Clark Aldrich is an American author and practitioner in the field of educational simulations and serious games for education and professional skills. He has been the lead designer for several educational simulations, including SimuLearn's Virtual Leader, which won best online training product of the year in 2004 by Training Media Review and the American Society for Training and Development's T+D Magazine - the first game-like product to win. His published research, beginning in 1999, outlined the failure of formal education approaches to teach leadership, innovation, and other strategic skills, and then advocated interactive experiences borrowing techniques from current computer games as media to fill these gaps. He argues that computer games represent new, "post-linear" models for capturing and representing content, but that new computer game genres will have to be created, optimized for learning as well as entertainment. His research and simulation design work, which he conducted outside of the influence and prescription of academic and grant-giving institutions, resulted in a series of articles, speeches, and 5 books.
Aldrich first worked at Xerox, initially as the speech writer for Executive Vice PresidentWayland Hicks. While at Xerox, Aldrich became the Governor’s appointee to the Joint Committee on Educational Technology. He then moved to Gartner, where he launched their e-learning coverage, and began his formal writing and analysis about education. He left Gartner to begin hands-on work in designing and building simulations himself, where he also increased his external writing about the industry through books, columns, and articles. Aldrich went on to found the company SimuLearn, which produces training simulations that help corporations teach leadership, responsibility, and other skills within a corporate setting. The first product that was released by the company was titled Virtual Leader and it required the player to conduct a series of business meetings while still juggling the interpersonal relationships of the employees and customers during business hours. His simulations have also earned numerous industry awards. including "Best Product of the Year" in 2004 by the American Society of Training And Development/Training Media Review. Aldrich's work is part of the conversation about the impact of simulations and serious games on the direction of 21st century learning.
