Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

Put me in, coach - I'm ready to play today

This past week my friend and career coach Kent Blumberg was in town and we had the opportunity for a quick ad hoc coaching session.  As luck would have it on the drive home that night I heard John Fogerty's classic song, Centerfield, with the refrain:

Oh, put me in, coach - I'm ready to play today
Put me in, coach - I'm ready to play today
Look at me, I can be center field

This got me thinking.  I'm fortunate to have a coach from outside the company that can provide some independent, objective suggestions.  Our employees usually are not as lucky.  They typically have to dependent on their managers and supervisors (gasp, gulp) -- us!

Another Perspective on Second Life

This past Sunday the CBS News Sunday Morning program ran a story on Living A Virtual Life On The Internet (note the online version is not a transcript and varies slightly from the broadcast version) with Second Life (SL).  It was a rather interesting update and shows how big and mainstream Second Life has become.

How big?  How does the following sound?

• It is a $220 million a-year economy
• Several Second Life entrepreneurs are clearing $200,000 a year
• Residents spend on average $600,000 ($US not Linden dollars) every day

How mainstream?  How does the following sound?

• Toyota, Microsoft and Intel are wanting a representation in SL.  As technology companies you might expect Microsoft and Intel to be there but Toyota?
• Harvard Law School conducted a seminar in SL with people from around the world attending.

So do I still stick with my predictions about the future of Second Life?

Five Things . . .

A game of "tag" has been going on within the Blogosphere where the tagged person lists five things about themselves that are not generally known and then tags five more people to do the same.  As you are no doubt suspecting, I've been tagged this past Friday by Kent Blumberg.  It's rather interesting to follow some of the links -- whose blog does the blogger you like, like.  A kind of six degrees of separation thing.  So here are my five:

1. I've been to the mountaintop.  I've gone mountain climbing and bagged a Colorado "14er".  Made it Ma!  Top of the World!  I climbed it as George Mallory said "Because it is there."
2. I've hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon a few times as Gary Larson of Far Side captioned one of his cartoons "Because it isn't there".
3. I like classical music, Impressionist art and the Three Stooges.  Go figure.
4. I've willingly jumped out of a perfectly good aircraft.
5. I love old black and white movies (hence the White Heat reference in #1)

With that I now tag 5 other bloggers:

1. Jeffrey Phillips at Thinking Faster
2. Susan Strayer at Kaleidoblog
3. Scott Burkett at Pothole on the Infobahn
4. Will Weider at The Candid CIO
5. Grigor Ćorić at behind the glasses

The Future of Second Life

Since my earlier posting on Second Life (SL) , the virtual world created by Linden Lab I've decided to go out on a limb and make some predictions as on the future of SL.  So here they are:

1. As a social community, Second Life will eventually go the way of other Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG).  That is, the number of players (residents in SL terms) will peak and eventually decline.  I'm not saying SL will disappear but I just don't see it ever truly becoming mainstream as a social community.
2. If it lasts long enough to let the technology develop, there will be some interesting technology spinoffs that will become commonplace.  Conferences / conventions using SL technology are one example.

There are a number of reasons why I don't believe SL will last as a social community.  Shortly after I made my first posting I came across a posting by Nicholas Carr about Copybots.  The copybot program allows people to copy other resident's creations for free.  Since this bypasses the need to purchase the creation it had a number of people upset.  If the use of this becomes widespread it could easily disrupt the virtual economy of Second Life.

A little while later I read a news article about Anshe Chung who has apparently become the first virtual millionaire in Second Life.  Her SL wealth is legally convertible to actual US currency.  Obviously, this type of commercial activity is of interest to the IRS.  It will be interesting to see what tax issues arise from SL.  It will also be interesting to see the impact of copybots on SL real estate tycoons.  Finally, as I mentioned in my first post there is a real-life lawsuit going on involving a real estate transaction in SL.

None of these things individually are the death knell for SL.  To me they represent problems with the lack of social structure in an environment that can't figure out what structure it needs or wants.  SL seemed to start out as a very Utopian type of thing with people helping each other out, giving away creations etc.  The examples above represent a friction between the "can't we all just get along" thinking of the early residents and some of those that have come later and have seen opportunities to exploit.  There is no government, no elected authority, just God (a.k.a. Linden Lab).  Being God is hard work and I'm not sure how much effort Linden Lab is willing to put into this.  With only a limited and loose structure and no game "objective" I don't feel that people will have much incentive to maintain residency for the long term.

