Gist Nails The Gist Of A Simple Training Game
We love games here at Zeek Interactive. We play them. We make them.
And we’ve felt for a long, long time that games and learning were meant for each other. Our first training games were launched back in 1998 as part of a collaboration with AdOut. They were called “Monster Commands” and “Key Commando” and they taught the important key commands that made the AdOut production artists some of the most productive in the industry. They were a huge success. The employees loved them and within an hour, they had mastered key commands for programs like Photoshop, Quark and Illustrator that would otherwise have taken weeks or months to learn.
In 2003, we attempted to turn our game creation experience into a training solution for corporations. We created Motus Learning Systems with a couple of other partners to give it a focus. Motus built several demo games for different companies, and we even created a kids game to teach mousing skills. The initial illustrations for that kids game are shown above. And although this proved to be a short-lived venture for many reasons, it didn’t alter our belief that games are simply the best way to learn things that require repetition to master.
This past week, Gist launched their own training game. And I really like it.
Stated very clearly on the front page of their site, “Gist helps you build stronger relationships by connecting the inbox to the web to provide business-critical information about the people and companies that matter most.” Others, like Dustin Luther, have written about how Gist is helping them manage the many online relationships they’ve fostered. I like it too, but I really like their newest feature, a game called, “Learn That Name.” And it does exactly what the name implies… it helps you learn the names and companies of the people you follow on social networks.
It’s a simple game, as most good training games are. You’re presented with a person’s avatar and you get points for guessing their name correctly. The faster you guess, the more points you get. Get it wrong and you lose 50 points. Each round is five people. For my taste, it’s just the right number. In my first round I achieved the “Super Socialite” level, though I was lucky to get five people I know pretty well. The second round labeled me a “Casual Networker.” I think the game could do a better job of sensing the sex of a contact. If I didn’t know that was Geoff Livingston, it would be a lot harder to figure out if all four names were male oriented.
The game strips off choices as the time clicks by and the points drop. So, if you don’t know who someone is, it helps you. If you don’t get the name right, you don’t get the option of the bonus question, which is “Where does <first name> work?” I wasn’t sure who this next guy was, so the game gave me some help.
I haven’t used Gist much since I loaded it, but I’ll be using it more now. I think they did a great job with the game. I can see lots of potential for categorizing contacts based on upcoming events, recent additions, high school classmates, etc. In fact, I’d download this app JUST to play this game. After just a few rounds, I’ve already become more familiar with some folks I’ve been trying to get to know over the past year. And I was surprised by some of the faces I recognized and how hard it was to place their name.
Kudos to Gist. Well done.
Tags: adout, fun, Games, gist, learning, motus, Social Media, training
This is really interesting Jeff. Being in the training industry myself, our company uses a lot of game type scenarios to help our learners out. I forwarded your article to our developers and producers. I love interactive games and believe they have a huge impact on the learners and overall productivity of a company. Thanks for your post!
Thanks, Jonathon. The games we developed for AdOut were impressively successful in getting the user to an “expert” level in record time. We knew it would be effectie, but even we were surprised by the results. If you need any assistance, don’t hesitate to ask.
Wow! I wish we had thought of this. What a great idea! As you know, I have always believed in games as a training tool. Many of the training games that we have seen highlight the “training” part and lack the “game” part. The screenshots that you posted here look like a game that I would actually play. The points ticking away adds a nice pressure element to make the player want to act fast. Nice stuff…
I love this! I teach Social Media Sessions to the agents where I work and this would certainly make it much more fun! Can’t wait to play! Better brush up on Who works Where!
p/s Steve, checking out your profile so I can remember where you work!
LOL. When are we going to Wahoo’s? I am jonzing for some right now….
I’m a bit conflicted on this one… I played a few rounds and new all the names and companies for everyone they showed, so there was no challenge. Kinda wish they’d fixed some bugs and added some missing features with their iphone app instead!
LOL, yes, as I play it more I want it to learn who it has already fed me and who I’ve missed so it can feed them to me more. But… it’s a great beginning and an excellent concept. That said, I’ve not used the other parts of their iPhone app enough to know what bugs you’re referring to.
The thing that makes me scratch my head the most isn’t a bug, but just a design element. They limit updates on the main screen to about 100 characters, so in order to read many tweets you have to click through to a “tweet detail” page. Are tweets really so long that I’ve gotta click through to another screen to read them? Would seem like it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out that the vast majority of updates come in 140 characters or less, so you might as well make your interface display 140 characters at a time.
Only two “real” bugs I’ve found are: 1) If you click “mark read” when on the last update that gist has stored (It stores about 20 at a time), then it kicks you out of the app and back to the main iphone screen… and 2) writing “tweets” from their interface doesn’t limit you to 140 characters (or even let you know how many characters you’re using), so it’s super easy to botch the URL of links when you’re retweeting something.
None of them are show-stoppers, but they’re little things it’d be nice to see them fix.
“Are tweets really so long that I’ve gotta click through to another screen to read them?” Yes, that seems like a major design flaw. And I would agree that a “vast majority” would come in under 140 characters.
Didn’t have to think hard on that one.
The stumbling block for me is setting the priority level of each user. The app is somewhat cobbled without having that part nailed down and, at least in my limited experience with it, that is a time consuming process.
You’ve definitely hit on the main stumbling block… Getting your contacts prioritized is critical, but I found it to be totally worth it… and once you get going, it’s not as intimidating as you might think. The strategy I used was to only update people from the main dashboard… This way you’re only prioritizing people who actually update since they’re the only one’s you’re going to see with the tool anyway.
That’s good advice, Dustin.