Parents can’t even lock their children into their rooms these days as punishment; they are only giving them more time to play games in peace.In fact, instead of fighting digital games, you should be learning how to play them with your children, say gamification experts.“Gamification” is the “old” new word that describes the way gaming techniques are becoming more pervasive in the home, online, in the working word, and in marketing. It’s the current business buzz, but some of the techniques have been around for some time, just not so pervasively. It’s not just about the people gaming away happily for large amounts of time, for example at World of Warcraft or at Farmville, which have attracted millions of users.Gamification is the practice of using gaming techniques to motivate people and change their behaviour. Digital or video games present the opportunity to study gaming behaviour and the strategies people take then use the information to engage target audiences in other settings.I went to a talk last week by Gabe Zichermann, the author of Game-Based Marketing and the soon to be released Gamification by Design. He pointed to two examples of gamification.For example, Sweden has tested gamification to bring down speeding on the road with great success. Those who speed are fined; those who drive under the speed limited are entered into a lottery to win a portion of the money from fines paid by the speeders.Then there is the story of Ananth Pai, a former business executive who decided to become an elementary schoolteacher at Matoska International in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. He has received lots of attention by using a scalable, data-driven, game based curriculum to help all students learn at their individual level. Since he began three years ago, standardised test results show the class has grown from a starting third grade average to fifth grade level in reading and math.His motivation was to adapt his teaching rather than to try and change the attitude of the students toward learning. He just fooled them into believing that it was part of a game to get their attention.“The lost instructional time, behaviour management staffing and the setbacks the students suffer in the long term when they are unengaged are costs we are currently incurring,” Pai argues at http://sites.google.com /site/teamdrillhead.Zichermann believes gaming by itself boosts brain power and motor skills citing the extreme multi-tasking and communication skills involved in many of today’s multiplayer games. This is in addition to game playing skills. “Games make players have to constantly learn something new,” he said.Don’t worry about the children. You can either stand aside and let the children play, or join in and participate in their world.“We are going to be the most out of touch parents in history,” Zichermann said. “We need to play these games because our culture has already made a choice.”This is our “fun future”, he added. “It will be faster paced, there will be rewards everywhere, there will be collaborative play and gaming will be more global.”How to turn gaming and gaming studies to drive your business gamification is the task of people like himself.“Gamification is the process of using game skills and techniques to solve problems,” he said. “In other words, how can you get money from this?”He cites a study by the Gartner Group, which claims that by 2015, 50% of companies that manage innovation and research will use gamification in some way to either motivate their employees or their customers, or both.IT planners and chief information officers should be aware of the trend and how to leverage the information being gleaned from the gaming world. Their competitors will be. Next week I’ll take you through some of the studies and thinking behind gamification.You will at least look at gamers in a different way, even as you start expanding your vocabulary. We will start with the thinking behind catering to four gaming types: achievers, socialisers, explorers and killers. Are they real types, or do they just exist in gaming?Send any comments to elamin.ahmed[AT]gmail.com