With community engagement and outreach being a significant part of the job for any emergency manager, anything that can ease that engagement and create lasting bonds and involvement is a critical factor. To assist with that, many emergency managers have been incorporating aspects of gamification in their approaches, looking to draw increased participation through the introduction of game-like aspects, according to an article in GovTech. Looking to promote positive feedback, this gamification involves such things as adding rewards or scores to non-game situations, or involving team competitions and leaderboards, with the intent of drawing more in depth involvement from the participants, and fostering both action and behavioral change. Whether in individual preparations, training, or competitions like the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Olympics, gamification can offer benefits in participation and interest.
In balance to the initial increase in involvement, users of gamification techniques need to recognize that these techniques can quickly grow stale if not regularly updated, whether through new tasks, goals, or challenges. Additionally, depending on the depth of participant involvement, changes in user habits may be temporary.
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