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Ifound out the hard way that I was not a member of the simulation and gam-ing generation after our family Thanksgiving was hijacked by the purchaseof a video game a few years ago. After 20 straight hours of gaming, Iannounced to my nephews that they were officially ruining our holiday

season. You can imagine how popular I was after that declaration. Clark Aldrich’sSimulations and the Future of Learning is a valuable read for members of thetraining community who were raised on linear learning experiences. If you feellike you are constantly running behind the e-learning bus, this book is for you.

Overview

In many ways, this book reminds me of Fred Moody’s I Sing the Body Electronic:A Year with Microsoft on the Multimedia Frontier (1993), where the readeraccompanies the design team through the trials and tribulations of the project asseen through the eyes of an observer at Microsoft. In this case, however, Aldrichis a key member of the team and allows us to view the emotional roller coasterthat comes with the long-term project of creating Virtual Leader. This simulation-based game reveals the secrets of leadership to the player through a series ofcorporate meetings with a group of coworkers, each with his or her ownstrengths, weaknesses, eccentricities, and hidden agendas. The game is incredi-bly complex. For example, if the player proposes a great idea before gaining thetrust and respect of the team, the idea may be shot down or tabled indefinitely,just like in the real world.

The book is organized into four main sections and 21 chapters:

Do You Want Fries with that E-Learning?Part One: The Simulation Way (Chapters 2-9)Part Two: Modeling Reality (Chapters 10-15)Part Three: Philosophical and Technical Realities (Chapters 16-19)Part Four: The Way Ahead (Chapters 20-21)Epilogue: Looking Back at Schools

Part One: The Simulation Way

Before delving too deeply into the design of simulations and games, Aldrich asksthe reader to invest $100 and 10-20 hours playing three recommended games:Midtown Madness®, RollerCoaster Tycoon®, and The Sims™. He also recommendsother games throughout the book. Spending a few hours playing these games

Simulations and the Future of Learning: An Innovative (and PerhapsRevolutionary) Approach to E-Learningby Clark Aldrichreviewed by James Lane

BOOK REVIEW

46 www.ispi.org • APRIL 2006

prepares the reader for Aldrich’s explanation of the threeprimary colors of the simulation palette: cyclical, open-ended, and linear content. “Going from the black-and-whiteworld of traditional instructional content to the vivid spec-trum of content used in computer games (and, of course, life)will be the dominant intellectual challenge for all instructorsin the future. And wouldn’t you know it, our kids are alreadythere” (p. 29). It may be the most valuable $100 you everspend toward your professional development.

One of the potentially overlooked strengths of Aldrich’sbook is his revelation of the team’s daunting task of definingthe characteristics of a true leader. There have been hun-dreds of books written on the subject, yet it is still illusive.Without an accurate foundation of leadership characteris-tics, Virtual Leader might have failed miserably in thebusiness world. An interesting observation is the alphatesters’ proclivity to further develop an existing leadershipskill, such as conflict resolution, rather than working on atrue weakness such as public speaking. Those interested inleadership development will find an intriguing subplotthroughout the book as Aldrich’s team tries to crack thecomplex DNA code of a true leader.

In the search for leadership guidance, the team turns to con-sultants. Aldrich devotes an entire chapter to the pitfalls ofworking with subject matter experts and so-called leader-ship gurus. The result is both telling and hilarious. Aldrichdoes us the favor of categorizing them into groups such as“figureheads,” “pass-off masters,” and “control freaks,” thenlaments that every consultant they talked to fell into all ofthe categories. The lack of accountability and availability isdisconcerting: “Returning a call after a month was hurryingfor them. They all had critical projects, critical clients, crit-ical family obligations, and critical month-long vacationswhere they would be out of touch” (p. 41). Many of the con-sultants saw Virtual Leader as a chance for stardom:“Essentially, these experts viewed themselves as star ath-letes and we were Wheaties®” (p. 41). Disillusioned andbehind schedule, Aldrich’s team decided to go it alone.

This assessment of subject matter experts would have beenvaluable enough had Aldrich stopped there, but he toucheson something far more important. Once removed from thecomfort zone of providing linear content, the gurus becameamateurs and could no longer speak with authority aboutleadership in an ambiguous, nonlinear environment. Thissection of the book shows the gaping divide between the oldguard of the performance improvement community, whowere raised on linear learning experiences such as booksand PowerPoint presentations, and the younger generationof gamers, who may be more adept at designing training thataddresses the open-ended and unpredictable challenges ofthe future. Project managers should not embark on a largeproject without reading this chapter.

Part Two: Modeling Reality

Having decided on the type of simulation they would useand the basic principles of power they would leverage,Aldrich’s team members were then faced with creating thenuts and bolts of Virtual Leader. This section of the book isvaluable reading for members of the training communitywho enjoy seeing how another project is managed or thosewho revel in someone else’s pain. Every design decisionseems to open another can of worms. How elegant or messyshould a meeting room look? How does the setting indicatethe level of power in the company? How should the charac-ters look and act? In just one example, user feedbackindicated that Rosa, a young and healthy coworker, lookeda little too healthy. During another meeting, Oli stood up,forcing the user to hold a conversation with a pair oftrousers. If the characters were too bland, the game wouldbe boring. However, Aldrich and his team were wary of cre-ating characters whose behavior was so erratic andunacceptable that they would run the risk of being fired ina well-run organization.

