BUSINESS
Virtual Worlds for Business Q2.1 2009 - Copyright Clever Zebra, All rights reserved.
for
Welcome
Virtual Worlds for Business is a comprehensive, evolving resource for organizations working with virtual worlds, produced by Clever Zebra. The "book" is continuously updated online. As reports are produced, they are added as chapters and sections. The online version also contains links to further resources and reference material and sections not yet made part of the PDF version.
How to stay up to date
1. Go to http://cleverzebra.com/book for the most current version of this continuously updated book. 2. Join the email update list at http://cleverzebra.com/list. You will be notified of major updates to Virtual Worlds for Business, newly published reports, upcoming events and other significant news. Donʼt worry, itʼs a low volume list you can easily opt-out of any time. 3. If you prefer to get your updates via RSS, subscribe to the Clever Zebra blog at http://cleverzebra.com/rss.xml
Getting help
• Speak directly with the author, Nick Wilson, if I can help you I will. Email me at nick@cleverzebra.com • Seminars and workshops: Periodically we run live inworld events. You can keep track via the email list or blog. • If you need more than just a quick email question, consider talking to Clever Zebra about virtual worlds consulting and other virtual services. Go ahead and email me at nick@cleverzebra.com
Virtual Worlds for Business Q2.1 2009 - Copyright Clever Zebra, All rights reserved.
Virtual Worlds
The term "virtual worlds" allows for a lot of gray area in its definition. For the purpose of this book we have loosely categorized those worlds of interest to business for easy reference.
In the following sections you will find those virtual worlds we have classified as: 1. Business ready 2. On the radar 3. Upcoming The picture you see above is of Barack Obamaʼs avatar when he visited Second Life as part of his presidential campaign.
Picture reproduced with permission from Rik: http://www.rikomatic.com
Virtual Worlds for Business Q2.1 2009 - Copyright Clever Zebra, All rights reserved.
Business Ready
No virtual world platform is without its kinks and quirks. The following worlds, though, are those we consider to be "business ready". They are complete, and already being used by organizations in various use cases.
The above picture is of IBMʼs Sandra Kearney speaking at the vBusiness Expo, a purely virtual enterprise virtual worlds conference produced by Clever Zebra.
The following worlds have been classified as Business Ready. • Active Worlds • OLIVE • Protosphere • Qwaq Forums • Second Life • Web Alive
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Active Worlds
Active Worlds is an old platform. It's geared toward game development and social applications rather than enterprise use. Its tiny client download, low system requirements and relative ease of content creation may make it useful for some projects, but those same projects will often be better served by Second Life. Where Active Worlds may prove a winner for some applications is in the fact that you can fully control (and firewall) an entire world, therefore keeping experiments private, and communications secure. There has been limited corporate use of the Active Worlds platform, most notably IBM and Wells Fargo. What is Active Worlds good for? • Rapid development • Voice and video integration • Small file sizes and system requirements • Firewalled corporate use What problems might you face? • Poorer immersion due to graphical capability • Content creation a little harder than with Second Life
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Recommendations
Because you can run the Active Worlds platform yourself, and thus control security, and due to its small file size and relative ease of building, it's a likely candidate for several use cases: • Private experimentation • Rapid prototyping • General meetings and presentations • Some training scenarios Active Worlds is also considerably easier to master than Second Life. It makes a good platform for meetings and events. We recently attended a public seminar arranged by IBM and the Kaufman Foundation and the RIMS RiskLive! conference, both of which ran very smoothly.
The Bottom Line
Active Worlds is far better suited to many applications than some of its higher profile peers. There are a number of very compelling reasons to take the platform seriously not least of which is the ability to completely firewall a system. Be sure to include Active Worlds when evaluating platforms and pay attention to solutions providers like Digitell who are building products based on the environment.
Virtual Worlds for Business Q2.1 2009 - Copyright Clever Zebra, All rights reserved.
OLIVE
OLIVE is a pure enterprise play. It's focused on being a good simulator of realworld environments with accurate physics, a spherical world and advanced NPC's. OLIVE also supports SameTime integration as well as whiteboarding and application sharing, making it a powerful collaborative work tool. Medium system requirements and a cumbersome installation process make it unsuitable for more casual applications though Forterra have managed to get the install process down to just one file at 80MB in a basic version of the software. What is OLIVE good for? • Business process rehearsal • Advanced training • Simulations • Collaborative work • Secure, firewalled environments. What problems might you face? • Environment isn't very flexible once created • Initial software installation is more complex than the norm • There are no inworld content creation tools.
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Recommendations
Forterra's focus on solutions for individual areas such as corporate, medical, military and education place them at the top of the list for more serious application. They have good experience in process rehearsal and simulation and are able to roll out pre-built solution specific content for various use cases. The platform, once installed, is user-friendly, as far as virtual worlds go. Being able to fully control the experience, be it public, or on the corporate intranet means little to no security headaches as well. Speak to Forterra about: • Simulations • Process rehearsal • Training • Collaborative work People It is worth noting that when Clever Zebra worked with Forterra on their first large scale public event (the vBusiness Expo) the experience was far from trouble free. In fact it was downright difficult, though through that learning process we understand that the team have been working through the various issues. What is more important though is that the Forterra team, from President through to technicians and support staff were excellent to work with. This goes a long, long way when the technology is so new, and prone to hiccups. They seem to understand that this is all about people better than most, and it gave us a great deal of confidence in OLIVE despite the occasional problem.
The Bottom Line
OLIVE is at the high end of enterprise virtual worlds. That doesn't mean it's without fault, but the team at Forterra work with many military and government departments as well as large corporations to provide secure virtual environments. Serious virtual worlds applications are often well suited to the platform, less critical projects not so.
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Protosphere
ProtoSphere focuses its efforts on learning, knowledge management and training. It incorporates Web2.0 technologies we are all familiar with by now such as blogs, wikis and social networking. There has been some debate over whether these social platforms really have a value in the workplace yet, but in the context of the immersive web, they act to augment the kind of informal learning that Proton Media are keen to talk about. An example of how all of these pieces fit together could be this: A team member in Germany needs information for a project. She searches her company's ProtoSphere network and comes up with two other employees based in the US and several documents. She arranges to meet with the US team inworld, and discuss the documents, which they can see and interact with collaboratively inworld. What sets ProtoSphere apart is that search functionality, document sharing and social feature set. What is ProtoSphere good for? • Training • Meetings • Knowledge management What problems might you face? • This is a hosted solution. That means firewall adjustments at minimum for many companies. • Content creation is the domain of Proton Media • The learning curve is reasonably steep. Moving around is pretty easy, but using the integrated social tools takes a bit of work.
