: A CASE STUDY

The Use of Virtual Worlds for Sales and Innovation

IBM as a Leader in Virtual Worlds Over 230 employees working in-world 6 islands (Private & Public) $10 million spent on virtual worlds in 2007 alone Expansion in both Second Life and its own 3D intranet Eyes v-Business as an evolution of e-Business

IBM as a leader in Virtual Worlds IBM Business Center

Sales/client avatar interaction○ Contract signings, payments

IBM sales representatives staff a virtual center

Multi-lingual capabilities ○ (English, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Italian, and French,

planned Asian languages expansion)

Technical Support Library available to visitors○ Product guides & IT research publication Systems

Journal

Virtual Green Data Center

System energy-efficiency demonstrations IBM server & storage

systems demonstrations

Energy-efficiency services & case studies Help assessing current

status & design solutions for energy and cooling challenges

Guided tours available

Considered a great success at the Virtual Worlds Conference

Global Innovation Outlook The GIO roundtable explored the current GIO topic of Smarter

Cities with students and faculty at Marshall School of Business at USC.

The meeting had four goals: Gain insight from influencers related to smarter cities Explore the effectiveness of virtual space for external collaboration Distinguish IBM® as a leader in collaborative innovation Extend relationships building on an existing IBM partnership

Second Life “meet & greet” held at to help familiarize participants with Second Life at Marshall’s Second Life Island

Roundtable held at IBM’s Systems EduCenter Island

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzgUD7kYmV8

Part 1 of the roundtable in a meeting room Meeting first held in conventional meeting room setting

Part 2 of the roundtable around the "Opinionator" Questions were asked of the group and participants

responded through the “Opinionator” Ex: If you were the mayor of Los Angeles, which

urban system would you make a priority?"

Part 3 of the meeting room around the "BrainBoard" Questions were posed to the group and participants

posted their responses to the BrainBoard. Answers were then organized into categories by

facilitator

GIO: Lessons Learned Use simple virtual world tools and objects. The

“Opinionator” proved useful whereas the “BrainBoard” was too complicated for many users.

Ease users into the virtual environment. Meeting room Opinionator BrainBoard

Understand your listeners, it is easy to tune out in a virtual setting

Have a plan, it is easy to get distracted or lost in Second Life, flying and teleporting

Virtual World Conference

Pre-conference training for entry into Second Life

October 21st 2008 3-day Academy of Technology’s Virtual

World Conference 200 members attended 3 keynote speakers, 37 breakout

sessionsBreakout sessions became interactive

Virtual World Conference Initial investment $80,000

Estimated savings at $250,000 in travel & venue costs

In addition to an estimated $150,000 in productivity gains

Total saved by doing conference virtually = $320,000

Virtual World Conference “Soft” benefits- socializing & networking People used the space to network and

socialize. “Conference sessions often ran long, as

people continued to chat about breakout topics.”

“And, at the end of each day, participants were found gathering in various places—a favorite hangout being the picnic area— for conversations over virtual cocktails.”

- http://secondlifegrid.net/casestudies/IBM

AoT General Meeting Success lead to cancellation

of Academy’s General Meeting Meeting replaced by Second Life

meeting

Second Life used in

combination with video

conferencing

Cost the company 1/5 the

price of a conventional general

meeting…and no jet lag

Incorporation of “soft” benefits-

time set aside for virtual

socializing

Future of Virtual Business “Second Life provided an opportunity for us to have a

positive social and technical exchange, addressing most of our collaboration objectives. And, we delivered the experience at about one fifth the cost and without a single case of jet lag.”

~http://secondlifegrid.net/casestudies/IBM

Expansion of Second Life to Web Browser Expands user base

Open-source software More customization Personalization