london

I have got the presentation Paul Jackson from Forrester research held on the Virtual Worlds Forum last week in London.

It's good summarization of categorization and users in virtual worlds.

short summary of the presentation someone from  riversrunred made:

• creating collaboration,
• design your communication environment
• think as vw as networks --> this is the added value
• go in slowly, understand it, casy study yourself
• control your brand

I just had an interesting session about the integration of mobile devices in virtual worlds.

Have a look at vodafone in SL. There you can take a mobile and phone and send SMS into real world and vice versa.

ironstar from Helsinki created MoiPal, something like a tamagocchi for playing in virtual worlds. Target group are kids.

Nice idea

conclusion first day:

virtual worlds will change our way of communication and work

• virtual worlds are mainly used for social interaction
• need of interfaces, standards to integrate business applications, secure payment systems and mobile devices
• universal avatars would be great
• tendency to closed worlds for communication networks in companies, open source solutions are preferred
• additional marketing tool for companies
• people use their avatars as a toy
• an avatar is always a substitute of the real human being behind and shows - wanted or not - wishes and unconscious behaviour

All in all a confirmation what I already know, but not to bad.

social impacts:
social networking, flatter hierarchies, self organized critically

--> changing the structure of work, changes roles
--> use of virtual spaces and social communities
--> are we able to do use these tools?

politic-economic impacts:
globalisation
global law and economy vs. national law and economy

--> global communities

technological impacts:

--> immersive worlds
--> easy accessability and interoperability

virtual worlds are an additional tool for education and vocational training:
cross agencies trainings, in-world simulations are gesteuert bei real people = create real experience -->

augemented reality / immersive worlds
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/eli_outcomes.htm

so less time:

http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/info/categories.shtml

In between we have a discussion about different virtual worlds and how they change our behaviour, social interaction and work.

I am just arrived and Steve Prentice is talking about the topic above.

His points to think about before start an investment:

• Do not go in because everyone else is doing that
• a lot of closed vw, especially in US are big social networks, with strict rules, cooperation projects, meeting points - this is immersive in ususal TV behaviour
• have a clear plan how to use this media
• be aware of the type of participants
• play the game to get in contact with participants
• integrate the vw into your marketing tools
• to whom belongs the things you create in vw
• who controlls the data?

It's a long haul!

It's all about community and collaboration -build your own intranet!

Look for open source solution to do that.

I am going to attend the Virtual Worlds Forum for the next two days.

Tomorrow, on the workshop day I hope to get an overview about what enterprises can do in virtual worlds (conferences, access, tools, security issues, access controlling,...) even though I know a bit of all from our own projects in Second life. The real conference starts on Wednesday where I am especially interested in to get some information about further development of interfaces for business applications, SSL including, transferable avatars,...

I'll blog about during the days, free WLAN is available

Day 2 included various presentations from:

Fiona Gallagher (Fiona May) - Sun Microsystems - Creating Your Business Case For A Virtual Platform

• You have to be and live in Second Life to be able understand what it is, to follow its changes and to engage with your customers.

Karl Peterson (Nex Canning) - The Swedish Institute - Creating The Second House Of Sweden: Lessons Learned While Breaking Virtual Ground

• This project, SL Swedish embassy, succeeded to actually "include" the Swedish foreign minister. The Electric Sheep company built the presence.

• Concerts are held, art galleries put together, typical Swedish food and recipes are available and, the one minor (playful) thing that I thought was simply cool: The Geoglobe = a virtual globe that your avatar can enter to see all the different Swedish embassies and institutes around the world.

• Second Life is rather experience-based than information-based. Hence, create events that contribute to the community.

Popke Rein Munniksma (Pop Upshaw) - ABN AMRO - Leading The Way: Financial Services In A Virtual World

• What business in SL need is Consumer/Customer interaction
• Blend all communication tools in SL (web, face2face, phone)
• formal meets informal - RL presentations vs. virtual ones ► it is not as important anymore than simply retaining consumers and interacting with them

Richard Wallis (Ajax Escape) - Talis - Riding The Second Life Wave: Why It Is Not “Jumping On The Bandwagon” To Be On the Second Life world

• Predicting that the user interface for web, virtual worlds etc. will look something like Minority Report. The iPhone with its multi-touch screen is already going in the right direction.

