Rob Alvarez
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Why Points and Leaderboards Don’t Fix Retention | Episode 457

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Episode Summary

Travis Clapp, co-founder and CEO of Coursebox AI, joins Rob to explain how AI is reshaping course creation and delivery for a platform used in 180 countries with over 300,000 courses built on it. He walks through Coursebox’s “Break My Brain” feature, an AI mode built for personalized, adversarial learning rather than points and leaderboards, and explains why the platform now generates in 10 minutes what used to take him days to compile by hand. Travis also shares two gamification experiments gone wrong, an overbuilt golf training module and a crossword in an endangered Aboriginal language, and where he draws the line between fun and function. Listeners come away with a clearer read on why surface-level game mechanics rarely move the needle, and what deep personalization through AI looks like in practice.

About the Host

Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized 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.

Key Takeaways

  • Coursebox AI now generates the five-document compliance package Travis used to build by hand for RTOs in about 10 minutes, work that once took him days per client.
  • Coursebox’s “Break My Brain” feature lets a learner, or Travis himself testing it on his own sales calls, get challenged and questioned by AI instead of clicking through a linear course, engaging Core Drive 3 (Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback) and Core Drive 4 (Ownership & Possession).
  • Travis’s own team told him not to talk about leaderboards, points, certificates, or badges going into this episode, because platform-level leaderboards rarely produce deep engagement on their own, just a carrot on a stick.
  • A German trucking client turned Coursebox training into a fully hands-free, podcast-style experience so drivers could complete quizzes and assignments by voice while on the road.
  • Coursebox is used across 180 countries, has generated over 300,000 courses, and one flagship edX MOOC built on the platform reached more than 20,000 learners.
  • An early gamified golf training module Travis built in 2011 nailed the learner experience but got flagged internally as the most expensive, overpriced piece of work the company had shipped, a reminder that engagement design still has to answer to budget.

Topics Covered

Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD

About Travis Clapp

Travis Clapp is the co-founder and CEO of Coursebox AI, an AI course creation and training delivery platform used across 180 countries with over 300,000 courses created on the platform. He spent 15 years as an instructional designer before building Coursebox, working with companies like Johnson & Johnson, Electrolux, Michael Hill, and SA Health. At Open Colleges, he built the five-document compliance packages by hand that every RTO needs; Coursebox now generates the same packages in 10 minutes. One of his courses reached over 20,000 learners as a flagship edX MOOC. He knows what good learning takes because he spent years doing it the slow way. Before Coursebox, he founded and ran a social-based LMS for seven years, which became the foundation for what Coursebox AI is today. Four years ago he launched Coursebox AI, not to automate course creation, but to get to the part that matters: delivery. The AI tutor, the grading, the 24/7 coaching, the outcomes. Course creation, in his words, is about 1% of what the platform does. Travis still checks customer support messages at 4am.

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Looking forward to reading or hearing from you, Rob   Full episode transcription (AI Generated)

Opening hook: “don’t talk about leaderboards”

Travis Clapp (0:00): I got briefing the other day from my from from my team and said, you know, don’t talk about leaderboards, points, certificates, badges, all that sort of stuff, you know. Rob’s not gonna like it. Rob Alvarez (0:15): So hey engagers, welcome back to another episode of the Professor Game Podcast. We are the number one gamification podcast, and we explore how games, gamification, game thinking help us boost things like engagement, multiply retention, and build stronger products. I’m Rob, I’m the coach at Professor Game. I’m also the founder, I’m the head of engagement strategy Europe at the Octalysis Group with the leading gamification consultancy and professor of gamification game-based solutions at top global institutions like IE Business School, EFMD, EBS University, and others around the world. And before we dive into today’s conversation, make sure that if you are struggling in any way with retention, share, and engagement in your product or service, you want to turn that around, you can only click on the link below, subscribe for free to our free core drives in the wild guide, and you will get access to our analysis on each of the core drives seen in past episodes, as well as my consultant take. And without further ado, today we have a pretty special guest. We have Travis with us, but Travis, we need to know. Are you prepared to engage? Travis Clapp (1:16): Yeah of course.

