The VW blogosphere is alight, today, regarding Worlds.com, whose two patents, apparently filed in the mid-90s and awarded in the early 00s, are now presumably to be the basis of claims against virtual world, MMO game engine and other platform providers. The said patents are here and here, made handily available by Google. They describe (in somewhat nebulous terms) the basic principles of running an MMO grid and doing object and avatar culling prior to rendering -- something all scaleable VW and game grids now do.
Did they really invent this stuff? Hmmmm ... By the mid-90s, the semantic basis for avatar and object culling was well understood as essential to scaling and playability, and had been implemented in a de-facto way as far back as 1983, in first-generation text-based multi-user games like Simutronics' Gemstone II. These early games used 'rooms' as nodal containers to restrict domains of avatar visibility and interaction, but made rooms permeable to admit adjacency effects -- enabling (for example) the possibility that someone "shouting" (e.g., >yell 'Hello) in one room could be heard in connected rooms. They also -- rather than forcing full-content room updates to every avatar connected to a node -- made certain objects accessible only on demand, via 'examine' and other interactive commands. It seems obvious to apply these same architectural semantics (at some higher level of abstraction) to 3D worlds, particularly since the demands they make on clients for rendering and on pipes for bandwidth and on processes for atomicity and synch are so much greater. So ... when you're in Warcraft, and another avatar runs away from you, once they get a certain number of meters out, they disappear. On a continuous landscape, 'rooms' move around, and their extents are dynamically computed using a battery of heuristics, but ... dude, they're still rooms.
Except in the real world of patents and courtrooms, things aren't always so simple. About twelve years ago, a guy named Ron Katz pulled a deal in the telecom business, filing claims to have invented all sorts of computer-telephony stuff. Everybody laughed at first. You can't patent activating a credit-card over the phone via ANI! That's the kind of trivial application ANI was invented to enable! It's like -- given the word processor, trying to patent the notion of typing a memo (as opposed to a love letter) on a word processor. Get out of here! Hah, hah, hah. Katz even had a history of patent trolling, having claimed a decade previous to have invented word-wrap on text editors. Hah, hah, hah. Then Katz pulled a deal with MCI, getting him the financial backing he required to litigate at scale. And ten years later, the telecom industry -- including companies like AT&T and IBM -- have all settled, to the tune of more than $750 million dollars. Hah, hah, hah.
So you have to take this stuff seriously. The only practical way to refute claims like this is with firm documentation of prior art, which basically means (easier) proving that somebody else patented this first or (much harder) proving that at the time these patents were filed, there were (ideally) numerous examples of the process in use, such that any practitioner of the art would typically be aware of their existence.
That latter approach often turns out to be a very tall order. In highly social, competitive innovative spaces (e.g., online gaming, virtual worlds) folks forge ahead with innovating, share promiscuously, re-invent each others' ideas, and keep the secret sauce (like the actual guts of 3D culling algorithms) proprietary, often failing to do the boring work of patent-filing in favor of the much more interesting work of getting products to market, growing the customer base and increasing market share and investor value. So it can be amazingly difficult, in retrospect, to document prior art assertions. And even if documentation of prior art (of an unimpeachable sort) can be found, communicating it to judges, juries and the Patent Office can be very challenging. Remember the last time you tried to explain Second Life camera controls to a noob? Now try explaining avatar culling to 12 of them.
So -- are these claims valid? It occurs to me that virtual worlds are ideal tools for turning many minds to one purpose: either to help substantiate or help vitiate these claims.
I therefore propose to hold the first-ever Worlds.com Prior Art Dance Party, on World2Worlds, on Friday, January 2, at 9 PM ET. Music by me. Prior art by you. Drag all your old game-programmer, online geek and IP attorney friends inworld, and come prepared for grandstanding and casuistry!
A diverting hour spent with Sun's Danny Coward, co-inventor of Java servlets (in Brussels), and Jon Erickson, Editorial Director of Dr. Dobb's Journal (in Lawrence, KS), discussing JavaFX, Sun's new, multiplatform rich internet application development environment, in general availability this week.
Ready to participate in the next revolution in web-based UI and application engineering? The Java FX SDK is out this week, and we've got the scoop, live from Devoxx in Belgium: courtesy of Sun's Danny Coward, Chief Architect, Sun's Client Software! Interviewing Danny will be Jonathan Erickson, Editorial Director of Dr. Dobb's Journal. Come join the conversation, in Second Life or on the web!
Java FX is Sun's next-gen framework for building fabulous-looking client/server browser apps on the desktop and across the universe of embedded and mobile devices. The JavaFX Rich Client platform and tools suite offers distinct advantages to Web developers, Web designers, and Java developers that are building rich, connected experiences. The JavaFX SDK has the essential set of technology, tools and resources required for developers and designers to create and deploy JavaFX applications.
Solaris 10 10/8 Update is coming! (How are you going to learn about it?)
Join us for the launch of Solaris Campus in Second Life: an experimental learning environment and community created by Sun Learning Service to make learning about Solaris immersive, easy, and fun!
