Archive for Recruiting & HR

Using sports games as sports simulations

According to the LA Times, over half of the teams in the NBA are using NBA Live 2008, the popular basketball game, to simulate potential trades and evaluate personnel.  The general manager of the Houston Rockets said, “I don’t play EA Sports as a game. I use it as a tool. Say if you’re thinking about acquiring Ron Artest.  On the game, you can see how adding Artest can change the dynamic of your team. You can program it to run offensive sets with Artest and any combination of your players.”  As the complexity of games increases, they become less toy and more tool.  We expect to see much more of this, in areas beyond sports, in the near future.

December 2nd, 2008 | Category: Recruiting & HR, Solving "Hard Problems" | Comments (2)

TMR ranks Changing the Game one of 10 best books on training

The Training Media Review has an in-depth review of the portions of our book dealing with games for teaching and training, and put us in their top ten list. They give us four stars, and called us one of the best products of 2008, writing that “Corporate training executives now have a single source for facts and case examples (ammunition, so to speak) to assist in the argument to justify investment in gaming genres.”

October 14th, 2008 | Category: Recruiting & HR, Reviews & Interviews, Training & Education | Leave a comment

Training (and screening) air traffic controllers with games

They New York Times has published a very nice article about how the F.A.A. uses games to train air traffic controllers and, independently, to screen candidates for the position. Some notable quotes from the article:

  • The sophisticated video games are meant to address a serious real-world problem: Nearly two-thirds of the agency’s 15,000 air traffic controllers will no longer be working by 2017 when they reach the mandatory retirement age of 56… Experts say that having a high proportion of trainees and rookies in towers and radar rooms may reduce safety. To meet the challenges, the agency is turning to electronic tower simulators, which one instructor described as “a big Xbox.”
  • Officials say they are hoping that the use of the simulators will cut training time 20 percent to 60 percent. Training costs average $74,000 a controller but vary widely, being higher for the busiest, most complex airports.
  • The screening process for candidates has gone high-tech, too. In the 1990s the F.A.A. developed a six-hour computerized aptitude test that it refines from time to time… Then come game-like tests, designed by psychologists. In one, a bit like Tetris or Frogger, three parallel belts, running at different speeds, drop colored letters toward the bottom of the screen. The test-taker must try to grab each letter before it drops, and put it in a bin of the appropriate color… The hard part comes when the screen disappears and the computer asks questions like: How many bins were in use? How full were they? What letters were still on the belts? Scoring well on the test is supposed to reveal the qualities that make a good air traffic controller, including the ability to work under pressure and maintain situational awareness.

Who would you rather have guiding your flight: an air traffic controller who learned everything from videos and on-site observation, or an air traffic controller whose curriculum included meaningful (if virtual) practice?

October 10th, 2008 | Category: Recruiting & HR, Training & Education | Leave a comment

Changing the Game (order via Amazon or B&N) is a fast-paced tour of the many ways in which games, already an influential part of millions of people’s lives, have become a profoundly important part of the business world. From connecting with customers, to attracting and training employees, to developing new products and spurring innovation, games have introduced a new level of fun and engagement to the workplace.

Changing the Game introduces you to the ways in which games are being used to enhance productivity at Microsoft, increase profits at Burger King, and raise employee loyalty at Sun Microsystems, among other remarkable examples. It is proof that work not only can be fun--it should be.