We’re In The Business Of Game & Flow: Group Innovation Director M&C Saatchi

We’re In The Business Of Game & Flow: Group Innovation Director M&C Saatchi
ERIN MARY Doyle
By ERIN MARY Doyle



During this morning’s keynote presentation, Ben Cooper (pictured above) group innovation director at M&C Saatchi and co-founder of Tricky Jigsaw- took the Daze of Disruption crowd through a gamification journey called Game and Flow.

“When B&T reached out and asked me to talk about gamification, I sort of thought it was an odd thing to start with but when I reflected on it i realised it was a good thing. Gamification is what we do each day, we help design and collaborate to help people progress and help them get to innovatve solutions,” Cooper explained.

“The more you get away from your core business, the less you rely on marketing and advertising becuase ultimate you’re building a new group of things that people want to talk about and use. Ultimately you’ve got to unlock yourself.

“The amount of times that we talk to a group of people and they go ‘that’s not really our core business or what we do’. Well you’re not going to innovate, progress or unlock your potential if you think like that.”

The trick is you have to open people up to innovation and design, “That’s a type of gamification. It’s a type of design that helps teams align themselves and help people see where they can go and think outside the core.”

Cooper explained gamification is about exciting people to get from A to B, to unlock their potential and behaviours. For example, Cooper shows the crowd an initative by Volkswagen which used gamification technology to encourage people to be more active and aware of their surroundings.

“It had everything from bins that sounded like rubbish falling down to the bottom of the earth, so people were encouraged to put rubbish in the bin. It’s little things that let people unlock their potential.”

So how can you use gamification to help you and your team unlock your potential and get into the zone

“The Zone is where everything is clicking. It’s a little bit easier to do it alone but when you’re in a team it’s harder, you’ve really got to bring more skills together. One of those skills might be making sure the right person is doing the right thing or unlocking the anxiety in another area for a team member.

“I believe we all need to progress ourselves, our companies and the world in many ways. Never has there been a better time to use creativity to make a difference, but ultimately you have to understand intrinsically what blocks that change. If we can unlock that and push ourselves into this new space, that new space is where we need to go to stay competitive and relevant.”

Few tips:

1. Design for collaboration. It doesn’t just happen. “We do a lot of workshopping but the four hours with the client there had been 48 of planning. Every minute blocked down and every moment planned. Design the time, it’s really important.”

2. Reflect regularly- with both yourselves and the client.

3. Inspire and energise.




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