FountainBlue

FountainBlue's Third Annual Virtual Worlds Annual Conference

Topic: Virtual Worlds: Where We Were, Where We're Going, What Does It Mean to YOU?

Date & time: Friday, September 30, from 8:30 until 10:30 a.m.

Location: EMC, 2831 Mission College Blvd., Santa Clara, in their San Francisco Conference Room on the Third Floor

Cost: $22 members, $32 partners, $42 general

Members can register at: http://fountainblue.shuttlepod.org/hightech

To Become a Member visit: http://fountainblue.shuttlepod.org/membershipapp

Non-Members and Partners can register at: http://www.svvirtualworlds.com

To add questions, answers and resources on this and other FountainBlue topics, visit our crowdsourcing resource at Quora http://www.quora.com/Linda-Holroyd/questions

Audience: Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs and Investors only. No service providers please.

For more information and to register, visit http://www.svvirtualworlds.com.

Third Annual State of the Virtual Worlds Industry Event

FountainBlue's Third Annual State of the Virtual Worlds Industry conference updates entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and investors on the successes, challenges and trends of the industry overall. This year, our featured panelists will speak from different perspectives on how they are better serving their constituents with next generation virtual worlds technologies, on transitioning from gaming into virtual worlds, and on the overall evolution of the industry.

Facilitator Barry Holroyd, CTO, Masher Media

Panelist Andrea Leggett, Senior Product Marketing Manager, EMC

Panelist Dannette Veale, Virtual & Digital Technology Strategist, Cisco's Global Sales Experience and Virtual Partner Summit

Presenting Entrepreneur Parvati Dev, President, Innovation in Learning

Presenting Entrepreneur Raj Raheja, Founder and CEO, Heartwood Studios

For more information and to register, visit http://www.svvirtualworlds.com.

FountainBlue’s September 30 Third Annual State of the Virtual Worlds Industry Event featured:

Facilitator Barry Holroyd, CTO, Masher Media

Panelist Andrea Leggett, Senior Product Marketing Manager, EMC

Panelist Dannette Veale, Virtual & Digital Technology Strategist, Cisco’s Global Sales Experience and Virtual Partner Summit

Presenting Entrepreneur Parvati Dev, President, Innovation in Learning

Presenting Entrepreneur Raj Raheja, Founder and CEO, Heartwood Studios

Presenting Entrepreneur Nanci Solomon, Founder and CEO, Xulu Entertainment

Please join us in thanking our speakers for taking the time to share their advice and thoughts and to EMC for graciously hosting us for this year’s annual event. Below are notes from the conversation. 

We were fortunate to have a range of experienced panelists actively engaging in the range of virtual worlds activities. The discussion began with an overview of the industry trend, moving from more entertainment purposes to more serious applications, from text and 2 dimensional renderings to more 3D and web experiences. Drivers for richer adoption of virtual worlds solutions include:

• Technology advancements on the client side for everything from PCs to browsers, to mobile, TV, and headsets which allows users to experience immersive interactions with others dynamically, real-time;
• Increased networking, connectivity and performance, which allows users more options for dynamic, interactive, engaging experiences with others; and
• Diminishing development costs, which make it easier for companies to provide solutions in this space.
• Gen Y grew up surrounded by technology, and will push the immersion solutions and technologies and create the kind of demand that can help spark the industry. They are also fostering a social transformation with the convergence of personal and business life, which will impact the market need and technology direction.

• The rise of augmented reality solutions like Microsoft’s KINECT motion detection input device has specific implications for virtual training and gamification.
• The rapid rise and adoption of social networks including FaceBook and Google+ will soon demand a net for virtual communities, where existing groups can connect more virtually, where platforms will allow trusted others or strangers with similar interests to connect.
• Hybrid events will become more popular, where there’s a combination of real-life, face-to-face meetings and virtual connections as well.
• Virtual events may facilitate more communities and conversations and connections on an ongoing basis, either online or virtually or a hybrid of the two.
• Virtual trainings will continue to be leveraged in critical situations where personal safety and expensive equipment might be at risk: in hospital care, in military training, in aerospace, etc.
• Virtual trainings will continue to be leveraged by forward-thinking companies to better connect with customers and partners and staff and other stakeholders, and to better prepare, train, measure, reward, communicate at all levels.
• Leverage the knowledge of subject matter experts from around the globe to solve real-world, real-time problems so that all benefit.
• Translate accepted standards of procedure into virtual worlds experiences and even certification and re-certification processes can not only increase adoption of virtual worlds solutions but also provide customers and practitioners with immediate benefits.
• The trend is to create generic platforms which can be adopted to the needs of specific customers, with their content, their functionality, their look and feel. There is a huge opportunity in making it easy for customers to customize these solutions for their own needs, or doing it efficiently for them.

