Gamers Galore

I read an interesting post today on Jeffrey Cufaude's blog about the research he had read about kids and gaming. Apparently, according to Pew, nearly every teen and adolescent aged 12-17 are playing some sort of game - whether it be on the computer, on a console, or on their cell phone.

Jeffrey pointed out that because of this, there is some definite need to examine how we're providing the training and development experience to members in this age group.

At my organization, people of this age group are very close to many of our newest members, and are getting to the very close to age range of our potential members. Over 4,500 of our members are collegiate members, so this is something we really need to be paying attention to. As I see it, there are five major questions to think about:

1. How can we use the knowledge in this research to enhance our opportunities at reaching these potential members? 

2. After recruiting the members, how can we continue to engage them in the same way to provide them the value that they're looking for? 

3. How does our current experience translate to these needs that are incredibly evident with this research?

4. How will engaging this strategy work with other members who aren't in this age range? 

5. How will we evaluate the effectiveness of engaging in this strategy of recruiting members?

These are questions with which we're going to need to grapple sooner rather than later. I'm game...