IBM Finding Business Uses for Virtual World 96
jbrodkin writes "IBM has an unconventional take on virtual worlds for business use. Rather than strictly adhering to the laws of physics, IBM is letting its employees hold virtual meetings up in the air and under water. Employees are also being given wacky chores, such as kicking a giant boulder 1,400 kilometers. The virtual world, known as the Metaverse, has been in development for two years. Michael Ackerbauer of IBM says, 'I'd say more people are still finding it a novelty than a business tool. But ... if you build enough tools that they can use, they will come.'"
IBM seems to be following a trend of involvement in virtual worlds, which we have previously discussed.
Cue the requisite... (Score:4, Insightful)
I know it's hard to believe, but business DOES transpire in virtual worlds, just like it does in (gasp!) Skype and (double gasp!) AIM.
Mentality (Score:2, Insightful)
I've seen so many failed projects happen simply because there was no interest, despite the fact there was plenty of capital investment.
I think things should start with an idea and a goal as opposed to "hey, lets spend a ton of time and energy making this rnadom thing and seeing what happens" It could work for science experiments and I think it's a great thing to do on the small scale, but why take 2 on business meetings in the virtual world?
How about their plans with second life? Has that fallen through? How is this any better?
We go into 3D worlds to provide a sense of space and dimensionality. Works great for games, or going on adventures in a contrived world. One must not forget that most communication, face-to-face, is non-verbal. 3D environments, in my opinion do not provide enough capability to show this facet of communication anywhere near proper. So how would this exactly provide a better place for meetings?
Maybe if it was a group of engineers that said "hey, this would be a really cool idea and help us communicate ideas faster and clearer" then I'd be more sold.
Re:that's great (Score:3, Insightful)
So? They are an INTERNATIONAL company and have been so for a long, long time. They have employees everywhere. Instead of INTERNATIONAL Business Machines they are often known as "I've Been Moved". As in, their employees get to keep their jobs only if they are willing to relocate. Where were you in the '80s and '90s? My bigger beef is that they sold off their Thinkpad line.
Now, if you want to take issue with Bank of AMERICA outsourcing way too much of their work to India...I'm with you.
Virtual? You mean real (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps people should be more careful to use the word 'virtual' in an ICT sense. As if the 1's and 0's recorded on your harddrive don't exist, just because they represent imaginary worlds. That is nonsense.
At a critical moment, a miniscule group of electrons may ultimately determine whether a space shuttle makes it into earth orbit, or crashes into the ocean. A tiny magnetic area on your harddisk may determine whether you see a folder with your vacation pics on your desktop, or not. A single bit flipped in transit (due to some electromagnetic disturbance, or whatever) may cause an industrial robot to move a millimeter off the mark & junk the product passing underneath. What I'm trying to say: the environment may be imaginary for a great part, but these small groups of electrons, magnetic area's etc. are very real, and so is the effect they can have.
There's no such thing as a virtual meeting. With 10 participants, that's 10 people communicating with each other at the same time, like in any other real-world meeting. When you're dealing with bots, that's just you interacting with some company's ICT infrastructure, similar to shopping in a webstore or reading /.
Sure, the interface is radically different, but other than that it's just: communication. As creatures have done since the 1st braincell developed.
Business reason for different locales (Score:5, Insightful)
The locale, sounds, environment, and general "feel" of a meeting can really impact the way the participants think. We've seen studies here before about high ceilings encouraging open creative thought, while low ceilings encourages disciplined thought. Different kinds of locations can help make the people feel more relaxed, fun, or whatever. Try having conversations with people in second life in different locales and see what you think.
There's some precedent for this. The Disney Imagineering process involves separating development into separate meetings for the "dreaming" phase and "critic" phase. In the dreamer phase, any idea is ok to present, no matter how impractical. In the critic phase, you shoot holes in ideas. Disney would hold the dreamer meetings in open, comfy places; and hold the critic meetings in more enclosed, trashy places. These ideas work in the real world.
Re:Whacky chores? (Score:4, Insightful)
Same thing could have been said of the "Word Wide Web" 12 years ago. The browser as we know it might not be the primary interface to the Internet in a decade.
Re:Business reason for different locales (Score:3, Insightful)
Another example. Today there was a Linden Labs business meeting with 80 or so people. After the meeting, they had a huge snowball fight together-- and many of the employees built their own snowball trebuchets and whatever. Also, lots of the people made their own Christmas costumes.
Some might say "so what" or "get a first life", but those people would likely also say that real life business parties serve no purpose, also. I say it's a good thing-- a bunch of the people have some fun together, they rub elbows with people they wouldn't normally see. The company accountant might actually get to interact a little with the company lawyer or whatever-- the benefits are the same as real life get-togethers.
Re:Whacky chores? (Score:3, Insightful)
For such meetings (they happen?) that the meeting would be engaging enough that there wouldn't be time to kick boulders around. However, in a number of meetings I've been in, I had to participate for maybe 5 minutes then do something the rest of the time. Kicking boulders around might as well be more interesting.
Funny enough, the useful meetings are all relatively short (5-30 minutes). The boring drawn out ones are longer (1+ hours). If my physical presence isn't actually required, I'd do something else. The good ones are telecons where I call in. At least I can put it on speaker and go away doing more productive work.
Of course, if your meetings are such that a majority of people are kicking boulders around, then it's time to rethink the meeting - either break it into smaller groups of people and shorter meetings (with a quick "all hands" as necessary), or find a more disciplined way of running the meeting.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've worked for companies of this scale, and one of them did stuff like this to pump us up. Not technology, but similarly unrelated activities. They had Colin Powell come to a global management meeting and speak to primarily the new managers. We played golf. We met, we drank, we bonded. It was genuine, and quite effective team building. It was very motivating to me, and made me think I had one of the best jobs around. I still think that of that time. The company was a private partnership (one of the big Declining Small Integers) and I absolutely believe they got business value out of these things. So did the partners/owners, who paid for this out of their (admittedly tax deduction assisted) own pockets year after year.