The challenge today is not really around the technology, but around providing the right solutions to wow the customer and connect them with people more deeply and more easily than they thought possible. Our panelists provided the following recommendations for those in the space:

• As mentioned in Blue Ocean Strategy (see resource area for book information), rather than go directly against the competition, find and delight the customer, those who would benefit from connecting with others, deepening relationships, and/or training and educating key stakeholders in their network.
• Measure the solution you provide with data on whether they like it, whether they master the information, whether they use it, whether business outcomes come from the usage and communicate the results in terms of ROI.
• There is a lack of standard definitions about the industry, and a lot of hype and bad experiences from early adopters and users as well as lots of investment dollars lost on what-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time. These need to be overcome to facilitate deeper and quicker adoption.
• Find the business model around your virtual worlds solutions – how do different types of people make money in participating and what does it mean to him/her?
• Leverage social media and word-of-mouth to build your community and solution.
• If you’re transitioning from real-world to virtual world communities for financial or other reasons, work with your customers to deliver the knowledge, recognition and connections they seek, and also to find other opportunities for them to get that real-world connections. Don’t also expect to have the same feedback, knowledge and results immediately upon the substitution, especially if it was a last-minute, unpopular decision, but if you stick with it, it will continue to generate results.
• Because of these associations, it’s a matter of semantics, and you can speak more about working in a ‘visual social platform’ rather than in a ‘virtual world’ solution.

If Confucius if right when he said ‘I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand,’ and we can prove that virtual world solutions will help people to better understand, the adoption curve is likely to be swift and steep. And we are challenged to make the case that interactive online experiences around community can directly benefit the bottom line now and in the long term. And those who get that it’s more about the people and opportunities to educate, train and connect them real-time, virtually and in-person, and less about the technologies, as enabling as they are, will be more likely to succeed.

Resources:

• Avista Partners, Interactive Entertainment Summit 23 Nov 09, http://www.slideshare.net/pheydon/avista-partners-interactive-entertainment-summit-23-nov-09-main-pres
• Online as 70% of 106 billion dollar market cap
• Blue Ocean Strategy http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/
• A bestseller across five continents, published in 40 languages with more than 2 million copies sold, Blue Ocean Strategy is based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning 100 years and 30 industries, and provides a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and creating uncontested market space.
• Forrester Research, Getting Real Work Done In Virtual Worlds, by Erica Driver, Paul Jackson, with Connie Moore, Claire Schooley, Jamie Barnett, January 7, 2008, http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/getting_real_work_done_in_virtual_worlds/q/id/43450/t/2
• . . . it's still early, pioneering days. You've practically got to be a gamer to use most of these tools — setup can be arduous, navigating in a 3-D environment takes practice, and processing and bandwidth requirements remain high. But within five years, the 3-D Internet will be as important for work as the Web is today. Information and knowledge management professionals should begin to investigate and experiment with virtual worlds. Use them to try to replicate the experience of working physically alongside others; allow people to work with and share digital 3-D models of physical or theoretical objects; and make remote training and counseling more realistic by incorporating nonverbal communication into same-time, different-place interactions.
• Kzero Universe Charts http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/slideshare-presentation-of-q2-2011-universe-chart/
• Virtual worlds, MMO companies by size, average user age and launch date
• Virtual Worlds Landscape, Barry Holroyd
  

Barry Holroyd is an accomplished technology executive and serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of systems and product development in Web/Internet technologies, networking, databases, storage and distributed object systems. Barry possesses a solid mixture of hands-on, management and business experience.

