Yes; I have seen a lot of hatred and confusion over this term – CEOs going “I don’t want my employees to play I want them to WORK.. There is a reason I blocked facebook.. ..”

But wait; it’s not all that bad once you understand the concept, just forget about the word gamification.

So first what is gamification?

Wikipedia defines it as the ability to take game design techniques, thinking and mechanics and apply them to enhance a non-game applications and processes.
Changing the way in which employees interact and work by making their daily chores, tasks considered as boring – more engaging and encouraging them to enjoy the tasks they used to avoid such as filling out time sheets to expense claim forms into a more enjoyable experience.

If you play any MMORPGs “I don’t ” but if you do you will be familiar with a term called “grinding”.. No and it’s not a game dance move either..
It describe the process of engaging in repetitive and boring tasks not pertaining to the story line of the game. Now thousands of millions people do this everyday – this activity is in all MMORPGS and gamers dont get paid.. They do this to advance their character level to be able to access newer content.
So you can see there is an incentive, goal to the process and they do it because they are driven to achieve that goal, although it does not pertain to the story line of the game.

Today I came across an old video link in an email a colleague had sent to me last year I just hadn’t had time to watch it.
But when I did it got me thinking back to gamification and rewards, goals to incentivate employees. You’ll be surpised it not all about money!!.

The surprising truth about what motivates us.

So a breif overview.. You need to check out the above video.

1. Money does not incentivise, if cognitive skill is required. (Creative thinking)
2. Money is a motivator at work (if you dont pay people enough they wont be motivated)
3. 3 Factors lead to better performance & personal satisfaction
   • Autonomy - people like to be their own boss and not controlled by a manager.
   • Mastery – people love to learn and get better for free (look at unfunded open source projects)
   • Purpose -  we care and want to improve our lives at work or in our own time not led

So how can we tie in gamification methods into our applications?

It’s already being done!..
Don’t believe me. take a look at social networking sites like facebook or linkedIn..

Here are some of the gamification elements – Activity feeds, Personalisation, Badges and achievements, Leader board, progress bars..etc

Take a look at the oracle forums, or even metalink; badges are awarded to people who post the most helpful messages.
Becoming an Ace at Oracle it’s a goal many of us try to achieve, pushing us to write guides, help the community and present what can be achieved.
Gamification is already around us today it is just about knowing the best approach with integrating those proven solutions into your apps today!

WebCenter Spaces has taken that step already believe it or not; with its integrated OOTB taskflows; and services.
I’m hoping that when 12 is released we will start to see alot more of these concepts that make us enjoy working and out of the daily grind.

On a side note I met up with Ultan O’Brion @ultan yesterday – Director, Global Applications User Experience for Oracle; talking user experience fusion apps as well as showing and talking about some of the things we work on here in the labs such as the xbox kinect integration with Oracle and our mobile solutions.
I can only describe him as a Rockstar in the Oracle world and I’ll be posting more in my next blog post on Oracle resource sites I was unaware of but really do help when it comes to planning UI and ADF.

Be sure to follow his blog if your into UX, Fusion Apps and gamification and something new I learnt about simplyifying your user experience look at comic books tile based approach to a visual story board look at the metro UI at BBC or BAE Systems new portal. Simplyfying your content with the right imagery and headlines and not smuthering users with information overload like so many websites do today.. Comicfication.. ..

Fishbowl Solutions wrapped up a successful Collaborate conference on April 26^th. Here are my 12 takeaways from the event – in no particular order.

1. A lot of user group crossover. Badges denoting the various user groups – IOUG, OAUG, Quest – were marked by different colors, and I saw quite a mix of these colors within WebCenter sessions. I think the organizers and user groups that comprise Collaborate have always wanted to see this user group crossover, and it appears that it is finally happening. This has evolved pretty much in parallel with WebCenter releases. As WebCenter added more integrations with Oracle applications (E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft) and leveraged more products in the Middleware layer (Identity Management, Business Intelligence), organizations using those applications and middleware components have had almost 5 years now to hear the WebCenter story. It appears organization with a heavy Oracle footprint are finally understanding the value of including WebCenter as a core piece of their organization’s infrastructure, which includes being able to surface high-value content to business applications. The story is resonating.

