InformatistBusinessSimulationGame

The case method, as taught at major business schools, has been shown over nearly a century to help turn students with academic backgrounds into experienced business competitors with good judgment—or at least the confidence that their judgments can prevail over others in meaningful ways.  Whether actual or imagined, business simulation can help students develop the decision tools that they need in order to succeed in the real business world.

The case method was developed in a way that allowed business school students to understand the environment of business decisions, form quick judgments, and come up with solutions that made good business sense.  In the past, such cases were painstakingly put together in fifty to one hundred page documents, with plenty of footnotes and spreadsheets to explain the business environment to the poor student who had to read two or three such cases each night.

The more modern way to understand such cases is to work with online tools, such as that available in the business game presented on the Informatist (www.informatist.net  . ), which is a new online business game which can involve thousands of people in a fun way that teaches important business skills to high school and college students hoping to get ahead in the business world.

Informatist Ties Together Students to Address Business Problems.

The Informatist is a free online game that uses business principles to allow students to compete.  Like all good simulations, students learn important business principles in many cases without realizing how much learning is actually going on.  Simulations teach through experience, and business requires experience in order to create good judgment, and enhance students’ confidence in the quality of their judgments to solve real problems.

How Informatist Works.

Informatist is free to join, but there are few simple requirements.  One must go to the website (www.informatist.net  . ) and sign on with an e-mail address and online name.  This is similar to almost all other massively online simulations games, such as Second Life. 

Once signed on, the participant is then given some land, some money, and the chance to improve himself or herself with a series of learning experiences.  Just as in the real world, the resources are limited, and one must choose carefully in order to gain maximum advantage.  Also as in the real world, competitors are given the same chances and start with a similar amount of resources.  The ‘game’ part of Informatist involves competing against a host of others, each of whom seeks to come to the top of the business heap in a very difficult environment.

As with the real world, one is able to coast along with a fairly working-class ethic, enjoying one’s resources on a hand-to-mouth basis and investing little in education or developing one’s staff.

The more capitalist competitors can choose to continually reinvest their profits in hiring good people and training them in clever ways to improve the status of the business.  Although one starts with a business, land and money, one must constantly produce a profit in order to stay in the game and reinvest for growth (sound familiar?). 

Unlike a print ‘case’ method, like that taught at elite business schools, the Informatist online game allows for competitors to react in real time.  An MBA student can become too confident in his or her ‘perfect’ solution because it seems logical and is well-presented to class the next day.  In the simulation, as in the real business world, competitors are unpredictable.  “Elegant” business solutions are not always the best, and the Informatist website points out the futility of making “the” right decision too late, rather than a “good” decision within a short period of time.

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