If you're a Solaris sysadmin, IT manager, developer, or prospective Solaris user, Solaris Campus is a resource purpose-made to take the "heads-down" pain out of coming up to speed on Solaris 10 10/8 Update and crank up your learning-curve. Accessible globally from your desktop, the Campus will connect you with a community of supportive peers and Sun Learning Service staffers, and offer unique opportunities to meet and interact with Sun experts, trained instructors, and others in the know.
Meet Sun-certified Solaris 10 instructor Stephen Mohr (Sidifen Yiyuan) of Collier Computing and learn all about Solaris 10 10/08Update new features. Stephen will discuss expanded ZFS file-system support, improved container functionality, logical domains, improved Xen 'guest OS' support, and more!
Stay to network with peers and Sun Learning Service Solaris Campus staff, participate in games and other activities, and let us know what you need to learn to make your work with Solaris easier, faster and more successful!
Please join us on Monday, September 15, 2008, from 1:00 PM-4:30 PM Eastern Time (10:00 AM-1:30 PM Pacific) for a half-day, immersive conference in Second Life® and on the web, celebrating the debut of Kelley Executive Partners' Virtual Campus.
Affiliated with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, Kelley Executive Partners is one of the world's leading innovators in executive education. This half-day program brings together representatives of Kelley's global-class faculty, leading corporations and virtual world technologists, and will provide unique insight into the current value and potential of immersive social worlds to executive education, corporate/institutional learning partnerships, training, team building and related disciplines.
Following online RSVP, you will be contacted by email regarding scheduled Second Life orientation sessions, prior to the event, and given the URL for attending via web video. If you have difficulty with any aspect of Second Life account creation or event registration, please email
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for prompt assistance.
Full Event Description: Virtual Worlds and the Future of Business Education September 15, 2008 1:00 PM-4:30 PM Eastern, 10:00 AM-1:30 PM Pacific Kelley Executive Partners Virtual Campus, Second Life
Emerging business challenges can only be met if global organizations cultivate management excellence and develop "leadership bench strength" at every level. This compels corporations to rethink executive education as an ongoing partnership with institutions of higher learning; themselves re-imagined as agile communities of expertise - empowered, but not bound by campus and location.
This half-day conference - held in Second Life and, via realtime video, on the web - brings together voices from across the Kelley School of Business and Indiana University communities, plus insight from corporate technologists, technology and business analysts and metaverse professionals. Presentations, panel discussions and activities will present a rich picture of current work and future potentials of this emerging medium for business education.
- Meet Kelley School of Business faculty now teaching in virtual world environments and exploring their use for global teaming and other critical business applications.
- Learn how virtual worlds are powering new ways of acquiring, representing and using actionable business intelligence: from market modeling and simulation, to product prototyping and usability analysis, to real-world data visualization, to new 'hybrid social network' models for identifying and sharing expertise.
- Gain insight on today's virtual world technology landscape, and hear from key corporate stakeholders now building the "open 3D internet."
- Participate! In open Q&A and informal conversation with the experts. And join in a fun and interactive exercise, demonstrating the power of virtual worlds for rapid learning, team building and innovation.
John F. Cady, Executive Director, Kelley Executive Partners, was previously a Managing Director of Duke Corporate Education, the executive education practice at Duke University. At Duke's Fuqua School of Business, John was Associate Dean for Executive Programs and Associate Dean for Executive Education. Previously, John served for 11 years on the faculty of Harvard Business School, teaching in Harvard's executive and MBA programs. He has also served as Senior Lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, where he taught in MIT's Senior Executive Program and the Sloan Fellows' Program. John was a co-founder and Managing Partner for The Center for Executive Development, one of the first professional service firms to focus exclusively on executive education.
Ken Hudson
Ken Hudson is Managing Director of the Virtual World Design Centre, Loyalist College. An expert in the uses and applications of social media in educational contexts, he established the Second Life program at Loyalist College which received the College's Ontario award for innovation for 2008. At Loyalist, Ken designs applied learning experiences using Second Life, including a recent Canadian border-crossing simulation. He is a regular speaker at conferences and online seminars. The Virtual World Design Centre at Loyalist works with educators and organizations to develop integrated virtual environments that support instructional outcomes. Ken was educated at the University of Toronto and at the Institute for the Psychological Study of the Arts (UF). He is a Senior Fellow at the Beal Institute for Strategic Creativity, Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto.
David Levine
David Levine, from IBM's TJ Watson Research Center, is a 23 year employee of IBM Research, with summer and university internships extending back another five years. His interests in Social computing and online collaboration extend back to work in 1982-1985 on IBM's online, BBS-style conferencing systems, and tools for sharing applications in the very early days of Personal Computing.
David has worked on a variety of projects in his IBM career, including network and systems management, Intelligent Agents, Reasoning engines, highly-distributed e-mail systems and policy-based reasoning systems.
