MMOWGLI is a massively multiplayer online wargame designed to elicit collective intelligence from a large and diverse pool of players to solve real-world problems. It uses multimedia techniques to immerse players in compelling game scenarios, allowing novel ideas and solutions to emerge from the interactions between players' knowledge and perspectives. The goal is to broaden thinking and explore more possibilities than possible through conventional methods by aggregating this breadth and depth of input from many participants. MMOWGLI is currently in a pilot stage testing scenarios related to piracy off the coast of Somalia.

2. massively. multiplayer. online. wargame. leveraging. the internet.

3. Massively Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet Where would you use MMOWGLI? In situations where you are struggling with a difficult challenge, do not possess all the answers, or need to transcend your usual ways of knowing. In these cases, the intellectual capital is supplied by the broader community “out there”, but it exists in the form of unrealized potential. By structuring the problem in the form of a game, and opening it up to a large pool of players, MMOWGLI provides the mechanism by which this unrealized potential can emerge and be converted to insight. “One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis, or heroic his imagination, is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him.” – Thomas Schelling What is MMOWGLI? MMOWGLI is an online game platform designed to elicit collectiveintelligence from an engaged pool of players to solve real-world problems. How does it work? Multimedia techniques immerse players into the game, where compelling conditions engage their attention. Online play enables MMOWGLI to massively scale up the size, knowledge and experience level, and diversity of the participant pool, while also reducing the barriers to entry associated with traditional wargaming. The large participant pool facilitates the emergence of outliers, while the play of the game drives more “knowledge accidents”: novel intersections and complex interactions of ideas which would not occur or be otherwise predictable. Finally, MMOWGLI goes a step deeper, combining insight with simulation to foster confidence that the innovations which emerge are well grounded. How will MMOWGLI influence our thinking? MMOWGLI broadens the aperture, allowing us to foresee larger and more unimagined possibilities than currently possible. With conventional methods, facilitating and aggregating this level of breadth and depth is prohibitively difficult. Because the game will persist online, and can even evolve over time, MMOWGLI increases the range of possibilities that can be explored, resulting in more effective and more frequent decision cycles. At the end of the game what do you have? A lightweight, repurposeable game engine that other Navy commands and services can use to tackle their own tough questions and challenges. A persistent, re-playable conversation between Navy sailors, marines, sister services, other federal agencies, academics, non-profits, and think tanks, around topics of vital interest. MMOWGLI is currently in the pilot demonstration stage. The pilot will explore the piracy ‘stalemate’ off the coast of Somalia and will play out using a holistic, multi-stakeholder approach. Use Case Example Providing early adopters with an opportunity to influence the development of the “Next Big Thing” before the technology becomes a reality (e.g EMRG). MMOWGLI would be a great environment for evolving the candidate concepts in the new Concept Generation Concept Development process. Ironing out the interface between CONOPS and Technology…………………………………. Introducing a game changing technology to a community of users………………………………………. MMOWGLI provides players with an immersive environment to test out and inhabit alternative futures, enabling better planning for an uncertain future. Inhabiting alternative futures for strategic planning…………………………………….. With MMOWGLI’s dynamic, reprogrammable platform, we can increase the number of Red Teams we run, ensuring that we are “countering their counter”. Red Teaming……………………………… MMOWGLI is a tool that is also used for horizon scanning, enabling us to become more aware of technical progress across the globe, reducing the likelihood for technology surprise. Horizon Scanning………..…………….. MMOWGLI will help us examine our toughest problems - i.e., how do we solved the IED problem? Wicked problems.……………....…….. Regulatory and Policy Development……..……………......….. What if we gamed the implementation of Rules of Engagement (e.g., use of Autonomous Systems)?

4. Garth Jensen is currently the Director of Innovation at the Carderock Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center. Prior to this, Garth was an ONR Science Advisor at the Pentagon. mmowgliis both the coolest project I have ever worked on, and the hardest to describe in words, but I’ll try to do so here. If I had to do it in one sentence, I’d say that mmowgli is an experiment in generating collective intelligence. If I had another sentence, I would add that it is a pilot project being developed by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). But beyond that, mmowgli is ultimately the answer to a question……a question that haunted me every day during my tour as a Science Advisor: why did I experience such a disconnect between technologists and “innovators”, on the one hand, and warfighters and end users on the other? Why didn’t “game changing innovations” generate more enthusiasm from those who were “in the game”? And what was I doing to make it better? As my Pentagon tour drew to a close, this question nagged at me and morphed into a thousand others: What if we took a heavy, formal approach, and made it lighter…….more of a continuous conversation instead of a blueprint? What if you didn’t need a fully formed idea to make a contribution? What if ideas, even half-formed ones, could meet up in space and recombine with other ideas to form new ones? What if this conversation engaged more stakeholders, and tolerated more excursions? Finally, what if this conversation became so rich and compelling that, instead of truncating the debate, it actually enlarged the universe of possibilities? A pivotal moment occurred as these questions were swirling around in my head. I attended a speech by Marina Gorbis, Executive Director of The Institute for the Future. What she presented became the kernel of an idea that grew into mmowgli. Marina showed me a world where Alternate Reality Games were being used to engage the imaginations of thousands players to harness fresh insights…..where Massive Multiplayer Forecasting Games were redefining how we look at technology horizons…..where companies like IBM were using Innovation Jams to create value across their entire workforce and with their stakeholders….and where the notion of innovation as a social phenomenon was moving to the fore. From there, it was a short leap for me to connect the dots between Marina’s world and my own struggles with innovation, and voila!!!! mmowgli was born!!! In reality, it wasn’t quite that easy. We’ve had to persist through all of the typical hurdles associated with any first of its kind innovation. But, now that we’re almost there, we’ve got a really engaging game in store, and I’m excited about the launch. mmowgli goes live in just a few weeks. You can register for the game at http://mmowgli.nps.edu/mmowgli. I’m looking forward to meeting you online during the game. massively. multiplayer. online. wargame. leveraging. the internet.

5. 5 Why Play Games????? Thomas Schelling: “One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis or heroic his imagination, is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him.” Source: Thomas Schelling, Nobel Prize, Economics, 2005.

6. Where is mmowgli? intellectual capital: “out there” Insight data intellectual capital: “in here”

7. Where is mmowgli? intellectual capital: “out there” Where would you use MMOWGLI? In situations where you are struggling with a difficult challenge, do not possess all the answers, or need to transcend your usual ways of knowing. In these cases, the intellectual capital is supplied by the broader community “out there”, but it exists in the form of unrealized potential. By structuring the problem in the form of a game, and opening it up to a large pool of players, MMOWGLI provides the mechanism by which this unrealized potential can emerge and be converted to insight. “One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis, or heroic his imagination, is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him.” – Thomas Schelling data Insight intellectual capital: “in here”

8. Where is mmowgli? intellectual capital: “out there” data Insight intellectual capital: “in here”

9. Where is mmowgli? intellectual capital: “out there” data Insight intellectual capital: “in here”

10. intellectual capital: “out there” intellectual capital: “in here”

11. scale & diversity of players

12. invisible hierarchy

13. It looks like you want to playtest an interactive geopolitical scenario! Would you like… • a 3-Move game? • a Blue Team / Red Team? repurposeable platform For internal use only by Center for Applied Strategic Learning. Contact: Garth Jensen, garth.jensen@navy.mil

15. knowledge accidents

16. ideal for wicked problems

17. http://mmowgli.nps.edu

18. massively. multiplayer. online. wargame. leveraging. the internet.