Intersections in Learning featuring guest Jonathan Peters

Monique St Paul  
Thanks for listening to the intersections and learning and development cast a series from the training, learning and development community. My name is Monique St. Paul. And this cast focuses on forging relationships that foster effective learning no matter where you start, whether you design, develop, deliver, support or consult and all of the above, we hope to provide you with new ideas, inspiration and connections across the l&d community. Jonathan Peters is a chief motivation officer at sententiae. Gamification. He spent over a decade studying the science and art of motivation and persuasion. In Israel. He applies his knowledge and expertise to making learning more enticing, encouraging through gamification. We really wanted to talk to Jonathan because the intersection of gamifying learning is an important one for us to understand to engage learners and increase knowledge retention. Let's get to it.

Hello, and welcome to intersections and learning and development. My name is Monique St. Paul co host, Lisa Crocket is on the I like to say ones and twos, but on the keyboard producing for us today. My guest today is Jonathan Peters, who is the Chief motivation officer from sententiae. Gamification. It's a developer of experiential learning experiences for more than 20 years, we really wanted to talk to Jonathan today, because the intersection of gamification is an important one for us to understand learner engagement as well as increasing knowledge retention. So without further ado, Jonathan, I'll let you give us a little bit of bio about what you do and who you are.

Jonathan Peters  
So yeah, with some tension and had some tension gamification, we focus on gamification of adult learning experiences. So whether that's corporate, we do have a lot of higher ed that we work with. And so we have several different things that we work with. We have game con, which is gamification Conference, which comes up. And what else? Of course, we do design, and then we have three levels of certification as well. So certification in gamification, design. Here's a little bit of echo Are you hearing?

Monique St Paul  
I know, I hear almost just like water in the background or something. Yeah. Today, I guess. Audio is fine since the audience members so we're good. Good. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Louise. Alright, we'll get into it. So what is gamification mean to you?

Jonathan Peters  
So, there's lots of different definitions of gamification, and, but the simple one that we like to use is taking the mechanics and dynamics of games. So what makes games fun, and then applying it in a non game context. So a purist would say that gamification is not a game, so that we like to broaden the umbrella a little bit. We do bring in some learning games, and so on, but, but it doesn't necessarily feel like a game when it's gamified. So just taking what makes games fun, and applying it to non game contexts, such as learning experiences.

Monique St Paul  
Excellent, excellent. So can you describe the difference sort of between a learning game and what you're doing in terms of taking a learning experience? It is a learning experience and gamifying it?

Jonathan Peters  
Yeah. So if you take just take Jeopardy, for instance, so the game agency, for instance, they have the legal rights to Jeopardy in the learning environment. So certainly, we're resellers, there's but when you get in there, then learner goes in, it feels like a game. We know, this is a game that has the music and the wheel spinning, and so on. So might be a good for an assessment did did learning happen that gamification is more immersive inside of the experience. And so there's a full range of just throwing points, badges leaderboards at something all the way up to full immersive experience, where the learning is happening all the way through, the mechanics are there all the way through not just as an assessment at the end? So it doesn't have to even feel like a game although we do mention that called the magic circle when, when the learner moves into what's called the magic circle, so they accept through games. So it's, it's subtle, but it's not. Oh, now we're playing a game. It's an hour in the learning experience that has these fun, mechanics and throughout.

Monique St Paul  
Excellent, so what type of projects have you gamified so you're talking about this a little bit so it doesn't have to seem like a game but are you doing how to do technical training? Or is it soft skills, what type of learning are learners learning?

Jonathan Peters  
Soft skills is seems to be where we've been hanging out recently. So leadership, what's in the past what's been big as for onboarding. So here's one example that we always like to point to one of our master craftsmen did for a very large company, and they had 80 hours of onboarding experience. So this customer service person comes in, and they're just looking at the screen, just one click, click, click, click, click. And so the company was losing people, people be like, rather work at Starbucks. And so by those immersive narrative, the story, you're bringing someone back from Mars, and so on, and then that, from an onboarding perspective of was much more successful and keeping engagement keeping people going. So onboarding is a good space for it. of soft skills. I'm trying to think on the technical side, if we've seen something. Some in the past, some cybersecurity was something that we've seen, we chased it down. Team building, certainly, certainly on team building, that's easy. What was gamification, because we can take mechanics and bring people into a guild and then move them through a scenario would be good.