The good news is that I believe some interesting things could spinoff from SL.  When I was at the event put on by the Information Systems Resource Center (ISRC) at the Bauer College of Business of the University of Houston someone raised an interesting question.  What is different about training in SL from other web based or webinar technologies that are commonly used right now?  No one at the event had a good answer.  A few weeks later when I mentioned this to my good friend Kent Blumberg he quickly latched on to why -- social networking.  He was right! 

When I select a conference to attend I do it on the basis of the structured agenda, that is, who is presenting and on what topics.  However, the reason I actually attend as opposed to just reading the proceedings is the unstructured agenda.  I go because of the people I will have the opportunity to meet and discuss the topics with more fully, that is, social networking.  Current webinar technology doesn't have this interactive capability with other attendees.  With SL I can see their profiles, quickly locate them and start a conversation.  As the technology develops I can see this becoming a viable alternative to traveling to some conferences.

Don't think you'd be able to interact with an avatar, the computerized representation of a real person?  Before you answer that you may want to take a look at Nicholas Carr's recent post, Shock the Avatar.  Carr talks about an experiment run by academic researchers in which participants give a "shock" to an avatar on the command of an authority figure in a very similar manner to the famous Stanley Milgram experiments.  The researchers concluded "Our results show that in spite of the fact that all participants knew for sure that neither the stranger [the avatar] nor the shocks were real, the participants who saw and heard her [the avatar] tended to respond to the situation at the subjective, behavioural and physiological levels as if it were real."  I think you might be surprised at how quickly you can begin to interact with an avatar.

Do you think Second Life will survive?  More importantly do you think it will have any impact on IT?

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

• Get a (Second) Life!
• Or the posts in the "Internet" category

Get a (Second) Life!

You may have heard of Second Life which is getting quite a bit of media attention.  However, before you dismiss this as just another online game that will consume your computing resources and bandwidth you may want to take a closer look.  Although it has many of the characteristics of a Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) it isn't a game at all in the traditional sense.  With Second Life there is no "objective" to achieve nor are there winners and losers.  In what may be a hallmark of the blending of the real and virtual world, Second Life creator Linden Lab is now being sued in real life by one of its residents over a disallowed real estate (or is it virtual estate?) transaction.

Second Life has media coverage, "blue chip" investors in the software creator - Linden Lab, major investment in the community by its residents (including such firms as Cisco and Sony) and residents earning a real-life living by building and selling assets within Second Life.  A  Business Week article outlines some of the commercial activities taking place in Second Life.

This past Friday I attended a special event put on by the Information Systems Resource Center (ISRC) at the Bauer College of Business of the University of Houston.  Professors Dennis Adams, Blake Ives and Michael Parks gave a brief demonstration of Second Life and led a discussion about its implications.  Second Life very appropriately describes itself as "Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents."  It is a virtual world where you as represented by your avatar interact with other people, buy or build assets, conduct business, worship, and go to school.

The professors presented some very thought provoking scenarios.  The virtual reality of Second Life presents some interesting opportunities for training, emergency response simulation, market research, product design and employee recruiting among others.  Some of these are already being done within Second Life.  CNN reports that more than 60 schools have setup themselves up in Second Life to explore how it can be used to promote learning.  Not being confined by a "game objective" creates a wealth of yet un-imagined possibilities.

Many MMORPG's have grown quickly peak and then rapidly decline as the popularity wanes.  Second life is still in the growth phase with over 1.3 million members up from about 165,000 only 8 months ago.  The question is will it peak and decline or continue to evolve and continue.  That is, what is its stickiness?

Professor Adams pointed out a major factor that could enhance its stickiness.  Namely, its lack of purpose or objective allows it to evolve on its own as determined by its residents.  I previously mentioned some possible uses of Second Life but the there is no telling at this point where it could go.  Additionally, since it is "entirely built and owned by its residents" or crowdsourced, the growth and investment is directly controlled by the users (residents).  This crowd effect will determine its evolution and what features wither or prosper.  These are significant factors that other MMORPG's don't have. 

Although Second Life is very impressive and has tremendous potential it isn't ready for the mainstream - yet.  Issues with computing power and player interface are current limiting factors but these will no doubt be reduced with the continual growth in processing power.  Professor Parks and I had an interesting discussion about how once processing power was a limiting factor in the use of word processing - you couldn't wait for the latest PC release so your word processor or spreadsheet program would run faster.  Now for most general purpose programs processing power is no longer a consideration - adequate power is a given.  We could see a similar situation with Second Life, that is, a processing power limitation in the early stages that is soon eliminated.  Other issues such as the interface will be more difficult but not insurmountable.

Will Second Life stick around - only time will tell.  However, it bears watching as it could be the next new breakthrough in the use of IT.  Do you have a Second Life?