New video: The “global” un-lecture event
By Erica Driver and Sam Driver.
Today ThinkBalm published a new ThinkBalm Innovation Community work product: a seven-minute video titled, “The ‘global’ un-lecture: a ThinkBalm Innovation Community event.” This video is a record of an un-lecture event held on November 6th, 2009 in the virtual world of Second Life. The un-lecture event format consists of four ten-minute presentations, demos, or tours about work-related use of immersive technologies, held in an immersive environment. The theme of the November 6th event was “global.”
This video describes presentations by:
- Dr. Yesha Sivan. Dr. Sivan is a senior lecturer at Shenkar College of Engineering and Design and founder of Metaverse Labs. Dr. Sivan shared insights into Immersive Internet adoption trends in Israel. Some of the barriers Israeli early adopters face are the same as those around the world: technology and perception. Other issues are specific to the region. Yet a handful of immersive technology efforts are under way in Israel and Metaverse Labs is hard at work on technology standards.
- Sid Banerjee. Sid Banerjee is CEO of Indusgeeks, a virtual world development and services company based in Mumbai. Sid gave insights into adoption trends in India. A point Sid wanted to express was that India is an excellent test bed for immersive projects. He made this point: “If you can sell Immersive Internet in India you can sell it anywhere!”
- Claus Nehmzow. Claus Nehmzow is managing director of ALCUS, in Hong Kong. Right now in Asia, the initial focus for immersive technology is on the consumer side, with a number of recreational public virtual worlds and games. Claus’s perspective is that businesses in Asia want to capitalize on the power of immersive technology but explorers are uncertain how to move forward.
- Barbara Westmoreland. Barbara Westmoreland is founder and CEO of nTeams. nTeams provides consulting to help companies develop more cohesive, unified teams. The heart of Barbara’s presentation was a short demo of a part of nTeams Island, which her organization uses to help teams work through issues around values. At the end of the un-lecture event, Barbara and her team gave a magic carpet ride tour around the rest of the facility.
About 25 people participated in this un-lecture event. Participants joined us from all over the US and from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. In one hour’s time, we learned about the potential opportunity for adoption of immersive technology in emerging markets in Asia and the Middle East, as well as barriers to entry. We got a first-hand glimpse of the way immersive technology can transform how global teams work together. And we formed new or reinforced existing connections with other innovators and early adopters. If you’re interested in attending future ThinkBalm Innovation Community events, send us a request to join the community via our LinkedIn group.
© 2009 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.
When is Second Life Enterprise beta right for you?
by Erica Driver and Sam Driver.
[Edited Monday, November 9th, 2009 for content -- correction and clarification of pricing model and definition of Web-based solutions]
On November 4th, Linden Lab announced that its behind-the-firewall immersive platform, Second Life Enterprise, is now in open beta. Think of SL Enterprise (formerly code-named “Nebraska”) as a micro-Second Life — except it runs on a hardware appliance that resides inside your organization’s data center, is integrated with your enterprise directory, and has been designed to be used for work. The beta version features a Web-based administration interface, professional-looking avatars, various meeting and collaboration spaces, and a couple of basic collaboration tools. Linden Lab also announced that in the first half of 2010 a Second Life Work Marketplace will become available, where customers can buy third-party tools, applications, and content to use with SL Enterprise. Fourteen organizations are currently participating in the SL Enterprise beta program including IBM, Northrop Grumman, Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and Case Western Reserve University.
ThinkBalm recommendations
We’re chin-deep in market analysis and vendor recommendations for client projects and a report we’re working on due out later in the year, tentatively titled, “The Enterprise Immersive Technology Decision-Making Guide.” In light of the fact that prospective SL Enterprise customers have nearly two dozen alternatives they could choose from (see a partial list here), here are some recommendations to put the SL Enterprise announcement in context:
Q: When should SL Enterprise be on my product short list?
A: The more of the following are true, the more likely it is that we’d recommend SL Enterprise to be on your shortlist. Your organization requires:
- The ability to create and modify, at reasonable cost, custom immersive experiences like learning simulations, team-building scenarios, games, data visualization, and process design
- The ability to create from scratch, and possibly animate, virtual replicas of your organization’s buildings, products, or other assets for acculturation, training, or prototyping purposes — without a seven-figure budget and legions of consultants
- A solution that enables you to leverage existing Second Life building and scripting skills, and existing Second Life digital assets your organization already owns
- The ability to hold company events during which 300-400 avatars can be in the same virtual space at the same time (such as for a keynote address)
- Built-in, spatialized voice over IP
- Built-in social networking (the ability to “friend” people, peruse users’ profiles, create groups, etc.)
- Privacy for all content, data, and communication taking place in the immersive environment
- Integration with the enterprise directory for access control and identity management
- Access to a wide range of third-party content, tools, and applications (eventually, as the Second Life Work Marketplace launches and gains momentum).