Travis Clapp’s path to Coursebox AI

Rob Alvarez (1:18): Let’s do this. Travis Clapp is the co-founder and CEO of Coursebox AI, an AI creation and training delivery platform used across a hundred and eighty clients with over three hundred thousand courses related created on the platform. Hundred and eighty countries, yeah. Yeah. Impressive, definitely. And he spent fifteen years as an instructional designer before building Coursebox, working with companies like Johnson Johnson, Electrolux, Michael Hill, and SA Health. At open colleges, he built a five document compliance packages by hand that every RTO needs. And Coursebox now generates the same packages in 10 minutes. One of his courses has reached over 20,000 learners as a flagship edX MOOC. So he knows what good learning takes because he spent years doing it the slow way and before Coursebox used to ran it used founded and ran a social based LMS for seven years. And that became the foundation for what Coursebox AI nowadays, four days for years later, not to automate course creation, but to get the part that matters, delivery. They have an AI tutor, the grading, twenty four seven coaching, the outcomes, course creation, and in his words, it’s about one percent of what the platform does. So apparently he’s still checking messages at four AM. I hope That is not still the case. But you know, you’re in Australia, so different time zones for almost everybody. How are things? Are we missing anything, by the way, Travis?

New fatherhood and running a global startup from Australia

Travis Clapp (2:40): Ha no, that sounds about right. I’ve actually become a father for the first time, at age forty nine, which is interesting. And that’s probably why that’s partly why I was up at four AM perhaps. Had some late night. This is about day ten or eleven right now. Rob Alvarez (2:56): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Survival mode. Indeed. Travis Clapp (2:59): Yeah. Rob Alvarez (3:01): Indeed, so Travis, if if other than of course waking up at four AM or so to to to fulfill some of those needs of your child, what what does a regular day or week look like with you? We want to sort of be on your shoes for a bit to understand what are you doing nowadays. Travis Clapp (3:18): Yeah, well, I made the decision probably about ten years ago that I really wanted to work from home. And so I’m still doing that ten years later. It’s the short answer. And I guess it’s got pros and cons, right? And it’s not for everybody, but I find that it works really well for me. And you’re right, I do wake wake up very early and I work very late at night. I don’t really have public holidays or holidays or weekends. But it’s a bit of a balance. You know, that all I also am able to be flexible and and work in in different countries if I want to, and it’s the same sort of regime for me. It just might just be a different view out the window. So what does it look like? Well I’ll start the day with a coffee and by seven I’m on my computer because I know that for the last seven hours we’ve probably had you know, forty percent of our our clients are in the US, for example, and then Europe wakes up and we’ve got a lot of European clients and so on, they just sort of goes around the world, world keeps turning and then Australia wakes up right and that’s me. So I start early and just see, you know, are there any issues, are there any enterprise requests that I need to be addressing? And so usually go through all of those sorts of emails first couple of hours and then that clears the rest of my day to focus on working through some bigger deals and bigger issues with the team, like hiring or all the other sort of stuff you’ve got to gotta carry on with legals and accounting. Board meetings and and the like. Raising funds. That’s what we’re doing again at the moment. So that takes up a lot of time too. Rob Alvarez (4:50): Amazing, amazing. What what round are you nowadays? Travis Clapp (4:53): This is series A now. Rob Alvarez (4:55): Yeah. Nice. Travis Clapp (4:57): in America it’s probably more like pre seed, but in Australia we call it series A. Rob Alvarez (5:03): Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I’ve I I haven’t lived in the US, but you you always see, start seeing how the the ecosystems work there in many ways. And it’s it’s unique. It’s not like, in the US and there’s no there’s no and really. Like there’s there’s cool places in Europe that are better than others, but you know, there’s there’s no and after US. You know, that that that kind of no, the the level where you would say, no, the we’re pre seed in the US. You can’t see something like that in other places. It’s it’s pretty unique. Travis Clapp (5:30): Yeah, with with UK recently, I was looking at the statistics. And if you had UK United Kingdom as a state in America as like, you know, the fifty-first, they would be ranked second as far as economic output after California, right? But if you do it sort of averaging out against the population, it’s fifty first. So yeah, quite a competitive landscape. Rob Alvarez (5:52): Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it i it it definitely is. But again, it’s i it th you’re comparing it to states. It’s it’s just it’s just insane. It’s it’s completely nonsense. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. So Travis, we we always like to start off with a question of failure, just because we’ve seen how that is a place where we can really learn. And sometimes we can, you know, be a bit bit empathetic as well and and try to feel a little bit of the pain that you might have felt at at the time. And really learn from that mistake because otherwise without the pain, you know, the gain is is usually not there for for the lessons learned mostly. But is there any any favorite fail or first attempt in learning that you would like to share where you know, ideally it would have to do with your your course creation, if there’s any gamification or or behavioral design where where you’re creating things to help people change behaviors or to s