Monique St Paul  
Excellent. And with everything going on with COVID, I'm sure some of this used to be in person, but now a lot of it might be online. How did you make this switch to virtual? Or has it always been part of like, elearning? Or can you explain that a little bit?

Jonathan Peters  
Yeah, so a lot of people have the assumption that gamification has to be an elearning. Inside that, and that's because of the program. And of course, because the background of games, the so the founder of our company, Monica, Cornell, you're in the early days of the gamification discussion, she argued for low tech and no tech gamification, because everybody else was out there. And again, we didn't have the tools that we do now. So going back 10 years or so. And the so that was her entree. And so she even used the analogy of marijuana and being the gateway drugs, you should start with low tech, get people addicted before you spend the money. Put in the time to put it on an E platform. So but on the other hand, for us, we were already in the space in the eLearning space, because that's where you can get in the art to control the environment more, especially for outside clients. In our case with clients, we look forward to being in person. And so specifically, our programs, like I said, our certifications are gamified. And they were originally designed to be a one on one input, not one on one but in person. And so the shift like we all had to do virtual. And so a lot of those can't stay in play. All we did is just like moving on to a platform like we are here, we zoo, but the piece there.

Monique St Paul  
Excellent. And so do you face any challenges with people taking sort of gamification seriously, when you talk to stakeholders? How do you convince them that this is the right way to go?

Jonathan Peters  
When people say team members, buddy, they work for other companies. So large, he's going through it right now with a large pharmaceutical company. And they're moving out that word, gamification, putting in intrinsic motivation. Some pressure from above, instead, that's what oftentimes, I'll stress the word motivation design. So we could use that as well, but and so he calls them instead of being mechanics, their motivation and mechanics and motivational mechanics. So he's changing the wording. So even though I'm okay with it, because that's what ultimately doing the same this. These are things that people find is fun and engaging. So we don't necessarily have to call it game gamification. We can move it outside. So yeah, motivational designs, the one that I've used, he's using intrinsic motivation. And I'm kind of just because I nerd out on these things. So the science of using intrinsic doesn't necessarily work. So performance mechanics. That's a good one.

Monique St Paul  
Yeah, no, I like it's a little bit semantics, which is one of my favorite words. But I, I do like it means same thing. If people are doing what they're supposed to, then that's all that matters. And to that question, how do you show the data that it's working that more people are engaged in onboarding? What do you show those stakeholders at the end of experience with you?

Jonathan Peters  
Yeah. And so that's what's great about gamification, instead of doing, you know, lecture, lecture test, watch metric quiz. And then what we're really major aim is just short term, memory, working memory, we don't know if it's going to be successful. Further out with with game mechanics, there's a lot of certain game mechanics, we can make sure that learning is happening in the moment. And so because we can look at engagement rates, and so on, this is where now now, we need to engage in LMS. And there's more technology to come in to showing engagement and application as we're progressing through. So with certain game mechanics that we can really major that so we can see that there, they are engaged in the material in the moment as progressing through instead of waiting to the end for an assessment. So we can work those in. And like I said, now we're moving to, we need an LMS, we need to be able to track you know, that they're worth reading paper. So we can see that they're having small victories along the way that's using the escape room, because they're popular right now. You can measure that they're staying with the with the narrative and moving through the material without saying that and now for a quiz.

Monique St Paul  
Right? Do you think it's then more like micro learning then?

Jonathan Peters  
In a sense, in that sense? Yeah. So learning is happening micro, a lot of times, we can micros being just in time, you know, I have two minutes here, versus before gamifying, a longer program than an hour, two hours or whatever, then it's not technically micro learning, but learning is happening in the micro

Monique St Paul  
in short bursts. I get it, I get it. And then another question for you. So how do you weave your learning solution into existing learning cycles? So we know that you mentioned onboarding, but for something like team building, these people already know each other? They might be doing other team building exercises? How do you combine what you do with what they're already doing?

