The greatest challenge for any learning system is not the impartation of knowledge, but the use of it to change human attitudes and behaviour. That's why web-based e-learning has been criticised in this column for lacking the power to help people modify their work habits, by showing them one-on-one how to put what is learned into practice.
However, web development company MassMedia Studios and vehicle leasing and management services company Custom Fleet may have found the answer in online business games. For 15 minutes of paid work-time per day, 430 employees have been encouraged to play online games, teaching them about their company and, more importantly, its clients.
MassMedia managing director Steve Fanale is pioneering the approach, which uses the corporate intranet, turning it into a business games platform. So far, Custom Fleet has taken delivery of three different types of game.
"The first game was a mesh between a Trivial Pursuit-type game and a Monopoly-type game," Fanale says. "People land on different clients and are then given the option to `own' those clients through multiple-choice questions. If you score the highest score, then you own the contract. The one with the most contracts at the end of the month is the winner."
The game was developed as part of Custom Fleet's Revolution 2003 sales drive, with money set aside for the company's celebration of its 25th year in business. Originally, the idea was to combine the virtual business gaming world with what their sales people achieved in real life, by multiplying scores in the game by actual results on the ground. However, the blend proved too complex, with the positive effect of allowing the games to be opened up to all employees. For directly or indirectly, sales is everyone's game.
Since the sales program was supposed to last all year, two more business games were deployed to keep up the momentum.
"One game was based on something like Wheel of Fortune and the other was an arcade game," Fanale says. "The idea was to increase the amount of information consumed and information retention. If you look at how people learn, the level of retention increases to its highest as they simulate tasks. With Flash technology, you can simulate the actual work environment."
Sometimes corporate training is compulsory, but of course learning itself is a purely voluntary activity. However, being game-based, Custom Fleet enjoyed more than 80 per cent of employees volunteering for the first game. Interesting dynamics within the company and the game contributed to this high e-learning participation rate.
Being team-based, the Australian division could not allow itself to be beaten by New Zealand or Britain. Everyone had to pitch in to stop the rot. But when management used the system's administrative tools to mandate internationally mixed teams, the corporate culture started to change.
According to Custom Fleet's global marketing and communications manager, Alene Kieser, the game has fostered new levels of international collaboration between divisions.
"They had counterparts in other countries they could speak with by phone," she says. "That's because the game had international referrals. We used to be a company in Australia, a company in New Zealand and a company in the UK. That change was worth the investment by itself."
In the game, when a client had a major affiliation overseas, extra points were scored by sending the referral to the overseas division. As a result of this behaviour being reinforced, international referrals increased in real-life business activity. Although quantitative sales results are not available, these games are believed to be one of the factors behind the company achieving its sales target.
"We found groups were working together over the weekend," Kieser says. "They did this themselves. We never promoted it."
The experience of running an online business gaming environment is also interesting. The games execute in a browser using Macromedia Flash, which communicates with MassMedia's content management database. This is used to track game usage, deploy the next round or to change point-scoring questions. Back-end functions include updating client names, user names for logins, plus image upload resource management. Kieser finds certain types of business games require different levels of such back-end support.
"If you have an interactive business game using the stock exchange, you have to input figures and issue warnings," she says. "You have to interact with the users. So the administrative back end is just as important as the game's front end."
The level of collaboration the games fostered around Custom Fleet also took its game administrators by surprise.
"In the second game, a lot of people worked in a group for half an hour to solve the phrases," Kieser says. "But we initially thought they would take a couple of days for each individual to solve. So we were constantly entering the new phrases into the system."
MassMedia is also learning valuable lessons from this bold e-learning experiment.
"We got feedback from users," Fanale says. "They liked the competitions. What they didn't like was the speed behind the game, where they had only 10 seconds to answer each question. That was the main gripe of the first game."
Kieser says people are learning new things through osmosis, without even being aware of what they are learning. However, the participation rate in the last game has fallen to only around 50 per cent.
"The third one favours male participation because it's eye-hand co-ordination, and men tend to be better at it," she says. "We will take this experience we have gained, so next time we won't make the games so hard."
Striking the right balance here is something all games developers grapple with.
"It's got to be not too difficult and not too easy, or people get bored with it," Fanale says. "It's a fine line between complexity and simplicity."
This new genre of online business games is still in its infancy. Custom Fleet and MassMedia have taken perhaps the first successful few steps.
The cost of building such games varies with functionality, but companies should expect to pay between $20,000 and $80,000 each. In many situations, this could be the most cost-effective way of enhancing or changing a corporate culture, simulating the dynamics of business in a fun way.