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Two different perspectives on virtual worlds

"Inspired" by my recent social media newsletter on Second Life that looked at the virtual CPA Congress, Natalia has written a post about virtual worlds as venues for meetings. Her overall view? Not good:

"[I'm] supposed to be fascinated by "how detailed it is, how big the island is, how immersive that even this video is? Amazing stuff". Mmmmm...... Well, it may be (in terms of Second Life stuff) BUT what amazed me the most was irritating music. That's it.

Another thing that struck me was the venue. It was indeed nice looking and I thought that it could have been really nice to BE there, to have a bodily experience of sitting in the stylish chairs and looking at such huge screens, BUT it was only a virtual projection of some ideal space by a small group of conference organizers. So there is NO way to escape snowing and cold by attending such a conference. There is NO way to show nice clothes. There is NO chance to taste exotic food. What I should be excited about is sitting at home alone on a couch wearing old jeans and a t-shirt and sipping from a cup of instant coffee. Thanks a lot. I'm SOOOOOO excited by the Second Life conference island."

As I wrote in the comment section on Natalia's blog, I think there's more than a bit of unjustified cynicism here, but maybe it's born from a different perspective...

Nobody is saying virtual meetings are better than the real thing, or should replace real conferences or meetings 100%. What we're talking about here is complementing those events, adapting to the realities of ever more busy, dispersed and remote workforces and groups, and giving people options if they cannot travel due to cost or time constraints (and giving some time back to people, rather than making them work longer). We're also talking about making the experience more involving than dialling into a conference phone line and watching some slides tick past on your screen.

You might not be able to be there, but with improvements in this technology at least you can almost be there, or be there for the sessions you want, and interact in more sophisticated ways with other people that are in attendance.

Future possibilities
These environments also present their own opportunities for demonstrations (products, concepts etc.) that might be unfeasible in the real world, or are made much easier by virtual worlds.

Regarding glitches, the underlying technology and its limitations are factors, undoubtedly, and few people believe that Second Life is the platform of the future, but this type of technology will only get better and easier to use as time goes on.

Great results
With the CPA example, the feedback they had was overwhelmingly positive (it's worth reading more into it if you haven't already) and plenty of other organisations - banks, government agencies etc. - are seeing the same sorts of results.

You can dismiss all this technology, the motivations behind using it and the companies having success with it. But personally I wouldn't, not without having a more rounded perspective and understanding.

Reaching dispersed audiences with Second Life

The latest Social Media Newsletter furthers the message about the recent CPA Congress in Second Life (which also featured in my presentation yesterday).

I'm still pretty bowled over by this story. It's fantastic, and as such warrants much further publicity.

Read the full newsletter and subscribe here.

NB: As of the next issue - scheduled for Monday 8th November - the "Social Media" newsletter will become the newsletter for social media and intranets. When discussing blogs, wikis etc behind the firewall, the two are intrinisically linked, so this extension and broadening of the newsletter makes a lot of sense. It will also mean we can look at non-social media intranet stories, of which there are many.

We are all Lawnmower Men now

I am totally sold on the concept of virtual worlds and their potential for bringing together people from far and wide. I have said this many, many times and it's videos like the one below that reaffirm my belief. This is the demo video from the CPA Congress (original post).

You see how detailed it is, how big the island is, how immersive that even this video is? Amazing stuff.

Now think about more conferences and team sessions like this. Consider the next step from looking at your computer screen to having a lightweight 3D headset (similar to how everyone has Skype headsets now but with some form of 3D glasses).

Don't worry, you won't be embarrassed because you'll be working from home on your own - we are talking remote employees here - and your avatar will not be wearing a headset.

Now imagine improved real-time chat, movement, pupil movements, body language reflected by some sort of advanced iPhone-esque accelerometer and gyroscope thing in the headset...

In this context, I don't think it's hard to see the benefits, or business potential for virtual worlds or the 3D web. The technological advancement has not got too far to go before this starts to become more common in the workplace and business environment.

And I'll say it again, this video is from the CPA Congress. If ever there's been a better example of obliterating a stereotype then please let me know.

Accountants party in Second Life (True story!)

What's an accountant's idea of trashing his hotel room?
 Refusing to fill out the guest comment card.

Why do accountants get excited on Saturdays? They can wear casual clothes to work.

What do you call an acc...

OK OK, enough already, but I think we can all agree that accountants have a particularly dry stereotype, right? Not these guys.

Earlier this week Lee Hopkins was involved with a Second Life bash set up for a CPA Congress. That's Chartered Certified Practising Accountants Congress. In Second Life.

Last night I and Lindy McKeown presented at the Chartered Professional Accountants Congress here in Australia.

But rather than fly to Melbourne, Sydney or the Gold Coast we presented in-world, at a venue built especially for the event.

To say they (the CPA organisers) were nervous would be a MASSIVE understatement! I could see their avatars shaking from the podium {grin}.

But to everyone’s delight the event went swimmingly well. Naturally, there are always little gremlins that creep into any event and do their best to cause niggling annoyances, but they were kept to a minimum and the feedback from the audience has apparently been incredible.

Lee has a longer post and even photos of the event. The most clear benefit of running it in Second Life was highlighted in an email to Lee afterwards:

"Just to say congrats on a good seminar. I found it very good in terms of the venue layout, technicalities and content…I rarely can get into London, so miss out on most CPA Australia events even when they’re held over here, and am delighted to have been able to attend this."

