Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/90487
Campers accrued points by sharing contacts, donating space, posting jobs for students, providing testimonials, and donating to the Annual Fund. in their networks, provide feedback to help us improve the game, and take a quiz on Fuqua programs. Quizzes were designed so that campers would have to find some information on the school's Web site or read through a piece of faculty research to answer certain questions correctly. By finishing these tasks, they earned one lottery entry and a cer- tain number of points, depending on how well they performed on the quiz. Once they had completed the tasks and earned 150 points, they could earn another lottery entry for every additional 50 points they accumulated. They accrued more points by sharing contacts at an organiza- tion, donating corporate space for Fuqua activities, posting jobs for students or alumni, referring col- leagues to Fuqua programs, provid- ing testimonials for Fuqua to use in program marketing, and donating to the Annual Fund. They also could earn points by volunteer- ing for Fuqua as mentors, alumni interviewers, class communications chairs, alumni leaders, and so on. One camper earned a total of 28 lottery entries by the end of July! 28 November/December 2012 BizEd We knew the importance of keeping campers engaged, so we built incentives for campers to recruit their classmates. For instance, we awarded points if they invited ten classmates to Camp- out via e-mail or Facebook. We incorporated a Twitter feed within the application, awarding points to campers for using our hashtag (#FuquaCampout). The hashtag was pulled into the Campout inter- face and enabled campers to razz each other about the game. We were improvising as we went, so throughout the month we added other opportunities to earn points. For instance, we invited campers to come to the school's Facebook page and post which of their classmates they would take on the grand prize trip. This generated conversation within the Fuqua community and led to many inside jokes between classmates and across cohorts. It also showcased a slice of the alumni network in a public space—a sub- stantial win for us, since prospec- tive students appreciate a powerful alumni network. A leader board showed the rela- tive positions of the Elite Eight indi- viduals and Final Four classes. See- ing their rankings spurred classmates to reach out to their friends and encourage them to join the game. A few die-hard campers constantly monitored the leader board to make sure they stayed ahead of the pack. Not only could campers watch the leader board, they could wander through the virtual parking lot to view the profiles of all the players, check their point totals, read their comments, and send them emails. We also offered special events that didn't require participants to take action. For instance, we pre- sented guest stars in the parking lot by featuring communications from the dean and members of our global staff. In this way, we could make sure the wider alumni net- work was aware of Fuqua activities in those regions. As the organizers of the game, we chose to identify ourselves as a "Campout Committee" rather than the school's marketing team. This created a wonderful casual dynamic with campers throughout the duration of the game. The Finish Line By all measures, our first experiment with gamification was successful. Grand prize winner Jennifer Hills was not one of the obsessive players—she only had a few lottery entries and spent about five hours playing. But she had a great expe- rience on the trip and networked with many graduates, and she has returned to campus several times to speak to student groups, so she's proven to be a model winner. The experiment also was success- ful because we had participation from students in every program the school has ever run, including those we no longer offer, and repre- sentation from 31 of the 41 classes we've graduated. We gathered hun- dreds of testimonials, HR contacts,