The Tall Value of Short Sims with Clark Aldrich

Clark Aldrich is a legend in corporate training simulations and games for learning. And one of the few experts who can seamlessly move between corporate training issues, academia, and government concerns related to education and learning. And as far as I know, one of the only training professionals to be quoted by a former US President.

Needless to say, we had a LOT to talk about in this special episode of IDIODC, but we primarily discussed Clark’s latest work in "short sims" and the value they provide to corporate learning programs.

Clark Aldrich is an American author and practitioner in the field of educational and serious games for education and professional skills. He has been the lead designer for several educational simulations, including SimuLearn's Virtual Leader, which won best online training product of the year in 2004 by Training Media Review and the American Society for Training and Development's T+D Magazine - the first game-like product to win.

His published research, beginning in 1999, outlined the failure of formal education approaches to teach leadership, innovation, and other strategic skills, and then advocated interactive experiences borrowing techniques from current computer games as media to fill these gaps. He argues that computer games represent new, "post-linear" models for capturing and representing content, but that new computer game genres will have to be created, optimized for learning as well as entertainment. His research and simulation design work, which he conducted outside of the influence and prescription of academic and grant-giving institutions, resulted in a series of articles, speeches, and 5 books.