2. SharePoint. “We have SharePoint. Help!” Ok, I didn’t actually hear anyone say that, but that is how I would summarize the overall angst by customers that have both WebCenter and SharePoint, or are Oracle shops that have seen Microsoft encroachment. It isn’t surprising that we talked to a lot of attendees that have SharePoint because most organizations are using SharePoint – in one form or another. However, organizations are still trying to figure out and separate their use cases for SharePoint and Oracle WebCenter. One discussion we had was with a gentleman from an organization who had just recently been exposed to SharePoint, and they were planning to roll it out and use it for content management. They were a smaller organization – about 150 employees – and they decided on SharePoint because it was going to be so much cheaper than other content management systems. As we discussed their use case, the other Oracle products they were using (Oracle Database and JD Edwards), as well as the technical staff they had on hand (mostly JAVA developers), the conversation shifted to the ongoing costs of SharePoint. We helped make them aware that their 3-5 year costs to manage, maintain and integrate SharePoint with their other Oracle systems were probably going to be higher when compared to WebCenter. The long-term and ongoing costs of SharePoint are typically not considered when it first gets rolled out, and Oracle and Fishbowl have some great material available that proves this out – all backed by industry findings. Check out these white papers:
   
   SharePoint 2010 Cost of Ownership: Expect the Unexpected
   SharePoint is NOT an ECM System – Reasons Why
3. Document Imaging. This 25-year plus technology is still relevant, and the reason should be obvious. ROI. Imaging systems enable organizations to reduce the costs associated with handling and processing paper, especially paper tied to a financial process – such as accounts payable. All organizations have to pay invoices, and organizations with hundreds and thousands of invoices struggle with getting them paid on time and efficiently as possible. Oracle WebCenter Imaging provides robust imaging capabilities and has been integrated with Oracle Applications to provide end-to-end imaging within business processes. With this system, organizations using E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards are able to quickly automate invoice processing and achieve a clear and measurable ROI.

4. Sites. Lots of excitement and uncertainty around WebCenter Sites. Organizations using Oracle’s web content management (WCM) system commonly known as SiteStudio, have been anxiously awaiting the next generation off WCM. However, WebCenter Sites is listed as a Web Experience Management platform that includes such features as segmentation and analytics. For organizations looking to increase web site retention and conversion, have access to real-time data on web content effectiveness, and create online catalogs, WebCenter Sites really packs a punch. However, the questions we received from attendees were regarding what was going to happen to SiteStudio, what if they didn’t need all the features that WebCenter Sites offers, and was there a Migration path from SiteStudio to WebCenter Sites? I do know that there are some integrations/migrations available between SiteStudio and WebCenter Sites, but I think Oracle WCM customers simply want to know if WebCenter Sites will ultimately be the system they use to manage their website.

5. Mobility. By far and away, mobile content management was the most popular topic at Fishbowl’s booth. We had a few iPads showing off our application for WebCenter Content, and attendees were initially just excited to see that it was indeed possible to surface WebCenter Content images, documents and videos to iPads. There were also many questions around the technologies used to surface this content. My colleague John Sim did a great job explaining these technologies during this session “Exposing WebCenter Data on Mobile & Desktop Devices through the REST API”. Check out the Slides and White Paper for more details.

6. User Experience & Interaction. Social applications like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have helped put more focus on the user interface design of enterprise business systems. Users of these social media applications enjoy how easy it is to interactively share information with others. If systems used in the workplace don’t at least offer some level of this intuitiveness and interaction they may not get used as much as the organization would like if at all. Technologies like HTML5, Adobe Air, and touch gestures make it possible to enhance the end-user experience and make the process of contributing and interacting with content not only easy but also fun. I would again like to give a plug to my colleague John Sim by pointing you to his presentation and white paper on the topic.

