The Use of Virtual Worlds for Sales and Innovation.
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Transcript of The Use of Virtual Worlds for Sales and Innovation.
: A CASE STUDY
The Use of Virtual Worlds for Sales and Innovation
IBM as a Leader in Virtual Worlds Over 230 employees working in-world 6 islands (Private & Public) $10 million spent on virtual worlds in 2007 alone Expansion in both Second Life and its own 3D intranet Eyes v-Business as an evolution of e-Business
IBM as a leader in Virtual Worlds IBM Business Center
Sales/client avatar interaction○ Contract signings, payments
IBM sales representatives staff a virtual center
Multi-lingual capabilities ○ (English, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Italian, and French,
planned Asian languages expansion)
Technical Support Library available to visitors○ Product guides & IT research publication Systems
Journal
Virtual Green Data Center
System energy-efficiency demonstrations IBM server & storage
systems demonstrations
Energy-efficiency services & case studies Help assessing current
status & design solutions for energy and cooling challenges
Guided tours available
Considered a great success at the Virtual Worlds Conference
Global Innovation Outlook The GIO roundtable explored the current GIO topic of Smarter
Cities with students and faculty at Marshall School of Business at USC.
The meeting had four goals: Gain insight from influencers related to smarter cities Explore the effectiveness of virtual space for external collaboration Distinguish IBM® as a leader in collaborative innovation Extend relationships building on an existing IBM partnership
Second Life “meet & greet” held at to help familiarize participants with Second Life at Marshall’s Second Life Island
Roundtable held at IBM’s Systems EduCenter Island
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzgUD7kYmV8
Part 1 of the roundtable in a meeting room Meeting first held in conventional meeting room setting
Part 2 of the roundtable around the "Opinionator" Questions were asked of the group and participants
responded through the “Opinionator” Ex: If you were the mayor of Los Angeles, which
urban system would you make a priority?"
Part 3 of the meeting room around the "BrainBoard" Questions were posed to the group and participants
posted their responses to the BrainBoard. Answers were then organized into categories by
facilitator
GIO: Lessons Learned Use simple virtual world tools and objects. The
“Opinionator” proved useful whereas the “BrainBoard” was too complicated for many users.
Ease users into the virtual environment. Meeting room Opinionator BrainBoard
Understand your listeners, it is easy to tune out in a virtual setting
Have a plan, it is easy to get distracted or lost in Second Life, flying and teleporting
Virtual World Conference
Pre-conference training for entry into Second Life
October 21st 2008 3-day Academy of Technology’s Virtual
World Conference 200 members attended 3 keynote speakers, 37 breakout
sessionsBreakout sessions became interactive
Virtual World Conference Initial investment $80,000
Estimated savings at $250,000 in travel & venue costs
In addition to an estimated $150,000 in productivity gains
Total saved by doing conference virtually = $320,000
Virtual World Conference “Soft” benefits- socializing & networking People used the space to network and
socialize. “Conference sessions often ran long, as
people continued to chat about breakout topics.”
“And, at the end of each day, participants were found gathering in various places—a favorite hangout being the picnic area— for conversations over virtual cocktails.”
- http://secondlifegrid.net/casestudies/IBM
AoT General Meeting Success lead to cancellation
of Academy’s General Meeting Meeting replaced by Second Life
meeting
Second Life used in
combination with video
conferencing
Cost the company 1/5 the
price of a conventional general
meeting…and no jet lag
Incorporation of “soft” benefits-
time set aside for virtual
socializing
Future of Virtual Business “Second Life provided an opportunity for us to have a
positive social and technical exchange, addressing most of our collaboration objectives. And, we delivered the experience at about one fifth the cost and without a single case of jet lag.”
~http://secondlifegrid.net/casestudies/IBM
Expansion of Second Life to Web Browser Expands user base
Open-source software More customization Personalization