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Recommendations
Proton Media's focus on training and learning within a dispersed workforce makes them a good fit for organizations looking at very specific use cases within these areas. The integration of 2D social applications such as wikis, document search and social networks puts them head and shoulders above comparable platforms in the context of learning. The company also works with clients to produce courseware and curriculums' to be run on the platform. Speak to Proton Media about: * Training * Meetings * Knowledge management
The Bottom Line
The ProtoSphere platform is less well polished than OLIVE, which is its nearest direct competitor, in terms of graphics and user interface, but makes up for that with a sharp focus on its core area of strength: Learning. Speak to Proton Media if you're interested in training and knowledge applications that will benefit from the integration of social tools.
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Qwaq Forums
The Qwaq environment has been specifically built around the core concept of document collaboration. With built-in voice, an interactive whiteboard, the ability to share and edit office documents as a group and pricing starting with monthly per-user plans it's easy to get started and for some use cases, an ideal solution. While this platform is still in development, it can be put to good use right now. Many features are yet to be added, including more sophisticated avatars and more advanced desktop sharing tools. What is Qwaq good for? * Document collaboration * Small meetings * Some training use cases What problems might you face? * Poorer immersion due to graphical capability * Lower quality voice integration than other solutions
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Recommendations
Qwaq Forums are purpose built for collaboration, with tools for document sharing and group editing. The whiteboards, and integrated voice make for a simple meeting environment, although the voice client is not nearly as polished as in some other platforms. Compared to other alternatives, the graphics and avatars are simplistic. The free trial and monthly per-user hosted setup makes it a simple platform to trial. If Qwaq works out, you can speak to them about their enterprise server edition which will allow you to have your environment deployed safely behind the firewall. Speak to Qwaq Forums about: * Remote collaborative work environments * Project management * Basic group meetings
The Bottom Line
Qwaq has very low system requirements, and they clearly understand the importance of being able to trial this kind of solution first. This makes the platform a great introduction to virtual worlds in general, and for some collaborative work and meetings use cases it will be well suited to the task.
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Second Life
Despite Linden Lab's recent focus on business, Second Life remains a consumer application at heart. Platform stability issues coupled with the media's fascination with adult content conspire against Linden Lab's best efforts to court the enterprise. Having said that, both business and education continue to flock to the well known platform. There is a host of large companies using Second Life including Intel, Cisco, Microsoft and Sun, though some of those same organizations have also been flirting with OpenSim, Second Life's open source competitor. For inexpensive, non-critical applications Second Life is far ahead of the pack. For secure, reliable, enterprise grade systems it has some way yet to go. What is Second Life good for? • Most non-critical virtual world applications • Meetings • Training • Simulations • Conferences and exhibitions (to a limited degree) What problems might you face? • The platform is often unstable • High system requirements • Hosted service causes firewall concerns for many companies • It's very hard for new users to learn • No out of the box integration with standard office apps • All text conversations are recorded by Linden Lab (though in at least Sun Microsystems' case this was fixed for them on request)
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Recommendations
Despite examples of some large companies continuing to use the Second Life platform, and the educational sector's continued passion for it, Linden Lab's virtual world is not ready for most critical applications and serious use cases. If you're prepared to accept the risk of being dumped out of your meeting, or locked out of the world entirely now and again, Second Life does however remain the platform of choice for non-critical inexpensive virtual world applications. Upcoming business-focused products from Linden Lab make experimenting in the public world a worthwhile investment for many right now. • Use Second Life to get a feel for virtual worlds • Use the platform quietly and privately at first • Do not use Second Life for anything public facing if platform stability is a concern • Be aware of text-chat logging and other security concerns
The Bottom Line
Spending a lot of money on Second Life right now would be a waste. It is far better to at least wait and see how their business product works out in the first quarter of 2009. With both OpenSim and Sun's Project Wonderland nibbling at Linden Lab's lunch as worthwhile competitors, Linden will have to really pull something out of the bag this year to stay relevant to business.
Virtual Worlds for Business Q2.1 2009 - Copyright Clever Zebra, All rights reserved.
web.alive
web.alive is an enterprise focused virtual worlds platform produced by Canadian telecoms giant Nortel. It's a slick, simple to use, fully immersive 3D business environment that sits right in your web browser. You can catch a live demo of their first public showing at the new Lenovo eLounge. Despite the company feeling the pinch of the current economic climate and filing for bankruptcy protection in January, the web.alive team say they are well supported and expect the project to continue to make strides in 2009. Deploying web.alive is as simple as putting some embed code on a web page. If you can paste a Youtube video into your blog, you can install web.alive on your website. Indeed the embeddable nature of the product hints at the expressed aspirations of the web.alive team to transform the way we communicate on the web. They'll even let you run web.alive behind the firewall, or help you to tunnel out to a hosted environment. What is web.alive good for? • Browser based 3D applications. • Most virtual world applications: Meetings, training, simulations etc. • Web content mashups: Insertions from existing content into the virtual environment, objects inworld activate browser content out of world... • Consumer focused 3D ecommerce and sales tools. What problems might you face? • web.alive is very new • Depite assurances, it's difficult to ignore the fact that Nortel are currently seeking bankruptcy protection. • The system only supports Windows users
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Recommendations
The idea of putting a fully immersive 3D world within the web browser is huge. Nortel are not the first to attempt it, but they are the first to get it right. The promise of interactive 3D and 2D content right within the browser is evident in the team's showcase implementation, Lenovo eLounge. Web content like video and banners are sucked into the virtual environment while 3D objects like laptops control the web page content surrounding the embedded world. Embedding Worlds Imagine being able to create a virtual environment for your meetings, training or customer facing sales center and allowing anyone to just paste the code into their blog or website. Imagine hundreds or thousands of entry points to your virtual world spread across the web like Youtube videos embedded in blogs. That's the vision. It's not there yet, but the web.alive team tell us it will be within a year. Solutions There is no set product or package for web.alive, the team tell us they are content to let customer needs dictate future products for now. This is both a good and bad thing, though as far as cost is concerned they say that a basic implementation certainly would not exceed $50,000 in most cases. The business model right now is focused on content creation and support, though there are plans for a full toolkit for developers to work with. Concerns With web.alive supporting secure areas, secure controls, presentation and office app sharing via insertions from web content, the list of possible applications is as long as Second Life's or OLIVE's. There are 2 major concerns however: 1. Nortel's financial viability. We're not economists or financial analysts but we don't need to be. This is clearly a concern that you will need to air with Nortel when you speak with them. 2. web.alive is very new. It's untested apart from the Lenovo product and despite huge potential, the lack of good case studies and examples needs to be weighed into decisions.
