This continues the Readalong by Erik van Mechelen of Jane McGonigal’s ‘Reality is Broken’ with insights from Yu-kai Chou’s Octalysis framework. For in-depth discussions of this book and others, join Octalysis Prime.
tl;dr When we work together, we win.
Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
Summary
McGonigal describes three aspects of concerted effort:
- cooperating — acting purposefully toward a common goal
- coordinating — synchronizing efforts and sharing resources
- cocreating — producing a novel outcome together
These elements help lead to shared concentration, synchronized engagement, mutual regard, collective commitment, and reciprocal rewards.
Analysis
McGonigal opens the chapter with statistics about how much kids game vs how much they read, and develops this argument to encourage us as a society to use our collective ability to play games well for good.
(Off topic: I think we’d do well also to increase literacy and reading, since reading often leads to better critical thinking and the ability to reason and create arguments, a valuable tool in conflict resolution and problem solving…maybe games can teach us how to read and debate!)
Game designers and developers today are working within contexts where massive real-time coordination tools, collaborative creation systems, and lightweight, asynchronous collaboration are possible.
I like McGonigal’s collaboration superpowers:
- high ping quotient: extraordinary collaborators have no qualms about pinging or reaching out via electronic means to others for participation
- collaboration radar: extraordinary collaborators develop a kind of sixth sense about who would make the best collaborators on a particular task or mission
- emergensight: the ability to thrive in a chaotic collaborative environment
In Octalysis terms, these map closely to Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness — the drive to connect, cooperate, and coordinate with others.
When collaboration is designed well, it also taps into Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling, because working together on something bigger than yourself creates a sense of shared purpose.
What do you think?
What collaboratories are you a part of? (Besides Octalysis Prime of course!)
Let me know in the comments or on Octalysis Prime‘s community.
Related Reading
- Readalong: Reality is Broken, Ch 14 — Saving the Real World Together
- Readalong: Reality is Broken, Ch 12 — Missions Impossible
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness
- The 10 Best Social Products That Use Gamification to Save the World
- Books by Yu-kai Chou