Banking and gamification in a digital world

It seems to me that the banking sector is missing a trick in the digital space. One which would allow it to look more responsible for its younger customers whilst riding the wave of social media and gamification to engage them in spending and saving.

Using social apps like Foursquare, users can check in to locations and gain points - becoming the mayor of places they frequent and unlocking badges. This economy is universally understood.

The economy? Not so much.

So it makes sense to do what banks do best and capitalise on this wave of enthusiasm and understanding. Especially as banks already reward you with interest for saving money.

Help younger users understand the budgeting process by allowing them to manage their account through Facebook and mobile apps - most banks now have the former anyway.

Let us unlock badges for saving. Let us build up interest and accrue points. Let users model their future financial decisions and see possible outcomes before they make them - how much money will I have at the end of January if I save £100 a month but can’t afford to in July?

Make banking fun, educational and useful to people. It might just work.

Businesses should create communities

Have you ever seen the movie Crash? Sandra Bullock is angry all the time. Don Cheadle is eternally conflicted and Ryan Phillipe kills a man.

The point is, it’s a film about lots of different people who are brought together by events. Imagine them as lonely planets that all have the fact that they can see the sun in common - they don’t all see it at the same time but they all can.

How does this impact the world of business? Well, people are generally the same. Individuals who travel through life, define themselves and find friends based on whether they can see the sun at the same time as us.

Maybe we love our pets and post pictures of them on Facebook all the time - an amazing opportunity for pet stores and vets - or maybe we enjoy finding new music, which we then claim to hate when everyone else discovers it - great opportunity for unsigned acts and independent venues.

Whatever the ‘sun’ may be for different people, there’s always an opportunity to sell them your sunglasses if you spend a little time covering them with your sunbrella. And they might even recommend them to their friends too if you stand by them.

The moral to this story? Find your planets and turn them into a little hyperlocal galaxy - even if geographically they’re light-years apart, technology can help you build one of those cool bridges off Thor.

Allow resale of digital products

Living in the Cloud is great.

There’s nothing physical so nothing is wasted. The production and distribution of everything is cheaper. No wonder businesses love it.

But what’s in it for the consumer? eBooks can be bought faster, sometimes cheaper and take up less space than their physical counterparts.

But if you hate the book or the CD, software or app, you’re stuck with it.

You can’t sell it on or trade it in. You can’t even lend it to a friend or give it to a charity shop - unless you fancy handing over your whole device.

The solution? A second-tier of ‘app store’ that allows users who want to recoup some, if not all, of their losses to re-sell their digital products to other users.

But maybe then we’d have to simulate depreciation - delete a page from our ebooks, put a scratch effect into our mp3s, scuff the corner of the app icon - to ensure the full second-hand experience is digitally realised.

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