8
In Chapter 8 of the book, the author explores the concept of incentives and their importance in mobilizing and engaging a community. The author begins by discussing how societies are organized and how humans respond to incentives. They explain that when the right rewards are mapped to the right incentives, they can generate desirable human behavior and create value. The author emphasizes the importance of crafting incentives that are specific and measurable, as well as the need to incentivize both tangible and intangible behaviors, such as good conduct and building belonging.
The author then introduces the Community Participation Framework and explains how incentives play a role in guiding members from the casual phase to becoming regulars and eventually core members of the community. They emphasize that incentives should be designed to encourage the production of tangible content and skills, and should be tailored to the specific phase of the journey a member is in.
Next, the author breaks down the anatomy of an incentive, highlighting the three fundamental components: the goal, the reward, and the condition. They explain that the goal is the desired behavior to be incentivized, the reward is the incentive given for achieving the goal, and the condition is the measurable criteria that must be met to receive the reward. The author advises that incentives should be objective, representative of the desired behavior, varied in difficulty, and where possible, automated.
The author then introduces two types of incentives: stated incentives and submarine incentives. Stated incentives are openly communicated and have clear criteria and rewards. They can include gamification badges, competitions, hackathons, and contests. Submarine incentives, on the other hand, are preprogrammed ways to detect and reward great community participation in a personal and human way. They are meant to provide validation and appreciation. The author emphasizes the importance of making sure incentives are fair, keeping submarine incentives secret to maintain surprise, mixing intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, making them personal, building in access and engagement, and starting small and gradually building up.
The author also discusses the importance of reputation in a community and how it can be used as a metric to track and reward members’ participation. They explain that reputation should be calculated automatically and decay over time to reflect current activity levels. The author advises caution when deciding whether to publicly display reputation scores, as it can have both positive and negative effects on community dynamics.
To help organizations design and implement their incentives strategy, the author introduces the concept of an incentives map. This is a plan that outlines the incentives to be implemented at each transition point in the community journey and includes details such as the quarter, persona, goal, type, condition, reward, unit cost, estimated units, owner, and status of each incentive.
Lastly, the author provides some recommendations for implementing gamification in a community. They stress the importance of focusing on onboarding and skill acquisition, ensuring clear paths forward, setting clear expectations, protecting against gaming the system, and managing elevated egos. They advise researching different technology platforms for gamification and maintaining a personal touch in all interactions with community members.
Overall, the chapter highlights the importance of incentives as a tool for mobilizing and engaging a community. The author provides practical advice and frameworks for designing and implementing effective incentives strategies, emphasizing the need for personalization, fairness, and balance.
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