Honest, selfless and efficient society?

Recently, I had an unpleasant experience on a BMTC bus which got me thinking about the larger problems in our society. 

I took a bus to office on Friday. The board at the front of the bus clearly mentioned that the bus was going towards HAL. But, when I asked for a ticket to Leela Palace (on the way to HAL), I was surprised to hear from the conductor that the bus was not travelling on that route. He told me that there was another board (behind the board?) which mentioned that the bus was going towards Ulsoor and so I had to get down midway. 

Since I had boarded the bus, I had no option but to buy a ticket. The conductor quietly pocketed Rs. 5, returned the change and did not issue a ticket. When I asked him for a ticket, he said that I dont need one since I was getting down at the next stop!! When I persisted, he asked me to pay Rs. 2 extra for the ticket which I did after some argument :(

So, what did I learn?

1. As a community, we don't take care of small things that could make a huge difference. Customer service is clearly ignored by most public utility service departments. The mistake was clearly the conductor's. He should have put a proper board which would have saved me time and money! If every person does his job honestly and efficiently, society as a whole will be a better place.

2. Most of us think of short term wins like the conductor. He tried to coax me into travelling without a ticket which would help him pocket the money without paying it to BMTC. This is small change compared to the crores that some politicians make, nevertheless this is a malady. How can we expect people in power to be honest when the people who vote them are corrupt themselves? In the long run, it will come back and haunt us in some way or the other.

3. Lastly, we tend to forgive and forget easily. In the situation that I was in, it made sense to register a complaint with BMTC against the conductor on two counts - negligence of duty and corrupt practices. Isn't it our duty to ensure that such situations do not arise again? Are we too busy or just indifferent?

Well, I did not register the complaint and that guilt probably made me write this blog. So the next time you face such a situation, do take time to register a complaint and have faith in the process :)

The power of gamification

Gamification is a concept wherein you can apply the basic elements that make games fun and engaging to things that typically aren't considered a game (like real life scenarios). Gamification at it's core is about fun, rewards and social connections. It has the opportunity to connect people and influence their behaviour in ways never seen before.

So, how can we use gamification to find solutions to some real world problems. Look at the problem of power shortage in Bangalore. Traditionally, the government has been blamed for not generating sufficient power to meet the demand. How can we approach this problem from a different direction? Can we influence consumers to change their behaviour and use less power? Is it possible to create a mechanism that induces households and entire cities to reduce their consumption voluntarily over a period of time?

Let us begin by analyzing the present situation. The electricity bill contains, among other things, the number of units consumed by a household in a month and the amount to be paid. One of the goals would be to reduce the number of units consumed by each household which cumulatively reduces the amount of units consumed across the city.

The first step in this direction is to provide more information to the end customer and this is where the power of digitizing all bill information comes in. BESCOM can use its existing database to come up with some simple comparisons to create a 'dashboard' or 'leaderboard'. For example, a new modified electricity bill may contain:

1. A section that analyses a household’s usage over the previous three months.
2. A report card comparing previous month’s usage with the ward, area and city level averages (competition).
3. A smiley at the right corner of the bill if consumption is below all averages or a sad face if consumption is above the average (fun element).

The next step is to announce incentives to households whose consumption is below the city average and also shows a certain percentage (say 10%) of reduction in consumption over a six month or one year period. The incentive could be in the form of reduced tariff, discounts, reduction of taxes etc. If they perform better in the next cycle, the incentives can be increased. The whole idea is to create a sense of competition whereby people voluntarily attempt to decrease power consumption.

The final step will be to publicize such stories where people have performed very well in a cycle. We can go further and institute city level awards or invite people to talk about their success stories.

As with games, adding elements of competitiveness, fun and rewards can go a long way in changing the behaviour of people for the good. As Jane MgGonigal says, "let us make it as easy to save the world in real-life as it is games". So, what else would you like to gamify? I would love to hear your views.