Ambient Connections via Ron Edwards

July 07, 2008

Forterra OLIVE New Release Update & New Video

Here's a repost of this link as the last one has been archived already. We can't wait to get our hands and our client's hands on the new Forterra OLIVE release due shortly - it will have streaming video, eLearning content embedded in-world and easy to use powerpoint among several other features key to enterprise collaboration and training.. Contact me if you'd like a sneak peak.

A new better video of the Forterra OLIVE SCORM eLearning content is now available.. We're working on some non-military examples as well. You can access the Youtube version below or download and play .wvm - 100 meg download here.

Forterra are about to release an important update which will enable embedding SCORM compliant e-Learning in-world. Content can be accessed by participants directly or assigned by instructors as well as attached to objects for contextualised learning. Exciting!

Posted by Ron Edwards at 12:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 27, 2008

**Updated** New Forterra Video Showing SCORM Content in-world

**UPDATE** New better quality video link for the Forterra SCORM video is now available.. We're working on some non-military examples as well. You can access the Youtube version below or download and play .wvm - 100 meg download here.

Forterra are about to release an important update which will enable embedding SCORM compliant e-Learning in-world. Content can be accessed by participants directly or assigned by instructors as well as attached to objects for contextualised learning. Exciting!

The new video is now below.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 10:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 18, 2008

Podcast: Comparing Forterra OLIVE to other VWs

I was interviewed by Mike Ohara for the Virtual Worlds Business Cast recently and it has just been published. You can subscribe to these podcasts directly on the site or in Itunes. I discsussed some of the key differences between Forterra OLIVE and other virtual world platforms and highlighted some of the benefits of private interoperable virtual worlds. Follow this link to listen. Comments welcome!!

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April 07, 2008

CNBC World Business Video on Secure Virtual Worlds for Collaboration

Here's the video clip from last week's showing on CNBC Europe's World Business program featuring Forterra Systems OLIVE and ourselves. We're looking into getting the rights for a higher resolution version with Forterra. Let us know if you find it of value and would benefit from having it availalbe to show your stakeholders interested in serious virtual world applications for meetings and collaboration.

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March 28, 2008

CNBC Europe World Business Video Segment on Enterprise Virtual Worlds Tonight!

We did an interview with CNBC Europe at the Serious Games Institute as well as in world using Forterra Systems OLIVE where we created photo realistic avatars of journalist Joanna Harrison and myself and gave her a tour in-world. She interviewed Claus Nehmzow and Serious Games Institute Director David Wortley as well, let's see what made the final cut!

Here are the details:
The segment is part of the World Business programme which is broadcast three times over the weekend at the following central European Times (one hour earlier if you are in London)

CNBC World Business 28 March: Friday 20:30 (CET) Saturday 22:30 (CET) Sunday 22:30 (CET)

After airing on CNBC, the show is then syndicated to Sky, TV New Zealand, Euronews, PBS-TV in the US and 17 other national broadcasters around the world. We don't have advance notice of when these stations plan to air the show but it will be within 7 days of premiering on CNBC.

Special thanks go out to the Forterra team whose virtual actors for the role playing scenarios shown were (are) great and for creating the photo realistic avatars so fast. Thanks also to Now Communications for helping faciliate the video shoot and to Alex Jevremovic for capturing additional video of us in world.

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March 17, 2008

Virtual World Training Effectiveness Studies

We often get asked for studies on effectiveness of virtual worlds based training.

Two studies we are aware of were done at SUMMIT (Stanford University Medical Media & Information Technologies) recently.

One was completed last year and shows that using virtual world (Forterra Systems OLIVE **Disclosure: Ambient is Forterra Systems' partner in Europe**) based training to teach high school students to perform CPR increased their confidence and ability to remember the correct procedures and found that 'While manikin-based training continues to be the most appropriate method for learning the basic psychomotor skills of CPR, this study demonstrates the potential added value of MMOS for situated learning in which laypersons are able to practice the sequence of actions necessary to respond appropriately to different medical emergencies.' Link to buy article ($20.00).
Link to SUMMIT page with videos and more information on the project is here.

The other big study at SUMMIT was published last month in the World Journal of Surgery. The abstract is below. They found that virtual world based training was effective in 'providing repeated practice opportnities in dispersed locations', and that it was adequately realistic to 'suspend belief', and easy to use.
The article can be purchased online here ($32.00).

A video clip showing the OLIVE platform in action is below.

Dr. LeRoy Heinrich presented this research at the Serious Virtual Worlds Conference in September 2007.
You can view an archive of his presentation (and the others) here.
The dates for Serious Virtual Worlds 2008 are September 11,12, again to be held in Coventry in partnership with the Serious Games Institute.

Abstract Individuals in clinical training programs concerned with critical medical care must learn to manage clinical cases effectively as a member of a team. However, practice on live patients is often unpredictable and frequently repetitive. The widely substituted alternative for real patients—high-fidelity, manikin-based simulators (human patient simulator)—are expensive and require trainees to be in the same place at the same time, whereas online computer-based simulations, or virtual worlds, allow simultaneous participation from different locations. Here we present three virtual world studies for team training and assessment in acute-care medicine: (1) training emergency department (ED) teams to manage individual trauma cases; (2) prehospital and in-hospital disaster preparedness training; (3) training ED and hospital staff to manage mass casualties after chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive incidents. The research team created realistic virtual victims of trauma (6 cases), nerve toxin exposure (10 cases), and blast trauma (10 cases); the latter two groups were supported by rules-based, pathophysiologic models of asphyxia and hypovolemia. Evaluation of these virtual world simulation exercises shows that trainees find them to be adequately realistic to “suspend disbelief,” and they quickly learn to use Internet voice communication and user interface to navigate their online character/avatar to work effectively in a critical care team. Our findings demonstrate that these virtual ED environments fulfill their promise of providing repeated practice opportunities in dispersed locations with uncommon, life-threatening trauma cases in a safe, reproducible, flexible setting.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 02:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 10, 2008

John Burwell on Owning Your Own Virtual World (video)

Here's a video I just found of John Burwell, Forterra Systems VP discussing their OLIVE platform and benefits of having full control over development and performance, using the Emergency Response demo he gave at our Serious Virtual Worlds conference as an example which is based on the TATRC project at Stanford . (video archive of the conference is here - scoll to the bottom of the list past last weeks conference on Tourism, Heritage and technology or the SVW content).

