The competition is on! One guy sends a massive rocket to space with retrievable boosters. The other?... builds a large clock.

Sorry but you are the idiot for not realizing that it's just taking a while for desktop as we know to get to the elephant graveyard... Of course only time will tell who is right... I'll be here waiting to tell you.. duh!

thanks for the hint on line breaks

cheers

I like gamification in the sense that it makes interaction fun. If some evil corporation takes it and makes it so people are going against each others throats (hard-core competition) rather then working together (collaboration) then I'm not for it. I'm not even clear how that's gamification (making the process or whatever more fun etc). I guess now that we discussed it shortly I'm clearer and I can say "I like gamification for teaching, communicating and making electronic interaction more FUN". I've been interested in the subject and I took a class online (https://www.coursera.org/course/gamification). So, when I talk about gamification I'm talking about the subject matter of this class (which I recommend highly if looking for basics on the subject). Also, I just looked up a little more online and I now see that corporations are taking this term and using it to suit their old school workings somewhat. Oh well. In my opinion what they're doing is not necessarily good gamification. I mean after all if it's making our lives less fun I think the whole thing looses its purpose, rght? I'm pretty sure games are suppose to be at least somewhat fun. :) p.s. why won't my line breaks appear.. :)

I agree that most management, especially upper management, in most companies (especially very big organizations) are thinking parallel to what you are saying here (the scene from where Neo is standing in front of his boss comes to mind from the movie Matrix) :) However, management is a necessary thing to do many times, well, in order to manage the project in hand (sorry to point out the obvious). A good manager must know, especially in the world of IT, you need to take care of people who are working on the project, get out of the way on things you're not the expert on, etc. etc... In my opinion the most important role of a manager is to enable communication between his team and for him to communicate current information to people himself. This current information is not alway easy to communicate in a large group. This information/teaching can also include agreed (by not just management) processes for a team to work together. I believe in looking for ways to best communicate these agreed processes and to teach them as easily as possible. I think gamification can be a good way to do this sometimes. Gamification does not mean playing games. If we look at gamificiation parts we'll see that it parallels papers written in how to best educate. I can't go into that in a short text but quick research will reveal that. About the world you paint, it is not the entire world my friend. It's true there are a lot of organizations you might have to live that but there are also places you can experience a different world. I think it sucks that so many organizations fit in your description and we shouldn't have to look so hard to find a more functional organization. I also think a sure way to change that is for good people to not settle for the world you describe and leave and go work for an organization that appreciates you more.

Sometimes these posts are just for hating.. What's wrong with gamification.. I think it can be incredibly effective for teaching employees certain things. I'm not saying I know enough about this story to say it worked or it's even a good thing at all but why take something totally down without even thinking twice..