And you have $55,000 to spend one time front on the appliance and software license for 100 avatars, on the license fee every year, just to keep the appliance up and running, plus an annual recurring fee based on the number of users licensed (starting at $175/user with discounts based on volume), plus a per-user cost once you have more than 100 named users, plus any third-party applications or content and third-party custom development costs.
Q: In what circumstances might an alternative product be more suitable?
A: The more of the following are true, the higher the chances that an alternative offering might be a better fit. Your organization requires:
- The ability to reuse a portfolio of existing 3D assets, like computer-aided design (CAD) models, in the immersive environment
- Direct access from the immersive environment to the diverse community that exists in public virtual worlds
- A very low-cost solution
- A solution that does not depend on IT involvement
- A full-fledged set of business applications for meetings, learning and training, and other use cases, right out of the box
- Easy-to-use, fully-functional document-oriented collaboration tools (e.g., drag-and-drop sharing, collaborative editing, and integration with enterprise document repositories)
- A Web-based solution A solution that runs in a Web browser
- Hyper-realistic graphics
- A product that has been generally available for a couple of years.
© 2009 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.
Club One explores immersive tech for delivering training
by Erica Driver.
I first met Celeste DeVaneaux, senior IT manager with Club One, Inc., in September at the 3DTLC conference in San Jose. Over drinks at a Linden Lab cocktail party, she told me about Club One’s experiments with immersive technology. Club One’s story piqued my interest because their innovations in the realm of fitness-related habit-changing are applicable to corporate learning and development efforts. In both cases, a trainer or coach is trying to change the behavior of the learner. In Club One’s case the learner is a member of the fitness club. In more common enterprise scenarios, the learner may be an executive, new hire, or employee learning a new process or learning to use a new piece of equipment. So in mid-October I followed up with a more formal interview with DeVaneaux, who is the creative director on the project, responsible for the vision, design, and direction of Club One’s products in this area.
Company and program background
Club One is a fitness club network with 18 branded clubs in California and more than 60 corporate worksite health and fitness sites and community centers across the country. Employees are located in 90 sites around the country. The company has more than 140,000 members. One challenge the company faces is helping its members break habits that negatively affect their health.
To address this, the company offers a 42-day program called Habit Changer. The Habit Changer is a system for changing habits, using gentle reminders and daily challenges delivered through email, text, and the web for 42 days. It exposes the habits people have learned, helping make them aware of what they’re doing now and what they might want to do differently. Each daily challenge gets the participant to look at the decisions they make in their life from a new perspective, and provides them with the means to act in a different way.
A multi-phase approach to immersive technology
Club One’s work with immersive technology has been a multi-phase effort:
- Working with partner 2b3d to build a replica of a Club One fitness center in Second Life, to be used for sales and marketing
- Scripting animations and interactivity into the environment, and building custom avatars. With these, visitors can interact with objects like treadmills, yoga mats, and a swimming pool (see a video on YouTube — link is below).
- (Current phase) Creating a weight loss program to be delivered virtually by redesigning and incorporating Club One’s nutrition, exercise and Habit Changer programs and including a support group element to be delivered to distributed, remote participants
- (Future potential) Training the company’s 3,000 to 5,000 employees on everything from teaching exercise form to using equipment correctly to delivering personal training
Early lessons learned
Club One will be launching a pilot in January, during which three test groups of twenty people each will go through a 12-week program during which they will meet four times a week with nutritionists, exercise physiologists, and facilitators. Social interaction among the program’s participants, as well as learning through identification with one’s avatar, and concepts related to neuroplasticity, will be key focal points. The company is looking for a way to collect participants’ bio data (via scanning, measuring, or photos) and upload that data to generate an avatar that looks similar to the participant. Celeste DeVaneaux offers a few golden nuggets, based on her experiences so far:
- Talk short timeframes and small wins. “Virtual world concepts are difficult for most people to understand so it helped to talk in terms of one phase at a time, DeVaneaux said. “If I had tried to sell my entire vision early on, they would have never bought it.” She presented one phase of her project at a time to decision makers while ensuring that each stage of the design would support possible future endeavors.
- Choose your language carefully. As DeVaneaux talks about the work she is doing, she steers clear of words like “real” vs. “virtual.” She uses the term “carbon-based” or physical instead of “real,” and “digital” instead of “virtual.” She steers clear of the term “virtual” as much as possible because it has many meanings, especially for people in IT. Instead, she simply refers to the virtual Club One as “Club One Island.” (See the related Sept. 28th, 2009 ThinkBalm blog post “To cross the chasm, we must close the language gap,” and the Sept. 23rd, 2009 report Crossing the Chasm, One Implementation at a Time.)
- Look for creative ways to justify the investment. The company was considering having a physical 3D model built as a sales tool to be used during conversations with commercial real estate developers. To build Club One Island it cost about half of what it would have cost to build the physical 3D model. On top of that, Club One Island is interactive, collaborative, and can be used for many purposes. DeVaneaux found that what really grabbed the attention of the budget-holders at Club One was the possibilities for delivery of new services — and, potentially, new revenues.
© 2009 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.
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