What the Donald Trump campaign and Learning have in common
As regular readers of my blog will know, I’m a huge fan of Elliott Masie’s work. Last week he was musing in his learning TRENDS newsletter about the gamification of the presidential election race.
Now, gamification is certainly not our area of expertise as we’re not involved in full instructional design – with of course our consulting being on the learning transfer piece.
But I was fascinated to read Elliott Masie’s thoughts around gamification. Elliott defines gamification as “the concept of applying game mechanics and game design techniques to non-game situations (e.g. learning or shopping) to trigger higher levels of engagement.”
He saw gamification being utilised in the leader boards, in the interviews with voters, and in the way Trump and other candidates were positioning their strategies to gain a higher position in the “game” rather than strong long term propositions.
Masie thinks it seems as though the entire US viewing public is responding to the election gamification coverage. He believes, as with learning, it is heightening engagement, with a personalised sense of competitiveness.
It’s fascinating to see parallels between what is happening with learning and out in the world.