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In summary web.alive impresses us more than most. The fact that it's a thin client implementation within the web browser is just the cherry on the top, however there are concerns. Speak to Nortel along with the other vendors in the business ready category here when evaluating virtual world solutions.
The Bottom Line
web.alive is hugely significant. Not only have Nortel put a fully immersive, fully functional 3D world within the web browser (somewhat of a holy grail for virtual worlds) but they've done it in a way that focuses on usability and simplicty, making the experience even more compelling for the end user. It's a little early to say that web.alive is a game changer in virtual worlds, but it certainly has the potential to be. If your organization is going to be working with virtual worlds in 2009, you should add Nortel to the list of vendors you should be speaking to immediately.
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On The Radar
There are several virtual worlds technologies about to become important to business. They are generally in development, or not ready for prime time for one reason or another but worthy of attention. Typically the worlds listed here are thought to be important enough to influence buying decisions despite their immaturity.
The following worlds are currently on our radar:
• Multiverse • Open Simulator • Project Wonderland
Virtual Worlds for Business Q2.1 2009 - Copyright Clever Zebra, All rights reserved.
Multiverse
The Multiverse platform, like Second Life, has very broad scope. It wants to be all things to all people. It wants to be a consumer oriented world and a standalone enterprise application all at the same time, but without Linden Lab's first mover advantage. The fundamental idea of providing a platform anyone can build any kind of world on is not a bad one by any means, but there does not appear to be a great deal of uptake, and so the project languishes. That said, the feature set that relates to business is unarguably persuasive. Multiverse promotes itself as a platform upon which many different kinds of applications can be built, including standalone, secure applications that sit behind the corporate firewall. What is Multiverse good for? • Custom virtual worlds projects • Fully firewalled applications What problems might you face? • There are no examples or case studies to be found. Coupled with the seeming lack of activity in recent months this does not inspire confidence. • Content creation and customization is technically demanding
Recommendations
Until there are documented use cases and visible activity at Multiverse we don't recommend spending any time on it. As an idea Multiverse has a lot of promise, but right now that's really all there is. The recent addition of $2.4M from Angel investors does not change the recommendation above.
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OpenSimulator
OpenSim refers to itself as a 3D application server upon which virtual worlds can be built. It is an exciting, ambitious project with enormous potential, and is already being used by several high profile companies including IBM, Microsoft, Nokia and Intel. It was developed by reverse engineering the server code used to power Second Life, though the development community behind the project believes their implementation to be radically different to the original codebase. There are several derivative distributions of OpenSim including: • 3Di-OpenSim, a commercial, business focused distribution set to be released this spring from Japanese company 3Di, Inc. and • RealXtend, a free distribution headquartered in Finland that have been instrumental in the progression of the OpenSim software. What is OpenSim good for? * Second Life-like applications behind the firewall * Meetings * Training * Simulations * Data visualizations What problems might you face? • OpenSim is still considered alpha software, meaning that it's far from the finished product. • A good degree of technical skill is needed to setup and administer an OpenSim installation. • Linden Lab, makers of Second Life, are due to release their own behind-the-firewall solution in the first quarter of 2009. • There is no native voice integration in vanilla OpenSim yet.
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Recommendations
OpenSim by itself is a usable, extensible and highly flexible environment that has many of the same qualities that make Second Life such an attractive platform despite its short comings. Many people will find one of the distributions derived from OpenSim a better fit however. Like Second Life, OpenSim has: • Easy content creation • A developer ecosystem • Scripted objects • Fully immersive, configurable environment It brings a lot more to the table however. • It's free and open source under a BSD license • You can run it behind a firewall without need to link in to a central server • You can extend it, and alter it to fit your needs OpenSim remains alpha software however and is most certainly not ready for production applications right now.
The Bottom Line
There is much dissatisfaction with Second Life as a business tool, and the OpenSim alternative generates a proportional amount of excitement for three main reasons: 1. It's free, and open source 2. You can firewall it. 3. You can extend it Anyone interested in OpenSim should also take a very close look at Sun's Project Wonderland, which is also free and open source.
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OpenSim distributions
You can think of OpenSim a little like Linux. It can be repackaged and adjusted to fit different needs and distributed accordingly. Several companies publish OpenSim distributions. You can find details on the main players below.
3Di-OpenSim
3Di is a division of NGI Group, a Japanese venture capital firm focused on new communications. They are 40% owned by Telecoms giant NTT, and play an active role in the OpenSim development community. They sponsor two full-time developers on the core OpenSim team. There are two versions of 3Di-OpenSim in development: 1. Standard, and 2. Enterprise. Standard was released in October 2008, with the Enterprise version to be released in the spring of 2009. Main Value Adds The big value adds are due for release with the enterprise edition in the sprng of 2009. These main added features are: * Web admin interface * Load balancing across simulators * 3D user data analysis inworld * Browser based viewer * Installation and support Note: The majority of features are under active development and are due for release with the enterprise edition.
Virtual Worlds for Business Q2.1 2009 - Copyright Clever Zebra, All rights reserved.
Recommendations
The enterprise edition is not due for release until spring 2009 so there are understandably no case-studies available and not a lot of information in general about this product. The serious backing of NTT backed NGI group however makes 3DiOpenSim potentially a very serious player in 2009 alongside other OpenSim distributions like RealXtend and Sun's Project Wonderland.
The Bottom Line
3Di-OpenSim isn't ready yet. Its backing is significant however, so the upcoming enterprise edition will be well worth investigating.RealXtend
RealXtend
RealXtend is a non-profit organization administered by Oulu Innovation in Oulu, Finland. There are two main companies behind the OpenSim distribution: 1. 2. 1. ADMINO Technologies and 2. LudoCraft.