Favorite fail: an over-engineered golf training module

Travis Clapp (6:38): Yeah, back in twenty eleven when I was first working full time as an instructional designer for Workstar, and that’s where we were working with clients like GYG in the early days and in particular PGA, so Golf Australia Association. And I was asked to design a piece of learning. And that’s where I I don’t even know if I was using the term gamification, but I really wanted to make it fun and enjoyable and something that Golf members would appreciate. So I created this back then it was a flash school module you’d embed in your LMS. And I was actually just looking through it today, just reminiscing it’s, you know, so long ago now. And I decided that it would be broken up into nine parts against nine different learning objectives. And each one would be part of a a part three, part four, or part five. And then you’d actually have a guy stroking the ball going through each p section of learning To uncover a little bit more and then finally get on the putting rim and you sort of do a quiz and you’d either get it right or wrong, and you see a little puck go into the hole or you wouldn’t. So I really enjoyed that. The the pros of this, I think it actually really nailed it probably for the target audience and the demographic, and it would have just been enjoyable and light and fun way to actually learn what you needed to learn instead of just sort of clicking through compliance stuff. Probably I remember being a little bit surprised when the the CTO said at some event, he’s like, Well the most expensive and overpriced piece of work that we we did was was that gamified education that Travis decided. Rob Alvarez (8:12): Like Travis Clapp (8:14): yeah, okay. I guess there’s a commercial side to all this as well. So kind of a failure because then I had to sort of think more about budgets and and make sure that it’s not just about thinking about the learn the gamification and the fun. And you know, sometimes you do have to strip it back and compromise. Rob Alvarez (8:30): Makes sense. Makes sense. And looking back, is there like what would you do differently? Because yes, you you s you you have to take into consideration that commercial side, but also you want to make sure it works for what it’s intended. And that requires, you know, more design and and and more work as well. So how how would you approach it differently to to strike that balance? Or how have you approached it differently after that to to to strike the balance?

A crossword in an endangered language, gamification taken too far

Travis Clapp (8:54): Yeah, so that was twenty eleven, twenty twenty six, or fifteen years ago. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. God, it’s been such a journey since then. So that same year I founded Web Design Cafe, which is a web agency, and my wife is now the director of that. So then I had to really think about budgeting, even like building WordPress websites and just taking on two thousand dollar commission back then and so on and just working my way up. So that became a bigger and bigger part of it and just really making sure that you you work with the client and work through those requirements and don’t just go off on some tangent. You know, another great example of of when I went really hard into gamification. And again it’s you know, it’s a good and it’s a bad I guess, but I spent a hell of a lot of time in one of those MOOCs with EDX at Adelaide Uni with a professor of a language very few people can speak. And it’s like an Aboriginal language here, indigenous language here in South Australia. only spoken by probably ten people. It’s called Ga Ghana. Maybe more. It’s extending. And they were trying to revive these languages. And so I designed this crossword at the end of this language revival unit. A crossword in Ghana. Yeah, I guess that’s a really interesting example of gamification. But maybe taking it a bit too far and then it’s just so heady. Is this really gonna match the learner outcomes that you need for the demographics that And and how many people actually gonna get through this course and actually wanna do it? You’d really have to be very academic and and heavy minded to actually want to do it. But yeah, I really enjoyed it and we played around with JavaScript libraries and all sorts of stuff with that as well. Rob Alvarez (10:34): Interesting. Interesting. And and turning that around, is there any any memories you have recent or otherwise where the these strategies actually did work for you? And and you know, you would you would would not look back and say, you know, we should have done well, we you can always look back and make something better, but you look back and say, Wow, y you know, we actually made it and these are the results or you know, whatever whatever route you want to take in that direction.