Jonathan Peters  
That's a good question. The the struggle is always because if you already have something that exists, have been modify it in time, especially people are used to it over here. And that's what happens internally, you need to do that quite a bit. It's difficult to patch on top of it, is what I would say when we take some game mechanics and we just tap it on top of something that already exists. We run the risk making feel just packed on part of it. It's easier to take apart the elements and gamify it all the way through. And that's the ideal world. This big contract right now. Yep. Hold on. It's been a year in the making. This organization wants all of their learning programs to be gamified. And so that, of course is taking an outside entity to do that. Because the folks that they have on staff already in their l&d department, they're already busy. Right, right. Right. dismantle everything that's here and then recreate from, not from scratch because the learnings there, it's just changing the experience. So yeah, like Kim was saying that you will lead just because of how life is mean, if you need three more people on your team,

Monique St Paul  
to be able to be more.

Jonathan Peters  
It's just important to be careful of that feeling like oh, now we have this on top of what we already had. So it's it. It's difficult struggle, reality versus ideal truths.

Monique St Paul  
Fair enough. You mentioned those busy l&d Folks, so when you go in as a company, what Who do you work with? Do you work? What departments do you work with? Is it just l&d? Is it marketing? Who do you interact with to get a project going?

Jonathan Peters  
Yeah, The company on our main I don't know if its main Yeah, the main kind of push and so on is really to train to help people not train. But help folks who are already in the field, you have an idea of here's how you can refine it. In other words, why should a company bring us in if they already have a team who just needs to learn our process. And so that's where we do most of our focus. Just kind of resource wise, we only bring on, you know, a couple projects. At any time of actual design, we much rather spread the word for professionals who already out there are already working in the field, so that you can help your company and just use the resources because there's a talent. Why hire us? Why hire rest at hire designers when you already have designers? So why not work with the team? You already have as a company?

Monique St Paul  
Excellent. I'm sure they like that, too. Just cost wise, that works a lot better.

Jonathan Peters  
Yeah. The people which are pretty fun, instead of trying to finagle

Monique St Paul  
l&d People are lots of fun. I'm not biased by any means. Can you describe your development process and how it may vary from project to project as you work with different different organizations?

Jonathan Peters  
Yeah. So our process was we have five levels, and there's 30, stepping stones of six. So it's quite involved. But I'd say what's the most different for us from other things, and our biggest focus is on the learner. So we actually create personas. So we use a broad learning program that's going across to an organization, we usually create maybe three at the most learner personas and then design for them for the persona. And so there's always outliers. And then that's where the game mechanics come in as what would be fun for them. So to use the example of there's, let's say, like a leaderboard or something, most people do not like leaderboards. There's only specific motivation type of profile that likes leaderboards. Most people don't like them. So why would I use a leaderboard, even though I happen to like leaderboard, because I'm extremely competitive, I can see who I need to sabotage in order to get sabotage. But that's rare. So it's fun for me to be highly competitive, in this case, to make sure other people are losing. Most of my learners don't find that don't find that as fun or interesting, would not be engaging. So that's where we really focus on on them on the learners. And then we appeared there. So liars, you can't design for everybody, and fun. So you out there can't design for me because I'm so weird, but I'll make I'll add competition somehow.

Monique St Paul  
I'm okay with leaderboards. As long as I'm on top. Yeah. So as you work with folks, like how do you break them into working with you? So do you do icebreakers to get the idea? Do you need to explain gamification? Do you think people understand it when you're working with their teams? Or how do you broach that? Or how do you get them to believe in what you believe?

