E-Learning 2.0 Software: "Game" Management Training

If "attractiveness" is taken as the vertical axis and "effectiveness" is taken as the horizontal axis, which represents a straight line of management training software, at what angle should it rise?

Undoubtedly, the most balanced is 45 degrees. However, the status quo of the industry, which is still in the market cultivation period, is not the same, and people in the industry have different opinions.

"The game we designed is a little above 45 degrees", Wu Xin, deputy general manager of "Zhenlong Games", defines the "game" they have customized for the company's internal training and training institutions. As the first Chinese game company to enter the field, its training products look like "Need for Speed" or "Monopoly".

Almost at the same time, a "Marketplace business management computer simulation training" from the University of Tennessee landed in China. The driving force behind it is You Denghong, a well-known financial management expert. From more than 20 years of financial consulting and training experience, he concluded that improving financial data starts with analysis. And Marketplace is an effective platform for learning to make decisions from reports.

In the coordinates of this management training software, the upper side of 45 degrees represents a more attractive "game", and the lower side of 45 degrees is a simulated business environment that is more effective for learning, forming the current E-Learning2.0 Both sides of the coin for management training software.

First "Skill" then "Tao"

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Professor Reg Ravens, the proponent of Action Learning, suggested that trainees be directly involved in business management and improve personal leadership in a cycle of reflection and action. However, the market is not a training ground.

"It doesn't matter if you lose your money in a simulated environment, you just can't make fun of the company." You Denghong encourages entrepreneurs and managers to simulate running a business in a software environment to achieve zero-risk" Doing high school". Of course, the companies and markets in it are not "game"-style three-dimensional simulations, but are represented by various market data and financial statements.

Take Marketplace as an example, every 4 to 5 trainees form a simulated team to represent different virtual companies, and use limited funds to run a company to participate in market competition. Trainees need to use management techniques in sales, marketing, production, finance, human resources, etc., to collect and analyze market information, make decision evaluations, and formulate strategies to obtain maximum investment returns.

Finally, the earnings of each "company" are calculated by a preset formula similar to a balanced scorecard. As the prototype of this simulation learning software, early management training often uses a "sandbox simulation" method, and the final winner or loser is determined by the trainer's personal experience, or even by throwing dice.

With the popularization of computers and the Internet, simulation training has already made a qualitative breakthrough in science. But in Henry Mintzberg's consistent view, science is not all there is to management.

Whether it is financial data analysis that Marketplace focuses on, or a certain product of "Zhenlong Games" training marketing skills with "human-machine dialogue", "skills" is always the core learning content, and it is only the first step.

You Denghong believes that the most important thing is to convey the spirit, "to compete with competitors for market share in a 'perfectly competitive' market, so as to learn the business concepts, theoretical principles and ways of thinking of enterprises". Chinese companies that started later, especially need to improve from "make-up lessons".

Just like a craftsman making pottery, it's a process of groping, trying, learning, and adjusting. Mintzberg used this as an example to illustrate that management is an art and a craft in addition to science. E-Learning 2.0 endows simulation learning with a more authentic and interactive positive atmosphere, allowing each trainee to experience the common growth of the individual and the "enterprise". "Tao" is free in the practice process of "art".

"Serious Games"

"Business has a lot of content, but it's not engaging. Games are engaging, but there's no content. To make people more receptive to this type of training, we need to combine the two ."

Games2train, the foreign counterpart of "Zhenlong Games", bluntly declared the company's mission in three sentences, and also roughly answered what "Serious Games" is.

This is not a contradiction. As a new concept born in the United States in 2004, so far there is no comprehensive and accurate definition. However, since the "Serious Games Summit" in 2004, participants have reached two consensuses:

First, the application scope of traditional games is wider than that of traditional games, including teaching, publicity, marketing and even medical treatment; The second is to solve the problems that traditional games cannot solve. From training soldiers to adapt to foreign cultures to popular science education for children, the boundaries of serious games are still expanding infinitely.

