What a great session here at ScreenBurn and SxSW! Moderated by Andy Baio from Kickstarter the panel covered how more and more games, apps, and companies are taking their product and making it all about the meta game, the game within the game.

Think about social games that give you achievements or badges for completing tasks (Farmville), or for checking in at different locations (Four Square), the ability to add a sub game to the actual activity you are asking your users to undertake really drives their usage and behavior. The ability to get people to undertake undesirable tasks, like exercise and turn it into a game (Nike+) gives more incentive for continuing to engage in that activity.

The concept is to align incentives with desired behavior. Encouraging networking, collaboration, and being able to track metrics or points tied to a specific goal can motivate and encourage! Think of all the scorecards and metrics we use at work; the ability to pit teams and locations against each other in their drive to achieve business results.

It also applies for consumers, turning consumption and product use into a game. Our ability to link products and usage and provide a social or community aspect allowing them to achieve points, or allowing them to unlock unique experiences for groups could be a way to responsibly encourage consumption. There is of course limits to the things we can do and we must always remain socially responsible.

I would encourage everyone to get a feel for what the panel discussed; there is a ‘game’ for Excel and Word called Ribbon Hero, click here to download. You can link it to your Facebook account and it gives incentives for trying, using, and experiencing MS Office. Give it a shot, and maybe that next PowerPoint deck you put together will score you some mad points! Happy Gaming!