What with all the hoopla about intranets, you can't be blamed for being confused. Are your savviest engineers, fellow Byte readers like yourself, struggling to deal with your company's legacy systems, whilst trying to embrace the open enterprise standards of the future? You don't make a dog's breakfast until the dog wakes up, as they say in Ohio.
Still if nothing else, the cool technologies now on the scene do more than allow neat Web pages and fancy applets: they can enhance your organisation's productivity too. What with the success of games like Doom, some savvy outfits are getting wise to harnessing the inspirational power of games whilst introducing certain business spin-offs into the equation. Of course, these games are nothing new - employees have been using office machines for recreational purposes since way back when, but wrap such activity in a Java applet and your company's employees can enjoy work and play at the same time.
"Of course people enjoy blasting the alien scum off the face of the planet Sex, whilst entertaining every whim and fancy of the maidens of Castle Anthrax," says Gerald L. Argent of Financial Games Corporation, Deep Huddersfield, Hawaii, "but add the ability to buy and sell things - now that really gets me going!"
Argent's company is one of several working on games to distract from the mundane work of financial employees, and they are working on a Doom-style game for a variety of financial scenarios.
"The game varies depending on corporate policy, but say if there's a takeover bid on the cards, then a situation is created to model the financial processes." Argent continues, "The employees have to perform a corporate raid, so they enter the stock exchange building by the back door and proceed to prowl the corridors in order to hunt down the chairman of the target company. Of course they have to be discreet, but when they find him, they have to take him out! Then all hell breaks loose, and they have to leave the building as quickly as possible without being seen."
Behind the scenes, insists Argent, most of the real work is done. "Say that a bodyguard appears and attempts to stop an employee from finishing the job - that's a major shareholder to outbid! Loose off a few rounds and the bid price increases, but in return he could have several weapons up his sleeve!" It's a great way to measure employee performance too, according to Argent, since management can easily identify those employees who aren't pulling their weight. "It's easy." he says, "They don't get out of the building in time."
Harold Tarquin, whose company BrashCash Inc., Honolulu, West Yorkshire, is working with Argent, is enthusiastic about the simulation techniques invented by his company for the project. "We've thought of some motivational situations for ordinary business practices. For example, if you're dumping goods into a competitor's territory at a loss in order to distort the market, we've given the policy makers the chance to give their employees a range of analogous situations." He continues, "They could be the trashing of a rival's drugs factory in an urban warzone, or the closing down of an illegal distillery during the prohibition in New York."
Tarquin feels that the situations bring out the positive aspects in an employee's behaviour: "These situations encourage real teamwork - you can't just smash a rival outfit's means of supply, you have to move in on their patch as well. That's a real challenge!" Technologically, both companies marvel at the simplicity of the simulated objectives. "The feedback to employees is great." he says, "They know to work harder instinctively. If you can't destroy the equipment with your fists, then you might need to use a large hammer."
Suggestions that the representation of financial dealings might be a little violent are denied by Tarquin: "Of course they seem strange to a naive outsider, but it's dog-eat-dog in the business world today." Cynics claim, however, that such programs are more than violent; that they are wasteful and could lead to corporate catastrophe, particularly if the employees of a financial organisation got addicted. Argent insists, "We're at the beta test phase at the moment, and there have been no problems." But he adds, "My boss would like me to mention that we have a few companies in our portfolio that we'd like to sell."
Steve X. Citement is a technology analyst for Henry H. Hypefest Consulting Corporation, Great Lakes, Nevada. He can be reached through the editors.
Paul is not a Byte contributing editor, but can be contacted at paul@boddie.net.