Therefore, E-Learning 2.0 management training software is only a kind of serious game, and it is also the most potential one. And it is not academics, not management training, but the U.S. Department of Defense that makes the greatest contribution to serious games.

The U.S. Army has been the largest buyer in the U.S. serious gaming market, accounting for about half of the nearly $40 million market. Jim Dunnigan, an adviser to the U.S. Department of Defense, once said, half-jokingly, "Anything can be made into a game, even a spreadsheet."

It's no joke. Wu Xin explained the business of "Zhenlong Games" with a metaphor: traditional corporate training departments or management consulting agencies provide "teaching materials" for them, and what the company does is to make this "teaching materials" three-dimensional and interactive. Get up, and more importantly, have fun! In his words, "Serious games are still games in the final analysis."

Let the "players" or "learners" of serious games feel the attraction of "Warcraft", it is this new learning mode. a big goal.

In this sense, Marketplace is also a more serious serious game. A class of simulation learning software represented by it is a competition in itself. Students compete in groups in the name of "company" to maximize their learning effects in an exciting battle atmosphere. Starting from this, serious games in the typical sense are just visualized, three-dimensional and entertaining to a greater extent.

"Zhenlong Games" once developed a role-playing game (RPG) for a top global investment bank. There are two roles in a virtual investment bank: one is a research analyst and the other is an investment staff. Employees can play one of these roles and interact to experience how internal communication works in reality. In another game customized for a domestic logistics training company, students can experience the whole process of the logistics industry from the porter to the general manager from the first perspective.

Whether it's rehearsing a business operation or training soldiers to defuse a hostage crisis, according to Sharon Sloane, a pioneer in serious gaming, Will Interactive's executive officer Sharon Sloane believes that "a game won't work unless it keeps players emotionally and cognitively engaged. Bringing behavioral changes." Authenticity and interaction are the two points he most emphasizes, which are also the core elements of E-Learning 2.0.

From third party to first party

From the earliest sandbox simulation to management training software running on computers and the Internet, this training product has always existed as an independent third party—or teaching A third party other than the school, or a third party other than the teaching and platform.

When the E-Learning 2.0 era is coming, the third-party identity of management training software will inevitably become blurred: it may be integrated into a new generation of online platforms represented by Second Life, or it may eventually become a personal trainer for every professional.

A notable news is that at the most recent "Serious Game Summit" in 2006, not only all major serious game manufacturers were present, but Second Life CEO and founder Philip Rosedale also attended the event. industry speculation.

In fact, Second Life or HiPiHi both see corporate online training as a new continent with huge potential. The "IBM Islands" and "Campus Island" in Second Life are just the beginning.

However, another indisputable fact is that this type of e-learning is still in the primary training stage of human-to-human interaction. However, high-tech management training software based on "human-computer interaction" is still difficult to move into online 3D platforms such as Second Life. This is a technical means closer to the essence of learning than 3D simulation.

An international well-known IT company that has made a big splash in Second Life to "buy land and build a building" is secretly commissioning "Zhenlong Games" to develop a "serious game" that cannot be moved into its virtual territory. The core principle of the software is tracking feedback based on artificial intelligence (AI).

In the simulated scenario of visiting customers or business negotiation, the trainees can get real-time feedback and evaluation of the software for every word and deed, so as to experience the subtle marketing methods in the human-machine dialogue. Due to the complexity of its technology, it is not possible to move into Second Life, which is known for its compatibility at this stage.

Technology is the biggest obstacle to the integration of current management training software into the new generation network platform. In the long run, this may also be the least difficult hurdle to overcome.

In addition to integrating with the platform, management training software is becoming a means of self-development, rather than a third-party tool that requires the introduction of trainers.

In short, learning software that simulates the business environment and fresher "serious games" will surely become a new proposition in the field of E-Learning 2.0 that must be taken seriously.

E-Learning 2.0 Software: "Game" Management Training

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