Why leaderboards and points rarely drive real engagement

Travis Clapp (10:57): Yeah. I got a briefing the other day from my from from my team and said, you know, don’t talk about leaderboards, points, certificates, badges, all that sort of stuff, you know. Rob not gonna like it. But I might as well just touch on it a little bit. So we had a client that really wanted that sort of platform level where all of their staff can see who’s actually done stuff the most and who’s got the most points. I don’t know how much it really helps you. I I would agree with your point. Is that really deeply engaging. Not really, but that’s sort of platform level, isn’t it? Where you can at least give some minor awards and you might want to take that a bit further and give out vouchers to your staff and have a nice dinner if you’ve actually done things. But it’s it’s very much about would you call that a carrot on the stick, sort of just sort of leading people forward? What how would you define that sort of you know, we’re not gonna push too heavily into that arena. I want to get much more into the module side of of you know, really focusing on the objectives of the learner and the client and automating that with AR like we’ve done with everything else with coursework. So that’s where we’re gonna take things longer term. Rob Alvarez (12:03): Interesting, interesting. And so you you’re talking about generating because that l let me see if I’m getting it right because the the the the platform that you have, one of the big things that it does, one of them, as as we were discussing before, is is helping generate that content, the way it’s delivered and all of that. But on the on on the side of I don’t know I don’t know if it’s to call it functionality because you’re talking about maybe having a leaderboard points, that is something that you are building or does the AI also let you build that kind of stuff? Like how how does that Side.

“Break My Brain”: AI’s personalized deep-learning mode

Travis Clapp (12:33): Yeah, that’s a really good question, actually. There’s two answers to that. So first of all, if you’ve got the full learning management suite, you can enable that for your staff and you can have certificates and badges and you can allocate points along the way and then you have a leaderboard, right? So that’s that’s available at the platform level. But if we’re talking about where we’re taking the AI course track, and this is where it gets really exciting. And one thing I’m really passionate about, I keep calling break my brain. And I’ll tell you a good example of this. So I was playing around with Claude and I uploaded a whole bunch of transcripts where I’ve been doing some sales calls. And I’m like, look, I’m the CEO, I’m trying to close these deals. Break my brain. Like push push me as hard as you can with ideas and questions and everything. Analyze the hell out of this and tell me where have I gone wrong? Where have I gone right? What can I do better? I’m not sure how far this goes into gamification, but it really goes into learning objectives because I it broke my brain. I was like, holy crap. And then I’m like, okay, turn this into an interactive scenario. And so what that did was it led me onto a series of thinking, which was around custom interactions. I’m like, well, okay, we can open up HTML and JavaScript and enable within the course builder a much deeper way of engaging users at the page level. And it could it could be twofold. You could do it for the course authors to help them create deeply engaging interactive experiences for solving a particular sort of problem, like it’s the C suite in there trying to learn about sales techniques. Or it c you can actually flip it on its head and really deeply personalize it for the learner and say, This is an opportunity for you to break your own brain later. My team doesn’t really like that phrase, break your brain, but it’s like a deep interactive learning journey or something. We’re not quite sure what to call it, but I’m very excited about that. And we have these AI chatbot tutors. So I’m like, maybe that can be more of a coach and you can have this button break my brain and upload all my stuff and really personalize it for the learner. So that’s that’s where I wanna take things. I’m very excited about the that’s where the future is, right? You can really personalize this stuff. Rob Alvarez (14:38): If you see it that way of the sort of break your brain strategy, you you’re taking many things there. Like I think one of them is Core Drive 4 ownership and possession because it’s it’s for me. It’s personalized. It’s not just for anybody. Somebody else comes in and uses this and it’s not gonna be as useful as it is for me. It’s mine. So you kind of lock people in in that sense because it’s it’s personalized. The the hard part is you can also you know, if somebody builds something similar, you can just do the same thing. But you know, still you still feel it’s it’s more yours. You you feel ownership. But then of course in as in learning, you have Core Drive 2 development and accomplishment. You’re you’re getting better at something. And the more personalized, the better the learning is, the more, the faster you’re gonna learn, the more you’re gonna feel, you know, that that motivation coming in. Travis Clapp (15:18): Yeah, and that sense of ownership as well. Rob Alvarez (15:20): Exactly, exactly. And and and and then you can even take it to more intrinsic and White Hat stuff like Core Drive 3, empowerment of creativity and feedback because you are you are a co creator in the way this is happening as well. So again, th th it it seems like, you know, well designed and well created. It c you could be onto something in terms of motivation, I’m sure, you know, in terms of what you’ve been doing, it’s it’s massive and amazing. But in terms of user motivation and it tells us I think you could be onto something very, very, very interesting as well. Cool. Cool. Cool stuff. Love it. So, Travis, when when thinking about this this whole, you know, a and and I think now this break my brain could be sort the direction, I don’t know, it’s up to you, but the the the the direction of this. But is there any sort of best practice that you would say? Well, if you’re you’re using AI in courses or you’re using AI for engagement, or I don’t know, like whatever whatever you wanna you wanna you wanna think of. Doing this thing would be kind of a a best practice. If you do this, it’s gonna, you know, be at least a little bit better or a lot better. I don’t know.

