Shouldn’t productivity software make us want to work? I mean, it’s goal is to make us (and our company) more productive. 
Given that, the most goal-oriented software I can think of is gaming software. That industry is hyper-competitive. They know our attention and dollars are precious and they’re myopically focused on delivering value within their product. Conversely, there isn’t any competition for productivity software. Productivity software wouldn’t come close to cutting the mustard in the gaming industry. For one, we’d all be playing the same freaking game for the last 20 years. That’s 20 years of Donkey Kong. Don’t like it? Tough, sit there and play.
It’s crazy to imagine the things companies could do if they had a supporting market of hyper-competitive software vendors like the gaming industry has.
What if our current productivity software was a game.
It would suck. We’d be asked to save the princess but not be able to see a map, where the other players are, or how to escape the room we’re in. Our entire inventory would consist of a slow carrier pigeon that could deliver craploads of messages back and forth. We wouldn’t even know the score. That’s pretty much the productivity “game” we’ve been playing.
The tease of Social Networks
Then you look at social networks and realize that they’ve started to employ these devices. You can Sims your own interfact, see what percent complete your profile is, ignore and invite, tell it what you like. Ignore people. Stay connected with other “players” and see where they are in their game.
But social networks aren’t aimed at anything nor are they trying to be productivity software. Still, companies keep seeing enough there to generically ask for something like that inside the Enterprise. They’re not literally asking for friending software. They just want something that makes it fun (there I said it) and easy to keep track of people. But it’s a far cry from the complete picture.
Three things productivity software can learn from game designers
1. Help me make decisions
The thing that makes a game a game is the need to make decisions. Isn’t that what would make productivity software, productive? Both games and productivity software need:
- Goals
- Resource management
- Opposition
- Information
Goals
If you have no goal, your decisions are meaningless. Companies (and people) set goals all the time but they end up in someone’s drawer until it’s time to threaten you with them at the end of the quarter. And trivial decisions aren’t any fun. Those are easy. Productivity software should help us move bigger things that whether the icon is blue or green.
Resource management
The road to decisions are filled with choices, just like a game. Do I go left or right? Games help people make these choices. One big way they do this is by giving people resources to manage. Experience points, supplies, weapons, usually you have a diverse set of things you need to tradeoff in order to make your decision.
Opposition
It might sound odd to think that productivity software should contain opposition. But don’t we face that every day? Sometimes it’s competitors, sometimes it’s issues that challenge us. Clarity around obstacles is paramount to truly making progress.
Information
This one is obvious but again would fail with the same competitiveness the gaming industry has. We need just enough information to be able to make sensible decisions. That means I can’t get hammered with a truckload of it and I can’t spend my time hunting it down. Both of those make me want to give up.
2. Keep my interest
To bring all that together, gaming is 100% dependent on their user interface. It’s not enough to have all the above pieces you 
have to deliver them in a way that compels people to want to engage. World of Warcraft has a sick ROI because there are so many people playing it. The same is true for productivity software.
Productivity software designers should think of how advancement, attention, reputation score and other devices that can keep people engaged and productive. I bet if there was a push-broom role that allowed employees to score by pruning the old or irrelevant stuff that companies would have a whole new class of rock stars helping things stay fresh.
3. Make it pleasurable
Dare I say that software is emotional but it is. Productivity software is frustrating. Gaming software is exciting. Yes, I’m saying that productivity software should make me feel pretty good. It should be my favorite “person” to work with. Here’s some of what I want:
- Powers. The power to make decisions to do things.
- Things laying around just when I need them.
- To connect to other players, and I want us all to be in the same “game.”
- To assist other people toward their goal. Maybe even have incentives to do so.
- Color. Yes color. I have to stare at this screen a lot, so make it an atmosphere I want to play in.
- Randomness. I want my interactions and exploration to be have variety. If every encounter or activity is the same, I get bored. Then it’s back to Donkey Kong.
- I want to know my role in certain activities. Am I playing outfield? A spectator? Coaching?
Some people may read this post and think I’m literally thinking about making productivity software a game. I’m not. That would be silly. I’m saying, let’s learn from people who have had to do this for a living, apply it to our productivity software and get some competition going.
I’m ready to play.