7. Lack of Customer Lead Sessions. Collaborate is a user group conference. Unfortunately however, of the 70+ WebCenter sessions, I think there were around 10 sessions given by actual WebCenter customers. That doesn’t mean that customers don’t have great stories and use cases to share, as I and my Fishbowl colleagues talked to many of them throughout the week that would have made for great presentations. This lack of customer presentations is also probably the most popular negative feedback regarding Collaborate. I think the way to change this is for WebCenter partners to step up and encourage their customers to speak at Collaborate. Partners can help out by doing some of the heavy lifting – help draft the white paper and presentation and coordinate attendee logistics. Fishbowl Solutions partnered with three of our customers to deliver presentations at Collaborate. These sessions all had higher attendance than sessions given solely by Fishbowl representatives.

8. Social. I heard great things about the Oracle Social preview given at the Oracle WebCenter Customer Advisory Board meeting. I wasn’t able to attend, but I heard the presenters actually collected attendee feedback through the Social interface. Cool stuff. Other social/collaborative tools from Oracle have underwhelmed, but Oracle Social looks and sounds very promising.

9. Enterprise Portals. Still a lot of interest in Portals. My Fishbowl colleagues and I heard from many customers that were still on older portal offerings from Oracle and wanted to discuss getting to WebCenter Portal 11g. Additionally, I think organizations in general are still looking to have in place an enterprise portal that delivers that true, personalized, one-stop shop for all relevant enterprise information – newsfeeds, financial dashboards, links to content, blogs, chat, etc. Pulling all this content together using JSR-286 or ADF-based portlets is possible and there have been successes, but it seems organizations want their portals to have more features and functionality (bells and whistles) and haven’t quite got there yet.

10. Toga Party!? The “Back to the 80s Party” on Wednesday night was totally rad. Sorry, couldn’t resist. I did see 3 dudes wearing togas, and I had to stop and make sure I was at the right party.

11. Customer attendance is growing. It seemed attendance overall was up from past Collaborate events. Lots and lots of buzz around Exadata, Cloud, Social, Fusion Applications, and WebCenter Sites and Social. There are a lot of exciting things happening at Oracle.

12. WebCenter interest is growing. This was my 4^th Collaborate event, and I had become accustomed to seeing the same faces year after year. It is always good to see and talk to those same people, but I was very happy to see and meet many new Oracle WebCenter customers this year. The word is getting out that Collaborate is the user group conference for WebCenter customers, and no other event offers the breadth and depth of presentations, demonstrations, and peer-to-peer engagement.

By the way, if you missed any of Fishbowl’s 14 presentations at Collaborate, you can download them and their associated white papers here. See you in Denver for Collaborate 13!

Fishbowl is pleased to announce our official Collaborate12 mobile application is now available for iPad and iPhone from the iTunes Store. This free App includes information about all things Fishbowl at Collaborate12, the Oracle user group conference being held April 22-26, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

Download today to check out: 

• Session Schedule
• Booth Info
• Presentations Downloads
• Whitepapers Downloads
• Expo Hall Map
• Featured Solutions

And as its Vegas I hear you don’t do things small out there…  So, I have 3 presentations ready to roll out as part of the 14 we have at Fishbowl. It’s a lot to keep track of so to help you we’ve created a nice mobile app giving you an overview of the sessions and options to download and view our whitepapers and presentations – as well as a nice map to help you navigate around the booths and finds us. Download the Collaborate Mobile App

I’ll be over at booth #1178 so don’t be shy come say “hello”; I’ll be their talking User eXperience and journey through multiple devices hand helds to desktops; responsive design pros and cons and how you can transform WebCenter ADF Portal template to make it responsive; Mobility ADF Mobile, Native Apps through to HTML5 and other integration opportunities with Phonegap-Callback Cordova to help create adaptive cross device and OS apps and also talk about what are currently the good and bad options with developing with these techniques and technologies; Using WebSockets with WebCenter to create a true realtime collaborative environment and integration with BPM, UCM workflow or any system for messaging and getting away from email clutter to bringing in collaborative XMPP services or Lync via its XMPP gateway.

