A History Lesson via SmartPhone

Author’s Note: This is one of a series of blog posts that are related to assignments from my business reporting class.

I hear Wall Street and I think of people in business suits yelling on a crowded trading room floor. Well it’s that or the movie by the same name. Wall Street, however, is much more than that as I learned on Tuesday when my class went on an interactive tour of New York’s Financial District. 

Marching like revolutionaries through Stone Street.

The tour, put on by StrayBoots, took the form of a scavenger hunt. But unlike a traditional scavenger hunts where each team is given a list of things to find, our class’s three teams were given clues via text message. Each team would follow the clue and text the answer or a photo to receive the next clue and a fact about the location. 

I was surprised to find that the area was packed not only with landmarks of the financial world, but also with landmarks rich with in American history. When we stood at the cross streets of Pearl St and Coentities Alley, for example, we found ourselves between the site of Thomas Edison’s first power plant and the Fraunces Tavern where George Washington bade farewell to his officers at the close of the Revolutionary War. Other stops on the tour included the oldest continuously operating building in New York, St. Paul’s Chapel, and the Federal Reserve where 25% of the world’s gold bullion lies in five floors of underground vaults. 

It was a nice change of pace to be outside learning about history instead of sitting inside listening to a 2-hour lecture (although I probably would have enjoyed that too because I’m a bit of a history nerd!). And I always love a chance to compete for a prize! 

I thought that this was a great way to learn and an interesting example of how games are being used in our lives these days. 

Having spent time in the marketing these past few years, I know that games and specifically “gamification” is a really hot buzzword in that industry right now. But it is no way limited to that world, as I saw with this interactive tour. 

Reading the "Money" section of USA Today.

If you have not heard of “gamification” before you probably have used some program or platform that employs it. According to Bunchball, a gamification industry leader who works with Warner Bros., Comcast, and Hasbro, it is “integrating game dynamics into your site, service, community, content or campaign, in order to drive participation.” 

Even more than participation, they note, the end goal is to engage, motivate and create loyalty among consumers. This engagement and loyalty is created through game mechanics, which include things like points, levels, challenges, achievements, status, badges, virtual goods, and real-world goods. 

When most of us hear that description, we immediately think of Foursquare or Farmville, but things like airline loyalty programs and Coke Rewards make the cut by that definition. 

Brands have been getting a lot of press for integrating game mechanics in their campaigns, but the use of game mechanics in education has also been a hot topic as of late. Personally, I think that the use of games in education is a natural fit. I know from the experience of Tuesday’s scavenger hunt that the competitive nature  the game made me more engaged with the content we were asked to find. And because I saw the sites that I was learning about first-hand and created a memory around them, I know that I will be able to recall what I learned for much longer than had I read it in a book. 

The only way I think that the game could improve would be to better outline how we were being judged. We knew that there was a winner, but we were not sure how that winner was decided. Was the contest timed - did we have an hour to answer as many clues as possible? Was it the first team to get a clue that led them back to the starting point? Or was it the first team to reach clue number 20? 

In some cases, like in Foursquare, not knowing how you might achieve a certain status or badge is fine. These achievements function like Easter Eggs; you get one and you are so excited by it that you keep playing in the hopes that something you do will earn you another. But in this case I think not knowing how the winner would be decided left us feeling a little confused and like there wasn’t much finality. 

But despite our confusion in the end as to who had won (we found out later that we had tied!) the game was really enjoyable! It gave us a chance to leave the classroom, get better acquainted with our classmates, and get our bearings in the Financial District. I enjoyed it so much actually that I might try another one. Anyone up for the tour American Museum of Natural History: Man vs. Wild?