His current work is focused on Virtual Worlds technology, and the long term implications of broadly deployed social collaboration tools. He works with Linden Lab's Architecture Working Group, and IBM's team on OpenSim - the opensource version of Second Life's server architecture. David's work focuses both on the technologies needed to permit interoperation between virtual worlds, and on policy and social implications of the open 3D internet.
Anne Massey
Anne Massey is the Dean's Research Professor and Professor of IS at Kelley. Her research focuses on how information technology (IT) - more specifically, how collaborative technologies - support individual, team, and organizational performance. She is currently engaged in research and teaching involving 3D virtual worlds and serious games. Her published research has appeared in leading academic and professional journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, MIS Quarterly, and the Communications of the ACM. Her research has been supported with funding from, among others, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Xerox and Nortel. She has consulted on IT adoption and implementation to Eli Lilly & Company and many other organizations. She currently serves as Executive Director for the Information Management Affiliates Program, a university/industry cooperative, and is the former chair of the Information Systems (IS) Department. Massey has received numerous teaching awards, including the Teaching Excellence Recognition Award given by the trustees of Indiana University. She holds a Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Christian Renaud
Christian Renaud is CEO of Technology Intelligence Group, an early-stage technology analyst firm. The Technology Intelligence Group is an open network of key subject matter experts from diverse industries that provide their insights and experience to early adopter enterprise and public sector clients. (www.techintelgroup.com)
Prior to founding Technology Intelligence Group, Christian ran the New Markets and Technology Group at Cisco Systems, chartered to identify, incubate and develop new billion-dollar businesses for Cisco. In addition to New Markets and Technologies, from 2006 to 2008, Christian also served as Cisco's Chief Architect of Networked Virtual Environments, developing the virtual collaborative teamspaces market and product strategy, leveraging immersive gaming technologies into enterprise collaboration.
He is a frequent keynote speaker at Serious Games and Virtual World conferences, a much-read author, and serves as an advisor and consultant to a number of startups and advisory boards. His personal blog is located at www.christianrenaud.com.
Sarah Robbins
Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins-Bell is a PhD candidate at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. She is also the Director of Emerging Technologies for Media Sauce and a higher education consultant helping colleges and universities integrate Web 2.0 technologies meaningfully into pedagogy. She is the coauthor of Second Life for Dummies. Her research has been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Carolyn Wiethoff
Carolyn Wiethoff is Clinical Associate Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University-Bloomington. She is also a Director of Executive Education for Kelley Executive Partners, and Faculty Director for Kelley's Young Women's Institute and Women in Business Initiative. Carolyn received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in Management and Human Resources, and has been on the Kelley faculty since 2000. Prior to graduate school, she had a 10-year career as a human resource consultant. Carolyn's research investigates the role of hidden diversity in the development of trust within and between work teams. Currently, she is also investigating generational differences in the classroom and workplace, with particular attention given to strategies for knowledge transfer between generations.
About Kelley School of Business
For nearly 90 years - first in Bloomington and later in Indianapolis, online, and for top companies - the Kelley School of Business has prepared students to lead organizations, start companies, develop new products and services, and shape business knowledge and policy.
Founded in 1920 as the Indiana University School of Commerce and Finance, the Kelley School has grown into one of the most respected business schools in the world. Our programs are consistently ranked among the best in the nation, our faculty members are internationally recognized for their teaching and thought leadership, and businesses worldwide hire our highly-qualified graduates.
About Kelley Executive Partners
In 1968, the Kelley School of Business of Indiana University, Bloomington IN, established its first corporate partnership in executive education, developing a custom program to meet a client's strategic business objectives. Since that time, Kelley Executive Partners has become a leader in executive education and our custom product line has grown extensively in scope and variety. The value of our programs is measured not only inside the classroom in terms of innovative learning environments, but also outside the classroom, resulting in improved organizational performance and breakthrough thinking.
Chris Gibson, Vice President of Educational Technology and Janyth Ussery, Director of Web Education for Texas State College West Texas speak with host Rissa Maidstone about Texas State's new Digital Media certificate and associates degree programs in Second Life. This is a fascinating conversation, and an important first for virtual worlds in education.
This evening, we spent an hour with Mark Young and Greg Spencer, two of the chief architects of Google Lively, talking about Lively tech, UI, and Google's plans for opening the service to user-generated content. In addition to our lively crew in Lively itself, a simfull of our friends joined from SL, and a passel of folks linked up via the web to watch the streamed video.
This mixed-virtual-realities-plus-web-community stuff is beginning to feel natural. Which makes me think that -- once again -- virtual worlds are trying to teach me something through experience that I might, from a distance, have dismissed. I'm a big fan of immersion, and what you might call "verisimilitude": and I think that powerful psychological dynamics are recruited when virtual environments model reality more or less closely, or at least strive for richness, detail, and "self-containedness." So while I've been, out of necessity, a big proponent of using media and Web 2.0 contrivances (e.g., AJAX-based chat) to break down the walls between worlds, I've always viewed this as a stopgap -- thinking that, when VWs really hit massive scales and become interoperable, we won't need special tech to spread experience. What I think I'm learning, however, is that immersion tolerates mixed reality very well -- probably because, as 21st century humans, we already have huge experience with technology paradigms that have similar characteristics. Nobody thinks twice about holding a conversation with people in the room, while also watching a TV show (many TV shows -- the Olympics, presidential debates, etc., would be far less fun without such local social interaction). Mixed-virtual-realities isn't that different.