The company works extensively on the open source Second Life viewer as well as its OpenSim based virtual worlds platform, and despite less focus on enterprise than 3Di OpenSim, enjoys the support of several well known organizations, most notably Nokia. The company's focus is very broadly along the lines of "making virtual worlds more accessible". They concentrate on the "human interface", more immersive graphics and interoperability between platforms rather than business process, integration into existing systems and general productivity.
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Recommendations
Until there are solid, documented case studies for RealXtend it remains an excellent platform for exploration and experimentation, but is not recommended for serious application unless you have a lot of technical resources to throw at it. There is a high degree of technical skill needed to work with any of the OpenSim family of virtual worlds right now, which makes them all uns Have the IT geeks download it and play with it, use it for small internal meetings and other simple tasks. RealXtends real value will emerge with time, but for now there are much better suited platforms for most business use cases.
The Bottom Line
RealXtend is a worthy platform, it even adds voice support to its offering, but 3Di OpenSim has a much sharper focus on business so it may well be better to wait.
Virtual Worlds for Business Q2.1 2009 - Copyright Clever Zebra, All rights reserved.
Project Wonderland
Project Wonderland is a free, open source virtual world platform running on Java. Development is led by Sun Microsystems and we consider it to be one of the most exciting, and potentially game changing virtual world applications currently in development. Wonderland is being built for the enterprise from the ground up. It is due for its 0.5 release in June 2009 which will add more content creation features as well as server monitoring and a streamlined systems administration interface. The current stable release is packed with features and is already being used by universities and companies for simple virtual world applications. Some of the features already present in the current release include: • Meeting recording • Dial in call support • Inworld video play • Web admin interface • PDF viewer • Complete extensibility through API's What is Wonderland good for? • Small collaborative work groups (10 - 20 avatars) • Small meetings and classes • Extending and integrating into existing systems • Collaborative work: App sharing (Open Office and Firefox integration), multi-user whiteboarding and VNC windows desktop sharing.
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What problems might you face? • The platform is in alpha development, which means many changes to the core code before final release • Avatars are currently very simplistic • Content creation requires complex professional 3D modeling software, though the coming 0.5 release will bring new tools and enhancements to the current sytstem. • Maximum concurrency is low (10 - 20 avatars)
Recommendations
Wonderland is free, open source, and built for the enterprise from the ground up. For collaborative work, meetings and some kinds of training Wonderland is already a serious contender. It's well worth having the techies play with Wonderland and see what they can come up with now. You will be able to better evaluate its potential fit with your requirements, and get a feel for the system as compared with similar projects such as OpenSim.
The Bottom Line
If you are going to be doing something with virtual worlds in 2009, you should take a very close look at Project Wonderland. It has enormous potential, and the serious backing of a major technology company.
Virtual Worlds for Business Q2.1 2009 - Copyright Clever Zebra, All rights reserved.
Upcoming
The following platforms are a little further out in terms of usefulness to business, but worthy of note nonetheless. Their inclusion here doesn't mean you should disregard them, but they're not yet as important as the Business Ready or On The Radar worlds.
The following worlds are on our upcoming watch list.
• 3DXplorer • Vastpark
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3DXplorer
3DXplorer is a Java based platform produced by Altadyn a French company with a background in CAD/CAM. Altadyn have new contracts with the National Defense University, Saint Gobain and Patrimoine. All of these installations are due to go live in the first quarter of 2009. The promise of 3DXplorer is immersive 3D within the browser, with no download necessary. It runs on Java, which is already installed on the majority of PC's and is platform neutral. The "Online Meeting" product recently launched on the 3DXplorer platform has desktop sharing and instant messaging but voice needs an external application like Skype.
The Bottom Line
3DXplorer isn't business ready yet, but it is one to watch. Current testing of the generic application in an online meeting with a live technician was less than satisfactory, and improvements to the interface will be necessary before they can be considered for wider use.
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Vastpark
VastPark, like Multiverse positions itself as a development kit for the creation of any type of 3D immersive environment you care to imagine. The small Australian team led by CEO Bruce Joy are actively building an ecosystem of developers and designers around their free to download toolsets. VastPark shows a lot of promise as a platform, and even at this early stage of development has several licensing agreements in place.
The Bottom Line
There is a lot of furious activity going on over at Vastpark and the network of developers continues to grow. Theyʼre well worth watching and have the potential to become a serious player in virtual worlds further down the line.
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Case Studies
It's helpful to find out how other organizations are using virtual worlds, what challenges they faced and how those challenges were solved. To that end we are continually updating the online version of Virtual Worlds for Business with short, concise case studies that you will find helpful in your own research. Be sure to visit the online version of this report for new case studies.
Virtual Worlds for Business Q2.1 2009 - Copyright Clever Zebra, All rights reserved.
Meetings and Events
We had the distinct privilege of talking in depth with some amazingly passionate virtual worlds advocates about their organization's immersive meetings and events projects as part of this book. We spoke either inworld or by phone with each one of them and tried hard to pick out the key data from those conversations and to present them in a format that's easy to grasp immediately.
Here are the companies we spoke to about virtual worlds meetings: • Dell • Generali Group • Gronstedt Group • IBM • Kelly Services • Market Truths • RIMS • Sun Microsystems • Vivox
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Dell
Dell were one of the first major corporations to enter Second Life back in late 2006 as the press hype machine started to roll into overdrive. The buzz lasted through most of 2007 before whiplashing back on itself, yet Dell along with a handful of other early pioneers are still there, still working, still engaging. In the early stages of their involvement Dell worked hard on interacting with the Second Life community, though perhaps their most significant achievements are the less glamorous projects for internal meetings.
Dell Global Services Team Meetings
Dell's Global Services team comprises of many employees who do not work at a Dell office. They're remotely positioned around the world in order to be closer to the customers they serve. This presents some unique challenges. The Challenge To keep remote employees engaged, conduct distance meetings and promote the feeling of being part of the larger Dell team despite their physical isolation. The Solution Using Dell's Second Life conference center to conduct meetings that would ordinarily have consisted of a simple conference call. The solution was an easy sell to management as the virtual conference center had already been built so there were no upfront costs. The picture to the right is of Laura P Thomas who led Dell into Second Life.
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The Benefits Employees report that they are more engaged in the 3D environment than on a conference call and that they feel more involved and apt to participate. An added side benefit is that this pilot project affords Dell the opportunity to experiment with moving toward a greener future where more and more employees work from home, not the office.
