ERP Newsletter
 
NEWSLETTERS
 

CIO.com updates, insights and advice on technology, management and your career.

 
 
 
LEADERSHIP
 
CIO Executive Programs
The Leader in Face-to-Face Education for Senior Executives

Offering regional and national programs, CIO (and CSO) events bring together some of the most respected names and thought leaders in information technology and security. Presented by CIOs and other senior level executives, these invitation-only programs offer timely topics and strong networking. Learn More »

 
CIO Executive Council
A Peer-Advisory Service and Professional Association for CIOs

Turn Geeks into Leaders

June 17, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM U.S./ET (GMT-4)

Larry Bonfante, CIO of the U.S. Tennis Association, will discuss the skills and approaches that your rising IT leaders must learn to be effective in an executive capacity.

How to Handle Your New CEO: Managing Turnover at the Top

June 18, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM U.S./Eastern (GMT-4)

Turbulent times have increased turnover at the top. Find out what Council CIOs have done to "break in" new CEOs—build relationships, set expectations, educate on the role of IT.

Mid-Market CIO Panel: Tips and Techniques for Improving Vendor Relationships

July 15, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM U.S./Eastern (GMT-4)

We'll highlight relationship priorities and best practices identified in a Council study, and we'll interact with a CIO panel on the approaches they've used to improve strategic vendor partnerships.

Executive Competencies Assessment Tool

Assess Your Business Leadership Skills with the Council's new benchmarking tool. Rate yourself in change leadership, strategy, customer focus and more.

More / Register »

Learn more about the CIO Executive Council »



 
 
RESOURCE CENTER
 
 
 
SUBSCRIBE TO CIO
 
Are you involved in setting the direction for your company's IT budget or strategy?

Apply today for a FREE subscription to CIO Magazine!

 
 
 

Companies Explore Virtual Worlds As Collaboration Tools

Virtual worlds like Second Life aren't just for games; companies are experimenting with virtual environments for everything from training exercises to meeting spaces for remote workers. But the technology still has pitfalls.

 

February 06, 2008CIO

For emergency responders working along Interstate 95, accidents aren't a game; they're a way of life (and death). So it seemed odd to a group of firefighters, cops and medics when researchers from the University of Maryland suggested it use a virtual world to collaborate on training for rollovers, multicar pileups and life-threatening injuries.

The phrase virtual world is often associated with Second Life, the much-hyped 3-D environment hosted by Linden Lab that allows users to talk to friends, sell T-shirts, fly around on carpets and even build amusement parks—in other words, to play. At first, the emergency responders who make up the I-95 Corridor Coalition didn't take seriously the idea of a virtual world as a training tool, says Michael Pack, director of research with the University of Maryland's Center for Advanced Transportation Technology.

"It wasn't until we started to do elaborate demos that the first responders started to realize the true potential," says Pack, who has since begun rolling out a virtual world pilot project that could accommodate training for hundreds of emergency workers.

Virtual training for first responders
A University of Maryland project creates a virtual training exercise for first-responders working on Interstate 95.

In fact, as the consumer buzz over Second Life has faded, organizations like the I-95 Corridor Coalition, accountancy Pricewaterhouse and healthcare technology provider Greenleaf Medical have quietly explored business uses for virtual worlds. From setting up 3-D environments for geographically dispersed workers to giving therapy to troubled teens, early adopters are testing virtual worlds as a collaborative tool.

Industry analysts and developers of virtual worlds believe that by immersing users in an interactive environment that allows for social interactions, virtual worlds have the potential to succeed where other collaborative technologies, like teleconferencing, have failed. Phone-based meetings begin and end abruptly, at the mercy of the person or service administering it. In a virtual world, conversations between employees can continue within the virtual space—just like they do in company hallways after a meeting ends. "The informality of a virtual world can lead to great conversations," says Roo Reynolds, a Metaverse evangelist with IBM. Metaverse is a virtual world for Big Blue employees. "It leads to discussions that otherwise would have been missed with the formality of older technologies."

However, businesses must overcome many technical and cultural obstacles before they adopt virtual worlds on a major scale. The technology often lacks robust audio capabilities that business users need to communicate, and it can be frustratingly slow without a high-performance desktop. Meanwhile, users have to get over the novelty of working as their virtual selves. And there's a learning curve for older workers who didn't grow up with richly rendered video games.

 
 
Loading...
 
WHITE PAPERS

The Future of Enterprise Collaboration

This paper addresses the risks of a silo-based collaboration strategy and the benefits of adopting an Enterprise 2.0 computing strategy.
 

