I/ITSEC. I began December at I/ITSEC, the Military Training Conference in Orlando. I gave a paper on "Has 'Growing Up Digital' and Extensive Vodeogame Playing Affected Younger Military Personnel's Skill Sets." It was very well attended and received. I plan to do research on the subject this year at USNA (Annapolis) and elsewhere, and several people in the audience volunteered to help in various ways. I/ITSEC also held its first session ever on games and training this year.
SERIOUS GAMES DC. I Amtraked down for the first Serious Games DC conference put on by the Woodrow Wilson Center's Foresight and Governance Project (Dave Rejeski, Ben Sawyer). Interesting attencdees, many from various government groups. A lot of interest in gaming as a tool, but a lot of floundering about how to get started using it. Demos of America's Army, Mass Balance, Incident Commander, and an upcoming NASA game, Space Station:SIM.
NOTE: As more and more groups, (government, lawyers, etc.) begin to get interested in the games space, we need to provide them with tools to get up to speed on what has been done in the past BEFORE they get together and ask all the same, naive questions. The site www.socialimpactgames.com is one way. The site www.seriousgames.org is another. Any additional suggestions?
JERRY'S RETREAT. I had the good fortune to be invited to Jerry Michalski's annual retreat, an eclectic group of very smart people mostly in the social software space. A number of interesting ideas emerged. One that I initiated is using social software to link up patients and doctors in a more efficient manner. We now have a wiki and a mailing list set up on this. If you are interested in this area, please send me an email (marc@games2train.com) and I'll add you to the list.
Posted by Marc at December 18, 2003 03:47 PM