Professional development may never be the same, thanks to the newly evolved form of Smart Entertainment which combines high-quality interactive movies with game-based data-driven profiling. While FLIGBY’s original video simulation introduced the power of interactive learning and profiling to professional learning and development, our new project, Late Shift: Your Decisions Are You brings learning through interactive films to the level worthy of Hollywood entertainment. ALEAS Sims’ partnership with CtrlMovie, a leading tech and content provider of “choose-your-own-path” movie technology, provides an innovative solution to the crossroad of entertainment t and education.
CtrlMovie and ALEAS Shape the New Landscape of Professional Learning
Smart Entertainment allows us to repurpose time dedicated to passive media consumption into a learning activity without losing the engaging power of the film. Smart entertainment combines high-quality interactive movies with data-driven profiling into a one-of-a-kind form of experiential learning.
Two major players, well-recognized in their respective industries, have joined forces to create this new high-end interactive movie learning domain. Hollywood’s leading interactive movie technology company (CtrlMovie) and the most sophisticated game-based simulation data analytics company for professional development (ALEAS Sims.) have partnered to create smart entertainment with an ambitious goal to disrupt traditional learning and development. CtrlMovie (by Kino Industries, LLC) is a leading tech and content provider of interactive movie technology for Hollywood production in theaters, at home, and on the streaming. ALEAS Sims, Inc. is a leading game-based interactive learning platform operator whose services are used by major corporations and academic institutions worldwide. Together they are looking into licensing their IPs into a joint venture to establish a new kind of Smart Entertainment platform, and we can’t wait to see what’s next.
Benefits of high-end interactive movie learning
Smart Entertainment’s “learning by movie-ing” approach transforms learning and professional development into a highly engaging and interactive experience. Interactive movies, just like video games, are attractive, enjoyable, and, most importantly, intrinsically motivating, making them an ideal learning solution:
- People love good stories – Storytelling is at the heart of being human, from defining problems and justifying choices to designing a vision and creating our best selves. As storytelling creatures, we quickly identify with immersing activities like interactive movies because we get to step into a story and outside of ourselves.
- The film provides a visual context and enables experiential learning – Large percentage of the population are far more effective visual learners by nature, and a picture here really is worth a thousand words. A film replicates the complexity of our reality and nuances of human behavior. It adds a more exciting dimension that creates a uniquely effective environment for both learning and entertainment.
- The film creates awareness and deepens understanding – Playing an interactive movie is like an out-of-body experience. Watching yourself in a story as it unfolds allows for a new perspective and greater self-awareness and understanding. It is a form of metacognition as one becomes a character in a great story and, by that experience, can’t help but be inspired. When we factor in the totality of context that includes economic, social, and culturally sensitive topics, the movie environment has dept reflective of the value embedded context of our reality.
- The film provides different perspectives – Film inspires us to look at life from a different perspective and take responsibility for many aspects of our current situations. It helps to recognize that we have a greater sense of agency in making change possible by providing the virtual experience of what could be.
- Learning from films is motivating and enjoyable – Interactive movie learning reframes an enjoyable pass time from passive consumption into a more engaging and purposeful activity. This contributes to greater intrinsic motivation and potential for experiencing Flow, that state of complete absorption when we perform at our best. That full involvement in the activity makes analytics based on gameplay so superbly accurate. Playing interactive movies reflects one’s unique style of in-the-moment decision-making because we are so absorbed in what we are doing that we make intuitive versus calculated choices.
In Flow a person is challenged to do her best and must constantly improve her skills. – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Converting streaming time into learning – Let us not forget the most apparent benefit of high-end interactive movie learning. Smart Entrainment shifts video streaming time to learning and development. The time we spend playing is re-purposed as experiential learning and toward further benefits of game-based profiling and its many applications. Harnessing the engagement that gameplay provides with reliable analytics that solves essential dilemmas like placing people in the proper professional roles by profiling their key strengths. (See our previous articles introducing the Late Shift Assessment and descriptions of professional roles).
The Late Shift Assessment
By setting up the “Late Shift Assessment,” ALEAS’ architects designed a game-based people analytics plugin for converting Late Shiftvviewers’ decisions-data into a skills profile.
Using this technology helps create long-term goals for professional and personal development. Late Shift interactive movie allows us to learn by becoming a highly relatable character in the thrilling story that requires one to make difficult choices in a high-stakes environment. The viewer’s decisional profile is created while engrossed in a riveting and action-packed plot. The assessment transforms decisions to predictive people analytics to measure intrinsic motivation levels and capacity to make effective decisions under pressure. These measurements generate an individual profile for each player presented in a gameplay report that organizes behavioral patterns into clusters of five professional roles (Team Player, Problem Solver, Organizer, Analyzer, or Influencer).
Late Shift report in its design has a look and feel of a natural extension of the interactive movie adventure. The report is intended to be both compact and at the same time make an impact by presenting the results in a digestible fashion and by tying them to practical advice on how to apply and amplify the learning outcomes. The report reflects the interactive movie experience in its brevity, conciseness, and being to the point with its messaging.
Late Shift Report contents include a scorecard and a graphical overview of the results and specific deep-dive explanations of the type of contributor we are and how that defines our dominant professional role. Our play in the Late Shift suggests an orientation to one of the professional roles, and our choices in the game tend to indicate command and control of specific characteristics that lead to success in each role.
Designers of the Late Shift report realized that some players wanted to see a play-by-play analysis of their decisions. Their gameplay graph is also included in the assessment for those who want to see their decision-making patterns in detail.
Marion Spears Karr, Your “Late Shift” Mentor
One of the most significant benefits of the report comes from expert advice on how to get the most out of your results. ALEAS Sims have chosen Marion Spears Karr, an international executive search expert, to be the assessment’s personal mentor. He is an adventure capitalist in his professional and personal pursuits, from extreme sport to his senior role at an executive search firm. As a spokesperson for the report, Marion models the level of human complexity and capacity for Flow. With his multi-dimensional personal approach, Marion provides valuable messages about professional roles.
A separate section of the Late shift Assessment dives deep into players’ motivation levels as defined by speed, frequency, and consistency of decision, and we find Marion giving practical suggestions for how to increase it. These measurements are essential because one’s capacity to experience the mental state of Flow, a condition that is present during moments of peak performance, depends on the level of intrinsic motivation. The bias toward increased challenge becomes one of the critical parameters that lead to the desire to achieve Flow for its own sake, which can lead to the pursuit of what Marion describes as “Optimal Flow.”
