarketing
, notes
in a recent video posted on YouTube.
Still, this doesn’t mean that games
will cater exclusively to hedonistic or
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