OpenSesame is excited to be hosting the first annual Training Jam, a game jam created to foster innovation and explore new formats for employee development! Training Jam kicks off on Friday at 6pm at DeskHub and game developers will be “jamming” until Sunday at 4pm.
What’s a game jam? Unlike its spreadable fruit counterpart, a game jam is a hackathon for games. It brings together game developers for the purpose of planning, designing, and creating prototypes of one or more games within a short span of time (usually 24-72 hours).
At Training Jam, 5 training topics will be revealed at the start of the jam. Developers will select one to use to build a game that conveys the objectives of the topic in an engaging way. Over $4,000 in cash and prizes will be awarded at the end of the Training Jam in different categories: Best Game Prototype, Best Game Concept, and Participants’ Favorite. An expert panel of gaming and training professionals have been selected to award prizes:
- Bob Gerard, Gaming Industry Veteran
- Casper Mørck, Siemens, Manager Learning Technology – Americas
- Dan Myers, Starz, VP Organizational Development
- Jana Humphreys, Vivid Learning Systems, Director – Learning Solutions
- Megan Riede, PubMatic Director, Learning and Development
- Peter Lund, SuperGenius Studio, COO
- Will Lewis, PIGSquad, Lead Community Organizer
- Julie Daniels, Intuit, Learning Consultant
You might be wondering why delivering knowledge via gaming important. Doesn’t everyone accept corporate training is boring? Well, no. Millennials are now the largest generation in the workforce, and Generation Z is just starting their first jobs. These two generations are accustomed to getting entertaining and educational content online from social media. If the training content that these new generations encounter in the workplace isn’t received well, it won’t hold their attention, won’t engage them, and ultimately won’t be effective. That translates to a big problem for organizations recruiting a generation that consistently cites access to career advancement training as something that is extremely important to them.
Furthermore, Learning and Development professionals understand engaging training requires more than elearning gamification, where game-like elements are layered onto traditionally designed courses. And that’s where Training Jam comes in: The goal of Training Jam is to spur innovation by having independent game designers, experts in entertaining and engaging users, create real games that transfer knowledge. By pioneering a new way of thinking in course design, Training Jam will see if it’s possible to “trainify” gaming (not gamify training).
If you’re a game developer and up for the challenge, join us at Training Jam by registering at www.Training-Jam.com. If you want to stay up to date with Training Jam, you can follow the action on Twitter at @trainingjam and #TrainingJam2016.