Posted by Ron Edwards at 11:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 05, 2008

The Metaverse, Virtual Afghanistan and Video Journalism (video story)

I'm really impressed with David Dunkley Gyimahs ability to see an interesting story and pull it together with a few interviews and video clips and leave us wanting more at the end. He just published a new piece featuring the Forterra OLIVE platform and comments by virtual world journalist James Wagner and myself. You can check it out at his Viewmagazine.tv or directly here.

At the end of the video story he says he's excited to be one of the first video journalists to cover a live exercise in a virtual world, I am too!

David blogs here. I like how he's descibed our first residential week in the SMARTlab Phd Programme too.

Here's a video David shot of me at SMARTlab describing the platform which has an area of Afghanistan modeled for training purposes (I look a bit out of context wearing a suit there!)

Posted by Ron Edwards at 07:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 03, 2008

8 Virtual Worlds in 8 Minutes

I met Sharon Burns, MacArthur Foundation CIO at the Virtual Worlds Salon in London last week. She told me how much fun she had creating the video below in which she gives us a tour of 8 virtual worlds. I like that she covered 8 virtual worlds other than Second Life first, inverting the usual 'virtual worlds such as second life' as usually described in the press and presentations ' without mentioning any of the others. They are funding a few very interesting virtual worlds projects, I look forward to learning more about them and the results soon.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 11:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 21, 2008

The Metaverse & Collaboration

It's a been a busy week having started my PhD at the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute in London with my first residential week there. I'll be researching what makes collaboration in virtual worlds and the Metaverse effective and will be sharing that research here.

I've been doing several presentations this month about components of the Metaverse, where they are predicted to go and become interoperable with examples of how we're active in each of the four usage areas described in the Metaverse Roadmap - Mobile augmented reality, lifelogging, mirror worlds and virtual worlds.

I'm glad to see the Metaverse Roadmap project continue with a summit last week and good coverage on Cisco's Virtual World blog here. The Game Developers Conference has been going on this week too and I've found a little coverage so far on the virtual world summit there although our developers and colleagues are there so we can't wait fo the debriefing. You can start with Mark Oehlert's blog here.

I'm glad to have met David Dunkley Gyimah at SMARTlab who is researching video journalism. He's excited about video journalism in the Forterra OLIVE virtual world platform and looking at using it for a journalist training platform. Cool! He blogs here. Check it out!

Posted by Ron Edwards at 12:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 16, 2008

Speaking Engagements Today and this month - most are free!

I am co-leading a free webinar on enterprise use of serious games and virtual worlds today at 15:30 GMT with Jude Ower of Digital 2.0, an hour on strategic reasons why to use them, followed by next weeks focus on implementation, same time, same price. Hosted by Learning Light. Register here.

I am really excited about my presentation at the end of the month too, one on streaming video live into virtual worlds and mobile phones titled 'Its Life Jim...Streaming in the Enterprise' - also free on the 31st. Hosted by Broadcast Media and Video Forum at Earls Court. Info here and the other at Apply Groups Symposium 2008 Towards Best Practice - 'Towards Best Practice in Designing & Developing Serious Games for Learning & Communications: Focus on Internet, Mobile & Virtual Worlds.on mobile delivery of games and learning.'
Check out this event, while not free there are several knowledgeable speakers - It should be worthwhile.

Our events calendar is below, you can subscribe to it with RSS. We will be running and contributing to quite a few events this year so stay tuned!

Posted by Ron Edwards at 07:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 17, 2007

Enterprise Virtual Worlds Presentation and Poll Data

I did a few informal polls during my presentation last week to the eLearning Guild on Enterprise Virtual Worlds.
There were as many as 55 people online at once, and about 35 when I did this poll:

Poll 1 - How often do you play online multiplayer games and/or visit virtual worlds?
Haven’t tried 17
Occasionally 14
Often 4
(this suggests to me that people are still very new to exploring virtual worlds and networked game environments but have heard enough to be interested - vs being a gamer and seeing applications themselves.)

Poll 2 - Which of the following Virtual World platforms have you heard of? (check all that apply)
Second Life 34
There 7
Active Worlds 7
Forterra Systems OLIVE 2
Qwaq 0
Protosphere 6
Multiverse 3
(This suggests to me that there is a need to better explain the range and important differences of virtual world platforms targeted at enterprise use (Forterra Systems OLIVE, Qwaq, Protosphere and others ranking much higher in evaluations for internal business use - see my recent post on this here)).

Poll 3 - Is your organisation experimenting with virtual worlds now? (e.g. Second Life, Forterra Systems OLIVE, Qwaq)
Yes 7
No 26
(I asked this question twice, asking the first time if their companies were considering virtual worlds for their enterprise, about half said they were showing growing interest and activities but you have to take it with a grain of salt, they signed up for the session because they already had interest). 20% actively doing something with virtual worlds in their companies is pretty amazing when you consider where we were a year ago.

Poll 4 - Is your Organization Considering Virtual Worlds for: (check all that apply)
Training 15
Collaboration 8
Marketing 2
Product Design/Prototyping 0
Not considering it yet 8
(That training was selected 2:1 to collaboration probably better reflects the eLearning Guild audience of training professionals vs. the lines of business and IT professionals inquiring about Enterprise Virtual Worlds with us which is more often a conversation about collaboration first, then training second.)

