In last month's issue CBR, Bipin Patel began his contribution with an intriguing description of the "wonderful life of CIOs." He went on to describe a fantastic world in which "software-as-a-service runs your enterprise"; "all the applications are tightly coupled"; "IT spend is the inverse of the rest of the industry -- 80% devoted to innovation while 20% is consumed by the existing portfolio"; and you spend the bulk of your time "with the business leaders planning the next M&A activity, knowing future partners will get seamlessly integrated." Then Bipin drops the bomb (even though by the third paragraph, we knew he was in fantasyland): "What a life indeed! It is a shame that this life belongs to another world: the virtual world of Second Life."
While Bipin was cleverly getting his readers' attention, his portrayal of Second Life as a world you can escape to when your own life is difficult or not satisfying enough is, in many cases, the reaction I get from audiences to whom I show the 3D Internet and virtual worlds. One comment that captures the pervasive sentiment from some audiences is this one from an executive during a recent presentation I made: "Your real life must be pretty sad if you have to live through an avatar and meet with strangers by typing at a computer keyboard." Hey, what does that say about the CIO's life?!
The truth about the 3D Internet and virtual worlds, with Second Life as the chief example, is that the community is not just a bunch of computer geeks who can't get a date and have to escape their sad "first" life. By some estimates, Linden Lab's Second Life has almost as many female users as males -- how's that for bridging the computer gender gap? In partial response to the success of established virtual worlds, Sony recently launched Home, a virtual world you can access through its gaming console, PlayStation 3.
The adoption rates and demographics of the 3D Internet have companies taking notice. Firms as diverse as Dell and Reuters, Starwood Hotels and Circuit City have experimental efforts underway devoted to developing an understanding of the potential commercial viability of virtual worlds. For these reasons, in this issue of CBR, we tap the expertise of three "in-world" pioneers and experts. Based on their experience both consulting with companies that have staked a claim in-world and their own firsthand experiences, they help us understand the basic characteristics and the potential of the 3D Internet and virtual worlds -- or multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs), as they are more precisely called.
Our academic contribution is provided by Blake Ives (aka Blake Stringfellow) and Dennis Adams (aka Profputr Maslow). Blake is the C.T. Bauer Chair in Business Leadership and the Director of the Information Systems Research Center at the University of Houston (USA), where Dennis serves as Chair of the Decision and Information Sciences Department. Blake and Dennis have recently established a presence in Second Life -- an educational island called ITWorld -- and have been involved in a consulting and advisory role with STA Travel, the world's largest student travel agency and the first to establish a presence in the virtual world. Our practitioner contribution is offered by Tony O'Driscoll (aka Wada Tripp), Performance Architecture Analysis and Design Lead with IBM On-Demand Learning. Tony's current work focuses on the potential of 3D Internet technologies to drive enterprise innovation, transformation, and productivity.
Blake and Dennis provide a very in-depth description of the most advanced and most popular (at least commercially) of these MUVEs: Second Life. They then segment the survey between experienced and nonexperienced users and go through it in a disciplined fashion, drawing parallels and exploring the difference in the responses by the two audiences. After getting a sense for the characteristics of the environment and how they are perceived by experienced and nonexperienced users alike, the authors go on to evaluate the commercial appeal of MUVEs. Particularly noteworthy are their analysis, caveats, and conclusion, which offer a balanced view of their potential evolution. I think you will find their suggestions on how to bring virtual worlds to the attention of your CEO both useful and entertaining.
Tony provides a complementary perspective in his contribution. He provides much-needed clarity in this space by defining the two principal classes of MUVEs currently out there: virtual worlds and online role-playing environments (ORPEs). He also offers a wealth of statistics that, while he would be the first to tell you are by no means definitive, can help you get your colleagues' attention and make the case that they should at least pay attention to the 3D Internet. He then focuses on the survey, slicing the data differently than Blake and Dennis do. Tony concentrates his analysis on the full sample and compares virtual worlds and ORPEs. His piece concludes with a very useful call to action and a path to get there. I particularly draw your attention to his concluding insights.
Given the nature of the topic at hand, and its novelty, I think you will find this issue of CBR to be more speculative than usual. But I also think that you will find it very stimulating and thought-provoking. I will consider this issue a success if, after reading it, you feel the time has come for you to bring your avatar to life and explore. If you do, make sure to come "see" us in-world -- you know who we are!
-- Gabriele Piccoli, Editor, Cutter Benchmark Review