Jonathan Peters  
Yeah, it's been interesting to watch in our field. So there's areas that we focus in, I'm hanging out a lot in the larger gamification discussion, because that's my role on the research side, for the company, and then so for, for they're really matured a few years ago, and it's interesting to see how it's moved. So like, India is very excited about what's going on in India, and then it'll be spread in Game Station, at least in the l&d space. Here in the US, we're behind the curve quite a bit. We're, so we're still seeing where it's a new concept. People haven't really played inside of the game with gamification of learning, unlike other countries are doing throughout the world. So it's interesting when we do our certifications, because especially public ones where we don't know the folks coming in. So the Likert scale, your experience, and so it's been a little more difficult because that's really the gap is widening. So we'll have people who have actually implemented in the same room of people have just heard the term attended, because they heard it. And they said, Well, what is this? And so is interesting. There. Hey, Karen, thanks for lifesavers.org. That's one of the ones for us is a great example of immersive immersive gamification. So that's one that's worth, if you click on that, go play some time, give yourself 15 minutes, but also watch the failure state because that's also important in games, is we learn through failure. And so that that's a powerful lesson to learn from gamification.

Monique St Paul  
Yeah, do you see Kim's question is, are US companies too cautious, both spending money and use of anything fun, that might be a risk or a liability?

Jonathan Peters  
Yeah, I'm not really sure where the resistance comes, it might be that whole universe serves people doing serious work. Also, the legacy, I've started to use this, I'll be on discussion later today. And my points they're looking at, it's almost generational children in the classroom today have a much different experience than I had. I couldn't talk I had to be quiet, I had to sit in a desk all day. You know, now their movement there, they don't have desks and so on. So there's also that expectations, I think there'll be some movement becoming more acceptable, or moving into especially when when we can consistently show that engagement is going on. So if you haven't just a regular black text on a white screen, read this and take a quiz. And then the changes happening if we can show how, over time that people are remembering engaging, and after applying information. Now we can make an ROI claim to say, Hey, as long as as long as you've lost the productivity for that hour of training, why not make sure it actually works? to it? Yeah, makes sense. So

Monique St Paul  
So I have a question that I'm introverted as you were talking just about classrooms today, they are very different from what we I think, even though we're different ages, learn. So I'm an introvert. I don't generally I like working with groups for a little bit. I don't like open concept, I need headphones to work by myself. So what do you say in terms of that for people as things start to open up, and they start to become more interactive with others? What about those folks who are a little more introverted who want to just sort of sit on their own? Do you create something for them to do solo? Or what's going on? And you might not have an answer for that, but it's something that perked my interest.

Jonathan Peters  
And again, with son, we look at who, who's and who's playing who our learners are. And then so we see, let's say 60% of the folks are like you, then we wouldn't want to force you into guild. Yeah, guild work teamwork. Where you're needing to stand up and share and talk. So we would want to have other mechanics and then maybe the fun, you know, the social part, or we could create side quests, where those of us who want to interact and talk and, and stand up share like we are here, then for those people, then they have the opportunity, but it's more of a side quest and not penalizing you for not playing in that quest. But but you can still get through the information and learn without causing you to be uncomfortable and disengage

Monique St Paul  
with appreciate that little bit of safety there for me, so what is your favorite resource when you're doing your own skills development?

Jonathan Peters  
resource. So we've, we've really dropped for us the main are one of the things that we really stress is the narrative and the story and because there's a lot of research on learning, and learning through story in the last seven years. And so that's where we really so it's fun to say, Pixar is mentioned to what are the story? What are the story arcs that are successful? And so that's what's fun on my side, because then we have an excuse to, to watch movies.

Monique St Paul  
Always listen to any podcast or do you follow individuals that people might want to also follow if they were interesting?

Jonathan Peters  
Yes, so it's not really in gamification, but the first person that came to mind when you're saying that was Tim Slade has a good podcast and especially for those of you working in elearning. I'll be on a panel with him later. Today and so that's why jumps to mind quick course. Yeah. Yeah. And then K PP looks like app, Carl copies colleague. And so he's has the advantage of being a professor. And so he has grad students he can work with. Excellent, good source he has. He's co author and again because he gets to co author books, then it's a book coming out, especially for those of you who are in large l&d teams, specifically, his co author works at Microsoft. And so I just finished reviewing the book for them. So it's gonna be published soon. And I don't don't ask me to title.

