CD-ROM simulations gain foothold

The FBI employee benefits information session is about to begin when Tom asks Pete, "What do you say if some dude's got a gun, and he's got someone hostage, and he says, 'I want a getaway car in 60 seconds or she dies.' "

"They almost never say that," says Pete, an experienced hostage negotiator.

"Yeah, but what do you say?" counters Tom, a new member of an FBI SWAT team.

"Yes," Pete says.

"I'm going to kill her now," Tom replies.

"OK, why is that?" Pete asks.

Other FBI agents watch intently.

"You want coffee?" Pete asks.

"Yeah. I want the car," Tom says.

"I'm trying to get the coffee you asked for. No one wants to see anyone get hurt over a cup of coffee," Pete says.

Suddenly, their banter becomes all too real as the group is called away to help a woman taken hostage by her estranged husband at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington. They set up a command post near the woman's home and begin negotiations with the man, knowing their success or failure will have life-or-death consequences.

Neither the banter at the information session nor the hostage taking incident is real. They are the creation of WILL Interactive Inc. of Potomac, Md., and the FBI's Crisis Negotiation Unit in Quantico, Va. The result is a new video-based simulation CD-ROM, "The Incident," in which users see how the decisions they make for the chief hostage negotiator play out in a true-to-life scenario, but before lives lie in the balance.

"Simulation is a very interesting, emerging, huge field," said Boston University Professor Jonathan Howland, who is using simulations to measure on-the-job performance. "You can allow people to experience the consequences of their mistakes in a way you can't do in ordinary training exercises. You can have the good guy get shot, except it's a simulation."

The FBI contributed $50,000 toward the production of "The Incident," which includes a quiz, tips on negotiating skills, voice-over analysis of each decision and software that records actions that alter the story line. The FBI paid an additional $50,000 for 1,000 copies of the simulation, which were delivered last month for use by law enforcement personnel nationwide. Bureau officials are now planning for production of several more simulations.

WILL's sale to the FBI is just one of several high points for the 10 staff members of the 3-year-old company. A presentation at a recent e-learning conference in Washington elicited interest from e-learning executives who want to collaborate with WILL, as well as interest from government agencies such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said Sharon Sloane, president and chief executive officer. The company also is discussing production of an anti-terrorism training product with the Defense Department, she said.

Company executives call WILL's products a cross between a feature film and a video game. The interactivity and realism of the simulation lures trainees to keep playing until they succeed, said Lyn McCall, chief operating officer.

"No one wants to be a loser. If someone gets a really bad outcome, they will not walk away from the system. They are open to making changes in their actions and viewpoints," said McCall, a retired Marine colonel who worked on war-fighting modeling and simulation for the Defense Department.

At least one study supports McCall's assertion. Users of the company's "Interactive Nights Out 2" substance abuse prevention simulation wanted to play the game repeatedly, and their behavior changed as a result, Howland said.

The secret to WILL's success, Sloane said, is its patented interactive behavior modification system, which combines screenwriting, computer science, psychology and instructional design into tools that go beyond the delivery of information to change how people think and act.

"In order to engage people emotionally and cognitively in a way that is going to alter their behavior, it is much more powerful to use video" than other learning methods, Sloane said. "What's important is that the characters are multidimensional. They breathe, they have personality."

Companies producing simulations are selling some of the best e-learning content, said Stamford, Conn., e-learning analyst Clark Aldrich.

"With video there is a degree of realism that is very impressive," he said.

Government and industry organizations worldwide spend up to $150 billion annually on training. They will spend $4.2 billion on e-learning this year, up from $2.1 billion in 2001, said Jim Lundy, e-learning analyst for Stamford, Conn., technology research firm Gartner Inc. Gartner predicts the e-learning market will grow to $34 billion by 2005.

The use of simulations, a small piece of spending overall, will grow rapidly as people see what they can do, Lundy said.

"The more you have things like simulations that allow users to apply content, the more skill building and retention you have," he said. "You want to have certain outcomes and you have the design flow so students can step through it. The final product can be quite amazing."

Production costs of video simulations ? including hiring actors, shooting on location and screenwriting ? can be $200,000 to $300,000, much more than the $10,000 it costs to put static books and quizzes online, Aldrich said.

But WILL Interactive executives and clients point out that interactive video costs less than classroom-based instruction and is more effective than many other forms of teaching. Many e-learning products are "basically electronic page turners," Sloane said. "People learn much more when it's real to them ? and a lot of education is not."

Each CD-ROM simulation could be used by 100 people at a cost of $1 per training session, compared to a one- or two-day training at $700 a day for 30 people, McCall said.

WILL Interactive's video simulations include "Saving Sgt. Pabletti," a teamwork skills-building product used by 80,000 Army soldiers each year. The firm also is working on anti-bias simulations, one of which will be used to help prevent racial profiling, executives said.

FBI negotiators will use "The Incident" to refresh skills learned in an 80-hour negotiation course, said Chuck Regini, a supervisory special agent with the FBI's Critical Incident Response Group.

When trainees leave the FBI's 80-hour course in crisis negotiation, they have reached a high skill level, but in time their communication skills get rusty, he said. "The Incident" reinforces those active listening and communicating skills.

"Even large police agencies only have an incident once or twice a month. If you are not continually immersed in it, the skills deteriorate," Regini said.

The FBI plans to order several new CD-ROM simulations from WILL, starting with negotiation training for first responders, the law enforcement agents first on the scene of a crisis. Next will be training in suicide intervention.

"The possibilities are kind of unlimited for us. So many different aspects of our specialty can be taught this way," Regini said.

He wasn't always enthusiastic, however.

"My boss wanted it. I was very skeptical at first," he said. "I didn't think it would be practical to teach hostage negotiation that way because it deals with so many variations in human behavior."

Now, he said, "I think it's the best way [to teach]," he said. "The best thing we had prior to this was boring videos or play-acting. This is the best of all worlds. You have an actual incident unfolding and you have to react to it. You are into the role you are playing; it keeps your attention."

Staff Writer Gail Repsher Emery can be reached at gemery@postnewsweektech.com.