CIO, a Web site for business executives, explores the potential and pitfalls of virtual worlds in business in a recent article printed on its site.
And at a conference in London, technology consultant Marco Tippner claimed that learning and training will be the “killer application” for online 3D worlds sometime in the near future.
On the plus side for business, virtual worlds are touted as improvements upon things such as teleconferences, and the informality of the virtual space can be a positive. On the negative side, however, the article points out the “technical and cultural obstacles” that must be overcome in order for virtual worlds to succeed in business. Poor audio capabilities, the learning curve for older workers, and accustoming workers to using virtual versions of themselves in meetings are a few of the drawbacks, as is the possibility of employees crafting false avatars and the accessibility of corporate data.
“Early adopters” such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and the I-95 Coalition of first responders are starting to see the potential of the technology for training and online meetings. Still, though, looking to Second Life, many of the same challenges – online identity, security, and audio quality – present themselves at this early stage of virtual business development. On the training and learning end of things, Tippner cited the fact that Second Life has been “colonized” by over 100 universities and learning networks. He cited LanguageLabs.com as one company who is taking full advantage of the Second Life portal to reach out globally to students.
As Tippner is quoted in the article, “virtual reality is leaving its gaming heritage behind and entering the educational and corporate mainstream.”
“Like any other academic institution,” said Mike Kraten, of Boston’s Suffolk Business School, an institution that uses Second Life as a course platform to access a European management school, “we’re trying to increase references, decrease costs and improve productivity. Second Life helps us do all these things.
”Perhaps the current state of virtual business practices can be summed up in this quote from Jonathan Reichental, a PricewaterhouseCoopers director of IT innovation:“Our first meeting [in a virtual world], as you’d expect, people stood on tables and had fun and roamed around,” he says. “Remarkably, though, by the second meeting, people became engaged and were ready to talk.”
February 18, 2008 at 7:47 pm
As I pointed out on the CIO web site I don’t get this. I see two distinct activities: simulation and virtual worlds. I understand that the technology that drives Second Life or World of Warcraft could be adopted to create virtual spaces for business interactions. What I don’t get is the point. The calling card for Second Life is that you can be whoever you want to be. Since its your “second” life I would assume most people don’t choose to be themselves. So what is the point in a business context? That I can enter a virtual world and tell my boss what I really think of him/her?
I play WOW and its great fun but I don’t see how interacting with my business associates in playland rather than realland would be an advantage.
Can you enlighten me?
February 19, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Roger:
Really good question and if I had the single magic bullet answer perhaps I’d either be wealthy or watching wealthy people and wishing I had implemented my great idea.
However, I can only share a few experiences and observations from my own real life experiences using VWs:
1) Many participants in SL are not hiding behind a veil – especially in the education and business community. Therefore, participants in business collaboration or education are not hiding behind a veil of anonymity.
2) For dispersed teams, virtual worlds can offer the benefits of conference calls, Web conferences, Skype, etc. but with the added benefit of presence. I’m not just supporting SL here, but have been astounded what a difference it makes holding meetings in Qwak or SL as compared to conference calls, Web casts, etc.
You really do have a sense of being ‘present’ with others, and the tools allow you to rapidly pull up documents, presentations and other materials which others can then mark up, append, or supplement with their own materials.
3) Aside from overcoming the distance that collaboration often leads to (after all, true collaboration would say that the world is a potential partner), 3D spaces also provide a different way to contextualize, view, discuss, and change artefacts that represent concepts, projects, process, or work flow. While the technology is still in a somewhat early stages, projects like the architecture WIKI and in particular the early demos of Project Bluegrass from IBM clearly show that there is something very different about using a 3D space for certain types of activities.
Already, businesses benefit from things like contextual voting, prototyping, and team building.
Imagine a complex project where decision points can branch and time/cost/quality considerations need to be mulled over, or commented on in an asynchronous way, or by a dispersed team. This can be done in what I SOMETIMES find to be a more intuitive way in a 3D space, as compared for example to a complex 2D Gantt chart.
4) Engagement. You enjoy WOW. People enjoy games. Business is serious stuff – but why? It’s increasingly being proposed that virtual worlds and game environments could be a new model for work. For example, the National Academy of Science is working with the Institute for the Future on a “Massively Multiplayer Science” initiative called the X2 Project which will act as a platform for scientific collaboration. It is a Warcraft for science geeks, who will use a virtual world platform to stimulate opinion, form collaborations, and solve problems.
I’m not sure what industry you’re in, but virtual worlds offer one way in which ideas, people, concepts and collaborations can be encouraged outside a company’s walls. While Web 2.0 social networking concepts are driving innovations like a “Facebook for the CIA”, virtual worlds are another toolkit that helps companies to create new ways to engage.
In some ways I think you answered your own question – spaces like Second Life “could be adopted…for business”. It’s not a *could be* question. Second Life IS being used by businesses, ranging from Sun and IBM to architects in Texas to urban planners in Brooklyn to NASA. The reasons are many and like any technology should suit the business need and strategy rather than be adopted as is.
As economists and others have pointed out, the sooner we toss the idea that virtual worlds are somewhere “different” the faster we’ll come to grips with the fact that in many ways they offer an addition to real life process just like a phone does or e-mail, and perhaps over time a far more compelling one at that.