Read the full post here. Who said virtual worlds were dead, hmmmm?

Ongoing growth in virtual worlds

As a follow up to my post on virtual worlds, I got in touch with David Holloway, editor of the Metaverse journal, with this poser.

What I can't grasp, however, is if and when [virtual worlds] will break into mainstream use - in whole or in part. I thought Google's Lively would be provide a good push, but it doesn't seem to have happened yet.

To which David replied:

Your question is a very good one – one that a lot of businesses ask me all the time. My response is essentially that virtual worlds still have a little way to go before there’s true mainstream adoption.

Google Lively is a small step toward that but its feature set is limited and it hasn’t enjoyed the popularity some would have expected it to. What’s certain is that there’s ongoing growth – there are now three virtual worlds platforms under development in Australia alone. The businesses that start getting their R&D and HR functions around these concepts will likely enjoy some competitive advantage.

Three in Australia alone is quite something. And at TechCrunch 50 earlier today, 5 more virtual worlds were demoed. There's clearly lots of work going on in this field.

How Sun Microsystems found value in Second Life

This fortnight's Social Media Newsletter looks at Sun Microsystems' foray in Second Life, most recently using the virtual world for a day-long Senior Executive Forum.

The event was masterminded by Sun's senior director of global employee communications, Terry McKenzie, and her team. Read and subscribe to the Social Media Newsletter here and also see Terry's own personal blog here.

Virtual worlds or virtual environments are funny things. I believe they can only become more popular as we seek ever more informative, visual and detailed information representation of artefacts while we're online. Some recent articles I've read on their practical use mainly centre around the way in which you can demo or a develop a product - be it car engine, roofing tile etc. - in astonishing detail.

And yet, for the mainstream web user in a business or personal context, I don't see virtual worlds really catching on at the rate predicted.

Over on the Metaverse Journal, edited by Aussie David Holloway, there was recently some furious pushback about a negative article on the Sydney Morning Herald that said virtual worlds were becoming ghost towns and Second Life was a failure due to a number of companies leaving it. I'd recommend the entire post and comments about it for a good insight into the passion and expertise on this topic. One commenter has been involved in virtual world development for some 15 years, for example, and while it's easy for the press to get bored with something once the hype spotlight starts shining its glare elsewhere, the fact is the interesting, worthwhile work usually gets done then.

Indeed, if we look at Gartner's 2008 hype cycle (above right - click to enlarge), public virtual worlds are currently heading into the trough of disillusionment, (where the SMH journalist also lives, perhaps), yet those working with or within virtual worlds day in, day out have this to say:

Second Life has provided pioneering commercial exploration of VR capabilities. Just because some commercial enterprises have pulled out of Second Life does not equate to ‘failure’.

Vital 3D avatar immersion lessons have been learnt, modeling and building skills developed, use of digital agents, telepresence, interactive, navigational and communication applications explored, and platform and cultural limitations realised.

This is all invaluable experience for commercial frontrunners preparing to invest in a virtual future.

Fundamental lessons have been learnt, and these firms will reap the rewards by being well positioned to take informed advantage of future VR developments. 

Virtual intranets?
Where does this lead us to, then, with regards to intranets and the business or enterprise use of virtual worlds?

The Sun example is fantastic. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz long ago made clear his reasons for starting a blog: timesaving, costsaving, and it allows you to reach far more people, far more quickly. Plus he accepts feedback, good bad and ugly.

The senior executive forum in Second Life was yet another way to do all of those things and further reach people who otherwise couldn't attend a Real Life meeting. As Terry McKenzie said to me afterwards, while face-to-face meetings are best, this experience was far, far superior to your typical webcasts, webinars or video conference calls.

In yet another comment on that MV journal article, Accenture's work in SL is mentioned:

Thankfully some companies "get it". Accenture for example, which has concentrated on the collaborative strengths of SL has seen positive returns. It's paid for itself both ways, by helping them with hires (they're a personnel company) which earns them bucks and paid for itself again in savings from using telepresence to conference.

Suspend your disbelief
I'm sure there are many psychological reasons as to why a virtual world meeting is far, far superior to a video conference call.

Perhaps it's the presence, the personality conveyed in a colleague's custom avatar, or being able to look around at your smart virtual environment as opposed to being stuck in a bland meeting room somewhere.

I really don't know for sure, but if you've ever been engrossed in a movie, addicted to a video game until completion, or simply lost in thought as you see a picture or painting or event unfold, then you'll appreciate that it's not all that hard to suspend disbelief and get sucked into this virtual meeting environment.

Tech breakdown
The clear problems with this technology at the moment are its pure difficulty to use, the tendency to think of it as a game and not a simulation, and the extreme geekiness that is derived from that. You get the sense that virtual worlds currently are as tricky and geeky to use as websites were to set up 10 years ago. I'm reasonably technology-proficient and I couldn't do much in Second Life before I got frustrated with the consistently bad connection and software lag, my terrible outfit, and knowing how to get around or where some interesting places were. Many others did not even get past Initiation Island or whatever it's called.

Yet, as websites have come so far in sophistication that now anyone can set up a personal blog in a matter of minutes, so do I believe that in 10 years time we'll be far more savvy with virtual environments on the web.

For dispersed workforces, be they global or on different floors, the benefits are clear, but in the business environment it all depends on how smart the companies are. With many organisations still arguing about whether all employees should have internet access, I think even when the technology improves, business adoption will continue to be a debilitatingly slow process.