The Google Lively team, meanwhile, is going through a crash, post-launch course in the real nature of social virtual reality (in contrast to hypotheticals), and it's fascinating to hear their experiences, what they're learning, and how fast they're adapting. You sorta have to figure that folks who work for Google, and who could execute a project like this in under two years, working one day a week, are pretty much "the smartest people in the room." But being smart doesn't guarantee success when you're dealing with social variables (cranky users, preconceived market notions, demanding developer-partners, scoffing pundits, and perhaps even some corporate stakeholders who don't quite get it). What's most impressive about the Lively folks we've met is that they're listening closely, watching, debating, and that they're emotionally prepared, one gets the impression, both to toss out stuff if they decide it isn't working, and to stick by their guns if they believe it's the right thing to do. And they're winning some real victories on both sides. On the 'toss out stuff that doesn't work' side, for example, they're looking seriously at the permissions structure controlling animations, with an eye to giving avatars more control of what gets done to them by others. On the stick-by-your-guns side, Mark Young and I did a brief conversational fugue about the chat-balloons in Lively -- a UI trope I initially hated, but that I'm coming to realize actually reveals a great deal of social information in a way that linear, pure-text scrolling chat does not.
It was a fun hour. Here's the raw footage+audio in case you missed it. Have patience at the beginning, as we wade through sound-checks (ustream doesn't let you edit).
Come join us -- in Lively, Second Life, or on the realtime Web -- for an informal conversation with software architects Mark Young and Greg Spencer, key contributors to Google's new Lively virtual world. If you've been curious about how Lively works, want to explore the thinking behind its novel, simple user interface, or want some clues about Lively's underlying architecture, please join us! John Jainschigg, Director of ZiffDavisEnterprise's Internet and Community Laboratory, will moderate.
To attend:
In Lively: World2Worlds Lively Office (http://www.world2worlds.com/index.php/google-lively). Since Lively currently doesn't support streamed audio, to listen "in Lively," just enter World2Worlds' Lively Office at the prior link, then pop the video page, below, click to start the stream, and leave it running in the background.
On the web, via streamed video+audio: World2Worlds Realtime Page (http://www.world2worlds.com/index.php/w2w-realtime-page).
In Second Life: World2Worlds (slurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/World2Worlds/131/189/35). Audio only.
In reading Sophrosyne's excellent post with her comments on the article I'd written entitled "Virtual World Economics: “Fair Value for Professional Services" and the interesting post by Dale Innis in response, I felt this merited a new blog of its own. Soph's argument (and John Jainschigg's at http://www.zzomg.com) argue that the virtual world economy is colonial, third world country and introducing atomic world pricing for goods and services would have a negative impact.
I think though, that we need to look at some facts and perhaps some opinion.
Excerpted from Soph’s blog (linked at end of this post):
“But say I kept those earnings in SL: say I've got an income of a couple million Lindens a day. What's going to happen?
Right: the prices of wings, sex toys and latex body suits in SL are going to go from $L500 to $L500,000 overnight. And if you're not in a business with atomic-world customers? You're not going to be able to afford anything, because I'll have driven up all the prices, across the board. The local economy will collapse, local producers will be driven out, and the only people left will be the successful colonialists, not the indigenous producers.”
A major difference in the SL™ economy and the atomic world economy is that once something is created, say, a shirt, it can be resold millions of times for L$200 without the production costs, energy expenditures or overhead that a shirt in the atomic world would consume and require. Given this, the local economy should not be affected in an adverse way, but rather it will be stimulated by those participating in virtual worlds and shopping for these very goods. Do prices need to go up? No. I know a number of designers in world, as you do, that make a comfortable atomic world living through sales of their creations at “colonial” rates. Why? again, no production overhead. They’re not affected by rising fuel costs, rising labor costs nor are they affected by fluctuating prices in materials, equipment and so on to produce.
Soph: “It's a completely valid perspective, and it's the one Rissa's coming from when she argues that my $L-pricing or donating my services undercuts her ability to charge a living wage.”
I have never argued that your $L pricing or donating of your services undercuts my ability to charge a living wage. Rather, I have argued that those voices raised in protest for not getting paid what they believe they’re worth is partially their choice—they’re choosing to work for extremely low or no wage essentially giving away services and at the same time, some corporations and entities such as NASA (which you'd referenced) are taking advantage. Like you, I could donate my services—I too have a “limousine lifestyle” but I choose to charge what I’m worth.There is also the fact that if something should happen to that other income I can independently maintain my lifestyle and support my family.