A U.C. Berkeley graduate with dual degrees in computer science and psychology, he spent his first 15 professional years in software development specializing in IT, networking and object-oriented technologies, culminating in a position at Oracle as the lead architect for the object-oriented infrastructure for Oracle's Interactive T.V. project.

In 1995, anticipating the need that almost every company would have for web development assistance, Barry founded and funded his own web development firm, Galatia, which he grew to 18 people, $1.3M in annual revenues and a valuation of $3M. Subsequently Barry managed teams both onshore and offshore (India and China), including software engineers, QA engineers, technical publications writers and user interface specialists. He led the development of a massive, n-tiered ASP aggregator at Jamcracker, a $70M product line at Symantec and a business-quality audio conferencing service at Vello Corporation.

He enjoys tracking the latest Internet, mobile and virtual world technologies, the social trends their evolution drives and the new business models that result.

Panelist Andrea Leggett, Senior Product Marketing Manager, EMC

Andrea Leggett is currently a senior product marketing manager in the Information Intelligence Group (IIG) of EMC Corporation. Her experience in product marketing, product management and marketing communications spans more than 15 years across various industries: insurance, energy, public sector, life sciences and manufacturing. Previously she held product marketing management roles at Guidewire, Niku (CA) and Oracle. Currently she manages the Cloud and Big Data marketing initiatives for the IIG division of EMC.

Panelist Dannette Veale, Virtual & Digital Technology Strategist, Cisco's Global Sales Experience and Virtual Partner Summit

As the virtual and digital technology strategist for Cisco's Global Sales Experience (GSX) and Virtual Partner Summit (VPS), Dannette Veale lives and breathes new media. Prior to her role on the GSX and VPS team Dannette lead the creation and drove the strategy for the award winning Cisco Live and Networkers virtual program. Dannette has also managed global online and virtual programs for a variety of Cisco groups; most notably emerging markets. When she's not evangelizing the use of virtual environments to extend the reach of an event and broaden the overall audience demographic participating, you'll find Dannette engaged in such varied hobbies as producing streaming media, designing Web sites, or watching classic films such as Blade Runner.

Presenting Entrepreneur Parvati Dev, PhD, FACMI, President, Innovation in Learning Inc.,

Parvati Dev, PhD, FACMI, is currently President, Innovation in Learning Inc., advisor at CTIS, member at American Medical Informatics Association, and Director, SUMMIT IRT at Stanford School of Medicine. She was previously a Research Scientist at Stanford Medical Informatics and has held VP of Research and other executive positions at CEMAX, Inc. She earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and attended the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Presenting Entrepreneur Raj Raheja, Founder and CEO, Heartwood Studios

Raj Raheja provides a leading voice for the future of 3D Virtual Training and Serious Gaming. He believes in sandwiching great technologies together and therefore, leans more towards Innovation than pure Invention. In 2002, Raj co-founded Heartwood with Neil Wadhawan. Today, he splits his time between operating the company and on new technology development, his real passion. If it's Visual or Virtual, then Raj is interested in it.

Some of his current interests include:

• Mobile 3D Applications - iPad, iPhone, and Android platforms
• Simulation engines
• Augmented Reality & Automated 3D reconstruction

Raj has won several key awards, including:

• Entrepreneur of the Year award (San Francisco Business Times)
• Inc. 5000 Applicant of the Week
• Honored as Co-founder, 13th of 50 Fastest Growing Companies in the SFO East Bay Area by The Business Times Group.
• Certificate of Recognition, California State Assembly, for 'one of the finest entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area'

Raj has been featured in 'Entrepreneur' Magazine, 'Inc.', San Francisco Business Times, Silicon Valley Business Journal, Military Training Technology (MT2), Business Standard (India), The Sentinel (Cover Story), India West (twice, once Cover Story), and India Post.

Raj loves the water. He swims and plays tennis between project deadlines. Raj encourages everyone at the company to live a complete life, sometimes dragging them away from their desks!

Dennis Shiao, Director of Product Marketing, INXPO

Dennis Shiao is an evangelist, strategist and practitioner of virtual events. Currently, Dennis serves as Director of Product Marketing at INXPO, the leading provider of privately branded virtual events and virtual business communities.  At INXPO, Dennis is responsible for go-to-market strategy and execution, and for shaping product and platform evolution via the "voice of the customer".