Posted by Ron Edwards at 05:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Exploring Enterprise Virtual Worlds and the Metaverse **updated**

I recorded my presentation for the eLearning Guild last Friday and have uploaded it here. I'll add the slides soon and hope I can get the poll results where people indicated a pretty even mix of interest in collaboration and training applications to post here. ***UPDATE*** My presentation is here.

There were quite a few participants online with a range of experience and knowledge of virtual world applications.
It was encouraging to see lots of interest in the training role play videos I shared (these are in a youtube playlist I created which can be accessed here.

ambient's podcast

Give it a listen!







Enjoy! -- ambient





Click here to get your own player.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 02:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 11, 2007

Comparing Virtual World Platforms for the Enterprise

Check out this comparison of Virtual World platforms by Tony O'Driscolls MBA students who looked at various features across seven platforms. Guess which one ranked lowest in terms of features relevant to enterprise applications? Second Life. This fits with Gartner Chief Analyst Steve Prentice's remarks at the Enterprise Virtual Worlds workshop in London that Second Life is the last place companies should look for internal virtual world applications (but many continue to look there first!) I think that can be a still be a good thing though, as long as expectations are managed during the exploration and costs are minimized (you have to leave what you build when you decide security,stability and interoperability ARE important and switch/expand on other platforms).

Tony has been researching virtual worlds at IBM before recently leaving for a University teaching post. His blog Learning Matters has a lot of insight and thorough analysis, check it out here. He's also speaking this week at the eLearning Guild virtual worlds online conference.

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December 10, 2007

Serious Virtual Worlds - my webinars this week

I'm presenting a free webinar on Wednesday, 12 December at 4pm GMT on Enterprise Uses of Virtual Worlds with Jude Ower, MD of Digital 2.0, hosted by Learning Light. You can register on the Learning Light website here. Jude and I will be discussing business uses of games, game technologies and virtual worlds. The first hour will have a more strategic focus for people considering the business value and building a business case, the second will focus on implementation considerations. I hope that you can join us! ***UPDATE*** this has now been posponed to January next year, and will be split over two weeks, one session on strategy (the why) and one on implementation/enterprise examples (the how).

I am also delivering the closing keynote online on Friday, 14 December at 8pm GMT for the eLearning Guild 2 day online conference on Virtual Worlds and Social Networking. There is a fee to either join eLearning Guild or just the conference. There are several speakers and topics. Check it out at the eLearning Guild website.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 08:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 08, 2007

Forterra Systems OLIVE Virtual World Video Playlist on YouTube

I've combined videos demonstrating Forterra Systems OLIVE platform into a You Tube playlist I've embedded below. You can subscribe to automatically receive udates here. There are demos showcasing Retail Sales and Customer Support Training, Emergency Response Training for Police and other responders, Trauma Training (by Stanford Medical School), New Hire Orientation, CPR for High School Students (by Stanford Medical Schools SUMMIT), Airline Flight Attendant Unruly Passenger training and the results of our Shoot Out with Second Life where OLIVE was shown to be a better choice for 3 out of 4 categories (my summary blog post here).

There are also more images and videos available on the Forterra website at http://www.forterrainc.com/screens.php Let us know if you need the source videos for your presentations.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 01:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 22, 2007

London Games Week Launch Party & VW Forum

The London Games week kicks off on the HMS President on the Thames with a party hosted by SMARTlab, come by for a virtual world mixed reality mashup with Second Life and Forterra's OLIVE, and dance into the night on the boat or in-world, here's the slurl to the dance floor...

Tuesday I will be leading a session at the Enterprise Virtual Worlds workshop, discussing interoperability, security, scalability, implementation, and other key topics for those wanting to get started with using virtual worlds in their enterprise.

Wednesday and Thursday we will be at the Virtual Worlds Forum where we'll be exhibiting with Forterra and excited that Forterra CEO Robert Gehorsam will be delivering a keynote. Come by and say hi!

Posted by Ron Edwards at 12:45 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 16, 2007

Conferences Follow up Resources *updated*

Hi!
I have been speaking at quite a few conferences lately and promised to share some of the links I referenced during various speeches and workshops. So, here they are!

We produced the first conference in Europe dedicated to exploring enterprise and education applications for virtual worlds with the Serious Games Institute (SGI) last month. You can access the video and slide archive directly here or the new Serious Games Institute website. We streamed the event into Second Life with the help of Datmedia, the SGI and David Burden of Daden, Ltd (who has generated lots of interest in doing it again!).
We had just over 150 people at the conference and another 150 online. Not bad for a first!

I really enjoyed Dr. Leroy Heinrichs presentation which you can view here, he shared published results showing virtual worlds working as well as or better than physical training for the emergency response training they ran at Stanford Medical School. (You can email presentations to colleagues but this feature doesn't always work in Firefox yet).

My presentation on the various implementation aspects for enterprise use of virtual worlds can be accessed directly here (and can be sent to your mobile phone too. I am curious to how well this works for our overseas viewers, your comments are welcome!).

A live demonstration of the Forterra Systems OLIVE platform was provided by John Burwell, Forterra VP and can be accessed directly here. John showed the retail training and emergency response examples.

Roo Reynolds of IBM posted a nice collection of pictures and comments from the conference on his blog here.
There are also lots of pictures on the SGI site.

Workshops:
Podcasting resources I referenced in the workshop can be viewed on this blog by using the search box on the lower right side.

The video interview on Podcasting, blogging and wiki use at the BBC I did with Nigel Paine, former Chief Learning Officer for the BBC can now be found here . (there are also several presentations there from our annual Seriously Mobile Summit).

