Business Adoption of Social Media &

Virtual Worlds: Implications for

Content Generators, the Firm, and

InnovationInnovation

Robert B. Cohen, PhD

Fellow, Economic Strategy Institute, Senior Analyst, West Avenue Management Partners

and Economist, Athena Alliance

bcohen@bway.net

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Virtual Worlds: Social Networking

Alters Business Organization

• Business Uses VWs to enhance training and teamwork –this builds on MMOGs, social networks, etc.

• Collaboration successes result in more “interactive” corporations

New Types of Firms Emerge Over the next 10 Years:

“Collaborative Corporations” – linked closely with suppliers “Collaborative Corporations” – linked closely with suppliers and product developers. Creatively use Social Networking

“Modern Guild System Firms” – highly technologically competent firms that come together to collaborate on projects

For more details see my essay, “Virtual Worlds and the Transformation of Business,” www.athenaalliance.org.

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How Users will Shape Virtual Worlds

4Source: Proprietary research

for Alcatel-Lucent.

Virtual World Platforms Begin to Link

Users with Computing and Data Stores

Cloud

Computing

Corporation using

Virtual Worlds to

Create New Products

Platform

Supplier

Firm

Data

StorageCorporate

Partner

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Examples of Platforms

• Major Oil Firms visualize refineries and access data describing every piece of equipment.

– Games train workers about how accidents occur in refineries. Bots are used to create situations that workers often face.

• Oil firms collaborate to visualize well exploration alternatives.

– Have established Energistics to create an industry-wide XML – Have established Energistics to create an industry-wide XML standard for well, financial and other data

– Expect to begin to evaluate different well alternatives:• Use Models to simulate best alternative. Different partners send solutions

back for reruns from a Platform

• In 5 years, oil firms say they will run “simultaneous simulations” that examine a wide range of different alternatives for well drilling.

– Procter & Gamble is moving its simulation work into collaborative environments.

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