My love letter to computer games... (and how that relates to Employer Branding, if rather remotely)

Today's post will be a little longer. But I think it is still worth your time! :)

I think computer games are awesome!

Why? Because they challenge us. And I don't even mean just in-game.

No. PC games have always been a driving factor for innovation pushing the boundary of what's possible in current generation PCs and consoles. And within ourselves, no really!

Let's go back to 1993. Little 12-year old Simon just received that brand new 386 (might have been a 486 - memory is a little hazy) and the. most. amazing. game. ever:

STAR WARS: X-WING

Oh the joy!!! To step into our favorite hero's shoes and pilot the infamous X-Wing. Getting goosebumps just thinking about this.

"Lock S-foils in attack position" -damn right we did!

(c) LucasArts, 1993

Push Number One: Learning Languages is awesome

Now, remember, that was 8th grade Simon, having to piece together an English manual (yes - they really had manuals with 50+ pages back then), English voice-over and English in-game texts. That's one of the pushes I received from that amazing game. Challenge me with English? Oh hell yes, I accepted.

(c) LucasArts, 1993

Looking back, I think experiences like these played a major role in my drive to learn languages, become fluent and ultimately raise my two boys bilingually today.

Push Number Two: 640kb RAM should be enough

But that's not even the most interesting aspect I wanted to touch on!

During those days, a certain someone was under the impression that 640kb RAM would be plenty enough to run those games.

Yeeeah no. So 12-yo Simon had to figure out how to clear enough RAM in order to run the game. For that you would have to tinker with autoexec.bat and config.sys system files.

(c) NetworkEncyclopedia

OMG. Can you imagine? This even went as far as creating my own starting prompt, where I would have to press 1 to play X-WING and press 2 to play Monkey Island or whatever so the right config files would be loaded at startup.

For those youngsters reading this: We didn't have wikipedia and Google back then. We had to learn by mistake and go from computer jumble sale to jumble sale and ask people to learn more about those intricate mysteries of the PC.

Push Number Three: Networking (the TCP/IP kind of networking)

The early days of computer networking came of course with awesome-sounding components like T-connectors and Terminators and BNC-cables and routers and switches.

Having to figure that out by ourselves was part of the fun of a LAN-party.

"Now I can see you, but you don't see Pete, but he can see us both."

"Switch to a fixed IP. 192.168.1.135 that's me."

"Have you tried a different terminator, the one that connects to the radiator?"

"Where's J?rg? Oh, he's already playing Diablo."

Anyways, this is another example of having to learn and adopt new technologies and keep up with changing environments because, spoiler alert, we don't use those things any more (mostly).

eSports & Employer Branding

Considering all of the above, I am super excited that I found a way to connect my hobby with my job :)

Note, this is going to be a small trial, testing out the waters and maybe it will develop into something even bigger.

The setup.

As one of the leading logistics experts in the world, of course DHL has access to an amazing amount of data. Real-time data, historic data, you name it, we probably have it.

Since we believe that data is the key to unlock untapped potential in our company – we are always looking for data scientists and data engineers that can help us enable our digital transformation journey.

The algorithm is you!?

Now, how do we connect PC games with data-science jobs at our company?

We will just let the players themselves play algorithm and figure out logistics problems. That's why our colleagues in the Data Science team teamed up with a game dev and produced the DHL Smart Speed Challenge.

In this game, your goal is to be as energy-efficient as possible in collecting parcels using one of our electric Streetscooter Trucks, or Parcelcopters drones or Parcycle bicycles.

The first few levels get you familiarized with the game mechanics and then it might get a little more tricky. Maybe you will even encounter some subtle Employer Branding messaging jabs before we hit you with a call to come and apply for a job at Deutsche Post DHL. Just maybe.

If you want to try it out for yourself, just follow this link:

DHL Smart Speed Challenge

I sure hope you have some fun, learn something about the intricacies of logistics and, please, leave a like on this post if you enjoyed the throwback to the 90s :)

(this post about #nostalgia #pcgames #eSports #ESL #gaming #Employer Branding #Content Marketing)