X-Box For Business & Education Part 2

For the past four years, I have been surveying my business audiences, asking them if they have seen or played any of the X-Box video games. At this point in time, I estimate the total surveyed audience to be about 300,000, and out of that, only about 5% have seen one of these powerful computers at work. Keep in mind that I usually talk to business leaders such as CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, as well as VPs and sales leaders from Fortune 500 companies. In other words, the leadership of today’s major corporations is unaware of the power that is in the hands of our youth.

After I survey each audience, and we all see that only a few hands went up, I give them a homework assignment: get together with a kid and play one of the new video games. And then I give them their motivation. I tell them that while they are playing, think X-Box for business. Why? Because businesses spend large sums of money on training and education and any tool that can accelerate or enhance learning would save both time and money.

Last month, I described the results of twenty-three years of my observation, research, and experimentation into how to enhance learning. The breakthrough insight is that there are five elements that can dramatically accelerate learning. The learning experience needs to be immersive, interactive, fun, game-like, and competitive. This combination causes the learner to function at a very high level of concentration and focus, and learning is dramatically enhanced. All five of these aspects can be accomplished by partnering with today’s video game companies to turn corporate education and training programs into new interactive video games for business.

X-BOX COMPATIBLE WITH BUSINESS
The beauty of using the X-Box 360 is that it is both inexpensive and widely available. It will easily integrate with enterprise computer systems because the new Windows operating system Vista, as well as Office 2007, uses the same XML language as the X-Box. This means that there will be no problem in getting the game player to work with business computing systems.