Collaboration Advantages of 3-D Virtual Immersive Environments, by Karl Kapp

You might have noticed the button on the side of our blog where you can download a new white paper by Karl Kapp. His piece, Collaboration Advantages of 3-D Virtual Immersive Environments, discusses global industry's increasing focus on collaboration.

He details the elements of successful collaboration, and how 3-D virtual immersive environments (VIEs) can help organizations share content, generate ideas, and solve problems across geographically dispersed teams. Karl's white paper covers the bases regarding the benefits of virtual immersive environments, and it's well-worth a read.

Also, feel free to share the white paper with others. But please, if you could, share the download link, rather than forwarding the white paper itself around. As you might already realize, we're trying to collect the e-mail addresses of those interested in this subject matter, so we can better understand the market for immersive environments and what's driving interest.

So without further ado, enjoy Karl's white paper!

KAPPTURED: Karl Kapp covers the benefits of VIEs

Hear us out! It's virtual worlds for business, not just virtual worlds.

Rafe Needleman wrote a post on his CNET blog, Rafe's Radar, a few days ago about Venuegen's 3-D virtual meeting service. One part of his article that jumped out at me was were he said, "There may be big problems getting everyone in a team to take the service seriously."

Couldn't agree more... We've been facing and overcoming those types of misconceptions for several years. The problem is, when people hear "virtual worlds for business," they don't hear the "for business" part. They just hear "virtual world." They immediately think of 3-D gaming and romparoos.

As I wrote in the comments, I can't imagine ever having a solution that is going to be liked by everyone who comes in contact with it. However, we've found if you can get people to use the environment as part of a collaborative project, as opposed to just kicking the tires, the real business benefits start to become clear.

We have case studies showing that global organizations have serious business collaboration objectives they are attempting to achieve with a 3-D virtual world, and when they measure the outcomes, the results are often astounding. That's not hype. Those are the actual metrics we continue to find and document.

When our customers have rolled out  ProtoSphere, even the skeptics often come around to understand the true role of virtual world technology in business. And it's through these engagements that we can dispel popular notions about 3-D virtual technology.

There's absolutely demand for more engaging and immersive collaboration tools that help people work faster. This is painfully evident is global organizations, where teams are usually dispersed.

In those environments, you're dealing with not only demand for engagement and immersion, but also cost reduction, which virtual environments can help you do well. It's a simple equation. No need to travel, means no travel expenses. The savings are obvious.

The same can be said of 2-D online conferencing services. But you don't gain the immersion that studies show improve knowledge transfer, knowledge retention, collaboration, and productivity.

Let's not forget that people were skeptical about blogs at the turn of the century. And then they were skeptical of social networking. Heck, people were skeptical of computers and the Internet! Skepticism in and of itself can sometimes be part of the learning curve for new technology. We believe that's what's happening with virtual worlds for business.

Technically Philly highlights our BP case study among latest industry buzz

Technically Philly has started a new series, Startup roundup, where it highlights some of the latest news, developments, and innovations coming out of companies in our region. Its writers featured our BP case study this week, so thank you to their team! More happenings around the tech industry are included in Technically Philly's roundup.

A'BUZZ ABOUT BP: Technically Philly covers our BP case study

And in case you haven't seen it yet, we also posted our styled PDF version of our BP case study this week, which you're welcome to download and share.

Pretty PDF version of our case study showing how BP benefited from a ProtoSphere virtual world

As promised, here is a PDF of our case study with BP. It covers how BP used a ProtoSphere virtual world to create an immersive learning and collaboration environment for its annual graduate conference.

BP was able to save $3.7 million by holding the event in ProtoSphere instead of at a physical location. Those savings, plus other performance metrics and the complete story of BP's ProtoSphere deployment, are documented in our case study. Feel free to download the BP case study and share with colleagues.

How BP improved collaboration while cutting costs with a ProtoSphere virtual world

We've shared with you case studies covering two of our life sciences clients. Today, we have one of our energy clients, BP, on the record.

BP usually holds an annual three-day conference in London to mark the culmination of its Graduate Induction program. Graduates network with BP executives and get fully indoctrinated into BP's corporate culture and values.

But the company took a completely different approach for its most recent conference. BP used ProtoSphere to create an immersive learning and collaboration environment for its graduates. I think you'll find the project and results to be very compelling. BP certainly did. It calculated savings of $3.7 million compared to producing a physical event.

That's just one major benefit the company realized. You can read about the rest, as well as BP's complete virtual world deployment story, below. We also have a fancy PDF coming shortly, which we welcome you to share with colleagues.

Webinar: Enterprise Learning and Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds, with Tony O'Driscoll and Karl Kapp

The good Drs. Tony O'Driscoll and Karl Kapp will be gracing computer screens on Tues., Feb. 9, when they hold a free webinar about 3-D environments, virtual worlds, and immersive learning spaces. The webinar, "Enterprise Learning and Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds," will cover key concepts from Tony and Karl's new book," "Learning in 3D." They'll discuss:

• The value of social learning for organizations.
• The impact of virtual immersive environments on society, business, and learning.
• How to integrate existing training and business into productive 3-D virtual work environments.
• 3-D learning experience design principles and sensibilities.

