Abstract

Gamification refers to the use of game-design elements in a non-gaming context. The consulting company Capgemini has set up a rudimentary Gamification platform to help motivating the people to do extra work for the company in their spare time. In order to reward people for this effort, they can request badges, which are virtual representations of achievements. A team of other employees decide whether or not the badge is granted. The Gamification platform can answer a number of research questions on the efficacy and effectiveness of such platforms. For instance, what is the relation between authoritativeness of people in a professional organization? In the present work, we focus on the design of a Gamification solution and combine a Gamification platform with an existing company-wide social media service. Statistical analysis on both the social graph and the Gamification data shows the correlations between the social network and the number of badges or types of badges the players have earned. The analysis focusses mainly on authoritativeness of people; a measure to determine the importance of a person in a social network. Early results show that a correlation exists between the quantity of badges or types of badges. The result strengthens the foundation why one should implement a Gamification platform and how important the social structure in the sense of social media is for the value of it.