Dennis provides strategic consulting to clients on their virtual events and has managed virtual event campaigns for Cisco, HP, Oracle and Microsoft, among others.  Dennis blogs about virtual events and virtual worlds at "It's All Virtual" and is a frequent author and speaker. 

Virtual events can be a dream for marketers. They can generate leads cost effectively and they facilitate real-time interactions with sales prospects that can lead to quicker and more efficient marketing qualification.
That's the premise behind FountainBlue program adviser Dennis Shiao's first book "Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events". Dennis is a virtual events expert who has advised FountainBlue on its virtual worlds series since its inception in September 2009. Dennis provides insights that marketers can use to fuel their sales pipeline via virtual events.  Order an electronic or hard copy of Dennis's book by visiting http://allvirtual.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/new-book-generate-sales-leads-with-virtual-events/.  

FountainBlue's September 24 Annual Virtual Worlds Trends Event, featured:

Trends in the Virtual Worlds Industry: An Update on What's New and What's Coming

Facilitator Jeff Pope, Founding Partner, Spark Sky Ventures

David Helgason, CEO and Co-Founder, Unity

Chris Platz, Creative Director and Art Lead, Stanford Sirikata Labs

Eilif Trondsen, Research and Program Director of the Virtual Worlds @ Work Consortium at Strategic Business Insights, SRI International

Mark Wallace, Conversation Manager, Linden Lab

Corporate Panel: Serving Customers, Building Communities, Training Users

Facilitator Dennis Shiao, Director of Product Marketing, INXPO

Sai Allavarpu, Senior Director for Security and Virtualization, CITRIX

Mic Bowman, Principal Engineer, Intel

Kenny Lauer, VP of Digital Experience, George P. Johnson

Entrepreneur Panel: The Tools, The Goods, The Immersion Experience

Facilitator Nina Gerwin, The NRG Group

Michael Gold, CEO, Electrotank: virtual world & virtual games development platform

Steve Hoffman, CEO, Rocketon: virtual world for tweeners

Albert Kim, CEO, Zenitum: Augmented reality with 3D displays

Jim Parker, President, Digitell: SaaS 3D immersive virtual events and virtual training

Please join me in thanking Cisco for graciously hosting us for this event. Below are notes from the conversation:

It has been a historic year for 3D immersion/virtual worlds companies large and small, with the shut-down of a few prominent virtual worlds including there.com, MetaPlace and Forterra, and the overall backlash to the over-hyping done in the 2006-2007 timeframe some people and companies have done. Each of our panelists remained bullish on the long-term prospects for the wide range of virtual worlds solutions, but are cautious about projecting and anticipating how to make money in the near term.

One problem is that there are many negative perceptions, particularly in Europe, which are barriers to quick adoption, even when there are proven results:

• Many people think that it's too hard, or not very useful or effective to engage with virtual worlds solutions.
• The over-hyping has made some people question both the rate-of-adoption curve (which in turn slows down the curve), as well as the overall usefulness of 3d immersion experiences.
• Many Baby Boomers (the likely decision-makers in many corporations) think that 3D immersion experiences are not for their generation, and can't understand the needs of the next generation enough to anticipate returns.
• Almost everyone believes that 3D immersion experiences is no substitute for real life, face to face interactions. (But that doesn't mean they don't have a value.)

The panelists had several suggestions on how to accelerate the adoption curve for 3D solutions:

Thoughts on the Evolution of the Industry Overall:

• Create a standard set of definitions we can all work with.
• Develop more success stories with measurable results.
• Make the immersion experience easier, more intuitive, especially when people first arrive.
• Blur the line between 'work' and 'cool' stuff and create solutions that support work results, while facilitating interactions with others, and entertaining and engaging all.