Soph: “Vids and Rissa deserve to make a living wage for their work. I'm not arguing against that. What I am saying is that their best strategy - maximizing their income and minimizing the amount of time they have to work to survive - has "negative externalities" for the digital economy. The sum of good individual choices can generate a bad collective outcome. I'm in a position to try to counterbalance some of that, to make choices favoring the good of the SL developing-nation economy, I think.”
First, the work I do and I’m sure this is true with Vids, hasn’t resulted in "a maximization of income for a minimization of time”.In fact, more time is required due to the need for ongoing education about virtual world environments in general, onboarding, etc. in addition to our professional services. This time is often uncompensated.
Secondly, this argument is invalid because the premise that it costs the same amount to produce virtual world goods for sales is inaccurate as stated previously. In regard to services however, the atomic world is populated with a number of charities and volunteer programs for any number of causes. These haven’t hurt my ability to sell my professional services there, and volunteering one’s time in a virtual world to provide a service or product has no effect upon this. I donate time too, for various causes and, in fact, World2Worlds has donated an event for Relay for Life’s auction.
In the past, we’ve a demonstrated history of supporting the economy within Second Life through free vendor space on our islands for use by select vendors to advertise and sell their products and services. They keep all revenue and provide landmarks to their stores. Some of the designers have designed, at atomic world pricing, skins and shapes for our clients. They enjoy the benefit of both economies.
The two economies co-exist. Do they work well together? Yes.
Soph: “... And Why I'm On The Other Side” Rissa and I do somewhat similar work, running professional-quality events. She's about the best there is at what she does; I'm pretty good. Rissa - who I count as a dear friend and mentor - would see me charge the atomic going rate for the conference services I provide, especially when I partner with atomic-world groups like NASA. I've thought long and hard about it, and I'm not going to.
Soph, I respect you a great deal, find your intellect and views fascinating and am enriched by our friendship and intellectual discourse.Now on to the rest of the comment excerpted from your post . . . Your reason for donating your services to NASA and other atomic world groups is to remain anonymous and to avoid the identity issues associated with atomic world business—taxes, payroll, etc.There is nothing wrong with this at all—your choice.I do wonder though, if the FAR covers this type of donation to entities receiving government funding.I’m sure they do, right?
Like most virtual worlds natives, we hate adding overmuch to the hype surrounding these profound technologies. And we're especially sensitive about claiming "firsts" — something corporations have been over-eager to do in virtual world spaces. That said, last night, Saturday, July 12 at 8 PM EST, we hosted Second Life Looks at Lively, a panel of major media virtual worlds watchers doing a week-one "first impressions" vamp on Google's introduction of their Lively virtual world service, this past Monday.
It was truly (in a small way) a historic event. We hosted on our still-mostly-closed-to-the-public World2Worlds sim in Second Life, here on the web, and in Lively itself, with panelists both in Lively and SL; tying it all together with streamed audio and video, and chatbridge. And it all worked!
This was (I think, anyway) the first time Second Life and Lively have been connected in this way. I daresay it was the first time Lively has been used for a business-class event. And the panel discussion (illuminated by inworld chit-chat on both sides) was superior. Panelists included:
Rhonda Lowry, VP Emerging and Social Media, Turner Broadcasting
Eric Krengel, Special SL Correspondent, Reuters
Mitch Wagner, Executive Editor, InformationWeek
John Jainschigg, Director, Internet & Community Laboratory, ZiffDavisEnterprise (moderator)
Exec summary: it's early times for Lively. But this is not an insignificant development. Lively is certainly not just a "chat room with some visuals." For now, it's very different from SL, not least in that regular users can't create content. But it's not an unworkable environment -- even now -- for a great many interesting applications. The fact that it lives in the browser is huge -- among other points, the panelists agreed that, even full-screened, the Lively experience is more multitasking-friendly than SL, which is a far more immersive and even, to some extent, hermetic medium.
If you're interested in the future co-evolution of SL and Lively, stick around. We'll shortly (fingers crossed) be bringing some of the Lively team inworld, and explore some of the history and vision behind this fascinating new tool.
Here is a much better version of the (.flv, streamed) video than was posted the other day. Here's the (1:18) mp3. And here's the chat transcript from web and SL.
John Jainschigg just posted a very cute blog entry over on Zzomg!, describing his first experiments in turning Google Lively into (his words): "a work-ready platform for global business conferencing, branding, sales, education and v-commerce." I couldn't resist sharing a pic of World2Worlds new experimental space (to visit, click on Google Lively(tm) in the menu above). That's me in the back row, looking vaguely like AIM's generation 1.0 "Goth Girl" SuperBuddy icon. John's the white squirrel-thing at the podium, dressed in an Aladdin costume.
Clearly, it's early times. But seeing Lively on a full-size letterbox display (i.e., popped out from the web page) and you begin to get a feel for what this could become. That's a very, very sleek user interface. Baked textures. Simple-but-serviceable lighting-model. There's stuff to like about Lively, for sure.
