One hour into the conference and we got a well deserved networking coffee break.

I finally had the chance to talk with Dr. Marigo Raftopoulos. I had one of the most rewarding 20 minutes of the event by talking to her about the experience she had with a teacher of her son around 15 years ago.

In Australia, one of the most “progressive” countries in the planet, a teacher, told Marigo: “Not every kid lives up to their potential”.

For me, a #gamification expert specialized in #education this was one thing I hadn’t heard before.

A professional in the field of bringing up the potential of people, was telling me this.

Fortunately, this is the kind of thoughts that drive us forward. This is the kind of world we as #gamification experts are trying to fix.

11:30 am.

Right after our coffee break was over, Joris Beerda presented his keynote on How the Octalysis group empowered the sales team of Procter & Gamble showing outstanding results. As a case study, not much we could’ve drawn out as new techniques, however the results of the project were absolutely outstanding as all Octalysis projects.

11:50

Melinda Jacobs’ flight was cancelled as she was flying from New York and we were unfortunately unable  to see her keynote that day. Thanks to that we had extra minutes with all the speakers from that block, so:

12:10

Toby Beresford came up with a keynote that left most of us breathless when learning how much impact a leaderboard that started with a list of experts from his own perspective in 2012.

@tobyberesford #gamification #GamificationEurope
Vanity metrics are extrinsic while clarity will be intrinsic

— Bernardo Letayf (@bletayf) November 28, 2017

For a full list of my insights, check this link 🙂

Fast forward, he became a UN consultant and is active in SKY News as a social media expert. Skills he has transferred into Rise.Global a Social media success tracking platform that serves today as the host of the Gamification Gurus Power Top 100. Yes, it’s the same list from 5 years ago, just that now it works on itself and measures our participation on the #gamification industry through social media.

12: 30

Jan Storgards from REACTOR started his keynote on the struggles from a #gamification solution provider on how to tackle an emerging market of startups that most of the time are focused on deploying their software and leave key features out of the scope where #gamification could actually be well exploited.

@storgards #GamificationEurope #gamification
The demand of gamification starts from the very basics like a reward system all the way to leveling up and engaging

— Bernardo Letayf (@bletayf) November 28, 2017

One of my favorite takes from the keynote came up as a beautiful phrase that sums up what REACTOR will do for your company and simply put, a phrase we all should use to deploy great solutions and avoid bad clients:

We will add cinnamon to your coffee but we won’t make coffee for you.

Time for lunch. Yep, still Tuesday guys… stay with me 😀

The conference gathering started around 9 am with many familiar faces all around the place. Glad to see Sylvester Arnab, An Coppens, Michael Wu (finally!) and Alex Chalkias (whom I had only met by facebook).

So after a late arrival we all got setup and receive a great welcome from our very own Pete Jenkins! After a couple of short explanations around where the bathrooms were and how to use the conference app Pete left the floor for someone who was, until then, a mystery to me.

It’s really awesome when you are met with ideas that have been around your head for some time. That’s how the #gamification community feels when we all meet up. At least those were the words from most of the experts in the conference.

Jeff Gomez

The opening keynote was one of the most amazing concepts we all have agreed on. Jeff Gomez presented us with an idea we all must work together to accomplish. The hero’s journey is no longer serving us. Opening concept for all. Great present for “The hero’s journey” theme of the conference.

The collective journey is what we must be working towards to. It’s not a matter of one person saving everybody else but, everyone working together to accomplish and overcome any challenge.

It matches with every problem the world is going through. We keep believing that one great person should come and save us all when in reality we must save ourselves.

No need for terrible.trauma
Narrative can follow a cause@jeff_gomez#gamification #GamificationEurope

— Bernardo Letayf (@bletayf) November 28, 2017

You can follow my tweets on the talk in this link

I asked a question to Jeff: “What happens when everyone is special? Then no one is special?”

His answer was even better: We are all special but, it’s no longer about ONE individual but what we can accomplish all together.

My teachings from this talk is simple: The more people that work together, the greater and better the outcome will always be.

My thoughts on my own question are that when we are all special, unless we clear our idea of being the hero and the protagonist of the story, we will keep thinking that one person must be “better” than the rest and we must separate is from the crowd somehow, when, in reality, we should be working on making the WHOLE crowd special.

Oh… it’s not even 11 am at this point.