As well as discussing future innovative concepts such as voice enablement via speech engine recognition for your web apps; integration of multitouch events and current requirements for touch guestures and where we can take interaction to the next level; how we can now leverage the kinect for spatial guesture interaction; Bringing in 3D elements to help innovate how we can now interact with content especially with Digital Asset Management Systems like WebCenter Content.

If your interested to see what sessions we are presenting check out this earlier post.

Also a great deep dive will also be happening tomorrow so be sure to jump in and check it out.

During this time the user load on the site would not change so something strange had to be going on.  To diagnose the problem we turned up the system audit tracing in UCM to Full Verbose and looked at the following sections: systemdatabase, searchquery, requestaudit, file*.

The main symptom that were were first seeing was that during these times where the server became unresponsive there would be upwards of 40-50 active database connections for UCM, while the average is usually less than 5.  We also saw a lot of long running queries on the System Audit page that the DBAs told us were happening in milliseconds on the database side.

Looking at the tracing output we were able to confirm that the database queries were only taking milliseconds or even fractions of milliseconds.  So what was keeping the connections open?

A closer look at the output yielded the following for each and every request:

>filelock/7 04.09 09:48:06.221 IdcServer-140003 Reserving /proj/wcsshare/ucm/cs/data/alerts/
>filelock/6 04.09 09:48:06.227 IdcServer-140003 /proj/wcsshare/ucm/cs/data/alerts/--<no-agent>--Locked directory
>filelock/6 04.09 09:48:06.227 IdcServer-140003 /proj/wcsshare/ucm/cs/data/alerts/--<no-agent>--Released

So there was a process that was locking a directory for writing on every request.  Continuing on it became apparent this is what was keeping the connections open.

>filelock/7 04.09 09:48:07.652 IdcServer-140025 Reserving /proj/wcsshare/ucm/cs/data/alerts/
>filelock/7 04.09 09:48:07.653 IdcServer-140015 Lock bounce on loop 2
>filelock/6 04.09 09:48:07.653 IdcServer-140015 /proj/wcsshare/ucm/cs/data/alerts/--<no-agent>--Next sleep interval is 720
>filelock/7 04.09 09:48:07.654 IdcServer-140025 Lock bounce on loop 0
>filelock/6 04.09 09:48:07.654 IdcServer-140025 /proj/wcsshare/ucm/cs/data/alerts/--<no-agent>--Next sleep interval is 120
>filelock/6 04.09 09:48:07.705 IdcServer-139986 /proj/wcsshare/ucm/cs/data/alerts/--<no-agent>--Locked directory
>filelock/6 04.09 09:48:07.707 IdcServer-139986 /proj/wcsshare/ucm/cs/data/alerts/--<no-agent>--Released

As you can see in the above output  there was contention between threads on the same UCM managed server (not to mention the other 3 nodes in the cluster) for locking on that directory.  Since the lock attempt was happening on a filter in the service call it was keeping the database connection open until it could get the lock and release it.

We reached out to some contacts in Oracle development and it turned out that the issue was already fixed and in an available OPatch!  The patch in question for PS4 is 13502977: UCM 11.1.1.5.0 patch (20111230-1105). Looking at the README reveals the following:

2011-05-31 15:34:45 - Core - idcsvn:92934 - Bug 11781402-Moved locking of alerts directory into the if condition. This reduces the unncessary locking of the directory when there is no change in alerts.hda file.

Moral of the story:  If you are on PS4 or earlier of WebCenter Content (UCM), make sure you apply the latest OPatch with this fix.  If you are on PS5 or later, the fix is already included.