In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Blogs, Luke Hohmann talks about how Innovation Games can help improve the Democratic (political) process.  The nice thing is that they can also be used to improve the democracy@work process.

Almost at the end of the interview with WSJ Blogs, Luke Hohmann, CEO, Enthiosys, Inc points out that their goal is to "use the games to improve democratic processes."  The example he gives makes it obvious that he's talking about the broader political process,

We did a trial game to engage a local community in determining how the stimulus package should be spent earlier this year.

As we noted earlier, these games are a great tool to help establish a democracy@work culture, too.  For one, the technology facilitates having more people involved in internal decisions, big and small.

Of course, the technology was primarily developed to incorporate the voice of the customer into the product development process.

So-called “serious” games can help businesses understand what their customers need, spark ideas and make key product decisions.

This is key because listening to your customers, as I wrote in an earlier post, can make the difference between success and failure.

Shifting Leadership

The WSJ Blog writer, Carrie Porter asked Luke why he thinks these games are important today.  Luke's answer was music to my ears,

Society is changing, and leadership structures are shifting. The command-and-control business structure is fading, and if you look at the next generation, you see a flattening hierarchy.

Openness, open participation and transparency, too, are key features of this new leadership structure (Leadership 2.0?)

You can learn more about, and even play the games, at innovationgames.com.