Virtual worlds as they are today are labs for a future in which the metaverse will be everywhere. Companies who want to understand the future can do so. Others who prefer to wait can do so as well, but I’d propose that its at their own risk.
For some people, Second Life is that – an escape, a place to play, an immersion experience where they can be what they want to be.
But for a growing number of users Second Life is an EXTENSION to their real lives, they are transparent with identity, and they are there because they’re working, collaborating, creating new models for sharing concepts and ideas, forging partnerships, identifying talent, or holding virtual meetings in place of real ones when time or cost are a consideration.
Some are also there because they are reaping the benefits of an intelligent creative community that has perhaps learned more about collaboration in its few short years than Wikipedia which, really, is one application for many participants, while SL represents as many applications as there are participants. And those reaping the benefits and insights today – well, I guess each one of them will have the chance to understand the potential of a technology that is fast becoming ubiquitous or hold on until later and catch up when others have forged ahead.
Look at my grandparents after all. They just got e-mail, and they’ve survived OK without it until now.
February 19, 2008 at 10:43 pm
To answer your specific question directly I have been in the computer business since it was called “tabulating” > DP > EDP> IT > ???? and IBM was called “International Business Machines” (Of course if you only needed domestic business machines you could use one of the “bunch” companies)
Perhaps after 40 years of hype of the “next great thing” I find myself reticent when the media hype seems to exceed the delivered benefit. To your specific points:
Yes, a three dimensional universe can be more familiar than a two dimensional universe as long as the set up times and costs don’t eat up all of the benefit of the familiarity.
Almost everything else you cite is really not a function of the “virtual world” but rather better applied technology. A spreadsheet is better technology than a piece of paper. A spreadsheet that can be shared is a better technology than one that can not. A shared spreadsheet where the people using it are aware of if the other people in the room are paying attention is most likely a better idea than one that doesn’t have the same feedback.
To your point “4″ business is serious stuff because the outcome of the game is serious – can you afford food, housing, clothing, stuff like that.
I do find all this fascinating and will of course be doing my best to experience as much of the emerging technology as possible. But an interesting aside to the WOW environment – the relationships may start in WOW but the serious relationships (business connections, friendship, etc.) quickly are moved out into the real world.
Ah, the joy of living in interesting times.
Roger Jones
http://www.rjjconsulting.com
http://rjjconsulting.blogspot.com
February 20, 2008 at 11:48 am
I was curious about your background mainly to see if I could think up some examples of the use of 3D spaces. You might find the following article interesting, especially its reference to 3D virtual machines:
http://www.ugotrade.com/2008/01/28/the-archeology-and-future-of-software-design-meeting-grady-booch/
I think you’re right to be reticent. Work by groups like Clever Zebra and others make it increasingly easy to jump into virtual worlds without costing thousand in set-up costs and time. Learning curves continue to be an issue, to my mind, although you can get rolling in Qwak in about 20 minutes, even for users with no experience in game or 3D environments, but the range of things you can do is more limited than the far more open ended Second Life.
And you’re right! And you hit on one of my main points about 3D worlds – I really think they’re being misinterpreted as something different. Some day we won’t call them worlds anymore. Worlds imply they’re a place to go with their own rules and cultures. In many ways current 3D environments are worlds, but it’s a limiting view. The sooner people who are looking for business solutions realize that 3D environments are simply technologies, the sooner we’ll find intelligent people like yourself striving to work out technical efficiencies, smooth out the process flow, etc.
I’ve heard the term “Meshverse”. I like the term because it implies 3D spaces enmeshed with “real life”, 2D Web sites, cell phones, and meat space.
There will still be people who want to use virtual platforms for immersion. To play games. To escape. But as you’ve pointed out and as I’ve written on before, there’s a “loop” in which the virtual bleeds into the real very quickly no matter how hard you try to keep up the walls around the garden, preserve the magic circle, etc.
I don’t begrudge immersion. I’ve immersed myself. But there’s a lot to be said for starting to think of 3D spaces simply as another technology and to then start thinking about where that technology best applies for specific business purposes or for self expression. In the future, I see Wikis and project Intranets with spreadsheets, project files, and little 3D Web spaces that you can pop into and out of which are there for specific purposes – meeting rooms for presence, prototyping rooms, conceptual mapping, and consensus building are examples.
And yes, I agree business is serious stuff, it puts food on the table. But some businesses, like my own, which are in the creative industries, DO look for fun as part of our work environment, and games, exploration and play are as much a part of work as chunking numbers in Excel.
Which brings us into a new domain, that of serious games, and whether 3D environments are an extension of that (they are). I was speaking with a friend the other day who got a job in retail at a pharmacy. His training included a shelf stocking game and he described it as a) a great way to learn b) an intuitive way to understand the problems with managing shelf space restrictions and prioritizing and c) fun.
Finally, a footnote, which is that anyone who’s in business needs to be aware of the full spectrum of technologies available to help solve business problems. You can specialize in virtual worlds, perhaps, but you shouldn’t exclude awareness of other technologies. Just as you’re reticent, I think anyone in business should proceed with caution on any technology that seems to promise to cure what ails you – technology is no substitute for sound strategy. and I get just as much value out of telling clients “don’t do this, it isn’t for you’ as from encouraging risk and innovation.