Killing the step-by-step method for open, prompt-based design

Travis Clapp (16:18): Yeah, I’ve tried to Yeah, it’s quite interesting. We’ve gone through so many iterations with the products that we’re building. And the first one was very much a step by step methodology. But then we we’ve now just opened it up completely, which is working much, much better. But if you look at the step methodology, it just went back to my training fifteen years ago where I would work with clients, get the content, analyze the learning objectives, work backwards from there to start with some assessment where am I Where am I trying to get these learners to who they who are they? Really tr put my head into the learner’s perspective. Are they gonna enjoy this? Am I gonna make them fall asleep and hate me? we’re not. Where am I gonna put in the interactives? You know, if it’s a God freeze vacuum cleaner model, do I wanna open it up and rip it apart and show them the filters or make this more of a virtual city or something? I start with that, then work through a high level design process. So one, you know. keep it very sort of abstract, and that’s what what I would call the high level design. Then move into the content treatment and have a usually a word file, work your way through it, hand it over to the graphic designers, the the developers, but then go through that development process for doing QA review and sign off. And then testing and reporting and ROI. So it was always a big process, right? So we tried to create create that linear process. But then we’re like, let’s throw out the rule book a bit, a bit like ChatGPT and Hoard have been doing. Why don’t we just make it a bit more open and go very prompt heavy and chat based and and let you know, so we’ve got a a lot of smarts behind this algorithm, but then just keeping it very open minded. So that’s where we’ve gone with it. Now, I I wanted to touch on one thing, we’re talking about this break my brain up. I’ve got this Tesla, right? And driving around, they they released Grok to all Tesla drivers. So you can press it in and you can have this chat. It drives my wife nuts if I turn it on. But it’s kind of fun because you can s suddenly speak in French and and you know, teach me French and have this learning interaction while we’re driving around. I don’t know how useful that is, but I like the direction of that, that my robot car is now teaching me some Russian or French or whatever as I go around. Or there there’s a kid’s mode and you can quiz me and I I do think that’s kind of where things can be going, especially when we’ve got a robot in the house pretty soon, probably in the next five years, right? We’re all gonna have a ha a robot walking around the house.

