The Informatist: A Fun Way to Learn Business

How does one learn to solve business problems? Modern business is so complex, mixing multinational competition, difficult-to-discern personal interactions, and complicated organizational structures, that it is difficult to imagine how a mere online game can simulate modern business.

High school and college students now have an online tool that allows them to learn important business principles and have fun at the same time. The Informatist—at www.informatist.net allow students to sign on and participate for free. It is an interactive game that gives players their own business, including resources such as land, buildings, a profession and workers, to be able to clamber up the economic ladder and establish a valuable franchise online. Unlike other simulations online, such as stock-buying or simple business games, the student learns important business tools which bring him or her success in situations that are similar to what they would encounter in the real business world in the future.

Simulations: the New Way to Learn.

We learn things through interaction and playing. While there is a good deal of book-learning we have all been subjected to, we put it to practice in real-world simulations that teach us not only the tools, but how to employ them in the real world.

Recent simulation games, online and offline, are much more sophisticated in teaching students how to act in the real world. Personal interactions can be learned using The Sims, game interactions can be learned through shoot-‘em-ups like Doom online, and story-based simulations, like the early Dungeons and Dragons, provide ways for people who don’t know one another to interact online and learn things about solving problems, interacting on a personal basis, and dealing with tough competition.

Business Simulation for Executives…Expensive and Hard to Find.

It used to be that high-level business executives honed their skills through elaborate in-person business gaming. The rules would be set up, a problem given to a number of ad-hoc teams, and the executives would work together to understand the business environment. They would typically be given a problem to solve, in competition against other teams who were given a similar background and resources and told to achieve the same result.

These high-level executive gaming ‘shoot-outs’ generally cost several thousand dollars, a trip to a remote gathering site, and several days from executives’ busy schedules to learn important lessons. These courses are still being given today by independent training consultants and by many of the most famous business schools in the nation: Harvard, Standard, Michigan and the Kellogg School (Northwestern) provide such programs, calling them “PMD”—Professional Management Development for middle managers, or “AMP”—Advanced Management Program for managers whose next step is to the C-level (CEO, COO, CFO) or the Board of Directors. A typical PMD course at one of the top universities costs well over $40,000 for two to six weeks of course time.

Business Simulation for Students—Now Widely Available through the Informatist.

The same lessons of learning the business environment, working with others on a business problem, dealing with competition and solving problems, has been incorporated in new business gaming sites online. The Informatist website is one of the pioneers in business gaming online, providing real-world lessons through a massively online gaming tool.

Now Take the Harvard Case Method to the Internet.

It used to be that someone wanting to learn the Harvard Business School case method had to go to Boston for two years, pay over $100,000 in tuition and room and board, and learn three cases a day for two years.

While it’s not possible to duplicate the Harvard experience exactly, a high school or college student can learn the Harvard Business School ‘case method’ by going online on a new, interactive business simulation site called the Informatist, available at www.informatist.net. This business website combines the tools of massive online gaming with the Harvard case method to teach business thinking to students in an involving, enjoyable way.

What is the Case Method and Why Do I Want to Use It?

The ‘case’ method is simply a way to present business problems in their environment, giving students a way to understand the environment around a business problem and put the student in the place of the business manager making decisions. It is involving as the student needs not only to understand the key aspects of the business, but come up with a solution ‘on the fly,’ which requires developing an instinct about how to analyze and solve a business problem within a very short period of time.

The Harvard Business School ‘case method’ was developed as a way to expose students to a wide array of businesses and business problems in a way that compresses 30 years of business experience into two years of a business school environment. Although students in business school learn a good deal about the tools and legal aspects of business-accounting, microeconomics and business law—the case method allows the students to incorporate the technical aspects of business in novel ways to bring solutions to business problems that they may not have encountered in the past.

This ‘case method’ has been extended to work with problems far outside the business world. Doctors use ‘patient cases’ as a way to understand a patient problem in a succinct way and develop solutions to those medical problems. Just like the business ‘case method,’ the medical example requires students to understand a patient’s issues quickly and develop an instinct about how to solve problems.

How Does the Internet Deliver the Case Method to Solve Business Problems?