My keynote from the Chicago Learning Executives conference was videotaped, I'll add it to the archive when I get a copy. Feel free to email me for the slides in the interim if interested. Update*** A video clip of me discussing virtual worlds for training is embedded below. The .mp3 and slides are now available, I will try to synch them up in the video archive soon.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 09:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 13, 2007

Serious Virtual Worlds Conference Live Broadcast 13,14 September

We'll be streaming the Serious Virtual Worlds Conference in Coventry, UK live from 10am on the 13th and 1http://dp-x.com/datpresenter/dpx.php?dpxuser=SGI4th.
You can access it here. The archive video with slides from the event will be ready soon after.
I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be speaking after lunch on the ecosystem of supporting technologies and services for enterprise VW use.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 01:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 29, 2007

Serious Virtual Worlds Update

With so much buzz these days about virtual worlds, I thought you might be interested in our fast approaching events and activities.

Serious Virtual Worlds Conference, 13-14 September, Coventry, UK
We are producing Europes first Serious Virtual World conference with the Serious Games Institute (SGI) in Coventry (1 hour north of London).

We are all set for an outstanding conference with a great line up of demonstrations, discussions and examples of virtual world applications across corporate, emergency response, medical, education and community sectors. I will be delivering a talk on The Virtual World Ecosystem, describing how virtual worlds are creating the need for a new industry of creative and technical people to support applications using them. More information and booking here: http://www.seriousvirtualworlds.net (ask for a multiple booking discount if bringing colleagues). A few sponsorship packages are still available.

I am very excited that we will be showcasing two projects at the conference we are leading for the Serious Games Institute:

The SGI is one of our first UK customers for the Forterra Systems OLIVE virtual world platform which has just been installed there. A 3D model of the SGI created in 3D Studio Max has been imported to provide a collaborative virtual space and a springboard for research projects, and we have created a demonstrator of indoor location based content on next gen mobiles with partners Giunti Labs which will serve as the foundation for mixed reality gaming and services research at the SGI.

The conference will be streamed live (including into Second Life) by partners Datmedia (check back here for the links on the day of the conference).

Virtual Worlds Forum 23-25 October, London
I am helping design and facilitate the Enterprise Virtual Worlds Workshop on the 23rd
Forterra Systems CEO Robert Gehorsam will be presenting at the conference as will a range of other speakers covering various aspects of virtual worlds from marketing to legal and consumer issues. We recommend you join us there! Info and booking at: http://www.virtualworldsforum.com We will be getting a discount code for the workshop. Let me know if interested.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 30, 2007

1st Virtual World Shootout....Forterra's OLIVE Platform Smokes Second Life

The first Virtual World shootout was held 28 June at the Apply Serious Games Conference in London. Forterra Systems OLIVE (On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment) platform was compared to Second Life and won three of the four application categories (best for Education, Enterprise, Training / Simulation), with Second Life winning for Brands/Marketing in votes by the audience.

John Burwell, Forterra VP was on hand from the US to describe how OLIVE supports secure, reliable and private applications ** disclosure: Ambient Performance are Forterra Systems EMEA partners** and David Burden MD, Daden, Ltd. (who is doing some great work in Second Life) showcased how Second Life's open access enabled instant collaboration, prototyping and access to millions of consumers.

Claus Nehmzow of PA Consulting (press release describing pioneering work in SL here and a video of him discussing Second Life at our Seriously Mobile Summit is here) did a great job of chairing the event to keep it fair and interesting. Claus asked the expert panel (David Wortley, Director of the Serious Games Institute, Thomas Bidaux, NCSoft (they make popular MMOs Lineage, Guild Wars and others including a new free MMO I can't wait to try), and Christian Renaud, Chief Architect, Networked Virtual Environments @ Cisco (who blogs here) for their opinions who contrasted the strengths of each.

You can view and print the slides used in the Shootout including 3 comparison charts prepared by Claus, David and myself by clicking here (1 meg flash file, please cite all three of us if using publicly).

We'll be further exploring professional applications of Virtual Worlds at the Serious Virtual Worlds Conference we're producing with the Serious Games Institute in Coventry 13-14 September. Conference website.

A few pictures and videos of the shootout are below.

Voting on which is better for training and simulations

Discussion of which platform is better for education by David Wortley and Christian Renaud.

A few pictures are here on my Flickr account in this set:

Posted by Ron Edwards at 03:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 25, 2007

Virtual Worlds, Virtual Earth, Mobile Visualisation Article

There is a great article titled Second Earth here in MITs Technology Review this month discussing how Virtual Worlds will combine with Virtual Earth viewers (e.g. Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth), and will extend to our hands via Mobile Augmented Reality.
The article also features some great forward thinking by Forterra's Chairman David Rolston. I agree with the vision presented and am excited to be contributing in all three domains to help realise it.

We'll be exploring these at the Serious Virtual Worlds conference 13,14 September in Coventry.
More information on the conference we're producing with the Serious Games Institute can be found here.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 01:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 14, 2007

Live Virtual World Training Scenario Demo

I did a live demo of Forterra Systems OLIVE platform yesterday at the Moving Learning Conference. We had around 15 virtual actors to do a demo of retail sales training. Here's a link to a video of my presentation - it took a few minutes to fix the audio on my laptop so stay tuned.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 08:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 10, 2007

My IITT Training 2007 Evening Speech

You can listen to my evening address 'All Technology Was New at Some Point' at the IITT Conference in Warwick, UK here:

I spoke about my start in IT training and today's interest in mobile, serious games and virtual worlds.

I wrote out what I wanted to say - but left out some of it. You can check it out below if interested.

All Technology Was New at Some Point

Pornography! …is just one of the many uses of the internet….that’s how I introduced the Internet 10 years ago to 500 sales people who were wondering what possible business benefit it might have. Of course, if I were introducing the web now I’d probably have to say something like “role playing as a furry animal is just one of the many things you can do in cyberspace. I’ve been invited to share a few thoughts on technology for the next 15 minutes. I consider myself a journeyman, always learning what’s new and considering what’s next.

