Fusion Learning Systems enjoyed continued industry recognition by receiving gold-level honors at the 2007 Summit Creative Awards. Fusion won the award for a retail simulation created for a national grocer’s internal training efforts. The storefront scenario provides a fun and colorful backdrop for making important business decisions that demonstrate positive and negative consequences. The game was crafted to demystify retail operations, making them both accessible and interesting. The learning goal is to prepare team members for future leadership and management positions.
Catering to the lively culture of the major national retailer, the training tool uses images of actual employees as team members. The simulation encompasses a humorous, irreverent look and feel, much like that of Monty Python or Southpark, and uses entertaining music and sound effects. Characters include two team members who run a fruit stand, a posse of customers, a thief, an individual customer, and a skateboarder. Players choose from a series of decisions and either progress forward in the game, or are alerted to the financial consequences of poor choices. Learners observe and interact with the game over a period of four simulated weeks, gaining skills that allow them to transfer their knowledge and apply it to a larger business model.
Julia Peterson, the manager of the project at Fusion, explains, “Companies are realizing that they are more successful in developing skills in their employees when they can take a difficult subject and make it one that is engaging and entertaining. It creates a buzz around the company and employees ask for the training instead of being required to take it. The game has been given rave reviews by the employees.”
The simulation won Fusion Learning Systems Gold-Level Honors at the 2007 Summit Creative Awards. The Summit Creative Awards, held by Summit International Awards, use evaluative criteria and blind judging processes to reward firms truly deserving of special recognition. The Summit International Awards have a fourteen-year history and are known as one of the premier arbiters of creative and communication excellence. Participants in the awards program consist of companies and individuals from more than 50 countries and five continents.
About Fusion Learning Systems, Inc.
Fusion Learning Systems, Inc. is the premier, full-service provider of custom learning solutions. Our valued clients in the training, educational publishing and marketing arenas benefit from solutions that combine proven design methodologies with powerful technologies. The result is an unrivaled array of custom courses, simulations, tools, and systems that are as efficient as they are effective.