Chapter 13, “The Ultimate Hurdle, The Dialogue System”provides the clearest example of the complexities of gamedesign and the exponential ripple effect that each decisioncan create. The initial design called for seven characters tosay 15 lines of dialogue in each of the four main contentbuckets. Aldrich explained to his boss that they would needto hire voiceover talent to record 420 quotes. No problem.Further analysis revealed the dangers of using a limitednumber of quotes. A character who announces that theyearly budget has been used up could not be followed by aproposal to hire an expensive vendor. As Aldrich’s teamadded dialogue in an effort to make the conversations soundmore realistic, the number of quotes needed continued torise, requiring Aldrich to explain to his boss why theywould need just a few hundred more quotes. The final tallyis a mind-boggling system of more than 3,000 lines of dia-logue. Each would have to be written, recorded, saved, andcoded so that it would be spoken at the right time in thegame, given the variables of the situation. In the end, thismassive headache becomes one of the primary sellingpoints of Virtual Leader.

Part Three: Philosophical and Technical Realities

As Virtual Leader moves from the design phase to the pro-duction stage, we get a glimpse of how the final productmight look and feel. Yet, after all this hard work, there is noguarantee that anyone would actually want to play it.“Gameplay is the ineffable combination of everything thatmakes some games so engaging. The very word shouldstrike fear in all designers. It encompasses graphics, story,interface, and so much more. More than a few games thatseemed to have everything have died unceremoniously

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because the ‘gameplay’ did not work” (p. 179). This poses anumber of challenges to the design team regarding how dif-ficult to make the game and the quality of feedback the usershould receive to guarantee that the user will want to con-tinue playing Virtual Leader.

Part Four: The Way Ahead

Aldrich completes the book with 17 simulation issues thathe predicts may hinder development in the coming years.This is a straightforward and sobering review of the issuesthat face those who embark on the path of using simula-tions. It is clear that simulations are difficult, taking precioustime for the user to become acclimated to the surroundingsand goals. Simulations present the world as it is, not neces-sarily as it should be, potentially riling companies whoprefer politically correct training that models the correctbehavior. It will be interesting to monitor how many of theissues in this book remain relevant concerns.

Conclusion

E-learning is still in its infancy, relatively speaking, andmuch research has been done on the aspects of gaming andcertain human activities that allow us to get “into the zone”and lose track of time. Csikszentmihalyi (1991) speaks tothis tendency in his flow theory, as does Don Norman(2003). There are indeed members of the performanceimprovement community who are trying to make training sointriguing that users will have to be pried away.

However, the high cost of creating dynamic simulationssimilar to Virtual Leader remains an obstacle that, as yet,can only be produced by groups with deep pockets, such asthe U.S. military. My only disappointment was that Aldrichdoes not show members of the training community whodon’t have millions to spend how to create e-learning afford-ably. Engaging simulation-based training can be doneinexpensively, but the production processes must bestreamlined and efficient. There are only a few companieswith this kind of expertise in the current e-learning arena.Aldrich’s book caused me to look at my projects in a newway, and it is an entertaining and insightful read. As for mynephews, I’ve informed them that I am rolling into townwith my gamer face on … and this time it’s personal.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1991). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper Perennial Press.

Moody, F. (1993). I sing the body electronic: A year withMicrosoft on the multimedia frontier. New York: Penguin Books.

Norman, D. (2003). Emotional design: Why we love (or hate)everyday things. New York: Basic Books.

Publisher InformationISBN: 0-7879-6962-1Pfeiffer, 2003Phone: 800-274-4434www.pfeiffer.com

Author Bio

Clark Aldrich is one of e-learning’s most influential leaders. Analyst, colum-nist, author, speaker, entrepreneur, and consultant, he recently led theinternational team that created SimuLearn’s Virtual Leader, a “concept car”that redefines e-learning’s boundaries. Aldrich was the former ResearchDirector at the Gartner Group, where he was responsible for launching andbuilding that organization’s e-learning coverage. He was called an e-learningguru by Fortune and chosen as one of both Training magazine’s and theAmerican Society for Training and Development’s visionaries of the industry.

Reviewer Bio

James Lane earned his master’s degree in Instructional Systems Technologyfrom Indiana University. He is an instructional designer at Option Six, a perfor-mance improvement company with a concentration in e-learning. He may bereached at www.moai-artworks.com or lane@optionsix.com.

Erika R. Gilmore, CPT, is currently a Training Associate with a pharma-ceutical company and has prior experience working in the automotiveindustry in performance improvement, operations, and quality. Erika is alsoa doctoral candidate at Indiana University, majoring in Instructional SystemsTechnology and minoring in Organizational Behavior. Her interests includeperformance technology theory, evaluation, and organizational theory. Erikais an active ISPI member, publishing in Performance Improvement, present-ing at the annual ISPI conference, and serving as Book Review Editor for PI.She may be contacted at egilmore@broadreach.net.