The Use of Virtual Worlds for Sales and Innovation
IBM as a Leader in Virtual Worlds
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Over 230 employees working in-world
6 islands (Private & Public)
$10 million spent on virtual worlds in 2007 alone
Expansion in both Second Life and its own 3D intranet
Eyes v-Business as an evolution of e-Business
IBM as a leader in Virtual Worlds
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IBM Business Center
 Sales/client avatar interaction
○ Contract signings, payments
 IBM sales representatives staff a virtual
center
 Multi-lingual capabilities
○ (English, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Italian, and French,
planned Asian languages expansion)
 Technical Support Library available to
visitors
○ Product guides & IT research publication Systems
Journal
Virtual Green Data Center
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System energy-efficiency
demonstrations
 IBM server & storage
systems demonstrations
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Energy-efficiency services
& case studies
 Help assessing current
status & design solutions
for energy and cooling
challenges
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Guided tours available
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Considered a great
success at the Virtual
Worlds Conference
Global Innovation Outlook
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The GIO roundtable explored the current GIO topic of
Smarter Cities with students and faculty at Marshall School
of Business at USC.
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The meeting had four goals:
 Gain insight from influencers related to smarter cities
 Explore the effectiveness of virtual space for external
collaboration
 Distinguish IBM® as a leader in collaborative innovation
 Extend relationships building on an existing IBM partnership
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Second Life “meet & greet” held at to help familiarize
participants with Second Life at Marshall’s Second Life
Island
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Roundtable held at IBM’s Systems EduCenter Island
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzgUD7kYmV8
Part 1 of the roundtable in a meeting
room
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Meeting first held in conventional meeting room setting
Part 2 of the roundtable around the
"Opinionator"
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Questions were asked of the group and participants
responded through the “Opinionator”
Ex: If you were the mayor of Los Angeles, which
urban system would you make a priority?"
Part 3 of the meeting room around
the "BrainBoard"
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Questions were posed to the group and participants
posted their responses to the BrainBoard.
Answers were then organized into categories by
facilitator
GIO: Lessons Learned
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Use simple virtual world tools and objects. The
“Opinionator” proved useful whereas the
“BrainBoard” was too complicated for many users.
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Ease users into the virtual environment.
 Meeting room  Opinionator  BrainBoard
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Understand your listeners, it is easy to tune out in
a virtual setting
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Have a plan, it is easy to get distracted or lost in
Second Life, flying and teleporting
Virtual World Conference
Pre-conference training for entry into
Second Life
 October 21st 2008
 3-day Academy of Technology’s Virtual
World Conference
 200 members attended
 3 keynote speakers, 37 breakout
sessions
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 Breakout sessions became interactive
Virtual World Conference
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Initial investment $80,000
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Estimated savings at $250,000 in travel
& venue costs
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In addition to an estimated $150,000 in
productivity gains
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Total saved by doing conference virtually
= $320,000
Virtual World Conference
“Soft” benefits- socializing & networking
 People used the space to network and
socialize.
 “Conference sessions often ran long, as
people continued to chat about breakout
topics.”
 “And, at the end of each day, participants
were found gathering in various places—a
favorite hangout being the picnic area— for
conversations over virtual cocktails.”
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- http://secondlifegrid.net/casestudies/IBM
AoT General Meeting
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Success lead to cancellation of
Academy’s General Meeting
 Meeting replaced by Second Life
meeting
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Second Life used in
combination with video
conferencing
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Cost the company 1/5 the price
of a conventional general
meeting…and no jet lag
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Incorporation of “soft” benefitstime set aside for virtual
socializing
Future of Virtual Business
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“Second Life provided an opportunity for us to have a
positive social and technical exchange, addressing most of
our collaboration objectives. And, we delivered the
experience at about one fifth the cost and without a single
case of jet lag.”
~http://secondlifegrid.net/casestudies/IBM
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Expansion of Second Life to Web Browser
 Expands user base
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Open-source software
 More customization
 Personalization