Rob Alvarez Bucholska
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Epic Fight? Here’s What Really Happened | Episode 415

 

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No, there was no epic showdown, just a powerful new alliance. Rob joins The Octalysis Group and reveals how this new chapter amplifies his mission to make gamification practical, ethical, and impactful. Plus, what stays the same on Professor Game.

Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

 

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Lets’s do stuff together!

Looking forward to reading or hearing from you,

Rob

 

Full episode transcription (AI Generated)

Rob Alvarez (00:00)
So about that epic fight… Yeah, it never really happened as you can imagine. In fact…

We didn’t fight. We joined forces. I have officially now joined the Octalysis Group as the Head of Engagement Strategy in Europe. And here’s a real story and what it means for you as Engagers and perhaps even the gamification community

Rob Alvarez (00:30)
If you’ve been listening to this word gamification and you know anything about gamification beyond reading it in the news or whatnot, you have almost certainly heard about the Octalysis Framework and there are very good chances that you’ve also heard about the Octalysis Group.

The Octalysis Group is basically a premier consulting firm specializing in gamification design based of course on the Octalysis framework. they, they’re well, I have to get used to saying we are helping organizations worldwide unlock human motivation through behavioral insights. The Octalysis Group has a fantastic proven track record across

multiple industries that span from finance, healthcare, education, the group, the Octalysis group delivers measurable results that drive engagement and performance.

And for years I’ve respected their work. In fact, if you’ve been a student of any of my gamification classes at universities in both masters and bachelor’s level, you’ve probably heard me not only talking about the Octalysis framework and probably doing a homework around the Octalysis framework, but you’ve also heard me talking about the single biggest gamification specialized consultancy in the world, which is the Octalysis group. And I also realized that, you know, talking about this and mentioning this, if you’ve

seen classes with me, you’ve heard me talking about the Octalysis group, I realized that we’re pursuing essentially the same mission. It’s all about the same things that we’re after, although through, of course, different angles.

Yet after spending some time in this annual retreat of the Octalysis group together in Dubai, I was already sure I had already made up my mind, this completely clicked and put everything together. This was not just about a rivalry that, you know, to be fair, I don’t think there’s any rivalry overall in the gamification community. We tend to be very collaborative. It was precisely about that. It was about timing. It’s about the right team.

the right time, the right alignment, because I definitely love everything about being able to run things independently. There’s many benefits and you’ve seen me sort of do my own thing and do this, do that, switch here, pivot here, there, and that is fantastic. I absolutely love that part. However, through this interactions and all that I’ve seen already in the Octalysis group, I realized working up close, it showed me

what collaboration could actually multiply that topic that we talk about so much in in in gamification as well as you know, there’s competition, there’s also collaboration. And I’ve seen that collaboration working up close. In fact, this annual retreat, there was a lot of fun, but there’s also a lot of collaborative work happening right there. So joining forces just made absolutely perfect sense.

Obviously now me saying this if you’re thinking that you’re needing some gamification in your project, please do reach out I’m leaving a link down in the description and we can figure out if we are the right fit

Rob Alvarez (03:43)
So I’ve mentioned what are some of the things that it means in terms of the changes it’s going to be for me in my professional experience. However, I also want to make sure I talk about what are the things that do not change, especially about the Professor Game Podcast.

This show is, has been, and will always remain free and independent. We will not be charging for any of the episodes on the podcast, and we will also not be beyond potential sponsored episodes, which we always disclose. We will not be a show that is dependent on this or that company. We will remain independent. We’ll continue to interview experts just because

of all the insights that they might bring for your experience, for you to become better at doing gamification at whatever level you are achieving that. We’ll have the same cadence. Maybe there might be some changes coming here and there, which I’ve been thinking about for a while, but always with the same practicality. We’re always going to be aiming for exactly the same thing. There’s not going to be any hidden influence. And if I ever, I’m going to talk about project,

or a specific approach or anything of that sort, I will definitely be very clearly stating this. Just like I just did, if you’re looking for an Octalysis Group project, reach out to me and I’ll definitely be able to hear you out and see if there’s a right fit. I’m clearly saying that it’s about the Octalysis Group or any gamification project. To be completely transparent, I’m happy that if it’s not a good fit for working with The Octalysis Group to refer you to somebody else.

always happy to do that. We will always be, as a show, will remain to be absolutely neutral.

What are things that may sort of evolve, not change, but turn into better or have sort of different approach or lenses? You will most probably be hearing me speak more of the, of the Octalysis language or lenses in many Because it’s going to be the kind of things that I’m going to be, that I am already doing daily when talking to clients, doing design work, working with people by creating gamified structures and projects and apps and so on. I am definitely using that in a day to day. So.

I will very probably be using those concepts some more just because it is going to be more part of my daily language. I might be talking about the core drives, the strategy dashboard, the player types, the way that The Octalysis Group uses them for client work, design loops. They’re basically lenses to make sense out of with the work that we are doing at the Octalysis Group. Sometimes I might share stories about the Octalysis Group.

Always again with this closure focused on how it can be useful for you.