Monique St Paul  
I won't I won't ask you another I guess serious question. And then we'll get into learn a little bit more about you. So what experiences best prepared you for the role that you have now?

Jonathan Peters  
My recall a Mr. Success stories when in public speaking, when Professor was relatively popular as a professor, and then most of you on the call, they hear that the older you get the younger college students get. I signed up for a company to them live their training to business professionals so that I could be with people my age. And what happened is I went out there because I took what was working in the classroom and assumed it was going to work in seminars day long seminars, and it was because of such failure, it was so bad. So boring, for everybody included, and gamification wasn't around then but that's when my when I got in touch with Monika Cornetti because back then she was known as the activity queen, and so is right away. How do I engage learners? This case using learning activities? Like I said, This predates gamification by a few years. Thinking became a term in 2010. My failure was in 2008.

Monique St Paul  
That's okay. Let's learn a little bit about you. What is the long last song that you listened to?

Jonathan Peters  
My song? Good. She said yesterday what was on the plane let's think about that. That was because I was going to old 80s Yes, sir. Yesterday, so I'd have to be doing some Bon Jovi or something was playing.

Monique St Paul  
Trick question. You weren't expecting that. You just told us what You Last Read. But was the last thing that you read for fun so that you weren't reviewing? What was the last thing that you read? For fun?

Jonathan Peters  
Oh, for fun. Yeah. So I'm a bit audio books person. So I'm walking around all the time with my headphones on. So I just finished the versus I'm all about the stuff. So the red Specter, let me see who's the author? Andrews and Wilson are what's been playing in my head? Dinner and washing dishes. Yeah, so I do fiction when I'm just moving around the house and then nonfiction when I'm exercising or something. So.

Monique St Paul  
Excellent. Excellent. And then what is your favorite form of entertainment? So you listen to podcast? Is that the favorite thing to listen to? You listen to talk about movies. What else is going on?

Jonathan Peters  
Yeah, I just do a lot of you know, television is supposed to be so bad for us. But now with streaming. We just wrapped up. It's you know, it's time timing is very interesting. But inventing Hana. I think it's on Netflix. We just finished that. And so it's a real case. It just I just read times this morning that she's gonna be deported to Germany. We've been holding her for forever, even after she's convicted, and served time in prison than she had to be held. And now she's finally getting sent back to bed. Anyway, fascinating how this lady was able to manipulate the wealthy in New York City.

Monique St Paul  
Okay, so we have some suggestions there on Netflix. What's the last PG thing you did that kept you up late at night?

Jonathan Peters  
At night, just playing. I was playing video game recently. What was it? That kept me going Besides watching TV? Yeah, I'd have to be a little transparent. Sometimes it's getting out and seeing people nowadays. And where I live, as far as you know, it's all outdoors and stuff. So it's fun to. I'm very sociable. So that's been, that's something that keeps me up late at night is talking to strangers.

Monique St Paul  
I won't even dig into that one. And the last question that we always ask is, could your partner best friend accurately describe what you do for a living?

Jonathan Peters  
Well, because we work together, but outside of the company, I would say no, and that's what's always interesting, just because the gamification is so much more than just putting in little points, badges, leaderboards, or making a game. And so most people who know me don't really understand and most of them don't care to understand. Or you do that thing with games, right? Well, it's a little bit more involved.

Monique St Paul  
You're gonna hear my timer going off, and that is food in the oven. However, just say, Join us on March 21. Thank you, Jonathan Peters, for being with us today. Lisa, if you don't mind dropping his LinkedIn information in the chat one more time, at 11 o'clock on the 29th. We're gonna have Aaron Chancellor, who's an instructional designer, and I will be behind the keyboard and Lisa will be ON CAM. Other than that. Thank you, Jonathan, for your time and everyone for joining. Have a good one. Thanks. Thanks again for listening. And if you find value in our content, please consider supporting to DC with a membership. Go to detail DC comm backslash join to sign up and get access to hundreds of our recorded videos, free entry to all of our live virtual conferences and events and more. Your support helps us continue to build community and share valuable resources for l&d professionals around the world. Thanks again for listening

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