TangoNet - A Knowledge Business Simulation

Last week I co-facilitated a ‘knowledge business simulation’ for a diverse group of MBA students at the University of Greenwich. Members of the group represented at least 10 different nations with a good proportion from Africa and Asia. We used a PC based simulation called TangoNet. It’s an online version of the excellent board based Tango simulation which was developed by Celemi over 10 years ago. My colleague from the European Knowledge Group, Graham Fernee has been using this simulation for a while but with an all new version (Version 2.0) about to be launched interest in the product is beginning to grow – helped especially by a renewed investment of energy and cash by its co-creator, one of the founding fathers of knowledge management, Karl-Erik Sveiby.

Most of the MBA students had only basic awareness of knowledge management (KM) but by the end of the 6 hour session they were enthusiastically using terms such as knowledge flows, intangible assets, and knowhow capital. Since TangoNet lets you run a realistic knowledge business in a safe environment most of the students enjoyed the opportunity to test their business management skills against the computer and against each other. Feedback from the session has been excellent – and I believe that it provides a superb opportunity to explore some of the underlying issues that make or break successful knowledge businesses. I’ll re-visit TangoNet and also its big brother Tango again in this weblog so please stay tuned.

ExLink: www.tangonet.se
ExLink: www.ekgroup.co.uk