People who has known me long enough would have known by now that I’ve been a fan of boardgames.  I always felt that boardgames has more values than just entertainment alone.  Recently I’ve bought a new game - Acquire!

Among the many games I’ve played (Ie: monopoly, risk, game of life, blokus, monopoly cards, citadel, ratrace, payday, smart money, Cashflow 101/202 … etc) I found this most enjoyable and meaningful.  This game is very much about mergers and acquisitions of hotel businesses.  This game does give some insights about business ownership.

Among some of the tips that could be picked up from this game include:

• The majority shareholder often get a upperhand in any deals.
• Those with insider information (or rather the capability to execute the merger) would often gain an advantage provided his actions of purchasing stocks weren’t too obvious.
• It’s sometimes good to focus on just a few stocks rather than trying to get your hand into all at one go.  Diversification is good - ONLY IF you have enough resources to play it big in most diversified areas I go into.
• It’s good to always have some cash in hand just in case any good deals come about.
• It’s sometimes a good thing when the business you started gets acquired.  This is contrary to popular believes that you should always prevent your business from being acquired.  Afterall, it’s only when your business is acquired that you could exit it and realize your profits!
• Once your business gets listed, you technically don’t “own” the business anymore.  You just get a headstart as the founder, but the business may fall into hands of other investor at anytime.
• In the evil world of business, there are possibilities where your opponent tries to distort your growth even when it might affect his own’s expansion.  Once again, watch out for those and make sure you’ve sufficient cash reserves to not get stuck into that.

What are some of the benefits of playing boardgame:

• It gets friends and families together (fellowship).  In the world of network games, people do not talk, they just face the computer.  It’s only in boardgames where people talk and have fun at a round table.
• It improves critical thinking and strategies.  It trains your mind and keeps it going.  So I guess it reduces aging too!
• It can be used as a self learning tool.  I’m tempted to do a research on how boardgame affect learning capability of teenagers.  Wondering how do I go about doing that research.  Since it’s a fun thing, I guess this will eventually become the next generation of learning that is suitable for the Generation Y’s.  This may even be better than technology enhanced eLearning or experiential lab learning which requires an experienced facilitator.
• It’s relatively portable and can be brought to any holidays.  It can even be used in any camps or in the middle of the jungle.  No electricity and no batteries required.
• Paper, cardboard, plastic pieces - These are simple stuff that won’t get obsolete or spoilt.  Even if you place it under hot sun!

I guess I’ll continue to blog more about boardgames when I purchase my next box.  I’m still in the midst of building a formidable collection of good designer boardgames.  Of course, some day I’m planning to get my hands to the popular “Powergrid”, “I’m the boss”, “Settlers of Catan” and many others as well.  At the mean time, these are some sites that you could visit:

• www.boardgamecafe.net
• www.boardgamegeek.com
• www.themagecafe.com

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Tags: boardgame, corporate, leaders, learning, strategies, youth

This entry was posted by Clayton J.C Tan on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 11:08 pm and is filed under Business Strategies, Leadership & Management, Youth Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.