The webinar will be a great opportunity to learn how 3-D virtual worlds can (and should) be used for enterprise learning and teaming. You'll also have a chance to bend Tony's and Karl's ears with any questions you might have.

The webinar kicks off tomorrow, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. EST. For more information and to register, visit the invitation page.

Special guest on immersive environments to join us on the blog Monday

Just an FYI that we'll have a special guest featured on the blog on Monday. I'll tell you this much: He's one of the deepest thinkers in the immersive Internet space. And I'll give you another hint: We've designed his appearance so you can enjoy it during your lunch break.

Alright, one more hint! When you're done meeting our guest, you will go away with some great ideas for how you can make 3-D immersive environments far more effective as educational platforms.

Til Monday!

ThinkBalm analyst Erica Driver to moderate LIFE SCIENCES 2010: The Global Collaboration Imperative

We promised to keep you in the loop about the panelists and special guests who'll be featured at our LIFE SCIENCES 2010: The Global Collaboration Imperative event with Microsoft on Jan. 19. Here's our first big surprise. Our panel moderator will be Erica Driver, Principal of ThinkBalm. Recently rated one of the top 100 analysts by Technobabble, Erica is one of America's most sought-after speakers on the immersive Internet.

Erica has been in the IT sector for 15 years. She's a former principal analyst from Forrester Research, where she launched the company’s Web3D coverage as part of her enterprise collaboration research. Before joining Forrester, she was a Director at Giga Information Group (now part of Forrester) and an analyst at Hurwitz Group (now Hurwitz and Associates). She began her career in IT as a system administrator and Lotus Notes developer.

Why 3-D? Replicate real-world learning environments, unbound by distance and place

Karl Kapp, author of the forthcoming book "Learning in 3D", and a good friend of mine, penned a blog post that I thought hit the nail on the head when it comes to answering the question of Why 3-D? He says that 3-D immersive environments can accurately replicate real-world learning spaces, without being constrained by real-world bounds of distance and place.

"The real power of a virtual immersive environment is the ability to transport the learner or collaborators into an environment that is ideally suited for the learning or collaborating that needs to take place and this usually requires an altering of the spaces," he writes.

James Cameron's Avatar shows parallels to immersive virtual worlds for business

Avatar.

It has been a word we have been using for awhile now to describe an anthropomorphized human network connection in an immersive virtual environment. However, the traditional definition is as follows:

In Hinduism, Avatar or Avatara describes the descent of a deity from heaven to earth. In English, we translate avatar to mean "incarnation," "appearance," or "manifestation." And for us computer nerds, we have known avatars as representations of ourselves or our alter egos. It could be in the form of a 3-D model, 2-D icon, or text construct as found in early online gaming.

I think after this weekend, the word will be more broadly understood by the masses, as James Cameron's new movie, "Avatar", opened across the country. Being a CGI (computer-generated imagery) fan from jump street, I of course had to go day one. How was it? In a single word, stunning. Go see it in a properly equipped digital theater, with the funky 3-D glasses, and you will be "immersed."

Verizon and Cisco miss the mark on advanced collaboration tools

InformationWeek covered a recent study commissioned by Verizon and Cisco (carried out by Frost and Sullivan) that focused on the use and value of "advanced collaboration tools." I wrote my thoughts in a comment on the article, but also wanted to share them here.

Quite honestly, I think that Cisco and Verizon (companies I respect greatly, don't get me wrong) are really pushing the envelope in calling VoIP, instant messaging, and high-definition video meetings "advanced collaboration tools." These are commodity technologies that exist all over the country.

The study should really include a look at truly advanced collaboration technologies, a.k.a., 3-D immersive collaborative worlds. Tools like ProtoSphere have to be considered in this discussion, especially considering that it integrates all of these "advanced functions" into a single, engaging interface.

I have an admitted bias because my company provides this technology, but I'm not the only talking about the power and benefits 3-D immersive worlds can provide. We're doing our own research that shows real business metrics and results from using 3-D immersive environments. The early adopters have not been small players either, but rather, large enterprises in entrenched industries like pharma and energy.

It's an interesting study that gets to the core value of collaboration technology -- ROI -- but it is not inclusive enough to paint an accurate picture for enterprises.

Mark Oehlert of Defense Acquisition University looks at immersive learning environments

With the e-learning industry exploring ways to improve training, retention, and performance, one new approach under consideration is immersive environments. Mark Oehlert talked to Ron about it during the 3D TLC show. Mark is an Innovation Evangelist at the Defense Acquisition University, a U.S. Department of Defense university focused on improving the learning outcomes for over 150,000 acquisition personnel.

Marks discusses what's next on the e-learning front, and the need to move to new technologies to improve learning and performance. The mistake will be bolting new learning paradigms onto old technology, instead of thinking about the new technologies available to us.

For more from Mark, you can turn to his blog, e-Clippings, and follow him on Twitter @moehlert.