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Company's games make serious learning fun

By PAUL SWIDER, Times Staff Writer
Published September 20, 2007

Barbara Sealund of Sealund and Associates Corp. shows off one of the learning games that graphic designer Max Umo is working on at the company's offices in Carillon.
	[JAMES BORCHUCK | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [JAMES BORCHUCK | Times] In recent years, Sealund and Associates has built self-teaching software, or CD-ROMs, and turned it into more attention-grabbing game boards and video games. [Sealund and Associates] Sealund and Assoc. is in the training/education business and has since 1985 been creating computerized, text-based instruction. They do a wide variety of work for clients large and small, near and far, but are a quiet company in town. They have now released a 3D car racing game to teach about IT security.

ST. PETERSBURG - Hot Wheels toy cars on the conference room table are the first clue that this company is different.

But the cars aren't toys; they serve as tools for clients to learn about ethics, diversity or security - real bottom-line issues.

Still, Sealund and Associates is building games.

"People are much more interested if there's going to be a game," said Barbara Sealund, who founded the training company in 1985 after a career as a schoolteacher. "They don't want PowerPoint."

The company still does plenty of "boring stuff," Sealund said, but in the recent years it has built self-teaching software, or CD-ROMs, and turned it into more attention-grabbing game boards and video games. This month Sealund released Serious Games, a 3D race course that guides learners through information technology safeguarding.

The company's designers and technicians sit at banks of screens in a small Carillon office and wrap colorful interfaces around decades of instructional know-how.

"We don't just offer eye candy," she said. "A lot of companies build games, but not with true instructional design so that it really does train people."

Sealund has a growing list of satisfied customers, from Lehman Brothers to Citibank, AT&T to GE, Exxon to Publix. Samples include a course for Northwest Airlines on how to load luggage, or the content for dna.gov, which teaches police how to collect genetic evidence at a crime scene.

"Adults learn differently, and different generations learn differently, so we need a lot of variety," said Bonnie Bischoff, a Progress Energy manager of employee development who uses Sealund's safari board game to teach customer service. "A game makes it fun, competitive, adds team building and provides learning at the same time. They really get a kick out of it."

As with most clients, Sealund took the content Progress wanted to convey and engineered it into a game of questions and answers as well as characters moving around a scene.

"People aren't always satisfied that's the best answer, so discussion ensues," said Kevin Teismann, director and senior counsel at Tech Data, which uses a customized game to teach ethics based on real-life scenarios.

Teismann said the company had been looking for a fresh approach to an important but sometimes dry topic.

"Usually when someone with a title that contains 'ethics' walks in the room, it casts a pall," Teismann said. "We felt a game could deliver the message in a light but positive way."

Discussion and participation are vital for people to retain and apply subject matter, Sealund said.

"The average person is not going to learn unless you ask them questions," she said. "You have to interact so it's not just memorization but something you can actually apply."

Sealund has also begun selling the software engine so customers can create their own learning games on the fly.

The programs' convenience is also a selling point.

"A lot of law enforcement agencies don't have the budget to send people to training," said Eileen LaHaie, who runs St. Petersburg College programs that use Sealund tools to teach about antiterrorism preparation or counterdrug activities. Though the 3D games are too new, LaHaie said she's eager to see how they might apply for her. "We're seriously looking at Serious Games."

Paul Swider can be reached at 892-2271 or pswider@sptimes.com.

Fast Facts

Sealund and Associates is in the training and education business and has been creating computerized, text-based instruction since 1985. In the past three years, the firm has gotten more into gaming, from board games to 2D and now 3D computer games to teach about everything from ethics to customer service. At right are screen grabs from the company's games.

[Last modified September 19, 2007, 23:02:45]