We’ve come a long way, haven’t we? It wasn’t that long ago that we were first introducing the internet to our corporate colleagues, and before that it was personal computers themselves with Windows 3.1! Back then our training software ran in DOS. Just the way we liked it! Windows ushered in an age where workers started to think of their desktop tools differently, from mainframe thin client apps to input data to using new tools for word processing, number crunching, visualization and project management. Email went from zero to hero and I remember how funny we thought it was that people were sending emails across the office instead of walking over to talk to people. Now of course, email is so pervasive, it’s spawned a new device, one that delivers the email within 1 meter of your head 24/7. Yes, the crackberry.

Consumer led technologies keep creeping their way into our organisations, don’t they? Think about it. The personal computer – the first ones by IBM , Apple, Commodore, Sinclair, and Acorn. These were used in the 80s by us geeks in droves before the personal computer started to make inroads in to our organisations.

It wasn’t until 1992 that the large company I worked for started to bring in PCs for all workers. They started with the secretaries in the R&D group I worked in and I was in charge of their training. I started learning everything I could about training and software training in particular. I attended conferences, started a masters in training and development and found kindred minds and spirits (yes, in the bar), and through networking developed a few partnerships with training providers. We figured, when introducing new software, why not just show people how to get their jobs done using the new tools vs. showing what was behind each menu in case they might need it. We undertook a light task analysis to try to find what the high performing workers were doing that we could train the others in while looking for opportunities to further automate things. We called it Job Specific Training. I’ve never been very good at catchy names. While the name may not have caught on outside the US, we inspired quite a few people to take a look at how to better train people by sharing what was working at conferences. I think that this approach still holds value today, but jobs have become more complex requiring more tools and more multitasking – I think this is giving rise to something that’s been around for a long time but is finally becoming “hip” – and that is online performance support. This solves the problem of not being able to remember everything whether it’s a process or a few mouse clicks to get something done.

I’ve always dabbled in performance support as I’ve defined my role as enabling and developing performance, rather than delivering training. I started by simply putting sales materials on the new Intranet I lobbied for because I could see that if we could get people using the Intranet to get their day to day business information, it wouldn’t be long before we could use it to support and eventually deliver learning. This of course became known as eLearning. Who knew?

If we jump forward a few years to 2001 when I moved over here to lead eLearning for Unilever globally, one of my first tasks was to advise a group looking to train 28,000 people across Europe on SAP. I was encouraged that they had a well thought out plan that was focused on the change management needed to get people to work differently in new work processes, and that the software was actually just an enabler. They designed performance support into the application so you could always look up where you were in the process and how to compete the transaction. They used shortened classroom time to help people understand the change and to learn how to use the online help. This was an award winning project – DACG won the Gold award in 2002 for it, but to us, it just seemed like the only way to do it and I don’t think any of us went to the award banquet. In hindsight, maybe we should have. Champagne is a good thing. So is sharing what works.

These days, I’m doing what I can to keep up with the rapid technological change that we find ourselves in. I track what’s happening in the consumer worlds where all of us live and play because that’s where we find stuff that people want, that will help our organisations. How do you keep up with developments? I think that once you master the fundamentals of great training, training management and get the infrastructure right, to remain a master Jedi you’ve got to keep an eye on what’s next that will make a difference. Fortunately, nowadays many of the really innovative things don’t cost much.

A great example of this is last year’s hot topic – podcasting. For those of you that just arrived to this planet, Podcasting is simply distributing audio or video clips over the internet to people that choose to subscribe to them so they get constant updates for free. The Christmas gift to have in 2004 was an iPod. It still is because now they come with video. There are millions of these .mp3 players out there and now, not only can you play .mp3 on your phone like this one, but you can actually subscribe and get them on the run over wifi or phone network. So people have the devices and they’re listening to podcasts, some of which could even be educational I suppose, now we have companies saying, hey, the cost of these are less than the round trip taxi to the airport. I could put all of the lectures on them. And companies are starting to do this, with some even supplying thousands of them. I started listening to a few myself, and practiced making a few. I sucked. A few companies asked me to run workshops on how to create & implement them and I started to do public workshops which were fun – I was finally back in the classroom doing what I love – teaching technology. Now I think people are figuring it out on their own which is great. I’m on to the next big thing – or the next few big things.

So what are the next big things? We’re in the midst of a revolution on the web (and on mobiles but we’ll get to that tomorrow). This revolution has a name, Web 2.0, and it is the transition from a read only web where you just access information to a read-write web where we can all contribute whether for personal interests, learning or work. These tools are talked about a lot now, especially in context for how they support informal learning. Tools like blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking, and social bookmarking and news sites. As Technorati, the epicenter of the Blogosphere says, there are 60 million blogs, some of them must be good. Blogging is good for you. It help keep you on your toes for what’s happening and looking to blog it which I think helps clarify your thinking. Commenting on other’s blogs builds community and can help you find people that are smarter than you are. Or at least more knowledgeable.

Social networking sites such as Facebook are hotter than ever right now. It’s as if the UK has taken over Facebook in terms of buzz. I created an account in both Facebook and Myspace – each of these has 25 and 100 million users respectively. A few people I didn’t know in the far east asked to be my friends in Myspace just after I registered. I felt bad for saying no. But seeing that they had hundreds of friends already, I didn’t worry too much. Meanwhile, one business contact and friend after another keeps adding me as a friend in Facebook and I’m finding it kind of fun. I was doing a piece of research on social media for a client and came across a quote from a marketing director about my age, from his daughter who was 15. she says “All of my friends but 2 are on Facebook and I have 100’s of friends. I only use email to communicate with old people, like you.” For those of you that have kids, you probably notice that they are constantly using Instant Message and now social networking sites to communicate with each other. It isn’t just the teens though. I met some friends a few days ago for dinner, one of the three was a passionate Facebook user who says all of her friends but one (and she’s working on that one) are on facebook and that she only uses email for the few people she interacts with not on it. She’s 26. The business colleagues I’m networked with are older. There’s something to this – a new way of communicating that I think we can tap into. I’m just not sure how yet. There is a growing chorus of “what are we going to do when the youth of today who are used to interacting and learning in entirely new ways come into the workplace? Well, they’re here. And they are going to stay where they feel like they can contribute and work at a pace they’re used to.

