Catherine Shinners

Virtual World Conference: The Intel User Community Case Study

A small gem at the Virtual World Conference last week was Paul Steinberg’s presentation of the genesis and launch of the Intel user community in Second Life. Humorous and helpful, Paul, of Intel's Software Solutions Group, readily shared the peaks and valleys of getting an online user community going in a virtual world.

Like all good online user communities it starts with a good vision, and as Paul articulated “What Intel should be doing is convincing the public that they are the real artists of society by going into details of what actually is involved in creating a new microprosscor, ….”

With executive blessing and a committed resource, the Intel project went through a couple of learning curves. The first was getting the right “look and feel” of the Second Life location. Initial design points from external designers ranged from something out of a 1950s Sci Fi flick, to a large confectionary concoction run amok.  But the once the clean and open space was designed, then the project was launched last spring, (two launches to ensure global time zone coverage).

Here’s some observations from Paul.

On the virtual locale: Focus on interaction and community, not cluttered look and feel.

Keep cool: Initial skepticism from some participants, voiced in the blogosphere, should be acknowledged but not over-reacted to. The community settles in pretty quickly. Especially if the mission of the community is clear and above board. 

Not just outreach, but in-reach: Once the project started, all sorts of internal Intel connections also emerged, creating a whole new network of people with new connections not formerly apparent through the usual forms of corporate communications. Internal participants were truly cross-functional not just engineers, but marketers, many of whom were already on Second Life or other virtual worlds that the Paul didn’t know existed.

Virtual Worlds are optimum for interaction and engagement. Don’t over develop content for a venue like Second Life.  Websites are good for that. The Intel venue is now hosting a calendar of regular events for the next quarter; at least 2-3 month. He also described a coding contest for customized bots that was very successful and turned into an all-day event.

Stay true to your community: In Intel's case it means reaching out to technical people on technical terms and not do marketing.  Some of the presentations Intel organizes are by noted technologists external to the company.

Keep the corporate PR people (politely) at bay. Dialogues in a user community will range from positive to negative, but it should be able to play out within the community without too much intervention.

In short, the Intel community Second Life presence has a clear mission, keeps its focus on a technical community, emphasizes interaction and engagement, and with Paul’s willingness to experiment and evaluate, evolves with the needs of the community, both internal and external to Intel. Cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting to Collaboration – Virtually and in 3D

3D applications and virtual worlds are moving dramatically into the enterprise and not just in the realm of e-learning.  Virtual worlds can enhance collaborative work inside the enterprise and deliver value to customers in the marketplace.

This week, I attended the Virtual Worlds Conference in San Jose, and  Wednesday’s  enterprise panel on “Applications That Work” , moderated by Linda Ban of IBM’s 3D Internet and Digital Convergence group, assured the audience that the enterprise virtual world was not synonymous with Second Life.  Business needs for virtual private worlds with security and access control were acknowledged.

There’s a tendency to use the terms virtual worlds and 3D applications interchangeably. 3D applications are often employed to do group exercises and practice (i.e., disaster and emergency responder scenarios, visually rich training experience on complex tools and instruments).

Virtual worlds are 3D, visually immersive collaborative environments, with strong elements of online social networks to foster interactivity and informal learning, and often in a way that is persistent and sustained beyond a vocational training session.

Virtual world communities of interest and interaction can be part of a spectrum of tools to enable distributed project management. Teams in a virtual world, meeting in a 3D project or situation room,  readily access  unified communications mechanisms (IM, VoiP, Chat), or and can integrate document and application sharing functions into the 3D experience.   

Proton Media’s initial core competency in e-learning has evolved to include, ProtoSphere, a 3D environment for project collaboration and informal learning.  A hosted or on-premise offering, depending on the customer’s preference, Protosphere’s live, virtual 3D world, also has social networking and collaborative tools such as blogs and wikis, simulation capabilities, VoIP and text chat.

VT&T’s capability wasn’t 3D, per se, but a 2D representation of a meeting room, with whiteboards and screens for application and document sharing, a “file cabinet” in the corner, that contained all the team’s project artifacts (documents, project plans). VT&T’s strength was in its robust integration with typical corporate communications and applications environments, making the  project room an easy extension of existing infrastructure

While Multiverse’ platform play is primarily focused on the online game and 3D Massively Multi-player Online Games (MMOG) it’s capability is readily used for non-game virtual worlds. Their customer, Accelerate was demonstrating a virtual employee “on-boarding” application where a new employee receives their initial orientation.

IBM had a strong presence at this conference, with a large booth, and presenting or moderating several panels.   According to Wayne Smith, a consulting specialist with the 3D group, IBM is very active in helping customers identify the right virtual world technology for use internally and for customer engagement.

 

*Second Life Brand Map

Wayne demonstrated the Deutsche Bank presence on Second Life, where DB engages their customers in visualizing some of their real-world goals and then develop a financial plan to realize those goals.  Deutsche Bank, according to Smith, has kiosks in their brick-and-mortar settings for customers to access the Second Life-delivered services.

It was a fascinating two days.  More observations and summary on the way.

 

 

Virtual Worlds Conference in San Jose

And Now for Something Completely Virtually Different

 

This week I will be attending the Virtual Worlds Conference in San Jose, reporting on the event and exhibits. Readers of my blog will know that I’ve been keenly interested the collaborative enterprise, which indeed, is the title of an important new book by Charles Heckscher of the Rutgers University,  Center for Workplace Transformation   (The Collaborative Enterprise: Managing Speed and Complexity in Knowledge-Based Businesses, Yale UP).  The collaborative enterprise, according to Heckscher, is an emerging organizational form, in an evolutionary line from the days of the guild and crafts association, through simple bureaucracy of the 19th century to 20th century paternalistic decentralized bureaucracy to the era of the emerging collaborative enterprise.

While my attention will be focused at conference on the Virtual Worlds for the Enterprise track, there's sessions on technology, business and strategy, community, and of course, entertainment and marketing. 

As Susan Wu has noted in a Worlds in Motion interview, “all social interaction online will be driven by game mechanics.”   Until recently the worlds of gaming and online collaboration have been moving relatively separate spheres. Susan’s work at Charles Rivers Ventures  focuses on finding the companies who are at the nexus of social networking and gaming.

Virtual World conference sessions focusing on the enterprise will explore the kinds of applications that work best for the enterprise, and platforms that are appropriate for enterprise use, evaluated along the BEST guidelines (Business, Economic Value, Social Interaction and Technology).

See you there.