Mary Ellen Gordon (Pebbles Hannya) - Market Truth - Developing The Right Business Model To Suit Your Real World Priorities

• Market Truth is a marketing research company focusing on SL
• SL is global, relaxed, you get a visual feedback from the avatar behaviour ► get (much) more feedback on a product/service than in RL
• People (avatars) still prefer communication via text rather than using voice ► keep it anonymously as possible

Matteo Penzo (Matteo Quadrifoglio) - Gabetti Property Solutions - How To Run Your Business Through The Second Life World

• A large real estate agency in Italy, trying to get customers to look at offerings in-world rather than travelling to location.
• Also uses SL presence for recruitment.

Claus Nemzhow (German Guru) - PA Consulting Group - Creating An Immersive Marketing Experience And Employing Virtual Residents In Real World Company Matters

• Started with employing an avatar as a greeter ► now employed full-time at PA Consulting Group
• Pay a fair amount to SL employees (ie: greeter = 350L$/hr)
• Use of space to enhance user experience ► make it a "fun" environment

Jeff Barr (Jeffronius Batra) - Amazon.com - How To Design Your Island: Making The Right Decisions From Your Business Plan

Jules Vos (Doeko Cassidy) - Second Life News Network; David Thorp - The Chartered Institute of Marketing; Pauline Randall (Liz Ferlinghetti) - Elmwood College Fife - Panel Discussion: Connecting The Two Worlds: Turning Virtual Product Interest Into Real World Product Revenue

David Naylor (Solomon Cortes) - Field Fisher Waterhouse - A Legal Survival Guide For Second Life Businesses

• A summary of legal issues
• Do I need to pay taxes when trading?
• Do I need a contract with employees?
• What about Intellectual Property Rights?

Paul Steinberg (Peretz Stine) - Intel Software and Solutions Group - Creating A User Community In The Second Life World For The Next Generation Of Professionals

• A presentation about wrong and right-doings of Intel's SL team
• SL recruitment services, conferences, meetings, talk shows, events

Scott Robinson (Gulumbit Grut) - Alcatel-Lucent - How Innovative Brands Are Driving Traffic To Their Virtual World Presence

• Alcatel-Lucent are the official New Media Provider of the 32nd America’s Cup ► Creation of Port AmericasCupAnywhere (sailing competitions in SL)
• As has been reminded several times during the conference: SL residents want to have an experience and businesses are most successful when creating something for the community.

I wrote last Thursday, that I would write a summary of the
Achieving Real Business Growth Through Second Life® conference. And finally, I am getting to it and I hope it is not to late to write down my impressions for the last week's conference.

Day 1 of the conference was, in fact, a workshop about Second Life: What it is, what people are using it for and how it can add value to your business.

The day started with introducing people, that haven't had any encounter with Second Life, to the virtual 3-D world. The second session was all about Second Life Business (Land sales & rentals, builders & scripters, shops and services). Different examples were shown to give an idea what can be done and also how the process of selling and buying works.
The two afternoon sessions were pretty much about management and marketing decisions a business has to take when entering the virtual world, i.e. brand building, the virtual office - how to design it, ongoing development of the business. The latter is one of the most important points when going in-world. Many companies build a presence (just to be there) and do not continue engaging with the Second Life environment and its residents. Consequently, success is very limited.

Though having known pretty much everything that was presented and discussed during the workshop, I thought it was a good summary of Second Life, that put the clutter into order.

Here some points, that I find worth bearing in mind:

• Code of conduct for the company representatives in SL → business-oriented behaviour should be respected
• There is a change of tolerance towards behaviour in SL versus RL. People can look and do almost anything they want!
• Considering the entrance into SL

What would the residents want to see? (as opposed to simply creating a presence because everyone else is)

Why should consumers/customers stay or come back? It is THE question in business. So why not ask yourself this in SL?

• Mass marketing is always effective to create brand awareness. Give something away that consumers can use, be creative with or can even earn L$ with.
• Product testing and marketing research → use SL groups as focus groups