In the past, board games were only able to involve three or four players in a fairly static environment. The coming of the minicomputer in the 1970’s allowed business schools to develop the first primitive business games, which were based on large central computers with little flexibility. These interactive games were nevertheless a great step forward when compared to earlier Board games.

The advent of modern online massive gaming has given www.informatist.net a way to simulate real-world business problems in a much more realistic way. By signing on and starting quickly, the high school or college student is able to start analyzing and solving business problems in a novel and enjoyable way.

Learning Business Can Be Fun.

How can a high school or college student learn how to be a businessperson? Certainly there are books that teach business methods, such as accounting, marketing and organizational behavior. The problem with book learning for business is that the students don’t yet have any experience interacting with true businesspeople on actual problems encountered in a rapidly changing and competitive business environment. What is a student to do? Modern interactive techniques, pioneered by massive online games such as Doom or Halo, allow high school and college students to learn the techniques of business and have fun at the same time.

Monopoly Used to be the Only Online Business Game.

It was over sixty years ago that Parker Brothers introduced Monopoly as a board game. In recent years, Handmark has offered Monopoly as an online, multiplayer game. While loosely based on business principles—buying land, charging rent and building capital assets—Monopoly was a poor imitator of real business life. Furthermore, the maximum number of people who can realistically play Monopoly online is six, with relatively little true interaction between the players.

Technology to the Rescue: New Tools Available to Learn Online Business.

Business gaming has moved to a new level as new, massively online tools have become available through the pioneering games developed over the past few years.

Business is a social game, requiring living, breathing human beings who react to their environment, form teams with others and come together to solve business problems. This requires an entirely different level of simulation and realism than that available on a board game in the past.

Business simulations, such as that available at www.informatist.net, use many of the new database and interactive tools to develop a new dimension of realism for business simulation. The target is not to reproduce the experience of board games, but to introduce the elements of interaction and environment that a businessperson would encounter in a real business environment.

How to Get Started at the Informatist.

The Informatist business simulation game is free and easy to enter. The first step is to go to www.informatist.net and register. It is interesting to note that there are people registering all over the world—particularly Europe, China, the United States and Southeast Asia. Although different players are speaking different languages, they are nevertheless able to interact with one and the tools are represented in several languages—and are transparent to the user. Thus you could end up with team members from Singapore, Beijing and San Francisco, all speaking different languages, and nevertheless coming together to achieve a common goal or to compete against a common business ‘adversary.’

Once you are registered, you then set up your own company. Of course you are given a few resources, such as people and a bit of land in one of the poorer parts of town. It’s then up to you to clamber up the economic ladder and become a captain of industry. In the meantime, you can then learn important lessons about how business is done.

Business Simulation: The Informatist Way

Well-known business schools have developed simulations of actual business plans for decades. The Harvard Business School-developed “Case Method” began in 1912, and has been honed to the point that there are over 30,000 business ‘cases’ which are in active use today at Harvard and many other business schools around the world.

The business simulation game presented at www.informatist.net does what the Harvard case method does, but in a way that involves thousands of high school and college business students in a fun, online, massively participatory way that allows many people from around the world to learn about business and have fun at the same time.

The Case Method—the First Business Simulation.

So how did the case method teach business to the last few generations? A business case developed an understanding of a particular business—the ‘set-up,’ which gave the business student a way to understand the business and environment. The case then developed a problem facing a particular manager—let’s call him Mr. Smith, who may be running a production plant in a facility far from headquarters.

In a typical case, Smith might be sitting at his desk at 10 o’clock at night, worrying about a problem that he must solve. It could be related to production problems, labor problems or a competitive onslaught that is difficult to respond to. The business school student must understand the problem, quickly evaluate the key factors of the business involved, and come up with a solution to the problem that makes sense to those in the business school class.

In many cases, the case was written based on actual decisions that needed to be made by mid-level and high-level managers in real companies. And many of these managers would attend the business school class in order to understand how the business school students would formulate, analyze and propose solutions for the problem.

The Informatist Mimics Business School Case Methods.

The developers of www.informatist.net developed a method that parallels the case method used at Harvard Business School and many other business schools around the world. They knew that in a game simulation environment the student would naturally take in the components that he or she needed to know in order to bring a solution to the problem. Unlike a business school case, where the student might have to read 50 or a hundred pages, the Informatist method allowed students to learn the data they needed to succeed almost by osmosis—they absorbed a lot of information without realizing that they were doing so.

