virtual world collaboration

Mike Danielsen

miked1@ameritech.net

VIRTUAL WORLD COLLABORATIONUSING SHARED APPS

COLLABORATION IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD

• Net meetings on steroids

• 3D audio

• Shared media

• Meeting and project spaces

• Non-verbal queues

• See who’s speaking

• See who is interested in what

WHAT’S NEW

• Web 2.0 goes into Virtual Worlds

• Web on a surface allows avatars to share web pages and cloud apps in the virtual world.

Web

Apps

Virtual Worlds

WORKING IN THE CLOUD

• Virtual worlds provide not only shared apps and enhanced collaborations over distance but also a shared location for a community of work.

Web apps on the faces of a cube

Shared media

DEFINITIONS

• Shared media – Everyone sees the same multimedia presentation.

• Shared apps – Applications that a group can interact with, no matter where they are.

• Virtual world collaboration – Team members can experience shared media, interact with shared apps and communicate in a shared environment as effectively as if they were in the same room when they are separated by distance.

• Community of work – A place where team members can come to work together on a shared goal.

COMMUNITY OF WORK

• In the real world, employees that are located in the same office or workspace can share ideas and communicate freely.

• Virtual worlds provide this needed location where each team member can communicate freely with other workers.

• With the combination of working in the virtual world by using cloud apps and the ability to communicate freely, globally disperse teams can now work effectively as centrally located teams.

WHY

• Travel costs and lost productivity due to travel

• Facility costs

• Energy costs and pollution

• Costs due to miscommunications

• Inefficiencies of telecommunications

• Lack of community in diversely located teams

EXAMPLE APPS

• EtherPad

• Google Docs

• Mindmaps

• Drawing apps

• Project management apps

• Dashboards and charting tools

• Wiki’s

• Analytics

• Databases

• PresentationsApps shared in the virtual worldallow globally disperse teams to work collaboratively at a common virtual location

TWIDDLA / ETHERPAD

Collaborative documentsand drawings shared in Second Life

MINDJET CATALYST

Collaborative mindmapsshared in Second Life

WHAT IS A VIRTUAL WORLD PROJECT?

HOW CAN WE WORK IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD?

• Can we do all our work in the virtual world?

• In most cases no unless you are developing virtual worlds.

• Can we do some of our work in the virtual world?

• Yes and as we get more collaborative apps on the web we are able to do more.

• Many project activities can be done in the virtual world more effectively than by using current methods.

• Any task that requires meetings, net meetings or conference calls can be done better in the virtual world.

• Increased presence and shared environment allow better communications and understanding.

WHAT IS A PROJECT SPACE?

• A collection of documents that can be accessed by anyone at anytime from with in the virtual world.

• How is this different from Share Point or other services?

• The documentation is much more visual in a 3D space instead of 2D list.

• Can see what documents are before opening them.

• Can see what documents others are looking at.

TAKEAWAY

Shared apps in virtual worlds allow globally diverse teams to collaborate and work effectively with reduced costs.• Work well as a team from anywhere.