WORKING AND LEARNING IN VIRTUAL WORLDSWilliam Barnett, Ph.D.Entergy Endowed Professor of CISCollege of Business Administration, University of Louisiana at Monroe

What’s this Seminar About

Seminar Description:

The focus of this interactive seminar is to provide students with a conceptual foundation and practical insights into the business value of Virtual Worlds as a platform for online community building, work team collaboration, and electronic commerce. Students will examine the evolution of the Internet as a platform for rich social interaction, and the way these steps impact the connections between members of the value chain. Seminar students will tour and discuss the elements of a range of examples of organizational presences deployed in virtual world environments. (Based upon the availability of computing and presentation resources)

Seminar Objectives

Understand the capabilities of various web-based platforms to support communication and collaboration among work team members and with organizational customers.

Describe the factors that influence the decision to develop and maintain a virtual world community.

Be familiar with general success factors for operating an organizational presence inside a virtual world.

Identify and join virtual world communities that support your educational and career interests.

Schedule

Introductions Defining the Metaverse

Introduction to the Metaverse Virtual Worlds Defined Get Your Own Second Life Demographics of the Avatar

Supporting the Organization Organizational cost of virtual work Overcoming Virtual Distance Training in the Virtual World

Doing Business in the Metaverse Planning for Organizational Presence Business Models and Marketing in Virtual Worlds

1. What is the Metaverse?2. What can I do there?3. How do I get in?

Defining the Metaverse

Second Life Tour

Working and Living Virtually

Cycles and Symbiosis IT capabilities enable a Global Economy A Global Economy requires IT capabilities

We have a Global Workday Global business forms entail non-stop work Internet provides low cost WAN utility

Rich communication networks are not the sole domain of large corporations and governments anymore

So goes the Web…

1st Generation Internet (Web1.0) Non-Interactive Document

2nd Generation Internet (Web2.0) Interactive Social Relationship

Metaverse/Virtual Worlds (Web3D?) A new, but maybe not next, type of

connectivity IMMERSIVE Divergence in focus from the Web

The Metaverse

“So Hiro’s not actually here at all. He’s in a computer generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. In the lingo, this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse.”

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash 1992

Metaverse Scenarios

Source: Smart, Cascio, and Paffendorf “Metaverse Roadmap”

Augmented Reality

Enhances external world of individual

Applies Location Aware

Systems Interfaces that

process and layer networked information

See Rainbow’s End for a view extreme AR

LifeBlogging

Technologies that record and report the intimate states and life histories of objects and users

Forms Blogging Social Networking Twitter

Corporate Blogging Connect Teams Knowledge Management Connect to customers

Mirror Worlds

Reflections of the physical world

Geospatial and location aware technologies

Annotation tools Develop

Geospecific representations

Recognize this place?

Virtual Worlds Virtual Worlds

Defined Synchronous Persistent Avatar representation Networked computers

Anything you want or need Abstract and

Metaphorical Geotypical or Geospecific

The Nature of Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds Growing

A Garner Group study says that by 2011, 80% of active internet users will have a presence in some kind of Virtual World.

Source: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=503861

Cyberpunk goes corporate…

“We believe that online gaming provides a window into the future of organizations and the leadership capabilities necessary to guide enterprises to success.”

From: Second Life 20 Lessons by Jeremy KempPDF Link: http://tinyurl.com/34f99m

Interacting in the Virtual World Critical Elements of a Virtual World

Architecture Objects Avatars

Life in the Virtual World is experienced through an Avatar

Homework: Get a Second Life Basic membership is FREE at

www.secondlife.com Create a Name (first name is freeform, last name is

from a list) Download a viewer (start with free Second Life viewer) Verify system requirements and install

Explore and socialize Go through new avatar orientation in Second Life Join PULV Intl Week Group Join an interesting club Be my (Liam Gunes) friend