I think the other frontier is tapping into games, game technologies and virtual worlds as the immersion is incredible and is providing new opportunities. When was the last time you felt an emotion when doing online learning? Ok, maybe anger, frustration, boredom to take a few cheap shots. But what about laughing out loud? Feeling nervous, on the edge, exploring, not knowing what would happen next? Virtual worlds are so immersive you find yourself transported to another place and you’re very focused on your experience vs the distractions around you.

I first heard about 3d virtual worlds in 2002 from Elliott Masie who reported on them from the big consumer electronics show and suggested they might have some learning potential. I tried to sign up for the beta, but they would never give me a password. I really wanted to try it though. I remembered seeing news articles saying they were hoping to attract women online because if they are there in the online community, then men will follow. The reverse is of course not necessarily true. So, I signed up as Ron-da and got an account immediately. As I signed on I had to choose, be a woman avatar or a man. I was worried that if I selected man they might be on to me, but I didn’t think I could be a woman forever either. So, I chose dude, and I’ve had the account every since. My first experience was intense. I was transported to a cartoonish tropical place and somebody that looked very young and fit walked up to me and introduced herself. I didn’t realise I was wearing ‘nube’ gear – white t-shirt and khaki pants. She taught me how to change my clothes and answered my questions about how to get one of those cool hoverboards. She loaned me hers, I thought that was pretty cool. We joked around a bit and added each other as friends to find each other again. In those few minutes I felt nervous, excited, glad, happy, and a sense of accomplishment once I mastered the hoverboard. I’ll talk more about some of the applications of virtual worlds beyond hoverboards tomorrow.

On the gaming front, how many of you consider yourselves gamers? How many think video games have some potential for corporate training? Well, a lot of people do, too. It’s one thing to read about why people play games and increasingly choose do so over tv, and a lot of other activities including for me, sleep. It’s quite another to actually find a game that you can’t put down and experience it for yourself.

I had heard about Half Life, one of the top selling, most award winning games for some time before finally buying it to try it for myself. Then of course, I had to play Half Life 2, the sequel, which rocked. The game play is that you’re Gordon, there’s been a catastrophic accident that threatens earth and you guessed it, it’s up to you to save everybody. You have to blast your way through tunnels and buildings and you find yourself facing scary zombies in the dark which munch your brain with this horrible crunch crunch sound. It’s awful! I couldn’t put it down. Why?? The theorists will say it’s a concept called flow – when you feel like you’re succeeding just past your capabilities. How do we tap into that, without the zombies??

We have a lot to learn. You’re in the right place. You have some world class speakers here, great sessions and each other to learn from. Of course, the learning doesn’t stop here, and while it doesn’t have to include zombies, I encourage you to try a few new things to find what will add value for you and your organisations.

Thank you for listening.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 10:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 31, 2007

BBC First Broadcast in Second Life (yawn)

The BBC show Money has done a piece on the Second Life economy and will broadcast it on tv and in-world on Friday, June 1 which represents their first in-world broadcast according to their press release here.

While I'm encouraged that the BBC continues to experiment, and that this story will probably be more 'serious' as it is on a business show versus the usual "joe is a (insert job here) by day, but by night he (insert shocking activities here)" the BBC could have been much more bold.

They could have created and broadcast the show in-world rather than flying to San Francisco to interview Linden Labs CEO for a start. It's not fair for me to comment further until I have seen it myself tomorrow so stay tuned...

Posted by Ron Edwards at 09:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 23, 2007

Follow Up Resources for Seriously Mobile Summit

The video archive from the event will be added in a week or so once it has been chopped up to be easier to use and to forward to colleagues. I thought it was a thought provoking day, one which I hope serves as a catalyst for action.
I've found two summaries of the day in the blogosphere so far, Jay Cross here and Paul Coyne here. I'll add more as I find them.
The upcoming events I mentioned at the end to learn more include:
Mobile Performance Solutions, May 17 in London produced by Ambient Performance and partners,
Moving Learning, June 13 in London where I'll be delivering a keynote on Serious Virtual Worlds between great sessions by Nick Van Dam, Elliott Masie and Bob Mosher (ask me for a discount code),
Giunit Labs Training in Action June 7,8 in Sesti Levante, Italy
Serious Virtual Worlds will be produced by Ambient Performance and the Serious Games Institue in Coventry and will be held September 13, 14 in Coventry.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 09:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 19, 2007

Seriously Mobile Summit 20 April Live Webcast Link

Hi! We will be broadcasting our Seriously Mobile Summit live from Reuters in London on 20 April.
Here are the links for the Webcast and the 3G streaming video for mobile phones link:
Webcast (Real or Windows Media, click on "Live Broadcast in player (not archived content from last year).

Mobile Phone (Real Format only this time (should work with Nokia and many other phones), link will be added tonight)

The agenda is below. You can ask questions and leave comments using Twitter. (send messages to my Twitter account RonEdwards) We'll get to them when we can! Try to add yourself as my friend, your comments should be listed below this agenda.

The Mobile Internet: Working in Real Time
20 April 2007, 9.30-16.30, Hosted by Reuters @ Canary Wharf, London

Format:
Supporting Mobile Workforce Capability
The Seriously Mobile Summit offers presentations and discussions with thought leaders from an eminent range of commercial, academic and independent organizations. Which business and cultural drivers are requiring new approaches?

Why is traditional event-driven training no longer meeting needs?

How are readily available new technologies including Networked 3D Simulation Environments, Mobile Learning & Performance Support on platforms such as BlackBerrys, PDAs, iPods and Smart Phones making a real difference as part of the blend of informal and formal learning approaches?