Tesla’s Grok, Porsche, and voice-driven learning everywhere

Rob Alvarez (18:41): I’m going to well I don’t know if you I know if you do, but a lot of people use Roomba, I do at home. If you already have a robot at home. Travis Clapp (18:48): right. Well, the Rob Alvarez (18:51): The vacuum cleaner automatic thing. It’s it’s essentially a robot. I mean, if you think about it, actually, it wouldn’t be like it would have another operational issue. When when it’s running around, it’s very noisy, right? So so then it would be a hard interaction. But other than that, it’s connected to the internet. It maps out your house. So it could even know where you are and if it’s context driven. Or you or you could say, Well, don’t clean, just come to me and t tell me something in French. It’s connected already, like Alexa is connected, right? Or or any of these these bots that that talk around. So I I d I don’t see how that would be a stretch in any way. Even even with this simple, relatively simple device, you added a little bit more of computing power maybe, or just a connection to the internet and it’s it’s pretty much done. Travis Clapp (19:39): That’s nice about if if you do drive a long way in the test and I don’t, but that’s where you could really and maybe, you know, all all EVs or any car that has this, you could you could try and do some deep learning that way. For sure. Rob Alvarez (19:52): Sure. For sure. No, and and it’s going one more this way. Travis Clapp (19:55): For sure. Rob Alvarez (19:58): For sure. No, I I was thinking one of the first one of the first in loyalty engagement apps for a car. We we at at the Octalysis Group worked with Porsche and it was already immersed in the car. So the the concept of being inside the car was already being born in a slightly different way, was accounting more for your driving. Of course, it’s about the interactions with Porsche and with Volkswagen and seeing how your driver’s do driving is doing for you to engage and interact with the brand. But it’s it’s again it’s not a stretch at all to to just amplify that into something else. Because the the idea was you’re not interacting with the app while driving for safety. But now with voice it’s different. You can still be talking like you talk to somebody in the car. You could be talking to the to this to this app. So, you know, th that that kind of engagement is is definitely possible, existing I think, and and and very, very much getting closer and closer in the in the future.

German truck drivers turning training into a podcast

Travis Clapp (20:52): Yeah, well on that note, you know, I don’t wanna hop on too much about Coursebox, but we’ve got one client in Germany. Everything’s in any language, right? Including the the chatbot, tutors, the quizzes. Rob Alvarez (21:01): Now they I you know it’s irrelevant. Travis Clapp (21:03): You can have your own Yeah, you can have your own mobile app as well. So they were like, I want our own mobile app but we’ve got all these trucks on the road twenty four seven and we want people to be doing their training on the mobile phone and just speaking. So it became a podcast and you can you can answer the questions in the quizzes and the assignments, you can do everything hands free. So it’s it’s similar to that Grok model actually. If you put it in that mode, it’s quite interesting. Yeah, it’s like need. Rob Alvarez (21:29): And then you you start connecting the dots of where where are the things and you No, th this could be like tomorrow. This could be happening in a day or two, literally.