6 Ways A Unified Collaboration System Reduces IT Costs

Learn 6 ways that Oracle Beehive, the only unified collaboration system built for the enterprise, can reduce your hard dollar costs, boost information worker productivity and extend the value of your existing IT investments.
 

An Infrastructure And Operations Analysis

This Forrester Research report explains how new cloud and hybrid deployment models can help enterprises cope with the infrastructure challenges created by growing email systems.
 

The Future of Collaboration

Oracle Beehive is the only unified collaboration solution built for the enterprise.
 

Dangerous Collaboration Practices: 5 Ways IT Can Minimize Risk

The changing economy presents daunting security challenges. Companies collaborate with outside partners, often shar...
 

Microsoft and Bloomberg: A Unique Partnership

Download this white paper to learn more about this powerful collaboration and what it brings to your business.
 

WEBCASTS

Enterprise Collaboration - Gold Mine or Money Pit?

The "Collaboration Convergence" taking place in today's enterprise is creating high stakes opportunities and seriou...
 

Unified, Standards-based Collaboration

Unified, Standards-based Collaboration
 

IT Consolidation Made Easy

The Primary IT Initiative for Reducing Costs
 

Webcast with Dan Vesset: Investing in Business Analytics Technology

What exactly is business analytics and why should you care? Dan Vesset of IDC and Gaurav Verma of SAS answer this a...
 

Capitalize on Your SAP Content

After 18 years of partnership and over 3,000 successful customer deployments, Open Text has become SAP's premier pa...
 

Enterprise Cloud Computing: Ready for Primetime?

The progression toward enterprise cloud computing is happening today, as industry leaders deploy technologies that ...
 

Resource Alerts

Get instant email notifications by topic when white papers, webcasts, and case studies are added to our library.

 
FEATURED SPONSORS
 
 
 
SPONSORED LINKS
 

Taking the Service Desk to the Next Level

Communications and Collaboration Needs at Business Organizations

Using Open Source to Deploy Web Applications

Secondary Market Primer: Your Network at Half Price

Top-line Performance that's Bottom-line Efficient

Learn how a virtualized enterprise can help your company reduce costs

Why Isn't Server Virtualization Saving Us More?

Learn how to save 30% through project & portfolio management.

5 Steps to Automating Accounts Payable

BPM Survey Results: The Real-World Analysis

Ready to Act: 3 Recommendations for Agile Processes

Achieving Business Agility with Application Grid

Next Generation Enterprise Applications

Achieving Pervasive Performance Management

Smart Decisions: The Role of Key Performance Indicators

The Link Between Effective Online Business Banking and Web 2.0

Introducing the new HP ProLiant G6 server family

Accenture: Outsourcing for Competitive Advantage. More...

Better spam protection with Postini for just $1/user/mo

Introducing the new HP ProLiant G6 server family

infoBOOM! - The Mid-Sized Company CIO's Exclusive Community

Accenture IT Consulting: Logical meets technological. More . . .

The Fraudster Economy Model: Operating a Business in the Underground

Trade in your old laser printer and get up to $1000 back!

Seven Ways ITIL Can Help You in an Economic Downturn

Why Data Loss is Increasing--and What You Can Do About It

Learn how to managing client systems in the enterprise.

Build a High-Performance Open Web Platform

How Interactive Viewer Reduces the Effort to Meet Visualization Requirements

Stop Application Fraud at the Source with Device Reputation

Building the Virtualized Enterprise with VMware Infrastructure

The Global Marketplace Today: Strategies for Tough Times

Top 10 Business and IT Drivers for the Wealth Management Sector

8 Key Ingredients to Building an Internal Cloud

BPM: Leveraging Competencies and Streamlining Processes to Achieve Operational Excellence

White Paper: The Building Blocks for Cloud Computing

Craft a Strategy to Lower Your Total Cost of Ownership

A Natural User Interface for Enterprise Applications

Delivering Secure and Reliable Data through Spreadsheet Automation

Financial Institutions Need Rich Internet Applicatons

"Enterprise-Proven" is the Prerequisite for Enterprise SaaS Portal Solutions

Accenture IT Consulting: Enabling high performance. More...

Top Five CIO Challenges

Insight makes it easy to spend your Microsoft subsidy check.

Five minute business analytics assessment. Immediate results.

Dangerous Collaboration Practices: 5 Ways IT Can Minimize Risk

Accenture: Outsourcing for uncertain times. Click to learn more.

The Case for Investing in Business Analytics Technology. Read white paper.

Live Webinar: Applying Business Analytics. Click here to learn more

Revolutionizing Enterprise Application Deployment