Dellʼs very first meeting in Second Life. Quite a diverse bunch arenʼt they?
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Generali Group
Generali Group are one of Europe's largest insurers. They originally built their island in Second Life as an experiment, and have since used it to host distance meetings among middle and upper middle managers and trainees. They are experimenting with OpenSim, and have plans for similar meetings in the near future. The Challenge To bring young trainees from all across Europe together for discussion of a new training initiative with managers from various departments and geographical regions across the company. The meeting would not have been possible physically due to budget, and time considerations. The Solution Generali hired Clever Zebra to facilitate a live meeting on their own island in Second Life. 6 or 7 managers spoke to around 30 trainees that logged in from all around Europe for the session. Participants were given some initial training by Fabio Turel, the engineer responsible for the Second Life project. The Benefits Fabio TurelFabio, pictured here, told us this meeting would not have happened physically. The main reason being the time cost. Each trainee and most of the managers would have had to waste 2 days for a 2 hour meeting. As it was, nobody spent more than 3 hours on the virtual meeting. Generali did not calculate the cost savings on the meeting, but did talk about carbon emissions. They estimate that they saved 16 tons of C02.
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Gronstedt Group
Gronstedt Group is a new media consultancy focused on podcasting, video, games and simulations and virtual worlds. Their weekly Second Life meetings are well known among those interested in the medium. The Challenge Build a community of clients, potential clients and influencers interested in virtual worlds applications. The Solution CEO Anders Gronstedt started a series of small "coffee meetings" in Second Life where people could drop in and talk about business use of virtual worlds and other new media technologies. The coffee sessions grew in popularity and have become a regular speaker series in the virtual world featuring presentations from Sun, Nortel and many other well known companies. Presenters are encouraged to move away from the traditional powerpoint slides and lecture hall approach and provide walking tours of their materials. The Benefits Gronstedt Group now enjoy maxed out weekly meetings of around 30 - 45 clients, prospects and influencers and have built a reputation for hosting great events. They use regular email lists, blogs and inworld group notifications to alert members to new content and consider the experiment highly successful. Anders Gronstedt tells us that the group also use Second Life for all internal meetings, daily project meetings and about 1/3 of all client meetings.
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IBM
IBM's investment in virtual worlds is significant. They have thousands of employees using several virtual worlds technologies on a regular basis and are probably the most prominent player in the burgeoning virtual worlds industry besides Linden Lab. They are doing everything from building the next generation of green virtual data centers to running large scale internal conferences and championing virtual world interoperability.
Academy of Technology Conference
IBM's Academy of Technology is a 300
strong internal group within the organization where the membership defines the technical agenda. Typical activities focus on uncharted business opportunities. Don't miss the key data and survey results in this section, you'll find them enlightening. The Challenge Figure out how to hold two, multi-day meetings, each for 150-300 IBM employees from dozens of countries, without the need for anyone to travel. The Solution IBM ran a version of Second Life behind their own corporate firewall and hosted the events entirely virtually. Employees participated in many standard conference activities such as keynotes, breakout sessions and demos, poster sessions and networking opportunities, but also got to go hang gliding, jet skiing and dancing.
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The Benefits Participants from around the world networked and engaged with each other securely at an event that would never have happened in the physical world due to cost. One participant said: "Move over real life events. This is global, secure, fun, visual and green. What's not to like? Welcome to the future of events."
IBM estimates that they saved approximately $250,000 by taking the conscious decision not to hold the Virtual Worlds for Business conference (normally a 2.5 day in person meeting) physically this year, and more for the Annual General meeting (normally a 3 day event for 400 Academy members and affiliates). Karen Keeter, Marketing Exec with IBM's Digital Convergence group told us that all the event cost participants was time, and significantly less of that than had they traveled to a physical conference. Key data We spent some time talking with Karen Keeter, a marketing executive with IBM's Digital Convergence group about the two Academy of Technology (AOT) meetings -- the Virtual Worlds for Business (VWB) Conference and poster sessions for the Annual General Meeting (AGM) using Second Life hosted securely behind the IBM firewall. You can find some of the key points from that discussion below: • The AGM conference ran for 3 days with 120 poster sessions, social events and over 300 registered attendees from dozens of different countries participating virtually. • For the AGM, the virtual world component was just one piece of a larger event that incorporated video conferencing, SameTime sessions and recorded materials. • The VWB conference was all in world and ran for 3 days with over 150 registered attendees from 19 countries with 37 presentations, 'meet the experts' sessions and social activities. As a "low estimate", IBM says it would have cost around $1500 per person and $25,000 for a physical venue had they attempted to hold the VWB conference physically.
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• As well as cost savings, other significant efficiencies were gained. Rather than spend time flying to the conference and then being there for 3 or 4 days, attendees could login from the office or home when it suited them. This allowed for minimum disruption to regular work during the conference. • Engagement was high. The AGM ran for 3 days, with three sessions each day. The VWB conference ran for 4 hours in the morning, and 4 hours in the evening each day so that attendees from different time zones could attend, yet they came early and stayed late. • The last VWM physical meeting had attracted a mere 60 people, the majority from the east coast in the US where the meeting was held. The physical meetings have been getting smaller gradually over the years. The virtual conference saw well over a 100% gain in attendance. • During both events, people hung out in the virtual plaza and other social areas throughout the entire day. Where video conferences, conference calls and other such sessions ended, the virtual component was always there, and always full of engaged employees wanting to continue the fun. • As well as cost savings, other significant efficiencies were gained. Rather than spend time flying to the conference and then being there for 3 or 4 days, attendees could login from the office or home when it suited them. This allowed for minimum disruption to regular work during the conference.
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Survey results IBM surveyed participants of the Academy of Technology's Virtual Worlds for Business conference. Below you can see the results of 4 basic questions attendees were asked, and some thoughts on those figures at the end. How does the virtual VWB conference compare to face to face on the following 4 level? 1. Content: 96% said the same, or better 2. Presentation style: 85% said the same, or better 3. Learning: 78% said the same, or better 4. Networking: 62% said the same, or better Although Karen Keeter said she had expected networking to be around 10% saying "same or better" since most people prefer face to face, so she was surprised that the results were as high as 62%. She mentioned that because they could teleport from session to session they had allocated just 5 minutes between sessions at this conference. As it turned out though, participants wanted to hang around after the session and speak with the speaker and other virtual conference goers. Perhaps this number would have been higher if they'd allocated 30 minutes rather than 5.
