Gamification stuff we love: Ricardo

Gamification stuff we love: Ricardo

At the gamification world congress, I never laughed as much with a life-size Tamagotchi called Ricardo, who was the leadership and e-learning assistant at Pernod Ricard. Just like a Tamagotchi he had to be kept engaged, awake and one can assume fed and watered, but he also asked some pertinent questions most managers at some point will receive and most employees at some point will ask. Pernod Ricard used him to have managers compete to be the best possible Pernod Ricard manager who keeps their employee engaged.

The aim of the virtual employee was to make managers aware through gamification and digital based learning how they have an impact on employee engagement as well as on implementing the corporate goals and strategies.

The initial results on a target group of young manager delivered results in the words of the Pernod Ricard learning and development team in the following ways:

– Fostering better capture of people management and leadership skills.
– Shifting the motivation for learning from extrinsic to intrinsic.
– Promoting efficient learning, maximizing user engagement in creative ways.

I have to say keeping a virtual employee engaged in the same way as children used to keep their adopted tamagotchi pet alive, is a fun way to encourage leadership and to also allow managers test approaches and some will be successful and some not 100%.

Where have you seen tamagotchi style training initiatives?