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.
Perhaps even more important than the technical challenges, companies must tackle the issue of workers' online identities. People's 3-D representations, known as avatars, must be constructed in such a way that allows users of virtual worlds to have faith they're talking to the right colleague. Security challenges abound; most companies using virtual worlds today do so on a public or externally hosted platform with limited options to protect corporate data.
"You want people to be so comfortable in the virtual world that they're not concentrating on how to use them," Pack says. "They can't be worried about how to turn left or talk to someone. They need to be worried about how to do their jobs, just like they would in the real world."
Training in Virtual Worlds
This video from the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology shows a virtual world where emergency workers can practice real-life emergency response.
Early Adopters Get Down to Business
Many first adopters have proceeded carefully when implementing virtual worlds, in some cases opting for trials and low-risk options that require modest investments. Jonathan Reichental, director of IT innovation at PricewaterhouseCoopers, started researching virtual worlds for the professional services firm more than a year ago. Since then, his team has tested virtual worlds that are hosted outside the company's firewall. He's looking for one he likes. Reichental hopes virtual worlds can be used for recruiting, innovation, business modeling and training. Editor's note: This story was updated on 3/13/08 to clarify how PricewaterhouseCoopers and Greenleaf Medical use virtual worlds, and to provide specific titles for two sources. View the correction.
"We'll extract more uses over time as it becomes even more enterprise-ready," he says.
University of Maryland's Pack got the idea to use a 3-D environment for first responders after a group from the I-95 Coalition took a tour to Europe to observe the training techniques of emergency workers there. "They had great simulations, where if you did the wrong thing [in a virtual world], everything would get worse," he says.
Pack says training in a virtual world presents a desirable alternative to real-life exercises, which can be pricey and inefficient. "You'd go out in a field and flip a car over and have people act as victims," he says. Trainers couldn't introduce many variables (such as mounting traffic). In virtual worlds, Pack and his team can program multiple scenarios into the software. For example, if a first responder gets out of his car and fails to put on a reflective jacket, the system might respond with a car hitting that person's avatar.