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People
From top left to bottom right: • Craig Becker, Global Architect, 3D Internet & Virtual Business Lead architect/designer for the AoT Islands. • Joanne Martin, President, IBM Academy of Technology and IBM Distinguished Engineer. • Karen Keeter, Marketing Executive, IBM Digital Convergence lead the onboarding of attendees, training and volunteer greeters. • Larry O'Connell, Director, Technical Advisor Project Office - CoChair AoT Virtual Worlds for Business event. • Neil Katz, Distinguished Engineer and CTO, IBM Digital Convergence - Co-Chair AoT Virtual Worlds for Business event.
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vWorld for managers
vWorld for Managers was an experimental meeting and training session held in IBM's own virtual world "Metaverse". The following short case study was provided by Chris Bishop, Internal & Executive Communications at IBM. The Challenge To get managers from all over the world to align with a corporate strategy directive and incorporate it into their daily work. The Solution IBM ran a program called "vWorld for Managers" that used the company's internal virtual world Metaverse to stage meetings, and a virtual treasure hunt to teach these core strategic values and promote communication between 20 managers from around the world. The treasure hunt consisted of various "gurus" hidden around the virtual environment that would ask multiple choice questions of the participants, who in turn could discuss possible answers relating to their own geographic regions with each other. The Benefits IBM were able to provide their managers with a common experience without the need to travel that promoted communication between participants, taught core strategic values, and how to manage by those values.
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Key data We spent some time talking to Chris Bishop, Internal & Executive Communications at IBM, about vWorld for Managers. You can find some of the key points from that discussion below. • The objective was to get a widely dispersed group of IBM managers to align with a corporate strategy directive and incorporate it into their daily work. • Privacy was a major concern, so they held the event securely behind the corporate firewall on an internally developed virtual world based on the GarageGames Torque 3D engine. • The environment was much less flexible than Second Life, but the limitations of avatar adjustment, content creation and other things was viewed as a positive in this context. There were less distractions from the task at hand. • Each manager had to go through a small amount of training in the environment before they could participate. • After a regular style meeting, the participants were sent off on a virtual treasure hunt. They discovered gurus hidden behind waterfalls and in caves, etc., who would ask them multiple choice questions designed to teach core strategic values. • Participants were encouraged to discuss their answers with each other, and compare geographical and cultural differences in their answers. • Though there was no formal measurement of the success of the program, the general response was positive and the initiative thought to be successful.
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Pictures
Welcome plaza where people came when they first entered the AoT islands
An open social session at the AGM.
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There were 120 of these sky boxes for the individual poster sessions at the AMG.
One of the many training sessions, this one on servicing a server.
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Kelly Services
Kelly Services were the first major recruitment company to open operations in a virtual world. Like many of the other large corporate adopters they started out in Second Life by experimenting with ways to engage with the residents of the virtual world. They've hosted simulations, games and job fairs as well as conducted distance meetings with remote workers.
Connecting with home workers
One of the many employment initiatives Kelly Services run is a work at home program. These employees do not come into an office, but still need to connect with each other and team members at Kelly. The Challenge To connect with remote workers who will rarely if ever make it into a Kelly office. To foster a sense of community between employees and troubleshoot work issues and challenges without the benefit of a face to face meeting. The Solution Kelly Services used freely available virtual buildings to set up a meeting space on an island in Second Life where remote staff can login and meet with Kelly team members and each other. The picture to the right is of David Fenech, Kelly Services Vice President, eBusiness and Creative Services, who led a diverse team to take the company into Second Life. The Benefits Employees can login from their homes and talk through work related issues with Kelly managers and enjoy the company of others in similar remote positions. When we visited the Work Zone island recently it looked like they'd been having fun building snowmen also.
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Market Truths
Market Truths is a New Zealand based market research company who routinely use virtual worlds to eliminate distance from focus group meetings. They quickly became a well known name within the virtual worlds industry in early 2007 when media hype was at its peak by conducting a number of very interesting Second Life reports on a number of branding and consumer behavior topics. Market Truths continues to publish reports about Second Life, and to do proprietary research projects for clients interested in Second Life, but they have also started to use the virtual environment as a venue for conducting research for their more traditional projects as well. The Challenge To effectively compete for a large research project for a prominent New Zealand fast food company without having any experience in the sector. The Solution Market Truths tapped their Second Life research panel for members from all over New Zealand and conducted a series of interviews and polls in order to put together their proposal for the fast food project. The picture to the right is of Mary Ellen Gordon of Market Truths. The Benefits The client was impressed with the proposal Market Truths developed based on what they learned from the research they conducted in the virtual world, and with the initiative they took in doing that preliminary research. They won the project.
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RIMS
Risk Insurance Management Society is a not-for-profit organization boasting over 10,000 members whose annual conference and exhibition attracts between 10-15,000 risk management professionals. RIMS' were one of the first companies to hold a large scale professional conference in a virtual world.
RiskLive!
In November 2008, the RIMS RiskLive 3D Virtual Conference was hosted by NYSAE and sponsored by Higher Logic, Digitell and TMA Resources. Over 500 risk management professionals attended the immersive 3D conference over 2 days. This case study got broken down into several parts, don't miss them. They're to the right in the menu and below this summary page. The Challenge To reach RIMS members that cannot attend the annual live conference due to budget or geography. To provide those members with educational content and networking opportunities in a travel free, close to carbon neurtal environment where content can be repurposed and made available year round. The Solution RIMS held a 2 day virtual conference for 511 people with 15 sessions, 20 speakers and provision for exhibitors and networking opportunities in a branded version of Digitell's virtual conference center product.
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The Benefits RIMS CIO Andy Steggles believes that this is the next evolutionary step of the internet. RIMS were able to further their reputation for pushing at the boundaries of technology whilst remaining very close to carbon neutral on an event that many of the participants would not have been able to attend physically.60% of RIMS' annual revenue comes from their yearly physical conference. They almost broke even on this first virtual event and along with many other lessons learned, will be moving forward with RiskLive once more in 2009 in an effort to greatly expand their reach.
