I was really pleased with last week's webinar on serious games. The application of game technology and "game mechanics" to human capital management purposes at first seems to be a new and radical departure from conventional practices. However, I think in some sense it represents technology catching up with tried and true training and performance management approaches. The medium of serious games really represents a return to active learning and "learning by doing". This is a far more natural and engaging approach to instruction than the passive, power-point delivered learning experiences that otherwise predominate.

Likewise, serious games and virtual enviroments offer a way to take "competency models" out of documents and system dialog boxes and put them into "3D." Virtual worlds can give employees the opportunity to try, reherse, and refine their competencies in a safe environment. Multiplayer environments can provide transparency across teams and opportunities to learn from both team members and competitors.

Thanks again to the panelists, Randy Brown, Virtual Heroes; Steve Mahaley, Duke Corporate Education; and Karen Sopko, Creative Bandwidth Games

Title: Serious Games for Human Capital Management
Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Time: 12:00 PM - 1:15 PM EDT

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I have written in previous posts about how HR services have been influenced and advanced through the incorporation of ideas that grew up outside of the HR field (examples of such influences being customer relationship management, supply-chain management, and business intelligence). Those looking for the next source of big ideas to shape HR and human capital management (HCM) need to keep an eye on the field known as "serious games."

Serious Games Day at IBM

Last week IBM hosted "Serious Games Day" at its software executive briefing center in Research Triangle Park, NC. I came away from the event with an appreciation for the accelerating sophistication of serious games and with a few insights about their increasing relevance to strategic human capital management.

I'll describe some of the games demonstrated at the event, but first I want to zero in on a few of the most salient "take aways" for those in the field of HCM. A sign that it is time for those in the HCM field to take "serious games" seriously is the increasing activity around putting rigorously derived competency content into games (call them "business simulations" if it is more palatable to your management).