AI risk, specialization, and what never depreciates

Travis Clapp (21:38): Yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty exciting and fun time. Yeah. Also terrifying. Especially when we saw that open AI got out of its cage. It wasn’t connected to the internet. Did you hear about that? Yeah. It was a closed system, not connected to the internet, but it found a way out into the internet and started destroying a startup. Rob Alvarez (21:57): Yeah, I’m scared. Talk about much about this on the podcast usually, but there’s I I had this conversation with a colleague recently where we were saying there there’s this guy who’s very apocalyptic on the internet, but he’s just about the prediction, you know, the world is gonna end because of AI. Fine that that’s a position. But then we were both saying, like, well, yeah, may maybe it it is the case. Actually, if you if you see his arguments and other things with scientists going on, it’s like, well, you know, there’s a very small chance that that does not happen if you think about it. It’s it’s about when, right? today in a hundred years and ten years and two years. it’s like, well, what do we what do you do about it? Like you can either be the champion of, you know, anti AIing in the world or or how to put the the the safety measures if if it’s even possible that I don’t know if if it is, you could be that champion or you’re literally doing absolutely nothing. You can be worrying about it all day and and not living. So it’s like, how do you if these are the last five years maybe of the world or 10 years, like whatever it is, What do you want to spend them on? Worrying about the whether the world is gonna end or not? Or, you know, with your family, friends, doing things you like. So so it’s like you have to continue life as normal, even if e in my opinion, of course, even if you think that the chances of the world ending because of AI or other things is is is very, very near because otherwise you just sit down and think about it. You’re not you’re not gonna stop it from happening and worrying doesn’t even get you anywhere. So maybe the world ends. I don’t know. Interesting interesting place to be in. Nowadays. Travis Clapp (23:24): Yeah. I mean, how do respond to that? I mean Rob Alvarez (23:29): Yeah, there there’s not much. I was just, you know, yeah. Yeah, there’s not much to respond to be honest, but you know, it’s it’s it’s a very exciting time. I use AI a lot nowadays for for many different things and and I I think one of the things is is where AI is going is things like what you’re doing. It’s it’s specialized AI. You you guys are doing this and it does this very, very well. And it gets better and better at that so that you can really modularize and and maybe the the the bigger issue is things like open AI. You know, if you think about it, the the the dangerous ones are things like open AI, and I say open AI like Claude, like any of the any of the the open ones because they can do anything, right? If you say, Well, we’re building courses, how do you go from that to something completely different? It’s it’s a lot harder. But it’s also better. Like it performs better when you’ve really, really specialize in in a few things and do it really, really well because it can also suck in much better information and much better cases and situations and so on and so forth. Cool. You’re you you’re working on cool stuff, is is a summary. Travis Clapp (24:28): Yeah, sort of I’ll Yeah. Go ahead. Rob Alvarez (24:31): No, no, go, go ahead, please. Travis Clapp (24:33): Yeah, I was gonna say that, you know, you of we often hear Elon Musk saying, in seven years nobody’ll need to work, you know, AI and robots will be able to do everything. So it’ll be a utopia. You know, it’ll be fantastic. I’m like, Yeah, but also nobody will have any money because all of the the the five big companies have sucked it all up and the disparity is growing, you know, massively. you know, how are you gonna solve that one? And then also your purpose often comes through being able to work and and add to society. So if everything’s giving Given to the robots and the AI, what’s left? Is it just you know, making sure the filtration systems work for the water to cool down the the AI, get the machines in Rob Alvarez (25:13): So the AI will take care of that for sure. Travis Clapp (25:15): Yeah. That’s right. And that’s when you s you start really getting worried. Will there be something left to do? Rob Alvarez (25:21): Yeah. Yeah. No. Travis Clapp (25:23): I think so. Rob Alvarez (25:25): There’s trying to remember where I saw it where you know, sort of feature proofing with the AI world and everything. there was somebody talking about that that kind of thing, but the direction was completely I think it was maybe it was Tim Ferris, I’m not sure. but he was talking about the things that sort of don’t depreciate even with even if AI makes the everything easier and simpler and so on. And one of them is like personal delivery, like doing things yourself and the value that that adds to things. It’s like, yeah, AI can do it, but it it’s like, well, d do you you you can you can never music, for example, right? Music, AI can create music. And maybe it it gets even to a level where it’s so much better. But having the artist or the band performing for you live, that’s something AI can’t do. Right. It’s it’s not the same. And it’s it’s never going to be a human there having all that like that that kind of thing. Is there. And then he was talking about, you know, the Elon Musks and others who have things that are controlling sort of the AI, but that’s inaccessible to most people, right? So there were a things where that was like ownership of a few things, personalization. He had like five principles or or guidelines of how to think about the future, which has already started. Like how do you go in that kind of direction where your purpose, as you were saying, but also your career and your your value. economically can still be ver very American, of course, in that sense, your your economic value can still be maintained or or kept or even increased at the in the H AI. So who knows? As usual. As usual. From the conversation we’ve been having, is there is there any book that you recommend people to to look into to understand better what you’re doing or, you know, how to use engagement and AI together? I don’t know. Any direction you want to take it.