Key data
We spoke to Andy Steggles, RIMS CIO about the RiskLive conference and we attended the post conference presentation. Below are some miscellaneous but noteworthy facts about the virtual event. • 750 people registered for the free, 2 day virtual event. 511 people actually attended a session. • There were 15 sessions, 20 speakers and at one point 3 concurrent sessions with 1 - 3 speakers each. • Speakers were located in various places around the world, though the conference ran on Eastern Time. • RIMS has around 80 chapters. Most of them are in the US but some in Japan, Canada and Mexico also, many members find the annual physical conference difficult to attend. • Why didn't RIMS use a platform like Second Life? In a word, scalability. Second Life has a maximum usable capacity of around 50 avatars per region, meaning that even with 4 regions pushed together and the event held at the intersection, they still may have had capacity problems. • There was also the issue of control. Andy said that they have more control with their Active Worlds based platform so there is less likelyhood of random avatars flying naked overhead. This is not necessarily correct however, as with a few tweaks to region settings Second Life could be locked down just as much. • An even earlier decision was whether to go 2D or 3D. The consensus at RIMS was that a 2D environment is great for a webinar, but would not cut it for a fully immersive virtual conference.
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Benefits
Despite there being many challenges associated with running a successful virtual worlds event, RIMS are very positive about the future of virtual events as a result of their venture. Below you can find some of the more interesting observations CIO Andy Steggles made in his presentation after the event. Cost The Digitell convention center product costs around $25,000. Although RIMS made their event free for members, they still managed to almost break even and have high hopes for next years event now they are up and running. The cost to the membership itself is even more significant though. Nobody had to fly to this conference, let alone book a hotel room. Carbon Within the meetings industry, Corporate Social Responsibility and carbon neutral events are hot topics. The RiskLive event allowed RIMS to take what would have been a 180 ton C02 event and run it for the grand cost of 1 ton of C02. As Andy Steggles said in his presentation, you could offset that by planting a tree. Extended reach With such a heavy dependence on their annual physical conference (it accounts for 60% of their $13M annual revenue), it makes much sense for RIMS to be seeking ways in which to extend their reach. By hosting a virtul conference on a scalable, lightweight virtual worlds platform they are able to reach an audience that are unwilling or unable to attend the physical event. Through the repurposing of audio, video and 3D content they're able to further increase this reach. Repurposed content With a virtual event, RIMS are able to record sessions and repurpose them as on-demand lectures, podcasts or scheduled rebroadcasts within or without the virtual environment. Exhibitor stalls can remain standing, enabling visitors to come and download podcasts, white papers and video (though unless there are other people there, one could argue the 2D web is a better medium for this kind of content distribution).
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Repurposed venue Once an initial venue and associated systems are in place, the 3D space can be used for all manner of other purposes. An organization like RIMS could use their virtual convention center for individual chapter meetings in territories where attendees would still have to travel far to attend, board meetings and other kinds of events.
Challenges
RiskLive '08 was RIMS' first 3D virtual conference. As such, there were many lessons learned along the way. In a presentation on running a successful 3D event (full recording and slides here), RIMS CIO Andy Steggles talked about some of the main challenges. The key points from that discussion are listed below: 1. Sound By far the biggest issue was choppy audio and intermittent streaming of voice during the event. This was the single major complaint of attendees. Though both Digitell and Active Worlds (the platform the product is built on) say they are working on these issues, it's our experience that this is almost universal across virtual world platforms, and not by any means unique. 2. Software installation and firewall issues Although the Active Worlds team eventually came up with a fix, initially there were many complaints of not being able to access the platform due to corporate firewall rules. Installing any kind of software on a corporate desktop that IT have locked down can be problematic also. Both of these issues are also very common virtual worlds problems in general. 3. Training speakers Many of the RiskLive speakers were seasoned speakers and clearly didn't think that rehearsing was as important as RIMS did. They ignored calls and emails and were generally very hard to get inworld to run through the technology. Speaking at a virtual conference sounds very easy. In reality every single speaker needs the right equipment, a sound check and basic navigational skills at minimum.
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4. Exhibitors Exhibitors were hard to bring on board, even at a mere $500 a stall. They were unable to take a decision without some kind of precedent on which to base it, and as such RIMS managed to bring in just 20 exhibitors, some of which were given their stalls for free. 5. Time Running a virtual conference sounds easy, yet in interview Andy agreed that it was just as much work as any physical conference. RIMS vastly underestimated the amount of work that needed to go into pulling off a successful 3D event but were very pleased with the end results, as were the majority of attendees.
Survey results
RIMS surveyed the 511 attendees of the RiskLive '08 virtual conference and received 196 responses. Below are some of the more interesting answers. See CIO Andy Steggles' slides for the full results list. • 85% said their primary reason for registering was educational content. A mere 3% for networking. • 84% were able to install the software, 15% not. • 38% of attendees stayed for 1 - 3 hours, indicating that most participants came for just the one session and a look around the environment. 10% stayed between 4 and 7 hours, and 3% 8 hours or more. • 52% said yes, they achieved their objectives at RiskLive, 42% didn't. • Losing sound was cited as the most common difficulty next to navigation. • 47% said they were very likely to participate in RiskLive again, and 36% somewhat likely. • Provided the technology improves, 87% would like to see RIMS attempt something like this again.
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Pictures
On the exhibit hall floor at RiskLive!
View from the virtual stage at RiskLive!
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Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems were one of the first companies to move into Second Life along with Cisco, Dell, IBM and others in late 2006. They've been a consistent presence within the virtual world and have run numerous events aimed at engaging with developers and customers on their public islands. They've also run some innovative, large scale internal events in Second Life, and have been developing their own Java based virtual world, Wonderland.
Customer Engineering Conference
Sun's Customer Engineering Conference (CEC) has traditionally been held in Vegas, available to only senior engineers. It was thought that junior engineers would actually benefit from the content even more, yet they were unable to attend due to travel restrictions. When management cut the attendance of the event by half in 2008, it was time to start looking at alternatives. The Challenge To get CEC content to junior engineers unable to attend the physical conference, and open the entire event up to a wider audience. The Solution Sun ran a parallel CEC conference virtually in their Second Life venue. They streamed in just the keynote speeches from the physical conference via video, and developed exclusive content and presentations for the virtual participants. The picture to the right is of Debra Winters, Sun's Second Life project lead for this event.