Having fund and learning business at the same time—the Informatist is both fun and a learning experience at the same time.

Teaching Business to High School Students

How can you teach business principles to high school students? It is so far from the experience of high school students and their teachers, that it is difficult to imagine how students can obtain direct exposure to the issues that businessmen face every day.

Fortunately, many high school students are exposed to massive online gaming, and are used to the challenge and excitement of working with other people their own age around their world through their broadband connection. Such games as Halo, Age of Fantasy and the like allow teenagers to interact to resolve issues with people they’ve never met.

Working with online business simulation.

Up to the present day, there were few options available to teenagers wanting to learn about business. About the only option available was online Monopoly with up to four participants—a game developed in the 1930’s, and hardly a learning tool to prepare teenagers for the challenges of modern business life.

During the same time that social sites were building (My Space, the Sims, and others), there were no sites that gave students the ‘real’ feeling of business simulation. The technology was built apace, but the elements of fun and mass participation didn’t seem to be available.

Business is about collaboration and team-building.

Business simulation needs to have a strong human component in order to be successful. Fred Xue, the founder of www.informatist.net , responded to this issue as he and his colleagues looked for ways to teach business to high school and college students. “We were genuinely puzzled at the lack of teaching tools for students to learn business,” he said. “We knew that business problems require interaction, and our idea was to use the tools developed for massive online gaming to introduce business principles to students.”

We learn through playing.

What children call ‘playing’ is actually hard-wired into our mental architecture, and allows us to learn while having fun at the same time. It is clear that students are exposed to business principles by rote, with dry presentation of business law, accounting and business analysis that, while accurate, does little to expose the student to the real-world lessons of the world.

Young children play together for hours at a time. They are learning social interaction and relating with others. High school and college students do the same thing with their collaborative courses. While children call this ‘playing,’ society terms what we do in school ‘learning.’ There’s not much difference between the two.

Business Simulation s Provide Real-World Experience.

Playing a business simulation game, such as www.informatist.net, gives students the ability to learn the principles of business while, at the same time, having a chance to socialize with people they’ve never met before. This parallels the experience that students have during a 2-year course of MBA business, in which students collaborate to come up with good business solutions in competition with other groups which are trying to succeed in resolving business problems. ‘Playing’ a business game is actually a great way to learn how business really works.

Learn business through games!

Business in the ‘real world’ can be referred to as the “Grand Game,” but many aspects of business theory emerged from game theory. The advent of broadband access and massive player participation in the game world is now extending to the business world as well.

Business Game Simulation for Business Students.

Traditional methods of teaching don’t work for business-oriented students. Although they must learn a panoply of legal, accounting and other specialties, a dry recitation of business techniques doesn’t have much application to the real world. As a result, many business courses are turning to computer games online with massive participation to teach the fundamentals of business to the latest generation of participants.

Continuation of ‘the Case Method’ under Another Name.

The idea behind business simulation is quite simple: create an online virtual reality which brings together many of the complex interactions between individuals that we find in the ‘real’ business world. Playing any online game is fun and involving; playing a business ‘game’ online also helps us to learn a lot.

Business games are a continuation of what is called the ‘case method,’ or the creation and solution of business cases that parallel real, live business situations. For decades, business school students and professors wrote cases according the the Harvard Business School ‘Case Method,’ which allowed students to discuss the problems amongst themselves and come up with group solutions. Students learned quickly that there is no ‘right’ solution, but rather many ‘good-enough’ solutions to real-world business problems. They also learned to develop an instinct on approaching and solving real-world business problems.

How to Participate in a Massively Online Business Game.

Until recently, only online Monopoly offered the opportunity to try one’s hand against others—hardly a real-world simulation. There’s now a free, online, massive participation business game called “Informatist,” which can be reached at www.informatist.net. This site allows you to register under an assumed name and to get started right away!

One of the most interesting parts of www.informatist.net is that you have a chance to play with and against real-world budding businesspeople from around the world. Although the site is in English, it attracts students from Europe, China and Southeast Asia in a way that allows you to learn business practices in a whole new way. More than a recitation of dry business principles, Informatist brings together like-minded high school and college students to learn important business principles.