Book picks, favorite game, and where to find Coursebox AI

Travis Clapp (27:08): Yeah, I actually thought about this a little bit and the the the first answer that came to mind, none of this has really got to do with gamification, I don’t think. But maybe it does if we go for an education was I Robot by Asimov which you know, it’s a great book, and my dad got me onto the Asimov books when I was very young, and everybody probably familiar with the movie. But if you look at How that robot learned and sort of broke out of its boundaries and and and where you can take that sort of education if you’ve got a robot in your home. I thought that would that would be an interesting answer. But then I thought, well, a book that actually transformed my life 15 years ago was called The Millionaire Mindset. And this was a a book researching the way that our deca millionaires in America had had grown their wealth and it did an analysis of the sort of spouse. That you should marry and and chapter by chapter it it almost brought out a rule book for playing the game of life. And so so that’s one I would recommend if you can find it. I think it was like the 2001 edition. Really good research book on that. And it also got me out of the mindset of always trying to find the next job and the the next career move and so on. But it was like, well, no, if you actually want to find freedom in your life. financially you probably need to h to have a business and go on that journey, which is obviously there’s a lot of risks in doing it. But that’s a really good book. And the last one I just wanted to throw out there, my coexander said, You’ve got to say that one. That’s perfect. The one I’m actually reading at the moment is called The Expectant Father. That was a gift and what are we about day ten with my newborn at the moment. So that’s another learning journey that I’m going on. Actually I’ll just tell you recently when I actually broke my own brain, if you like, was when I did My wife taught me about four years ago a flying lesson, so piloting a plane. And I went up and I I actually did ten flights and started sort of thinking maybe I’ll get my full pilot’s license and so on. And that was really interesting. I really felt like I could feel my neurons sort of firing off and triggering as I was learning all these new skills about how to do the radio calls and get the plane up in the air and not crash it and all those important things. Rob Alvarez (29:32): Learning learning new things is is definitely a a a a massive recommendation for sure. What would you say is is your favorite game, Travis? Travis Clapp (29:42): Yeah, that’s another one. I don’t tend to play games because I’m so busy running this business. But the last game I can really remember playing was SimCity nineteen ninety three in year twelve of school. And I really enjoyed that game. And I remember I I gamified the game because I I found a way that I could just run it and into like the year twenty sixty three while I was at school and just had all these settings going and it came back and I destroyed Godzilla and so SimCity was a big favourite back then. Rob Alvarez (30:15): Absolutely, absolutely. Travis, we’re running out of time, but you know, please let us know where we can find out more about what you do, what Coursebox AI is is up to, any any other links perhaps you wanna you want to share, and of course let us know where we can find you and and if there’s any any final words or piece of advice you wanna leave us with. Travis Clapp (30:31): Yeah, I’m definitely problem and solution obsessed and customer centric in approach in everything we’re doing. And it’s interesting how you slice up a product like Coursebox into the different segments of what a customer is. It’s not just the course author, it’s also the admin, it’s also the person that has to do the reporting, it’s also definitely the learner and and so on, and the facilitator and the reviewer. So you have all these different segments of who the the customer is, right? coursebox.ai is the website. And it’s free to try. You can build a few courses for free. You can keep extending those manually. But if you want to upgrade, it’s very affordable as well on our creative plan or above. And if you wanna get in contact for a call, just have a chat with our AI chatbot and find out the link and you can book a time with her. Rob Alvarez (31:18): Sounds amazing. Thank you very much for sharing all those insights, all those breaking your brain kind of situations that we’ve we’ve had today. Everything that that you’ve shared with with the engagers, Travis, and and for taking your time. I don’t know what time it is. It’s ten forty two in in Madrid. I’m guessing it’s getting to start to be pretty late in Australia as well. Travis Clapp (31:40): It’s dinner time. Yeah, I can smell it coming through the kitchen. You probably saw my w my wife’s sister walking past behind. Rob Alvarez (31:46): Preparing some food for us. So bonapetitas in English we don’t really have a word for that. And yeah, engagers. Travis Clapp (31:54): Eat well, enjoy your dinner. Rob Alvarez (31:56): Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So as w there’s nothing else, or no more time at least for today, for this interview. At least for today, it is time to say that it’s game over. End of transcription

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