Essay 4.6 | Bright Shiny Objects
At a pharmaceutical training we built a gamified testing system intended to measure individual learning. Gamification was all the rage at the time. The idea was clever. The sales representatives could answer questions, test knowledge, and generate data about what they knew.
Then they did something wonderfully human. They figured out how to beat they system.
They worked together. They invented fake names. They harvested every possible question. They turned an individual testing system into a collaborative experience. In some ways, what they created was more interesting than what we designed. It was also a reminder that a bright shiny object rarely behaves exactly as promised once people touch it.
Every event has it’s version of the bright shiny object: a new technology, activation, platform, entertainment format, data tool, immersive experience, AI feature, app, stage trick, or spectacle someone saw elsewhere and now wants to copy. The question arrives quickly: should we be doing this?
Sometimes the answer is yes. New tools can solve real problems, invite participation, create access, reduce friction, and open possibilities that did not exist before. The danger is not novelty. The danger is unexamined attraction. A shiny object becomes a problem when it distracts from purpose, consumes scarce resources, complicates the experience, or makes the event feel more impressed with itself than attentive to participants.
The discipline is to ask boring questions before the sparkle takes over. What job will this do? For whom? What behavior will it improve? What risk does it introduce? What will it replace? What happens if people use it differently than intended? Does it deepen the relationship or merely photograph well?
The cleverest thing in the room is not always the most human thing in the room. Participants do not owe these experiments their patience. They came for value, connection, clarity, and meaning.
Use new tools when they serve those ends. Resist them when they become the end. Bright shiny objects should illuminate the purpose, not blind us to it.
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