Gamification Nation Podcast

Podcast 25: What does inclusive by design really mean?
Welcome to a question of gamification. My name is An Coppens. I'm your show host and the chief game changer and CEO at Gamification Nation. And this is the second installment in our series inclusive by design. When it comes to inclusion, the big question is, how do I know I am being inclusive? How do I know I'm not excluding certain people by being inclusive to other people, et cetera. And you know, what is inclusion in the first place? And I guess it starts with diversity as a spectrum in my view. So the first thing to notice is, for me, inclusion is about culture, is about abilities, it's about gender, it's about age. It may be other choices that are more lifestyle related, but for most businesses, it comes to creating an environment where everybody has the opportunity to succeed, to their level of ability, their level of wish, desire. So I guess it's, in some sense, slightly philosophical in other ways. There's also very practical things to think about. But first of all, let's talk about four areas, of what I would see key, in workplace kind of workplace focus, diversity or work, workplace focused inclusion. And they are a culture, first of all. So culture can be the company culture, but it can also be the country culture. It can be the melting pot of nationalities, cultures that are working for you. And if you're a global organisation, it may be the interrelationship between all of those suppliers, providers, the head office, the local office. And if you are, let's say a national organisation, it can be head office and local office. It can be regional differences. And I think, you know, we all have some sort of culture that we reflect and you know, whether that's a good or a bad one that remains to be seen. But from an inclusion perspective, I would say look at it as a spectrum. Some of us have a global vision and want to make the world or workplace others have a very clear national vision. No, I'm only focused on, you know, this region. Therefore, the people that interact with my clients would need to either support this region as a near native or be a near native. So, you know, so those are the kinds of typical questions that you would ask there. And then a local business may mean you need local knowledge. I mean, just think about it. If we look at a, let's say you're a local taxi driver, you want them to know the local area to get you to your destination as fast as possible. Of course they can be using great apps, I give them the best routes, et cetera. But once the GPS doesn't work or it gets it wrong, you don't want them to be stuck and you know, clocking up a massive big bill. You also want to be able to communicate with them. So in a national context, you could have a scenario where people need to know and we know have been guilty of that in some countries. I visit and speak a lot in many areas. And, you know, at one point I was trying to go by train from one place to another and the person at the rail car desk said, no, you can't do that miss, because geographically that's not possible. And I sort of went, oh, oops, I didn't realize that which he grabbed the, the map where she said, oh here miss, there's a, here's the map of the rail network and you can check for yourself. And you know, I thought it was a very nice, respectful way of dealing with my lack of, uh, the national rail network knowledge. And that's okay. You know, I, I was definitely in the wrong place. And then if you have a global mindset, it might mean that you don't limit yourself to just national or local markets. It may mean that you have a staff that's also diverse and spread out all over the place. And that comes with its own, I suppose its own difficulties from time zones to language use to certain habits that are really acceptable in one culture, but maybe not so much in another. We've worked on a few projects around cultural acceptance and cultural inclusion,