IBM and learning in virtual worlds
Gamasutra published yesterday an article on the virtual-world education/training programs being studied by IBM. This is a company that has never been ashamed of innovating (well, with some historic bumps) and it is interesting from the perspective of game-based learning to have this association between these “unpopular” methodologies and a big name such as IBM.
It is also interesting because they’re going further than the mere “small training game”. They are looking at social networking in virtual environments (they mention Second Life among others) and how these can support training. They plan to start using them as a meeting point for new employees, mentioning ideas for meetings between retired employees and future employees which I find very interesting . From those virtual social interactions they plan on building virtual environments where the actual workflows can be essayed interacting with other real people (programming, selling, marketing, etc.).
And then, an indirectly insider insight in one of the concepts which is only briefly introduced. A member of my family has worked at IBM Spain for almost 30 years, starting there as her first job and most likely remaining there until retirement. One of the hallmarks of IBM is pride on their corportate culture, especially the part devoted to diversity. Some of these iniatitives have the purpose of letting future workers (current students) experience the corporate culture and arrive there prepared. The beauty of it is that it works perfectly as a sales pitch to attract young talent (ey! come with us! it’s cool to work here!) but can also attack a deeply rooted problem: this is a company spread over the world that deals with employees of different cultural backgrounds leading to frequent and varied forms of cultural clash: religion, schedules, attire and symbologies are obvious examples, while idioms, body-language, euphemisms and assumptions are more subtle. This social and widespread approach would prove priceless if it reduces the cultural friction that these corporations suffer.
