IBM Lotus approach to Immersive Internet: partnering and professional services

by Erica Driver.

IBM Research is a big proponent of the Immersive Internet, especially in the Digital Convergence business unit. But what about the IBM Software group – in particular, Lotus, which produces IBM’s enterprise collaboration software products? ThinkBalm’s theory about the enterprise immersive platforms market is that ultimately software companies that provide information worker infrastructure (like IBM) will deliver an immersion  layer that integrates with existing communication, collaboration, and content systems (see Figure). In search of validation (or invalidation, as the case may be) of this theory, this week I attended IBM’s Lotusphere conference in Orlando with one primary question in mind: Where does the Lotus group stand with regard to the emerging Immersive Internet market?

Searching for insights, I met with director of Lotus strategy Doug Heintzman, Lotus new business development executive Gopal Gupta, IBM Digital Convergence business unit marketing executive Karen Keeter, and others. I stopped by the innovation lab for a demo of Sametime 3D (see YouTube video below), which features collaboration spaces built in OpenSim and integrated with Lotus Sametime. In the innovation lab I also saw a demo of Olympus, a 2D Web overlay technology to add simple avatars to Web sites (in particular, Web conferences) in a similar vein to ROCKETON or Weblin. I wandered the show floor and visited Forterra Systems in their booth for a demo of the latest version of OLIVE and OLIVE integration with Lotus Sametime.

My takeaways after a couple of intense days at Lotusphere:

• Lotus is focusing on partnerships with third-party ISVs. Lotus is in the process of opening up APIs to products like Lotus Sametime so partners can integrate their products with IBM’s. The Lotus executive team is closely watching customer implementations of partner products like the Forterra OLIVE . Joint customers are just now beginning to drive adoption of each others’ products. Early indications are that IBM will initially evolve toward delivering an immersion layer via a partner ecosystem — though ThinkBalm’s take is that eventually (in 5-7 years) many aspects of immersive technology will go the same route as collaboration services (e.g., presence, instant messaging, calendaring, email, etc.) and find their way into an enterprise platform offered by large vendors like IBM.
• Lotus is keeping an eye on IBM Research developments.  In September of 2008, IBM Research announced that it was doing work to integate OpenSim with Sametime in a project code-named “Sametime 3D.” Sametime 3D includes collaboration spaces for meetings, brainstorming sessions, and presentations. Sametime 3D does a good job of using 3D technology to do things that can’t be done using flat 2D technology – like brainstorming and then prioritizing ideas collaboratively. This week at Lotusphere, IBM made public that  IBM Lotus and IBM Research are now offering an expanded version of Sametime 3D to customers that want to run Immersive Internet pilots, with plans to announce an IBM Software Service for Lotus (ISSL) offering later this quarter. Until this time, IBM’s Sametime 3D pilots had been internal-only.

IBM as a whole is taking groundbreaking steps with the Immersive Internet. And ThinkBalm expects that eventually large IT providers like IBM will offer an immersion layer that integrates with enterprise systems. (For more on this see the Aug. 13, 2008 ThinkBalm article, Information work is going immersive.) But this is a long-term vision. Don’t expect Lotus to develop an enterprise immersive platform on its own during the next 2-3 years. Instead, Lotus will expand relationships with Immersive Internet ISVs with which it partners, and work with those partners to integrate the immersive technology ever more deeply with products in the Lotus communication and collaboration portfolio. As the business value of the Immersive Internet in the enterprise becomes clearer and more widely understood over time, IBM will be right there in good position to capitalize on the growing opportunity.

© 2009 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.

Lenovo pilots Nortel web.alive for innovation in customer experience

by Erica Driver and Sam Driver.

Nortel web.alive is an enterprise immersive platform currently in beta (general availability release date not yet announced). Nortel is targeting three use cases in large enterprises: enterprise collaboration, eLearning, and what it calls “assisted community eCommerce.” The company recently announced that PC manufacturer Lenovo is doing a web.alive pilot to support the sales process (see figure). 

While ThinkBalm’s focus is on enterprise use of the Immersive Internet, rather than B2C use cases like Lenovo’s, we think this announcement is an important one because:

• Web.alive marks the entry of a big vendor into this emerging software market. The future of Nortel is in question as the company files for bankruptcy protection. But this doesn’t diminish the significance of a multi-billion dollar IT and telecom vendor entering the Immersive Internet platforms market with a commercial product. (For analysis on this market see the Nov. 17, 2008 ThinkBalm report, The Immersive Internet: Make Tactical Moves Today For Strategic Advantage Tomorrow.) Web.alive, formerly code-named Project Chainsaw (still the name used for Nortel’s internal implementation of the software), is an enterprise immersive platform that runs in a Web browser as a thin client plug-in. It provides highly rendered, realistic visuals and positional audio. Under the covers, Nortel is using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. Rather than provide lots of built-in business collaboration tools for things like document collaboration and brainstorming, customers or system integrators could integrate web.alive with Web-based tools and arrange them in the browser alongside web.alive. An important set of features for enterprise immersive platforms, web.alive can run behind the firewall and provides integration with enterprise directories for security and identity management. Web.alive can be integrated with other systems, as well, like CRM; Nortel says that anything you can do in web.alive can be called via JavaScript. Some functionality — like avatar selection and configuration — is Flash-based.
• Brand new Lenovo eLounge pilot already exceeds the company’s expectations. Lenovo eLounge is an immersive environment in which sales professionals interact in real-time, in 3D, with customers and prospects. On January 13th, 2009 we spoke with Ajit Sivadasan, Lenovo’s VP and GM of global eCommerce, about the business rationale behind this pilot. Lenovo’s investment in web.alive was driven by the need to reinforce its brand promise: innovation and exceptionally engineered PCs. To decide where to focus its initial Immersive Internet foray, Sivadasan looked for complex issues that are difficult to address with the flat 2D Web. He selected a narrow scope and objective for the initial pilot: improving the experience for customers who are browsing for information about notebook computers. So far, thousands of people have been through the Lenovo eLounge experience and enough of these are legitimate sales leads that Sivadasan considers the experiment a success already.

We think this is just the beginning

What’s next step for Lenovo? The company is planning to train 15% to 20% of its sales force to be able to interact with customers and prospects via Lenovo eLounge. The end goal: a higher conversion rate and, ultimately, increased sales. Lenovo’s Ajit Sivadasan said that the typical conversion rate for phone-based sales is 25-30%, meaning that about one out of every three people who call buys something. He suspects that the conversion rate for Lenovo eLounge will be higher than this and could even reach 40-50%. This is purely speculation on our part, but given the quick early success Lenovo is seeing with Lenovo eLounge, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the company start using the technology in additional ways — like internal training (especially for sales people using the environment to interact with customers) and customer training and support.

© 2009 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.

 

ThinkBalm Storytelling Series Issue #2: "End Death-By-Lecture: Tours, Not Speeches"

by Erica Driver and Sam Driver.

The ThinkBalm Innovation Community has been experimenting with a new form of immersive event: the “un-lecture.” An un-lecture is a 60- to 90-minute event during which four or five community members each deliver a 10-minute demo, tour, or presentation about something enterprise Immersive Internet-related that they have done or are working on. The purpose of the community’s new un-lecture event series is to spread the wealth of knowledge and experience that exists in the community, strengthen bonds among members, create opportunities for serendipitous interactions, and collectively master how to move beyond traditional, often unexciting presentations to deliver high-value interactive experiences. Participants can move their avatars around in 3D space and interact with environments and objects. They can talk with the presenter and each other via voice, group text chat, or private text chat. In our view, participants in an un-lecture event walk away with an experience, not just a few bullet points and a set of printed-out PowerPoint slides.

On December 1, 2008 the ThinkBalm Innovation Community held its first un-lecture event. We structured the event as a four-stop tour that included: 

• A presentation by Claus Nehmzow, entrepreneur and advisor with Alcus International Ltd., on CIGNA’s use of Second Life for healthcare education
• A hands-on demo of Jeff Lowe’s 3D mindmapping tool project — Jeff Lowe is a project manager at University of Oklahoma Center for Public Management
• A presentation on the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI)’s use of Second Life for marketing and R&D by John Kinsella, VP in charge of educational curricula and products at PADI
• A tour of Michelin’s island for training IT pros on enterprise architecture concepts by Philippe Barreaud, chief enterprise architect at Michelin

With the help of six ThinkBalm Innovation Community members who attended our first un-lecture event — Barbara Schwarz, Claus Nehmzow, Eilif Trondsen, Jeff Lowe, Leslie Pagel, and Santi Garcia — we wrote ThinkBalm’s second issue in the Immersive Internet Storytelling Series, titled “End Death-By-Lecture: Tours, Not Speeches.” For a PDF of the article click this link or click the image of the article’s cover above.

© 2009 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.

Here's a way to communicate "I'm busy" in immersive environments

By Erica Driver.

Early today I published an article about a recent lightbulb moment: you’ve got to stay logged into the immersive environment where your tribe hangs out to get those serendipitous interactions that usually only occur when people are physically together in the same place. (See the ThinkBalm article, Lightbulb moment: for serendipity, stay logged into the immersive environment.) What I didn’t write about in that article is one of the challenges of staying logged in indefinitely: just because you’re logged in it doesn’t mean you’re available to converse with others.

