Simulation as the Preferred Form of Communication

[Cross-posted from ModelBlog]
Anthony Townsend at the Institute for the Future believes that "simulation will be an innate vocabulary for tomorrow's consumer, worker, soldier, and educator. They will see the world and describe it in terms of simulations in the same way that my parents used written essays and I use PowerPoint. It may well become their preferred mode of visualizing and interacting with data."

To make this possible the simulation and gaming community have to create simulation construction tools that are as readily accessible as PowerPoint is today. It has to have a similar ease of use, ubiquity of access, and accessible price point.

These tools also require/drive a data standard, which could be community generated as was XML, or commercially generated as is the MS Office Document format.