Seriosity Again Argues MMOG Leaders Make Good Businessmen
Seriosity Again Argues MMOG Leaders Make Good Businessmen
The lead article in the Harvard Business Review for the May, 2008 issue is from consultancy Seriosity and IBM and once again argues Seriosity's thesis that the next generation of business leaders are best culled from the people who have proven their abilities to cultivate teams within massively multiplayer online games such as World of Warcraft.
Seriosity has pointed this out before, but now has an even higher-profile soapbox from which to shout that MMOG players who have learned to electronically coordinate between players at diverse locations are better suited to a modern, electronic business collaboration than old-style workers. Essentially, they are arguing that guild leaders who can coordinate a raid are better suited to modern business technology (particularly taking into account outsourced teams spread across the globe) than someone who grew up behind a desk.
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Honestly: If it was the first of April today, I would consider this as a April Fool's joke.
I can understand the basic concept of this idea, but then again: Real business and raids in "WoW" do not really have much in common, do they?
And if I think about applying for a job with the reference "experienced leader in WoW"; then it really just sounds wrong to me. ;)
The point has some validity.
I think they are trying to argue that if you can organize 30 people to show up at the right time (online) all with the right equipment and use their skills at the right time to take down a raid boss, then you have the same kind of skills you need to be a project manager for a team that meets electronically.
I don't think they are trying to argue that time spent in WoW will replace a decade of structured finance expertise. :)
I do not think this is a joke. But I do think that the WOW raid leader has some advantages over the real-world business leader: The people showing up are there for fun, they share the same goal, and they know they are going to get beaten if they don't pull together as a team...
Absolutely true. But as someone who has tried to both organize a raid and big business teams, I personally think the raid is harder.
When big bucks are on the line, people will show up. For example, lawyers just charge you for the time they sit around waiting. Groups of volunteers scattered around the globe each want personal attention and reassurance.
I'm not sure that there's any value in figuring out which job is consistently harder, but I think Seriosity has a point that the skillsets needed in a modern workplace are different than they used to be, and that many of those skills are used in "leisure" activities by MMOG players.
The church could start looking for caring priests :)
If becoming a priest with the christian church would actually enable people to cast Mind Blast or Power Word:Shield, they would have much less of a problem recruiting new people :-)
I see the point the are making, but I don't know what's so shocking about it. I thought we overcame the prejudices that gamers can't contribute to society somewhere in the nineties.
If you look at any group of 10+ people, and it doesn't matter if this group is organizing a raid in WoW, or if it's a biunch of people that just crashed with their plane on an deserted island, someone will always step up and take the lead, simple because someone has to. Neither can all lead all the time, nor can all wish to be led, both would result in chaos, so it's basic human nature.
Just so that we are clear on this: They did not say that all future business leaders should be former raid leaders, or that all raid leaders would make great business leaders. They also didn't say that being a raid leader would be excellent preparation for being a boss of a big company.
At least the way I understand it, they simple stated that raid leaders would be more likely to fit the requirements of these jobs, because their natural skills are more attuned to these requirements. Not because they developed these skills in WoW, but because they had them in the first place.