Game Shows for Millennials (and Boomers, too).

We frequently get questions from clients and prospective game show users. Why not let everyone benefit from the answers? We thought we'd share here as well!

Q. I need ways to engage my Millennial-generation trainees without alienating the other generations. Will “Boomers” respond to the social/interactive game show as well?

A. Actually, even though game shows ARE a great way to engage the Millennial Generation—they aren’t unique in this.

It’s interesting that we’ve had a new wave of trainers “discovering” game shows—and that wave has been driven by the desire to engage the next generation. (For some reason, Millennials have gotten a “bad rap” as a generation that demands interaction and that you capture their attention.)

But the thing is: all generations need to be engaged and LIKE to be engaged. The Millennials just aren’t typically as patient when your training doesn’t include interaction.

Game shows might be a good way to mix your generations. The game play style is still familiar to Millennials and incorporates—perhaps--a bit of nostalgia for the Boomers. The Millennials will enjoy the peer-to-peer communication of team play, and the X-ers can triumph through competition.

We've seen clients using game shows specifically as a way to bridge the generation gaps in their company; the low-stress, friendly competition (incorporating a lot of positive emotion associations) is a great way to break the ice and get people working together.

Badges, Barons, and the Game of No Prizes

We've stated before that prizes aren't really a necessary payoff to doing well in a game show. People tend to receive this statement with mixed reviews; on one hand, it's fun to give prizes. On the other hand, prizes can be difficult to come by, blow your budget, and tricky to price (too high and scrutiny and cheating go through the roof--too low and why bother?).

Never was the lack of a need for prizes more clear to us than when everyone here at LearningWare went to lunch together. Two of us immediately got out our smartphones and "checked in" to Yelp. "Ha!" one of us exclaimed triumphantly, "I'm now the duke of this eating establishment!" A non-yelper asked us what we got for being a duke or getting a badge.

"Well. We don't get anything. Except to be the duke."

Then it occurred to us; the currency of involvement in many social media outlets--from foursquare to the aforementioned Yelp--isn't any kind of prize or currency. These groups garner tremendous investment and involvement from participants simply by engaging their sense of competition and collection. They want to have the most badges, be the mayor or baron or duke of a place or even a city...to be king of the hill.

The same principle works with game show competition--and it's why you don't need prizes. In this fast-paced world of Millennial trainees and social networks, people are used to playing for bragging rights. This may also be why leaderboards can be incredibly effective--especially when you play a series of game shows, or keep the competition going through an extended period of time (a training session, a few days, a week, a month or even a quarter). Acknowledgment of success over one's peers can be a powerful motivator.

If you'd like, you can even give out your own game show badges. Just for fun, a little brainstorming:

Fast Finger: For the person quickest to hit the slammers every time and ring-in.
Know-it-All: The person with the most correct answers overall.
Wicked Wagerer: The person taking big risks in wager games or on final questions.
Team Titan: The person most helpful to their teammates.
Short Answer Sherpa: The queen or king of the short-answer question.
Multiple-Choice Maven: Either by guess or by guile, this person owns the multiple-choice question.

...or maybe we'll just stick with scores, leaderboards, and the natural appeal of competition.

Case Study: Game Shows in Retail Training

The following is an interview with Karen Carlson, a former trainer for the Best Buy corporation, and now an independent Training Designer and Facilitator.


Tell me a little bit about your background.
I worked for Best Buy for nearly 19 years, half in the retail stores and half at corporate. My training background mainly lies in developing and delivering engaging training sessions for retail leadership. Topics ranged from company culture to diversity to leadership development to facilitation skills and more.

Why game shows?
Why not game shows?!?

What caused or inspired you to bring game shows into the training space?
I love to play games myself and always enjoy a little friendly competition. I found game shows and other interactive forums to be a great way to measure if learning is truly taking place without having to do former exams. What would you rather do: take a “final exam” or play a game?!?

Tell me a little bit about your trainees and training group?
Most of my trainees were new or existing leaders within Best Buy who were about to open a new store. Most participant were under age 30, likely even under age 25. My training groups ranged in size from 30 – 150 people from across the United States.

There's a new push to "engage the Millennial generation" entering the workforce, how do you feel, or how have you seen, game shows work with the Millennial audience?
Game shows are perfect for the Millennial audience. They have grown up on games, likely computer games. They are highly competitive and full of energy. The game shows play right into this. They are a way to learn while having fun. Getting a question right or winning the game also gives their self esteem a little boost.

What was the game show experience like in your training classroom?
I created the questions (usually using the Jeopardy-style [Categories] game) based on the content of the 4-day training program. I facilitated the game as a closing activity on the last day of class, again to see what learning had taken place AND to end the event on a high-energy note. With large groups, I had the teams rotate so each person would at least get a chance at answering a question. If I saw that certain questions were consistently missed, my coworkers and I would reexamine the content to see if we weren’t landing that message appropriately or if the question simply wasn’t well written. The game show was always a very popular part of the program.

Getting into Gameshow Pro, specifically, what games did you use, and what are some examples of how they were used?
I usually used Categories [Jeopardy!-style] as it seemed to fit my larger group size better. We also used this in some of our department meetings to spice them up a bit, especially if a new initiative was rolling out.

What impact do you think game shows have on trainees/training?
It showed the trainees that training does not (and should not) simply be a download of information from one person to the others AND that training is fun! If you let the trainees know ahead of time that there will be some sort of a quiz, they are also likely to pay closer attention and take better notes. Since my audience would have to go to their home market and train their new employees, it also provided good examples of how they could bring life and interactivity to their training sessions – even if they did not have access to Gameshow Pro.

What advice would you give to other trainers either using game shows, or considering using game shows in training?
Keep doing it, or start doing it if you aren’t already! Everyone wants to learn, but no one wants to be bored by learning. Collaborating and interacting are important and necessary skills in today’s world. Game shows are an arena where these skills can be practiced in a fun, safe, yet somewhat competitive environment.

Anything else you'd like to share?
Anyone for a game of Scrabble?!?

Millennials and Game Show Training

Millennials (those born after 1980, or so--depending on which research group you ask) are entering the workforce in droves. This is only going to increase over the next few years as "Boomers" retire and job positions open up.

This means that the Millennials are coming--and trainers are having to find new ways to engage them.

Recent research has discovered something particularly unique to Millennials:

The love to collaborate.

Positive or negative, collaboration is the lifeblood of the Millennial generation. They grew up working in teams and getting constant feedback from teachers, parents and peers.

This is why, when we've spoken to trainers, game shows are absolutely critical in the training classroom. Why game shows, though? Why not just some other interactive activity?

Game shows:

• Are cross-generational. A Millennial can play a Categories game along with a Boomer or a Gen-X-er. It's a familiar format for all generations currently in the workplace.
• Capitalize on competition. They're a friendly, non-threatening way to introduce competition into a training classroom; raising the stakes and increasing accountability.
• Encourage team work and collaboration. Peers play together on teams, so everyone is involved and interacting with each other.
• Are incredibly engaging. The Millennial generation is used to interactive activities and multimedia. The training-by-powerpoint-only method is particularly ineffective in the group that wants to be entertained and engaged while they learn.
• Reinforce content. "I was learning, but I didn't know I was learning," was a comment from a high-school student we interviewed a few years ago. Game shows reinforce training content and increase retention of material by over 62%.

It's true that Millennials aren't the only generation that wants to be engaged, but with the advent of Millennials, more trainers are thinking about reinventing their training--and game shows (like Gameshow Pro) are a great start.