NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It was literally game on at the CU Water Cooler Symposium.

So this year, the 125 attendees gathered at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts were issued a gaming challenge for prizes ranging from Brent Dixon's new album and variety of cool gadgets, to an interactive badge granting access to SXSW.

The top prize? Becoming a CU Water Cooler editor, who in addition to blogging and sharing their daily links of what they're reading, will have the opportunity to speak at the next symposium.

The true goal? To get people exploring, thinking and networking in a new way; basically, living the whys behind launching the CU Water Cooler and Symposium three years ago.

Described at the start as the true interactive game-fication of the conference, attendees were split into randomly selected teams indicated on their badge by colors of red, purple, green, or gold.

The teams and individuals had one day to complete missions ranging from publishing a blog post about how to apply retail lessons of Nashville's Broadway to credit union operations and asking a question during the Q&A, to riding a mechanical bull.

Each task was assigned a range of points, and while for the most part honor-based, ultimate verification happened on Twitter. If it wasn't posted, then it didn't happen.