Creativity is no longer about which companies have the most visionary executives, but which have the most compelling architecture of participation. That is, which companies make it easy, interesting and rewarding for a wide range of contributors to offer ideas, solve problems and improve products - Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media

Agenda 9:30-10:00 Tom Glocer, CEO, Reuters Charles Jennings, Global Head of Learning, Reuters 'Mobile Learning, Getting Serious About the Potential' Nigel Paine, Conference Chair Opening Remarks

10:00-10:45 Fabrizio Cardinali, CEO, Giunti Labs. 'Towards Personalized Ambient Learning'

10:45-11:10 Break

11:10-11:40 Kristina Nyzell, Director, Working Play Playing Work 'From Playing Work to Working Play… New Work(ing) Models in a Seriously Mobile World'

11:40-12:30 Jay Cross, Founder and Chief Scientist, Internet Time Group 'Free Range
Learners in the Ubiquitous Chicken Yard'

12:30-1:30 LUNCH (view Nigel Paine talking about Podcasting, Wikis and Blogs at the BBC here while you wait)

1:30-2:00 Case Study: Paul Landers, Strategic Product Manager, Ericsson Learning Consultancy Services 'Taking Learning Mobile'

2:00-2:30 Case Study: Hanif Sazen, CEO, Saffron Interactive 'Learning on the Move'

2:30-3:00 Technology Showcases: Datmedia Mobile IPTV & Me2B Next Generation Mobile Hardware

3:00-3:15 TEA

3:15-3:35 Case Study: Lizbeth Goodman, Director, SMARTlab Digital Media Institute and Magic Gamelab at UEL 'Lost & Found > A system to track missing and exploited children (and adults) using mobile technology'

3:35-4:00 Case Study: Claus Nehmzow, Partner, PA Consulting 'Virtual World Applications'

4:00-4:20 New Technology Implementation Panel with Leading Experts including Mark Oehlert, Booz Allen Hamilton, Brent Shlenker, Hospice of the Valley and David Metcalf, PhD, University of Central Florida

4:20-4:30 Closing Remarks: Ron Edwards & Nigel Paine

Posted by Ron Edwards at 03:18 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 17, 2007

Seriously Mobile Summit Agenda for 20 April

Wow! It's really coming together. I've just added SMARTlab colleagues to the agenda but not sure where I'm going to fit in. Here's the latest agenda. Still a few seats left for those of you on the fence or forgot!
The URL for the live webcast will be ready tomorrow.

Seriously Mobile Summit 20 April, 2007

The Mobile Internet: Working in Real Time

9:30-10 Tom Glocer, CEO, Reuters
Charles Jennings, Global Head of Learning, Reuters,
Nigel Paine, Conference Chair Opening Remarks

10-10:45- Fabrizio Cardinali, CEO, Giunti Labs, Towards Personalized Ambient Learning

10:45-11:10: Coffee/Tea Break

11:10-11:40 Kristina Nyzell, 'Supporting & Engaging Flexible Workers'

11:40-12:30 Jay Cross, 'Free Range Learners in the Ubiquitous Chicken Yard'

12:30-1:30 Lunch

1:30-2:00 Case Study: Paul Landers, Strategic Product Manager, Ericsson Learning Consultancy Services

2:00-2:30 Case Study: Hanif Sazen, CEO, Saffron Interactive 'iPod, BlackBerry and PDA Learning'

2:30-3:00 Technology Showcases: Datmedia Mobile IPTV & Me2B Next Generation Mobile Hardware

3:00-3:15 Break

3:15-3:35 SMARTlab Technology Showcase

3:35-4:00 Case Study: Claus Nehmzow, Partner, PA Consulting 'Virtual World Applications'

4:00-4:20 Experts Implementation Panel including Mark Oehlert, Brent Shlenker, David Metcalf virtually

4:20-4:30 Closing Remarks Ron Edwards, Nigel Paine

Posted by Ron Edwards at 11:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 12, 2007

My Second Life experience...

Wednesday's 'chat with Ron about Virtual Worlds' session in Second Life with the SCOPE community didn't exactly go as I had anticipated. I didn't realize that some of the participants wouldn't be on the skypecast for audio, so I had to try to type and talk at the same time (near impossible for me!). Focussing on just typing chat started to get a discussion going since that's what most had available and that was great, but then trying to get back into the skype cast nearly crashed my laptop and didn't work too well. Chaos, but the participants and facilitators were nice, patient and asked some great questions.

I liked how cool it was to see everyone's profile to know where they were from - all over! It was a beautiful environment that seemed perfect for an engaging dialogue - it just was tough for me to get used to getting my thoughts out quickly on the keyboard. Even when the audio worked, the avatars were just sitting there though. I wasn't too sure how to indicate that I was talking or how to gesture easily. I think in these early days we can expect participants to have trouble with this, too - while there were many veterans there were also some that created memberships that day. I'd love to know what their expectations were and are now.

I'm really glad to have tried the live session as I learned a lot about how to facilitate when you don't have embedded VOIP, and reminded me about the need for a dry run and ample, clear communication with participants about how it will all work. I don't think mixing audio/no audio in the same session will work too well. What do you think?

I've offered to host a follow up session in There.com where we can have voice and more expressive avatars. We'll be using it at our Seriously Mobile Summit on the 20th to connect panelists in the US with our onsite panelists in the UK. While it will still be a bit tricky to blend with a room full of conference partipants, it should be fun.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 10:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 04, 2007

Gaming 3.0 Nothing New?

This story in Next Generation provides a compelling argument that game player generated content and games have been around for years with historical examples including Second Life and offers 6 keys for how Sony's new efforts with Home and Little Big World could be successful:

1. User-driven content 2. Straightforward creation tools 3. Content sharing 4. Community experiences with that content 5. Commercialization of user creations 6. Major industry backing

Posted by Ron Edwards at 11:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 03, 2007

Gaming 3.0?

Check out this game 'LittleBigPlanet, that was shown last month at the Game Developers Conference. It is generating quite a bit of buzz. Celine Llewellyn-Jones highlighted it on her blog here.

