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Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum Blog
Summary of roundtable: virtual worlds and organisations
The dominant themes of the discussion were:
- for a growing section of society, technology like virtual worlds are second nature - there's now a generation that's grown up with such options
- some interesting comparisons were made with text-based worlds like LamdaMOO which were the first to create some of the societal issues that graphical virtual worlds are now experiencing (addiction, personal boundaries and identity to name three)
- the question was asked: why did IBM lead the way with virtual worlds? Suggested reasons included the need for staff retention, the size of the organisation, the motivation of consulting clients toward virtual worlds and just generally to be at the forefront.
- finally, there was discussion around the challenges of building a business case for expansion into virtual worlds, with some broad themes suggested to achieve that.
Congrats on a great day!
My understanding re IBM's leap into SecondLife is that it was a decision led out of Mike Rohdin's Lotus Software team to position IBM as a leader/experimenter in web 2.0 ... to distance itself from the 'traditional IT' thinking of some of its competitors. Hence IBM's strong support for open source (OpenOffice -> Lotus Symphony) and Lotus Connections etc. etc.
My own sense at the moment is that 3D virtual worlds are really just a very niche thing, and don't actually add much to the 2D equivalent ... in fact they are just less accessable and more confusing. Maybe they have some entertainment value for some people, but they are just a quirky and experimental niche of the internet.
Hi Steve,
I'd agree virtual worlds are a niche but with will over 17 million active subscribers to virtual worlds ( http://www.mmogchart.com/charts/ ) it's far from a small niche.
I'd disagree however with the assertion that virtual worlds don't add much to the 2D equivalent. Depending on the business activity, the immersive aspect of virtual worlds has a lot to offer...