Fun. If there is one truism across humankind, it is that we all love to have fun. Yes, if you can take a seemingly mundane activity, or even a potentially undesirable one, and turn it into game, the chances of people participating in that activity goes up dramatically. While gamification may be the buzz word of the twenty teens, the simple act of getting people to do a certain behavior by turning it into a fun game has been around for ages.

Another common aspect of human psychology that generally applies across the board is that people love recognition. We love that pat on the back when we do a good job, that special treat for good behavior, the bonus at work for top performance, and that general feeling of achieving something and being rewarded for it.

A more modern day commonality shared by the now billions of technology users, is that in general, we hate to see ads. We hate to be interrupted while playing our favourite app or taking in our favourite digital content. We hate it so much, that we’ll happily pay money to not have to see those ads. This presents an enormous conundrum for the online industry which has been largely funded by ad revenue, now has a major and growing user base that doesn’t want to have to see ads.

Like any entrepreneur, Brian Wong, originally of Vancouver knew there had to be a better way. He combined these three insights to develop a brand new way to deliver ads that makes them fun, rewards people, and actually makes people want to see and participate in online ads.

I sat down with Brian at the BC Tech Summit in Vancouver to hear his fascinating tale.

About the podcast: The You can do that here! podcast was created and produced by Andrew Zwicker of AZcreative for the Kootenay Association for Science and Technology. The podcast is a weekly series of conversations with some of the most innovative and successful entrepreneurs.