And you might remember from other episodes where I’ve disclosed, so to speak, my professional transitions in many ways. You might remember that when this all started for several years, I mentioned at the start that I work at IE Business School as a staff member and also as a professor, know, IE being a top business school in the world, like with online MBAs and MBAs, the online MBA in fact has been consistently in the top number one, number two for many, many years. And

That was a stage of my life that actually kicked off in many ways my gamification career. And when that changed, I remained being, and I’m still affiliated to IE Business School as an adjunct professor. And then I made a transition towards Ironhack. You might also remember that from that past episode where I made this reveal where I got a product manager role at Ironhack talking to B2B clients. I always brought in sort of my edge.

of gamification in many ways. In fact, you might remember that I did a LEGO Series Play internal workshop with them. I had a lot of fun. It was a great experience working at Ironhack. had a huge learning curve there. I’d never formally been a product manager and sort of the product mentality has brought a lot to my play that I now use in fact daily. And you might be hearing a little bit more about this product mentality. You might or might not be hearing more about this product mentality in the future.

to finally making the most recent transition you heard of before this one, which was going and saying, I’m not gonna wear the suit and be corporate anymore, so to speak. I was never a suit or you can say maybe IE was a bit more corporate. Ironhack was definitely in sort of startup to scale up mode. So definitely not corporate, but leaving the nine to five life to entirely dedicating myself to my teaching, to workshops, to consulting through Professor Game. And I’ve been doing that for over…

Two fantastic and super rewarding years. You’ve seen me pivot in different ways professionally within Professor Game with those consultancies, those workshops. In fact, I’ll continue teaching probably and I’ll continue to deliver workshops here and there, but I will not be actively pursuing those opportunities anymore now that I am at the Octalysis Group. And I have had a lot of fun doing all this stuff here. And you’ve probably seen me as well having this sort of new tilt towards talking.

about gamification for community building.

It’s been a wild ride in every single possible way. I’ve enjoyed it a lot and I’m sure I will continue to now with this new transition. And, to be fair, this wasn’t sort of the first approach, not even just by Yu-kai, as you know, Yu-kai was episode number, you might know he was episode number, he is episode number one, very epic way to start the podcast. Not just by an Octalysis professional, the founder of the Octalysis.

and the creator, the original creator of the Octalysis framework, Yu-kai Chou. But broadly through the Octalysis Group, I’ve been following Octalysis as a framework for many years. I’ve been an enthusiast in many ways. I use it in my classes. Again, you’ve probably heard me talking about it. But in 2017, they did an Octalysis design challenge, which I joined just out of, honestly, at that time, I was just thinking like, oh, let me practice my skills of using Octalysis and see what I can achieve. I was very curious, very oriented towards doing more work in gamification and perhaps have something to showcase.

in the future, you can check that out in the links. I might cringe a little bit when you read it or when you look through it. It was very early work. Keep in mind, I was very non-visual oriented at the time, so to speak. So bear with me if you go through that. And I was a finalist with that work that I did there. think, I do think it was not very visual, which was one of the things that was not great about that work that I would say. But I do think it was very thoughtful. And that was a great reason for me to have become a finalist.

And the sort of the reward of becoming a finalist was getting an interview with the now CEO of the Octalysis Group, Joris Beerda. And we went into an interview of sorts. It’s also true that my mindset there was not towards getting that role, so to speak, because I had just been promoted at IE Business School and I was not looking for a switch in any way. It had been like a month since my promotion, I think. Memory doesn’t fail. And it was probably not the best timing for me to be thinking about moving on professionally.

somewhere else. But we had a lot of fun. I got some good and interesting feedback from Joris. You can still see that challenge lying around over there. And that was one of the times where we kind of spoke about this. But again, I was not actively pursuing being in the Octalysis Group. And they were recruiting. And there was sort of lot of people who were in that potential. In fact, the winners of that are actually currently consultants at the Octalysis Group and future winners as well.

More recently, as you might recall, we had an interview with Yu-kai about his latest book called 10,000 Hours of Play, which I then wanted to talk with Yu-kai about. We had several things to discuss and sort of naturally, I’m not even sure exactly how it happened. I don’t have a recording it was not an interview. And it came up like, well, you know, how about joining…

The Octalysis Group, sort of joining forces, not Professor Game as the podcast, but me as the professional who is, basically Professor Game podcast is me, at least at this point. So how about joining forces in some sort of way? And I, I had already made up my mind, like we had gone through all of the movements and so on. But after actually getting to meet in person, the whole team in Dubai, in this annual retreat organized by The Octalysis Group and doing some collaborative work inside, I knew there was sort of

No coming back. I knew I was in the right place with the right people. These are people who get it. And sometimes you might feel in gamification, and I know this because I know most of the top professionals as well, that it can feel like a slightly lonely journey because we tend to be sort of independent freelancer professionals here and there. And sometimes you might feel like, well, yeah, I would benefit from having a sparring partner or somebody else to talk to. And that was that is just one small piece.

of the huge benefits that I am excited about when working with the Octalysis Group. There’s other people there who are working through the same methodology, the same types of clients, the same vibe. And culturally, it’s something that aligns very, well. I’m loving the experience that I’m having inside of the Octalysis Group.

So just to recap, the three principles going forward for me are very strong clarity. Like I’ll always disclose anything about the Octalysis Group if they’re involved in any way. The episodes will definitely remain as always very practical, very actionable for you. And this is not a pay to play kind of situation. it’s not pay to play to listen to the podcasts or hear or see this episodes. It is not pay to play to be interviewed on the podcast. We do this because we believe that these are professionals that have something to bring up

for your journey and for your own inspiration. And

If you’re considering the Octalysis Group for some initiative, anything, the Octalysis Group and gamification in general, reach out, we’ll explore it. I’m leaving a link down in the description so that we can actually get in contact if you feel like it. And if you’re new here, just follow show the same cadence, same practicality.

So that’s the truth behind the epic fight. We’re not rivals at all. We’re actually just becoming partners. This is a new chapter, same mission, making engagement practical, of course ethical, and also effective.

Sometimes the best battles end up in alliances and that is exactly what happened here.

So something else that is not going to change is that I always wrap up the episodes with what I’m about to say, because as you know, at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it’s game over.

 

End of transcription