Virtual  Worlds  

By  Mike  Danielsen  and  Terri  Ertlmeier  

  Industry    Business  Failures    Business  Success    Training   Meetings  and  Collaboration    Simulation  and  Prototyping    How  To  Get  Started  

  The  two  big  trends  in  IT  today  are  Cloud  Computing  and  Virtual  Worlds  (VWs).      They  are  similar  in  that  they  both  rely  on  client  server  architecture  and  both  rely  on  the  server  to  do  the  majority  of  the  work.  

  Cloud  Computing  shift  our  typical  computing  jobs  to  a  server  on  the  internet.  

  Virtual  Worlds  move  our  communications  and  collaborations  to  a  server  on  the  internet.  

 When  they  got  set  up  in  Second  Life  they  learned  the  following  lessons:    Virtual  world  sales  have  nothing  to  do  with  real  world  sales.  

  Exposure  was  poor  due  to  sparse  population  density.  

  Traditional  approaches  to  marketing  do  not  work  in  Virtual  Worlds.  

  The  entry  barrier  was  difficult  for  many  people.  

  Today  businesses  have  found  three  main  uses  for  Virtual  Worlds  to  improve  the  business  practices.      These  have  little  to  do  with  marketing  but  a  lot  to  do  with  enterprise.  

  The  three  uses  are:  ▪  Training  ▪  Meetings  and  collaboration  ▪  Simulation  and  prototyping  

  Over  200  universities  have  made  a  presence  in  Second  Life  including:      Princeton    Rice  University    Pepperdine  University    University  of  Derby  (UK)    Vassar    the  Open  University  (UK)    Harvard    SUNY    University  of  Texas  (San  Antonio)      Stanford    MIT    and  many  others.  

Case  Study:  Children’s  Memorial  Hospital  Chicago  Uses  Second  Life  to  Conduct  Emergency  Training    Posted  by  Amanda  Linden  on  Oct  7,  2009    

  Creating  product  prototypes  in  the  virtual  world  allows  one  to  test  concepts  and  gauge  human  feedback.    Avatars  bring  the  human  factor  into  

simulations.    Virtual  prototypes  can  be  developed  

quickly  and  inexpensively.    Superior  3D  visualization  of  processes  and  

simulations.    Virtual  worlds  provide  the  ability  to  

walk  through  simulations  as  they  are  occurring.  

  Non  interruptive  testing  of  solutions  where  real  world  testing  is  not  possible  due  to  costs,  scheduling  and/or  risk.  

  http://www.teleplace.com/    http://www.activeworlds.com/    http://www.protonmedia.com/    https://lg3d-­‐wonderland.dev.java.net/    http://www.forterrainc.com/    http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page    http://work.secondlife.com/en-­‐US/  

1.   Go  to  http://secondlife.com/  

2.   Create  an  account.  (avatar)  

3.   Download  and  install  viewer  

4.   Login  to  Second  Life  

  A  good  computer  with:    2-­‐4  Gigs  of  RAM    Good  3D  graphics    High  speed  internet    Headset  

  Highly  recommended:    Space  Navigator    http://www.3dconnexion.com/3dmouse/spacenavigator.php