I have not finished reading it, but I’m kinda hoping to doing something similar, a publishing company that makes critical thinking material in the vernacular. My dad gave me, what was supposed to be my brother’s Idiots guide to business plan. I’ve made business plans before, for Traveller (LOL). I also learned a lot and began to like accounting in Traveller, when we were trying to make the ship as profitable as possible. (we ended up diluting ship shares to make up for lost income :(, better to fail in an RPG scenario than in RL ). My dad dropped off Bed and Breakfast for dummies on my desk, which is also interesting, particularly because of GURPS low tech companion 3, when many the GM’s in the forums are trying to digest income generation rules and look into the details of how these low tech business work. So now I have the basic accounting examples of an Inn; in Business Plans for Idiots I have late 90s pay scale for administrative jobs and typical Financial Statements and Business accounts. (I just have to fill it up with Traveller related businesses: A mercenary company, a merchant ship owner, a freelancer, etc)
Free Download @ e23: Running A Game Publishing Company
Interestingly the material and the training are like game sessions. BATNA exercises are designed like RPG scenarios and are run similarly. These allow people to be trained in keeping their wits intact when they are facing tough social situations or a more skilled negotiator.
Using RPGs to make life better for people and foster the critical thinking skills. Specifically Communication and Negotiating training (useful in Sales and Customer Care), the highest job attrition because most training focuses on quick sales and meeting quotas instead of giving the people an array of improved coping, conflict resolution, empathy, and improved communication skills. Hence when these people hit frustrating circumstances and they are left there without adequate support or structure to improve and make the experience a character building exercise, so they don’t recover from it as often.
The average Filipino has 8 years of education and the government can’t provide the later education needed for them to go beyond business that depend on microfinancing (borrow $20 in the morning, pay back $25 in the evening) or be able to form more sophisticated and stable cooperatives (in a pure game theory perspective, one needs better communication or information dissemination to have better checks and balances, and to keep everyone on the same page).
In games and gaming, visualization is one of the key aspects of any implementation processes. In RPGs we do it in make believe and the GM throws the wrenches in the works, but in real life we have to do the RPG processes of visualizing the course and have the GM’s monkey wrenching around as an automatic reflex to obstacles in order to quickly adapt, act and react. It also codes the right emotional reactions: Caution when things are going well, and Optimism when problems come up (“I see what you did there”).
Wow, it seems growing up with gaming books created a kind of mnemonic memory devices when it comes to games, and if I can relate it to business.
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