I’m no expert in economics and I’ll state that upfront.I am, however, a business professional providing consulting services to corporate and public clients, something I’ve been doing for twenty years.In my recent blog on RL vs. SL™ vs. Physical World vs. Atomic World, the question of fair value was brought up by JetZep Zabelin.It’s been a practice by many, not all, entrepreneurs and established corporations to pay people in virtual worlds using the inworld currency and “virtual world goods” pricing --devaluing their work a great deal.You often see things like “Come work for us and get your name on everything!” or “Respond to this RFP, we’re going to pay you nothing but you’ll get a lot of recognition!”
Ugh.I’ve prepared detailed scopes of work using project management systems for task order management, workload balancing, scheduling, budgeting and cost estimating.I write contracts with everyone and require hourly rates or lump sum agreements, tax information, nondisclosure and non-compete agreements. My point is that as businesses, we have to be, and should be, corporately responsible.We’re entering into agreements with professionals that perhaps we’ve never met face-to-face, but value for their work and responsible performances. So, pay them.Pay going rates. Businesses can’t expect someone they contract with to deliver if they don’t, nor do they have any legal grounds for recourse.
Today’s rate for 100,000 Linden Dollars (virtual currency in Second Life) at an exchange rate of L$ 263.92 per US $1.00 is equivalent to US $378.90.This translates to US $9.47 per hour, in a 40 hour work week. Most administrative assistants are paid much more than that—US $29,263 annually if they’ve less than a year of experience (see http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Administrative_Assistant/Salary) this is approximately US $14.06 p/hour. I don’t remember any time in the last 20 years when a good graphics artist or programmer was paid $9.47 per hour.
As I stated in an earlier blog on identity and transparency (see http://www.world2worlds.com/index.php/blogmenu/69) the IRS has already begun the process of determining that those working in virtual world environments can be classified as “part-time employees” as demonstrated with Electric Sheep. I’m sure that sooner or later, subcontracting work to people working within virtual worlds will be investigated, if not by the IRS, then by another branch of government (you pick, there are SO many).
For those working in virtual worlds—you know you’re talented and your work is worth X dollars an hour to you and the industry.Charge it. Stop giving it away. In John Jainschigg’s blog at http://www.zzomg.com/ he states“If this analogy is meaningful -- what changes the picture?”In my opinion, three things:1) the IRS (or other government agency); 2) Corporate responsibility -- awareness of employment and contracting law, and 3) the individuals that realize their value and charge for their work.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on this subject.I know there are many more points I’ve not covered here—I don’t know if they can be covered by one person in a short blog.
Second Life® and SL™ are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.
You often hear people discussing virtual worlds and the physical world as "RL", "1L" or "real life" and if they're in Second Life, referring to it as "SL". In regard to business that crosses both, I have a peeve about using the term "RL" or "real life". Business is as real as it gets, regardless of whether you're conducting it virtually or in the physical world. To infer that its make believe because your office or work is in virtual environments is bad for every professional working in or using the metaverse for business. Having spent 20 years in an office, I know the hours I spend working in virtual environments from my home office are as long, if not longer, than what I'd spent in my past professional career--it IS a global community after all.
Think about it next time you say something like, "I've an appointment in RL" or "I've got appointments in real life" or some such. I've read too many articles and blogs where virtual worlds are scorned and pointed at as "make believe" and this type of speech endorses those comments. How do you think we should refer to the cross over between virtual / atomic / metaverse and physical worlds? What are your thoughts?
Municipal, government and private organizations around the world struggle to design projects that serve their communities and harmonize with the urban landscape and infrastructure, but it's hard to convey vision to stakeholders, socialize aspects of design and achieve consensus. I moderated a panel of planners, architects, designers, and Second Life developers that discussed how each was using Second Life and/or OpenSim to present, test, collaborate about, and socialize design for physical world architectural and engineering applications.
Reflecting upon the presentations and discussions given by the prestigious panel below, a few things occurred to me:
Conceptual designs are being tested in Second Life and have resulted in significant cost savings to the engineers, architects and planners.
The Second Life developer community is employing the same management tools that those of us who’ve worked in the engineering/architectural industry do for planning, scheduling, budget, resource management and manpower allocation.
Community involvement programs and planning meetings are being or have been developed for specific physical world projects using the Second Life platform.
There are ongoing technical issues that need to be dealt with through Linden Lab or third party application development.
Terry Beaubois who’s Second Life work has been written about in Popular Science, Newsweek International, and Architectural Record; and presented to AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), AIA (American Institute of Architects), and the NIBS (National Institute of Building Sciences) discussed his lab’s selection by the Governor of Montana to lead a multidisciplinary, collaborative team in a two-year, federally funded, state-wide education project that will involve a number of Web2.0 applications, including 3D internet programs.
Dr. Cristina Lopes discussed her work on the SkyTran simulation in SL, as well as more recent work on GIS and the use of OpenSim.Her work there focuses on two main interests: search and modeling of complex engineering systems. Currently she is modeling and simulating a transportation system called SkyTran, according to its physical-world specifications.