Advice on How to Best Execute an Entrepreneurial Venture

• Create and support a balance of openness and constraint.
• Create browser-based solutions like FaceBook, Twitter, or solutions that work within existing social networks rather than walled gardens.
• Different generations do have different muscle memories, so consider your target audience when developing a 3D immersion solution: are they more used to playing Tetris or WII and how should that impact your user interface?
• Think clearly through the role of security and permissions as well as the persistence of information as you create 3D immersion platforms, allowing people to collaborate and interact.
• Create rich features which do not require a huge commitment of time or money, a freemium-to-premium model.
• Offer a 3D immersion experience so that a larger body of people can be exposed to the knowledge and feel like part of the community.
• Incentivize users through rewards (like virtual rewards or real-life rewards like accreditation).
• To address the concern that 3D immersion experiences can't replace real-life, face-to-face interactions, agree with them, but say that the immersion experience can dramatically increase the number of people exposed to it at all; so you're not targeting the 10-20% of people who really need to be physically present at the event, but rather the 80-90% of people who didn't HAVE to be there, or who weren't planning to attend anyway.
• Consider the social and real-life impact of the 3D immersion experience, like users' attachment to avatars and how that could influence weight management or teaching vocal intonation, body language, facial expression for enrichment or therapy, or facial and pattern recognition for fun or work.
• Leverage existing technologies and tools and shift them slightly for different purposes. But don't do it too much, or your brand will not be original or innovative.

The panelists all shared some thoughts about getting enterprise customers engaged in 3D immersion experiences. Many corporate decision makers users are Baby Boomers who might be reticent to experience nirvana in rich 3D immersion experience complete with avatars that are browser-based. However, they might be receptive to leveraging it in trainings and workshops, so it might be best to offer virtual meeting, web cam, document sharing as essential features, and consider that avatars are of secondary importance. In the end, companies will adopt 3D immersion solutions better when executives become more comfortable with the results of better engagement and passion by users: better efficiency and dedication.

The panelists predict the following trends:

• There will be an emergence of simple 3D environment working within FaceBook, Google, the web, Unity or other engine within it.
• Integration of the 2d and 3d platform will provide many opportunities for innovation. What if you were on the web, and saw that someone else was browsing the same site you are or were?! See rocketon.com
• 3d collaborative workspace is hot, and will be even hotter when security, collaboration and integration elements become more advanced.
• Online games and virtual worlds together, like Zynga, will remain a hot area, leveraging the best of gaming technology, software programming and social media dynamics. Another example is virtual pets which are breed-able with your friends' virtual pets.
• The application of mobile technologies and augmented reality for the detection, recognition of objects and people is another interesting area.
• Digital story-telling, with augmented reality, leveraging social media is another opportunity.
• Leveraging augmented reality for on-site training to build on in-class learning, and is particularly important when there is a lot to learn, and it's important to do it right the first time as there might be safety concerns.
• The webcam may one day replace the mouse and keyboard. What are the implications for gamers and gaming and virtual worlds/augmented reality/the immersion experience?
• 3D visors may be Apple's or someone else's next big thing.
• There will be a huge market for game engines which allow rapid development of real-time, multi-player games and game technologies.
• It's a great opportunity to bring together established communities to collaboratively build everything from documents to music, or work or pleasure, through an immersion experience.

Our visionary corporate and entrepreneurial panelists are pushing the envelope of development and adoption, enabling people to work, collaborate, and play in virtual worlds, leveraging cutting edge networking, mobile, graphics and other software and hardware solutions, along with the guerilla marketing results provided by social media tools, and generating real-world results. Virtual worlds represent a revolution of the user, responding to people who are shifting the concept of 'work' and shifting how we go to work, and whether work goes to people and follows people wherever they are, the virtual workplace. We are opting more for user-defined, cloud-based solutions than corporate policies and IT management, and even exploring the use of technology to address real-world social and political issues, including water usage and rights.

In summary, our communication history as a people has moved from cave painting, telegraphs, telephone, then television, internet, web, e-mail, voice, video cam, and now, virtual worlds. This form of communication is richer, at its best, offering a convergence of physical and virtual worlds. Therefore, the evolution is inevitable, but there will be many barriers along the way, and although the visionaries and entrepreneurs can succeed despite the odds, it will never replace the need for face-to-face communications.