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The Benefits Sun were able to transform an otherwise exclusive, expensive event into an inclusive inexpensive one open to a much wider audience of junior engineers who would benefit from the real learning experiences provided in a virtual setting. They were even able to get Hal Stern, Snr VP Systems Engineering to come in and do 2 full chat sessions exclusive to the virtual component of the 2008 CEC. Key data • The traditional physical event held in Vegas for senior engineers had it's attendance cut in half in 2008. • It was felt that junior engineers would benefit from CEC content more, so the challenge was to find a way to deliver that content that engaged participants well. • The organizers developed custom CEC content for the virtual event and simulated a physical conference with speakers, panels, learning and social activities. • As with previous events both speakers and audience had to be onboarded into the virtual world through a 30min to 1 hour training session.
Employee Connect Event
In January 2008 Sun announced their acquisition of MySQL, a popular open source database system. They decided to pilot their first large scale virtual event in Second Life to welcome MySQL employees to Sun. They managed to get buy-in from 14 senior Sun executives and the 14 hour event was deemed a success. The Challenge To connect with Sun and newly acquired MySQL employees through both Second Life and the web. To get the support and participation of senior Sun executives for the virtual conference.
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The Solution Sun used a huge theater spanning 4 regions in Second Life to accommodate the 300 inworld audience and speakers. They streamed the sessions live to the web for those unable to attend but linked the inworld audience with the web audience via a text chat bridge between Second Life and the web. The picture to the right is of Fiona Gallagher, who at the time was Sun's project lead in Second Life and the principle architect of the MySQL event. The Benefits Sun were able to run a 14 hour event featuring top executive presentations to a large inworld audience and larger web based audience all from a virtual conference venue. The event would have been impossible physically, and less engaging as a conference call or video feed.
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Key data • This was the first large scale virtual event Sun ran • They built a conference amphitheater than spanned 4 regions to maximize the amount of avatars that could be present at the virtual event. • The Second Life team spent a lot of time making it as easy as possible for key Sun executives to participate. They customized each of the 14 speakers avatars including hair, glasses, shapes and skin tones, even Hal Sterns favorite orange sneakers. • Second Life won't run on standard issue Sun corporate laptops due to fairly basic graphics cards in the machines and the very high system requirements of the platform. They decided to stream video of the presentations live to the web, something all computers can easily handle, for those that could not make the virtual show. • Each speaker and attendee was given 30mins to 1hr Second Life training in order to make the experience as friction free as possible. • Linden Lab (who make Second Life) staff were on hand throughout the conference to ensure there were no unforeseen technical difficulties. • In total about 300 people attended the inworld event, and a further 2000 viewed it from the web.
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IT Leadership Conference
The IT Leadership Conference was until recently an exclusive event for upper management only. Participants would fly to the Bay Area in San Francisco to attend. In 2008 Sun initiated a series of travel restrictions which led them to look at alternatives to the traditional conference setup. The Challenge To overcome travel restrictions and transform a hitherto exclusive conference into an accessible event available to all Sun employees. The Solution Sun decided to turn the IT Leadership conference into a "mixed reality" event, inviting physical and virtual participation across several mediums including live, virtual world and audio/video. They installed a 50" screen at the physical location where participants in the virtual venue could be seen by those in the physical, and merged audio, video and text feeds to connect the two audiences to the same event. Debra Winters was project lead once more. The Benefits Through the virtual component and recorded sessions (both live and virtual) Sun were able to make their event available to a much broader employee base than before without incurring additional travel costs. Key data • Historically the conference has only been available to upper managers willing to travel to the Bay Area to attend. • The mixed reality component was conceived after management announced that travel restrictions, further distancing the event from regular Sun employees. • By streaming video out from the virtual world to the physical event at the same time as streaming out from the physical event into the virtual, Sun produced what is known as a mixed reality virtual event. Technically it's not as complicated as it sounds but in practice it is prone to complication. • Both audiences were connected via voice, text and video.
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Pictures
Speakers on stage at the Employee Connect Conference
Mixed reality from the virtual side of the Customer Engineering Conference
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Vivox
Vivox provided virtual worlds like Second Life with integrated voice chat. Naturally what they do predisposes them toward a positive view on virtual meetings. They also have the security of knowing for a fact that their audio space is secure. The Challenge To conduct regular board meetings where board members are spread across several states within the US without losing unnecessary time or money. The Solution Vivox hold many of their board meetings securely within Second Life, a platform for which they also provide the core audio services. The Benefits Substantial cost savings in both time and money. Vivox's Monty Sharma tells us the company find their virtual meetings to be much more efficient as none of the attendees feels the need to get involved in anything they would usually not in order to justify taking a whole day out for a meeting.
Team members at Vivox at a daily briefing.
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Where To Now?
Thank you for downloading Virtual Worlds for Business. This print version of the book deliberately excludes a lot of information that just isnʼt well suited to the format. To access the full, continuously updated online version of this work go to http://cleverzebra.com/book You will always find the very latest case studies, data and reference material on virtual worlds and other immersive technologies in the online version of the book.
How to stay up to date
1. Go to http://cleverzebra.com/book for the most current version of this continuously updated book. 2. Join the email update list at http://cleverzebra.com/list. You will be notified of major updates to Virtual Worlds for Business, newly published reports, upcoming events and other significant news. Donʼt worry, itʼs a low volume list you can easily opt-out of any time. 3. If you prefer to get your updates via RSS, subscribe to the Clever Zebra blog at http://cleverzebra.com/rss.xml
About the author
Nick Wilson is the CEO of Clever Zebra, an emerging technologies consultancy focused on virtual worlds in the workplace. He is the author of Virtual Worlds for Business, the definitive guide to virtual worlds for meetings, training, and collaboration, and is a leading voice within the virtual worlds community. Prior to forming Clever Zebra, nick wrote about business use of virtual worlds extensively. He is a regular speaker on virtual worlds in the workplace and founder of vBusiness Expo, the only enterprise virtual worlds conference held entirely in a virtual world. • Follow Nick on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NickWilson • Email Nick at: nick@cleverzebra.com
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License
All of the pages within this book are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Follow the link for the exact details, but the gist is this: You can copy, distribute and make derivative works, but you canʼt use this book for anything commercial, and you must provide attribution.
Attribution
If you use all of part of this book under the license linked above, then please provide attribution in the form of a link to http://cleverzebra.com/book with the title “Virtual Worlds for Business”.
Thank you,
~Nick
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