Eric Gordon talked about what Hub2 (http://hub2.org) an organization that employs emerging 3D virtual world technologies to enhance community engagement in the urban planning process. It is designed to work alongside developers’ current community outreach methods, while providing residents with a deeper engagement with the design process and greater accessibility to the ideas emerging from within the community.
Jon Brouchoud, co-founder of Studio Wikitecture, uses Second Life as a platform for architectural collaboration to explore whether an open source paradigm and the group's collective intelligence can be harnessed to create innovative architectural and urban design solutions in both the real and the virtual world. Their most recent project was chosen as winner of the overall 'Founder's Award' out of over 500 entries worldwide in the Open Architecture Challenge, an international architecture competition, developed entirely in Second Life.
Ron Blechner, a visionary and virtual world developer discussed the planning, implementation and delivery of some of Involve!’s high-profile projects, the San Jose Tech Museum and The Weather Channel.
The following is the recorded session (with a few technical annoyances built in!)
John Chambers, Cisco® CEO not only endorses virtual worlds and Second Life® as part of their collaboration focus, but has a company-wide implementation strategy in progress.I attended the Cisco Live! program on June 24, 2008in Second Life and came away with what I think of as a powerful endorsement for business and government in regard to using virtual worlds.
I feel strongly that virtual worlds are a part of the internet evolution and are “the” essential component to collaboration and conferencing programs. Not only are they a "green" way of doing business and are a viable sustainability addition to any enterprise, but they're the only environment that provides immersive conversation with your peers aside from the physical world.Distance, time and cost are overcome with tools such as these. Business, government, and the general population will be, and are, integrating them into everyday aspects of the work and social environments along with networked applications such as WebEx (more on this in my next blog as I also attended a talk at Cisco Live! in Second Life today about this application AND Second Life-interesting stuff!). With Cisco’s commitment to collaboration and the integration of several technologies into their own corporate environment as well as their partners for everyday business activities including the use of Second Life and other virtual worlds, I believe we are seeing a major commitment. A virtual world winter coming? I think not.
With that, I’ve transcribed some of the questions and answers from John Chambers’ appearance and speech in Second Life and all I can say is Wow! Go Cisco! and thank you, John Chambers.
Talk about Cisco’s likely strategy for investment in virtual worlds (Beyers Sellers)
John Chambers: If you look at where the market is going to go, we’ve found by virtually interfacing to our customers, we think you can drive productivity of those segments of your business to do that by 10%+ per year.If you take the emotion out of it and take a step back, and remember Cisco is a company that normally gets market transitions right, we also have been very accurate at being able to do them ourselves.
If you think about a virtual world, we will interface, the majority of our interface to our customers within the next 5 years and possibly three, will be virtually. Now how much of that will be 3D vs 2D vs other capability remains to be seen, but we clearly are doing this internal to Cisco.So when you talk about those on our wikis, you’re talking about wiki loads literally in the last six months doubling in terms of pages used. When you think about how we’re using video the equivalent of YouTube in the enterprise you’re talking about the loads on the network in literally 4 months going up four-fold the number of users and applications that we have.
You’re beginning to see the start of what I think will be a huge wave for Cisco--first being the most advanced company in the world for using this technology and every functional group within our company, and then taking it to our customer sets and helping them employ it.To say we’re going to lead here will be an understatementWe’re going to try to lead by a long way and then take this capability that we’ve learned to our customers just like we did back in the mid to late 90’s, the first phase of the internet.
There’s a blog by Bruce Damer http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2008/06/possibility-of.html questioning about whether VW platforms facing downturn in popularity? Do you have any reaction now that Cisco is showing a strong interest in SL interaction? (Matt-ComputerWorld)
JC: I think there are experts that may be able look at a point of time, and very often if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 30 years in high tech, is that sometimes concepts are too early, but when they do take off, they take off with tremendous speed and efficiency and this is where I think it’s important especially for the business leaders and for the entertainment industry to understand what’s possible because when a market moves, it usually moves a speed faster than anyone anticipated.
I would compare it to the first phase of the internet.If you look back to the predictions made by Cisco and others in the early and mid 90s almost all of them not only came through but ended up being even lower than we expected in terms of underestimating the market opportunities.So I think when you think about interfacing to your customers, your family interfacing to your peers and communities of interest that we will have in both our business worlds and personal lives, I think you’re at the very, very beginning of the stages of what’s possible.
Might there be some bumps along the way? Yes, but I would disagree with the overall commentary.I think you’re going to see a world that explodes and this type of utilization. But to one of your colleague’s earlier comments, you got to have more ubiquitous bandwidth processing power and more people who see the value of bringing this whether it’s the value of bringing healthcare, productivity or entertainment. So what I think you’re seeing is the very frontend of the wave of opportunities.
