Although The Innovation Games Company is a shining new star on the Serious Games scene, it was born out of many years of laboring and nurturing by Enthiosys® founder and CEO Luke Hohmann and the entire Enthiosys community. As you’ll see, our story reflects Luke’s software development roots, and then branches to an increasingly broad set of applications for the games.
Long Before Enthiosys Luke Was Playing Games
The Innovation Games® story begins in Luke’s first job at EDS, where he was asked to manage a team of engineers that showed zero empathy for their customers. To solve this problem, Luke had the engineers spend a few weeks “doing the job” of the customers. By the time these engineers had gained some empathy for their internal customers, they were committed to creating a better system, and Luke had created the foundation to the game The Appentice.
After EDS, Luke joined ObjectSpace, where he honed his training skills by managing the training program, designing and teaching a variety of technical classes. In these classes Luke and others at ObjectSpace did things like pair programming (before we called it pair programming) and encouraged students to use lo-fidelity techniques to understand systems. The many classes Luke designed and taught produced early versions of the games Spider Web, Start Your Day, and Product Box.
In 1996, while still at ObjectSpace, Luke published his first book, Journey of the Software Professional which contains the first incarnation of what was to become the game Remember the Future. It also discusses the importance of language, and provided the background in cognitive psychology and organizational behavior that drive the design of the games.
Games at Aurigin Systems and Aladdin Knowledge Systems
In early 1997, Luke, like so many others, was smitten with the fast-growing internet business craze that was sweeping Silicon Valley. So, he packed up his bags and moved to Mountain View, CA, to join Aurigin Systems, Inc., a pioneer in the field in Intellectual Property Asset Management. As VP of Engineering and Product Management, Luke started to use game techniques even more heavily. Games we played at Aurigin, both internally and with customers, included Remember the Future and early versions of Speed Boat and Buy a Feature. Armed with the success of these games, Luke continued to explore games at his next company, Aladdin Knowledge Systems, where he managed a global team.
Enthiosys and the Games
In 2003 Luke founded Enthiosys with Qualcomm as our anchor client. A seminal moment in the development of Innovation Games® was a sales training that Luke designed and managed on behalf of Qualcomm that included customers – and Innovation Games®. Joan Waltman suggested that Luke write a book on these techniques to share them with others. So he did. Ultimately, he gathered up and documented 12 of the best games that he and the Enthiosys team had been using with customers in the book “Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products through Collaborative Play” published in 2006.
Innovation Games® and Customers
As an integral part of Enthiosys’ set of services, Enthiosys delivered many consulting and facilitation projects for a wide range of customers covering a broad range of issues and problems. Each customer experience produced exciting, useful and sometimes unexpected results. You can read an overview of these engagements here.
Eventually, in early 2008 the technology landscape evolved to the point where it seemed that the games could be extended to an online experience. More importantly, we had a visionary customer who wanted to apply these techniques at scale. So, with customer demand and money in hand, Luke set out on a mission to get the games online. The first release of the first game, Buy-a-Feature,went live in the summer of 2008. Since that early first release we’ve continued to refine and improve our original online game as well as add more.
The Innovation Games Company
In the summer of 2009, our team realized that the games were being used to solve an broader set of problems than originally described in his book. From strategic sales to corporate strategy, from market research to product innovation, the games were are are being used to solve problems. Because of this, Luke made the decision to let Innovation Games® loose from its Enthiosys nest.
So, after many long debating and planning sessions through the fall of 2009, The Innovation Games Company strategy, execution plan and launch date (Jan 2010) was set. And now, as this is written in Dec of 2009, getting ready for our launch, here we are, taking the next move in our own game. After over a decade of hard work, great customers and great support from the community we are excited to be moving ahead and tackling new and exciting opportunities in the world of collaborative play for business benefits.
We hope you liked our story and will join us for the next chapter.