I found this quote about it on Kotaku, a popular gaming site (recent news on the Sony PSP price drop and rumors of the PSP2 generated dozens and dozens of comments) especially enticing...

The game they showed was LittleBigPlanet, a user designed playground, a make-your-own-platformer tool, an actual game with deep physics that looks beautiful and shockingly fun to play. If you really need comparisons, the game is like Line Rider meets Garry's Mod meets Super Mario Bros. meets an orgasm.

Between this new game and the recently announced Home by Sony for the new Playstation 3 (described as a cross between Second Life and the PS3, free, and set for beta this month) I'll just have to add the Playstation 3 to my list of dream acquisitions, behind the Xbox 360 for which I'm waiting for the game Crysis to give me the extra little 'gotta have it' momentum. Hmmm. In looking for a good link to the Crysis game, I learned that Crysis isn't planned to come out on the Xbox 360 because the graphics won't be good enough! It will be out on the PC using new DirectX 10. Wow. Should be impressive. Better add a new PC to the list...

Posted by Ron Edwards at 09:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 02, 2007

Second Life Brand Map

I Found this map listing brands in Second Life interesting. via Techscape, then Ana Lutetia @ SL to the source, K-Zero.. They will be mapping universities on it, too.

Which ones are interesting? If I see one more empty corporate model of their HQ, I think I'll scream!

Posted by Ron Edwards at 04:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 29, 2007

Moving Learning Conference...in good company!

The lineup is looking great for the Moving Learning conference in London 13 June. I'm excited to be on a panel with Elliott Masie, Nick Van Dam and Claire Line in addition to my presentation on Serious Virtual Worlds (exciting press release here).

Elliott has recorded a compelling video discussing trends and opportunities for new approaches with technology you can view on the Moving Learning website here. The press release about his participation and the event is here.

Elliott said '

I'll be talking about learning in the age of Google with fingertip knowledge, the end of memorisation, rapid development and informal learning, global models for content and knowledge sharing, learning as a tribal and social process, and from e-learning to smart content.

Hope to see you there! I've negotiated a discount for my readers and clients as part of our sponsorship, please contact me if interested.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 07:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 21, 2007

Creating 3D Environments in 58 Seconds

People want increasingly realistic virtual environments for training, simulations and games. Today, they are mostly created from scratch by hand using 3D modeling tools such as 3D Studio Max using photos, memories, and occasionally CAD drawings which takes time. Last week we experienced a 3D model of the room we were in created in just 58 seconds using a laser scanner. We saw a few examples as well (below), one of an entire church interior and then part of a street.
Very impressive. This capability enables scanning up to 200 meters so anything from room interiors, corridors, tunnels, mines, oil rigs, streets, building exteriors to entire stadiums can be scanned and integrated into a 3D environment (OLIVE by Forterra Systems for live training or scenario planning with dozens to thousands of people. This capability is currently unique to the OLIVE platform (integration of industry standard 3D models and MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) use) and will save big money and lives. There are a few companies today that can be hired to do this type of scanning, and a university we are partnering with who are interested in acquiring it for projects and research so stay tuned for our first examples of live training in even more realistic virtual worlds...

Scanning the room in 3D in 58 seconds

3D scan of a church. Color is added by attaching a camera to the top to get the color information and synchronise it.

A street was scanned, close up views show good detail,.

Posted by Ron Edwards at 08:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 12, 2006

Hot Virtual World Applications

I had a fun meeting yesterday exploring how virtual worlds can be used for emergency response training. They want to model part of a town in 3D to import into the Forterra Systems OLIVE virtual world platform to do a variety of things from model different scenarios to doing live training instead of shutting down part of the town to do it as they usually have to do. This is already working great in the US in a program being run by Stanford University Medical Media and Information Technologies (SUMMIT )but what's new is starting with GIS (Geographic Information Systems) data.

I have been hearing about a lot of activity from IBM exploring virtual worlds and found this recent article in CLO Magazine on how they are actually planing to use them for training and aclimating new hires globablly
Here is an excerpt listing a few initiatives. I especially like the idea of having alumni mentor new hires and role playing for sales training!

New IBM programs include: In India which boasts IBM's second-largest workforce next to the United States , IBM has begun using virtual worlds to help onboard thousands of new employees who work in geographically dispersed offices. Employees can log on from their homes and client sites to gain a global perspective of IBM, help them understand IBM's policies, culture, products and services, as well as build out their social networks. New hires can interact with characters they don't know, quickly analyze new situations and solve problems quickly. The program began in August.

In China, IBM is starting a global program called Fresh Blue for interns who plan to join IBM after they graduate college. The interns can acclimate to IBM before their official start date and become productive much sooner. It gives them a jump-start on sharing code, discussing experiences and role playing, from simple tasks such as submitting an expense report to complex business scenarios such as how to deal with clients. The program will launch in 2007.

Also launching in China, IBM will use virtual worlds to train hundreds of new salespeople on how to sell products and service in the real world. Because relationship building is critical in Chinese culture, virtual worlds will help IBM salespeople connect with other employees and learn sales techniques while competing for virtual points and prizes. The program, called Sales Quest, will launch in 2007.

In the United States, IBM will use the virtual world for former IBM employees both retirees and those still working to mentor new hires through speed mentoring, group meetings and more. The diverse pool of IBM talent among alumni and employees in the United States will help new and recent hires draw on former IBM employees' collective intelligence and skills, discuss new projects, connect and collaborate about their working experience at IBM, build skills and understand customer needs so they can be more productive. This program will launch next year as part of the "Greater IBM" virtual world project, which already represents the largest presence in the virtual world by a Fortune 500 company.

'The 3-D virtual world presents a new way for IBM to train thousands of new, geographically dispersed employees," Hoff said. "Through technology innovation, IBM is finding new ways to help employees connect, form social networks and collaborate to solve business challenges.'

I think the use of Virtual Worlds for 'Serious' applications is finally coming of age!

Posted by Ron Edwards at 10:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack