The Gaming of Business

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."