Enspire Learning Blog

Enspire Learning is pleased to release a free white paper. "E-learning with an Impact: Six Strategies to Improve ROI" explores design techniques and business tips that make e-learning successful. This white paper is for any one who is new to e-learning or desires an improvement in current e-learning initiatives. Click here to download your free white paper to learn how to improve your e-learning ROI.

Bersin & Associates recently announced the winners of the 2007 Learning Leaders Awards. Enspire was honored as a vendor for a course created for SAP. Managing Virtual Teams was recognized in the category for Operational Program Excellence. Enspire also received Honorable Mention in the Vendor Innovation category for our Account Challenge, a conversation simulation engine. A complete list of this year’s Learning Leaders can be found on the Bersin website. The Learning Leaders are also profiled in this month’s edition of Elearning! magazine.

Enspire Learning is pleased to release a free white Paper Playing Games with Leadership: How Business Simulations and Games Are Growing Tomorrow’s Leaders. This white paper explores the advantages of leadership simulations and the design issues that must be navigated in choosing, commissioning, or creating one to meet your business needs.

What are ARGs (alternate reality games) and how can they be used to solve your business and training problems? While sports are played on fields, board games on boards, and video games on screens, alternate reality games are played in the real world. Things that are often pictured or imagined in most games such as receiving a phone call, finding an object, or even travelling to a location are actually lived out in alternate reality games, making them a particularly engaging and realistic form of simulation.

In the summer of 2007, Enspire Learning created and deployed an alternate reality game to do internal data security training. Employees solved the mystery of Tom Linear, a fictional ex employee who had “stolen” intellectual property from Enspire. The game was a great success not only in teaching employees, but in encouraging behavioral change and increasing company morale. The fun appeal of ARGs and the strong impressions they make can make them effective teaching and motivational tools. They can be designed to cater to a wide variety of audiences and content needs.

Click here to download Enspire’s new free whitepaper “This is Not a Game: Using Alternate Reality Games in Corporate Training” to learn the best practices for creating or commissioning an alternate reality game.

You’ve heard the buzz and you’ve played the games (if you haven’t, you’re missing out!), now get some behind the scenes action. Enspire Learning is pleased to announce the release of a new whitepaper featuring the Shadow Specter Games, “Serious Gains from Serious Games: Solving Business Problems with Custom Games”. This is a useful read for anyone interested in learning how to design a serious game to accomplish a variety of business objectives from creating an effective training program to increasing employee morale to marketing a product.

Download this free whitepaper, if you’d like to know how a serious game can help you meet these and other business goals or if you’re curious about how the “Shadow Specter Games” were designed.

Living and learning in this world is very different today than it was ten, five, or even two years ago. Technology has vastly changed the way we work, communicate, and even think. The changes this has caused, both good and bad, are creeping into every corner of our lives.

College students represent a demographic that is especially immersed in a world of electronic communication. This you-tube link shows how this has altered their world and their lives, for both better and worse.

This YouTube post sheds some light on the issues technology has created for today's youth. It shows an interesting and emerging problems that we as business and training professionals need to understand.

January 27| 28 | 29
The Westin San Francisco Market Street
San Francisco, CA

Enspire Learning would like to invite you to participate in VizThink ’08, an event devoted to exploring the use of visualization for business, learning and communication strategies to help arm you with the tools and ideas to take on your company’s business challenges for 2008.

By attending, you will learn from many of the masters of visual communication and can expect to connect with visual thinkers (business people, educators, designers, facilitators and others) from around the world to learn from each other’s experiences, best practices and ideas. You can also expect to explore new ways to communicate more effectively in a global society, conduct more effective training courses, improve business analysis and processes, and enhance your ability to effectively present new ideas. It’s a great way to start your year!

Over the course of three days, VizThink ‘08 will include an open exhibit area with great opportunity for hands on experience and discussions with leaders within the industry and over 35 interactive workshops on topics such as strategy visualization, using comics to communicate product concepts, and effective presentations.

On December 7, the Austin Business Journal ran an article, "Corporate Training Becomes a Game to Some," about two serious games created by Enspire Learning. Dawn of the Shadow Specters and Rise of the Shadow Specters were created for Sun Microsystems to use in onboarding new employees. These adventure video games may seem unconventional, but the courses are examples of a new trend in corporate training, using "educational video games to teach company policies and procedures to new hires," Austin Business Journal reporter Laura Hipp wrote.

This kind of work is right up Enspire's alley, as we have always striven to entertain while educating. If the growing market for video game training beckons, Enspire will happily take on the quest and brave any villains or laser shooting monsters that dare stand between players and their learning objectives.

You can click here to read and excerpt from the article.

Click here to play the Shadow Specter Games.

Nathan Kracklauer, Director of Product Development at Enspire, will be contributing to a panel discussion at Online Educa Berlin. This advisory session on designing games and simulations is scheduled for Thursday, November 29 at 4:30 p.m. Other professionals contributing to the panel are Andreas Ua'Siaghail (Resolve Labs, Canada), Nachiket Khare (Harbinger Knowledge Products, India), and Dr. David Guralnick (Kaleidoscope Learning, USA).

Enspire will also have an exhibit at Online Educa Berlin. If you are attending the conference, please stop by our booth and check out Enspire's new innovations.

For more information about Online Educa Berlin, click here.

Who is Medbot, you ask? This third-person speaking red robot is one of the many characters in "Rise of the Shadow Specters," an onboarding platform game that Enspire created for Sun Microsystems.

Sun's new-hire portal recently won Best Synchronous Learning Course at the E-learning Guild's Demofest in San Jose. Through this portal, employees can participate in social networking, read and write blog entries, and play educational onboarding computer games.

Enspire created "Rise of the Shadow Specters," a platform game and "Dawn of the Shadow Specters," an adventure game. Both games teach Sun's core businesses and corporate culture by navigating Ray (the hero) through Sol City.

To try your hand at battling the evil Shadow Specters, click here.