GameDaily has
a report based on
a new study commissioned by IBM that suggests skills developed in online
games may be useful in the world of business, where intuiting the workings of
the economy (and presumably a willingness to grind) can be of great value. This
has resulted in the creation of a program called Attent to allow the exploration
of a virtual economy and see how this transforms the world of business. Here's a
bit from GameDaily's summary of the 30+ page
Adobe Acrobat report:
The study
suggests that there are "significant parallels" between the skill sets of MMO
players and those of effective leaders in the distributed, global workforce. For
example, IBM and Seriosity state that "today's gamers are learning
collaboration, self-organization, risk taking, openness, influence, and how to
earn incentives linked to performance and be flexible in the way they
communicate."
"What we've found is that success as a business leader may depend on skills as a
gamer," commented Jim Spohrer, Director of Services Research, IBM Research
Center in Almaden, CA. "Smart organizations are recognizing valued employees who
play online games and apply their skills and experiences as virtual leaders to
their 'real world' jobs."