What is Cisco doing in terms of R&D, i.e. 3D data visualization? (Tara5 Oh)
JC: Well if you watch what we’re beginning to do, we often get our best ideas through our customers and from our partners.Clearly while we’ve been a member of Second Life since 2006, this last partner conference earlier this year, we had a virtual 3d partner capability which we continue to expand.And if you watch what we’re doing, we’re instead of talking about video capabilities in companies, we’re really bringing that virtual capability into our customer environment as the primary way that we will support them in the future and the primary way we interface within our company.
We’re not just using the technology we’re changing the organization model to be much more collaborative and rewarding people based upon that and restructuring.In fact, if you watch what we’re doing in the company, while we’re organized in traditional ways in terms of sales, engineering, legal, and supply chain, our organization structure of the future will be all around communities of interest, will be based upon market opportunities and the enterprise or the consumer, opportunities in terms of video or in software, etc.So we’re restructuring our company and we think it will have a huge future.We clearly intend to not only lead in this area, in terms of using it ourself but will lead in terms of bringing it to our customers.
What are the obstacles we’re seeing right now regarding virtual worlds? What are we experiencing? What needs to be solved before it’s going to get adopted more? (Tau Takashi)
JC: Adoption in business-like many of the new collaborative approaches, you have to have role models first, who understand the benefits from it and are able to show substantially what the results were--able to show productivity, able to show the power of the community is so much stronger than a command and control type environment, able to show the market share gain that they got in terms of market implementation or in savings they got both in travel costs deferred as well as the impact in producing less emissions as a result of that.So I think you’re going to see that occurs in companies and we make it easier to use, and clearly Cisco is going to attempt lead here, and other customers will take it up and it will expand.
What is exciting you at Cisco Live? What is getting you revved up? (Danette CiscoSystems)
JC: What is getting me revved up at Cisco Live is seeing a concept come true. We started down a collaborative path at Cisco literally 7 years ago with most people in the company not believing this was the right way to go and all of us having been successful in command and control, but that is not the future at all.
The future is going to be built of communities of interest and how you can access any data from any device and share that not with a machine or another person in a one to one transaction but share it among a community of interest where you think together. I think this will forever change business models. I think it will forever change entertainment and it will change every aspect of our lives in a way we are just starting to imagine.
I think what is exciting to here is that where last year we were talking about that in theory and this year we are beginning to see people grab this is going to happen. We may disagree on the time frame but it is not longer a question any more of if, it is now a question of when.
To hear the actual presentation by John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems, Cisco Live QA on Collaboration follow this link: http://blogs.cisco.com/virtualworlds.
Second Life and SL are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.
Recently while participating in the Science Guild in WoW, a heated debate ensued regarding transparency (identity disclosure) and anonymity as a digital person.This discussion has been occurring for some time now between those wishing to remain anonymous and continue as a digital person, and those that not only need, but require physical world identities.
What is a digital person? For those unfamiliar with this term, they are synthetic identities created by people using the internet for virtual world habitation and representation, MMORPGs, and/or social networking.Many create a presence for themselves that replicate a human being’s presence in the physical world—with the exception of providing a legal identity. Some have extensive social networks, built brands around themselves, and offer services both to virtual and physical world businesses or organizations. In this context, a digital person is, by their own admission, a “person” that should be recognized based on their merit and not required to divulge a physical world identity.I speculate that it is possible they may be recognized as intellectual property.But by whom?
From my point of view, businesses and organizations have every right to require identification.They need to know who they’re contracting or associating with, whether that person or legal entity is licensed to conduct business, what their reputation is, and have some assurance in regard to liability.Organizations also need to protect their employees, customers, shareholders, students, audiences, reputations, brands, products, and services--and they have every right to do so.
In May 2008, the IRS ruled Electric Sheep’s Second Life greeters were part-time employees.No one should be surprised by this.If you employ or contract someone and pay them, you should expect your government to step in to collect their taxes as well as to protect the employee or contractor. I think this is a wake-up call for “digital people”.If you haven’t done so already, those providing virtual goods and services and realizing a physical world income from them should seriously think about obtaining a business license and reporting the income.At worst, keep records and be prepared to do so.I know several “digital people” in Second Life that are making $60,000.00+ USD annually—I’m pretty sure the government is going to notice. It’s only a matter of time.
Where does that leave the digital person? I’m acquainted with many extremely talented and intelligent digital personas that, to date, have refused to disclose their physical world identities.I’ve envisioned scenarios where this might be necessary. Perhaps the digital person is famous in the physical world and wants to retain their anonymity in order to socialize and experience people and events in the same way that the average person does.Perhaps they are performing research and need the anonymity to insure their research is untainted by contrived reactions based on identity. I’m sure there are other reasons I’ve not covered here.However, in these scenarios they aren’t conducting business with physical world businesses or organizations, and they aren’t selling virtual goods or services in virtual worlds. The expectation that a digital persona can conduct business or interact on a professional level with organizations without disclosing their identity is likely going to limit their opportunities if they expect any kind of monetary exchange or financial investment.