In the physical world, you can be in the office and close your door when you don’t want to be disturbed. People can look through the window to see that you are meeting with someone or on the phone or knee-deep in paperwork. You can let phone calls go into voice mail. You can turn on your “out of office” message if you think it will be a while before you’ll be responding to email messages. But in an immersive environment, there is no standard protocol for letting others know you’re “sort of there” — you’re there but not available. The most common indicator is the head-down / arms-hung “AFK” pose that avatars take in Second Life and OpenSim when the user hasn’t touched the keyboard or mouse for a while.

So I took a shot at it. In the ThinkBalm Innovation Community space on ReactionGrid, an OpenSim grid, I created a simple space that serves as the immersive equivalent of a combined closed office door, voice mail box, and out of office message (see figure below). When I am logged into ReactionGrid but busy or away from my desk I’m going to try putting my avatar in this designated location, which is centrally located and easy to see. Partial walls are translucent so people can see that my avatar is in there. A sign outside says, “Hi! If you see Erica Driver’s avatar sitting here it means I’m on the phone or in a meeting. You can leave me a public text-based message by clicking here.” The visitor can click on the sign to go an EtherPad I set up on the Web. There they can leave me a text-based note, similarly to the way one might write a note on a whiteboard attached to an office or dorm room door. The EtherPad also contains my email address in case visitors don’t want to leave a publicly-displayed message.

 
 

I am at the beginning of a one- or two-week experiment to stay logged into this immersive environment whenever I am at my computer in an effort to strengthen my relationships with ThinkBalm Innovation Community members and learn some new things about using this emerging technology in the work context. Things I’m wondering about right now:

• There are so many technology options. I use various immersive environments for ThinkBalm Innovation Community activities and my work with ThinkBalm clients — not just ReactionGrid. And ReactionGrid is not the only place ThinkBalm Innovation Community members “pop in” — many also pop into Second Life. What is the impact of this fragmented market on my ability to benefit from serendipitous interactions with the people who matter most to me, or who I’d like to get to know better?
• Managing another form of presence info might be tedious. Will it become too onerous to remember to move my avatar to my “I’m busy” spot when I’m no available? Given how hard it is to remember to set instant messaging presence information to “away” or “do not disturb,” or to turn or off email out of office messages, I suspect the answer might be yes.
• Will I get enough value out of these unplanned interactions? Will the effort be worthwhile? I suspect the answer is yes, but don’t have evidence for that yet. We’ll see how it goes! I’ll write again about this experiment during the next couple of weeks. Do check back.

© 2009 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.

Lightbulb moment: for serendipity, stay logged into the immersive environment

By Erica Driver.

Yesterday I kicked off a little experiment and it ended up being an extraordinary day: for the first time I experienced what it really means to have a virtual office where associates stop by and unplanned interactions occur. It’s no small thing. Nearly a year ago when I was an analyst with Forrester Research I wrote a blog post about the potential for virtual offices to bring serendipitous interactions back into the lives of geographically distributed workers. Yesterday I experienced it myself for the first time. It was one of those light bulb moments.

In an effort to strengthen my bonds with members of the ThinkBalm Innovation Community and to identify presenters for an upcoming community event, I wanted to talk in real-time with community members who also wanted a moment of connection. I didn’t want to schedule a meeting or send out an email or make a post on the community’s Web site. I didn’t want to look people up on Skype and engage them in a text chat. I wanted the feeling of bumping into folks and seeing what they are up to.

So I logged into the ThinkBalm Innovation Community’s region on ReactionGrid, an OpenSim grid. I kept my Hippo OpenSim Viewer up and running on a second monitor that sits on my desk just above the height of my laptop display (see figure below). This dual display setup allowed me to get my regular work done — writing, phone calls, emailing, scheduling meetings, Twittering, interacting with the ThinkBalm Innovation Community on our Spigit site, etc. — and at the same time be available if anyone wanted to stop by my “virtual office.” I sent out a tweet to my Twitter network saying, “Trying experiment to build bonds with ThinkBalm Innovation Community members: staying logged into ReactionGrid whenever I can. Drop by!”

 
 

And drop by they did! Throughout the course of the day, a half dozen or so ThinkBalm Innovation Community members dropped by. I made plans with one associate to review his slide deck later in the week. I helped a couple of newbies get out of their default OpenSim avatars (all female and all very weird-looking) and into some decent-looking freebie clothing and hair. I gave a tour of the ThinkBalm Innovation Community sim and talked about the community’s philosophy and activities. I chatted with one new community member about his transition from education to the private sector and about some of his experiences with the Immersive Internet thus far.

As the work day drew to a close, I had the feeling you get when you know you are looking at something great. I just got a glimpse into the future of work. Give it just a few years, and entire companies will have immersive environments. Departments and teams will have their own virtual offices and labs. People will stop by others’ workspaces to ask a question, prod a project along, share a design or plan, or just see what’s going on. By staying logged into the immersive environment, geography can become far less important than it is today. People who are affiliated by the work they do or their place of employment will be able to find each other and interact in ways that just aren’t possible without the Immersive Internet.

© 2009 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.