This month I thought I would take a break from serious writing about Intranet training and share with you some thoughts about having fun. It's still in the ballpark of my usual column and, as it turns out, playing with the ideas led to some serious thoughts about the relationship between toys and training. The whole thing started with my palmtop computer. 

About 8 months ago, I decided to upgrade from the HP200lx that I had been using for years. Quite a wonderful machine, it had served as my PIM and had enabled me to do email while traveling and even to connect using PCANYWHERE to the company LAN. However, with the coming of Windows 95 and NT, its DOS-based software became less and less useful and harder to synchronize. So I began looking at alternatives. 

The first machine I tried was the highly touted Palm Pilot, manufactured at that time by US Robotics (recently acquired by 3-COM). I had some misgivings about a keyboardless computer. Undoubtably they were leftover from a brief trial of an early version of Apple's Newton. I found, however, the Palm Pilot's handwriting capability to be completely serviceable. After only a modicum of practice with Graffiti, I found I was easily able to jot notes, names, and numbers accurately and even with some speed. In keeping track of my schedule, entering and finding contacts, synchronizing with my desktop and even processing e-mail, the Palm Pilot lived up to its reputation as a convenient and powerful PDA. Unfortunately, for me it was TOO easy. Gone were the opportunities to extend its capabilities with new routines (and to deal with inevitable crashes). For me, the Palm Pilot was clearly a useful device, but not what I was seeking…a playful device. So I traded it to a colleague at work for his HP320LX, which was at the time the newest replacement for the HP200LX.

The 320LX is a CE 1.0 machine and ranked highest among such computers because of its larger screen and higher screen resolution. I had high hopes for it but found very quickly that the grey-scale screen was simply not bright enough-even though it was backlit-to be easily readable. In addition, the tilt of the screen was such that there was no way to avoid a glare. So reluctantly, I gave up the 320LX and decided to wait until something better came along. In the interim, I tried a variety of electronic organizers ranging in price from a $39 Sharp with 32k of memory to the $250 Casio BN-20, which compared rather favorably with the popular Psion 5. But these were still not "real" computers. And then while traveling in Florida, I saw the HP620LX and was hooked. 

Sixteen megabytes of RAM gives the HP620LX formidable speed and storage capability. It is useful not only as a PIM but also to do real writing (including parts of this article written on a trip to Chicago). Admittedly, the keyboard does not support touch-typing, but then I have never been more than a two or three fingered hunt and peck typist so I found its keyboard quite serviceable. Having used the HP200LX for a long time, I was used to a small keyboard and had rather grown to like it. Besides, whenever I have tried to compose a draft while looking at the screen, I have found myself continually going back and changing words I have already written. This is fine when re-writing but is an enormous slowdown in the initial drafting process. Now a lot of that is probably rationalization but it works for me. Back to the HP…its color screen is bright and clearer even than my laptop, probably the HP620's best feature. And Windows new CE 2.0 operating system is vastly better than CE 1.0, with new and faster features which give it better organizer capabilities as well as much more. For example, Pocket Word 2.0 is faster and has more features than its predecessor, including a spell checker with a much larger selection of words to draw on. Best of all, CE 2.0 makes the HP into a real computer with the potential for downloading languages, programs, and information to extend my learning and to enable me once again to push the envelope. Now, I realize that my penchant for trying to use a new computer to its limits and beyond opens me to some inconvenience and to the inevitable crashes and losses of data, but it makes using the computer more interesting and simply more fun. 

There are those who consider all palmtop computers to be toys. They would never try, as I intend, to connect an HP620 to the LAN at work, to use it as primary email and World Wide Web machine, and even to replace my laptop with it. However, even that process for me has an air of fun about it. While I am careful not to endanger our institution's mission critical information, the idea of having fun with a computer. Of treating it as a toy while learning its capabilities and its limitations suggests some important issues and principles about how corporations should think about training, about computer use, and about employee activity. 

It seems that many if not most corporate executives frown on using company computers for fun and games. Policies are put in place and managers are admonished to discourage employees from playing computer games, from engaging in social communications, and in general from doing anything that is not considered "productive." IT departments even develop elaborate routines to monitor and control the kinds of uses to which company workstations are put. When Windows NT was under development some years ago, I attended a presentation by Microsoft in which the capability of NT Server to monitor and control game playing on networks was described. I listened in dismay to the description of a routine that could examine each workstation on a network and determine if it was currently playing a game. In addition, it could go through the hard drive of each networked machine, examine the code structure of any program and erase it if it violated company policy. This routine, called the DOOM-KILLER, operated at the code level and so could find and erase even games whose name had been changed. This conservative (and probably majority) view by corporate managers makes assumptions about how employees should spend company time, about who owns computer equipment and about who has the right to limit its use. These assumptions derive from deep-seated values that consider fun and games to be an insult to the seriousness of work. Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary defines Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy." American business is and has always been decidedly puritanical.

I'd like to suggest a different view…that toys and games and having fun are not only beneficial to productivity and supportive of serious training, but are often essential to it. Consider for instance the game of Solitaire which is included with every copy of Windows and is probably the most frequently accessed Windows program. Forget about its role in elementary discrimination of colors and numbers or even its basic strategy lessons. Think only of how moving the cards around with the mouse helps an employee develop fundamental mouse manipulation skills. Think also of how playing an innocuous game can help an employee overcome computer anxiety and become comfortable with even using the computer. Consider also the way the game is played on a basic Windows desktop arrangement with its menus in the same place as those on the word processor or the spreadsheet. These learnings are not trivial in fostering productivity. It is ironic that the same employers who forbid the playing of games like Solitaire will often spend thousands of dollars on CD-ROM based tutorials to teach basic mouse manipulation skills. At more advanced skill levels, games can serve an important refreshing or tension-releasing function. One of our most highly creative and respected instructional designers, for example, periodically interrupts a design session to relax with his next move in an ongoing game of computer chess. The practice of taking a break from focused concentration of a problem and of allowing the creative part of the mind to work unobtrusively and in the background is well known as a way of solving knotty problems. What is a creative person needing a break to do if the only programs allowed on the desktop are the "productive" ones? 

Corporations which recognize the benefits of playing with computers as a means to enhance working with computers are removing restrictions on what software can reside on the company network. They are even encouraging employees to play games during formal and informal breaks. For direct training, the game and the toy are helpful and even essential. A major factor in the effectiveness of training is keeping the interest of the employee as the training progresses. Lifelike simulations of business processes (which are essentially games) offer excellent ways of keeping training relevant and exciting. The US Marine Corps has spent enormous sums of money to commission the manufacturers of DOOM to design a special version which makes success in playing the game depend on using marine infantry tactics. 

Let's face it. There's a lot to be said for making training and work more enjoyable. Computers in the workplace have raised the level of performance, communication, and interaction among all levels of the typical corporation. They also have the potential to reduce drudgery and to make work processes more fun. Ignoring or even rejecting the potential of computers to be used like toys may limit their ultimate productivity potential. As an old colleague of mine once put it, "the human task of management is to turn our tools into toys and our job into joy." 
iBiz 

Bruce Francis is CEO of the Graduate School of America (TGSA). He has over twenty-five years experience in distance education and in educational technology. Dr. Francis is architect of the TGSA method of delivering graduate programs via the World Wide Web. He can be reached by e-mail at bfrancis@tgsa.edu.