Resources:

• Trends in the Virtual Worlds Industry, by Dennis Shiao, It's All Virtual http://allvirtual.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/trends-in-the-virtual-worlds-industry/
• 3 Virtual Worlds Technologies to Watch, by Dennis Shiao, It's All Virtual http://allvirtual.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/3-virtual-worlds-technologies-to-watch
• Hear From A Panel Of Virtual Worlds Entrepreneurs, by Dennis Shiao, from "It's All Virtual" http://allvirtual.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/hear-from-a-panel-of-virtual-worlds-entrepreneurs/

Sai Allavarpu, Senior Director, Product Marketing, CITRIX

Sai Allavarpu is the Senior Director of Product Marketing for Security and Acceleration in Desktop Virtualization division at Citrix, responsible for Citrix Access Gateway and Citrix Branch Repeater product lines.
Previously at HP, Allavarpu led strategy, product management and marketing for HP's security and identity management, and IT Service Management software solutions.
Prior to HP, Allavarpu led product management and marketing for Sun Microsystems's security, identity and access management software solutions. He was one of the original founders of the Liberty Alliance and was responsible for the recruitment of the initial membership of the alliance. Allavarpu has held various senior engineering management and chief architect positions in diverse technology areas such as security, network and systems management, databases, e-commerce systems and enterprise portals. He holds 15 patents in security and network management.
Allavarpu holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley and a bachelor of science in computer science from Osmania University, India.

Mic Bowman received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Arizona. He joined Intel's Personal Information Management group in 1999. While at Intel, he has developed personal information retrieval applications, context-based communication systems, and middleware services for mobile applications, in addition to his role in the PlanetLab SRP. Prior to joining Intel, Bowman worked at Transarc Corporation, where he led research teams that developed distributed search services for the Web, distributed file systems, and naming systems.

Nina Gerwin, The NRG Group

Nina Gerwin is Principal of The NRG Group, a management and marketing consulting practice that advises start ups on business and product strategies, and develops and executes marketing strategies and campaigns for corporate clients.  As a former start-up COO, Nina's background includes Comcast, Disney, HBO, Bare Escentuals, Architectural Digest and Bon Appetit magazines.

Nina maintains a steadfast, customer-centric foundation on which to build market share and profits.  She drives brand awareness and delivers customers with traditional, digital and social media with an expertise in consumer media and products (tangible and digital).  Areas of interest are mobile, virtual worlds / events / learning, social media, TV entertainment, online video and their convergence.

Michael Gold, CEO, Electrotank

Michael Gold is the CEO of Electrotank, the leading browser based multiplayer game and virtual world development studio and licensor of ES4 and EUP development platform for MMOGs. In that role, he is responsible for supporting Electrotank's worldwide client base and guiding further development of the award-winning development platforms that have established Electrotank as the premier partner for browser based multiplayer games and virtual worlds. Prior to joining Electrotank, Michael was the COO of Animation Collective where he directed all licensing, business, and production and drove the company's growth from six to eight figure revenues with no outside capital. Michael also co-founded the award-winning educational technology start-up Learnimation, LLC. Under his guidance Learnimation was awarded 10 Small Business Innovation Research Awards from the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation.

Michael is the executive producer of over 150 half hours of children's broadcast programming and dozens of online games for Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Scholastic, AOL, BBC Kids and Lionsgate. He earned a B.A. in Economics from Amherst College.

David Helgason, CEO and co-founder, Unity

David served as CEO of the game technology company Unity Technologies since co-founding it in 2003. Unity's vision is to democratize game development, and develop technology for the next generation of the industry. From in-browser MMO, through mobile, to social, casual, serious, and beyond. Unity is currently used by dozens of big game publishes and media companies, hundreds of smaller studios, and thousands of independent professionals, hobbyists, students, and 14 year old boys.

David's background is in software, having participated in several startups during and around the .com's, in areas such as early experiments with news & community integration, music business content distribution, and IT-consulting for a variety of local and global companies. David currently serves on the boards of serious game studio Serious Games Interactive, and fashion-technology startup World On A Hanger.

Steve Hoffman, CEO & Cofounder, LavaMind and RocketOn

Steve Hoffman (a.k.a. Captain Hoff) is a high tech serial entrepreneur. He's the CEO & Cofounder of LavaMind, which publishes Founders Space http://www.FoundersSpace.com, as well as numerous websites, games and mobile applications. Information can be found at LavaMind http://www.LavaMind.com and RocketOn http://www.RocketOn.com.

Hoffman is also a founding member of the Academy of Television's Interactive Media Group and was the Chairman & Founder of the San Francisco Chapter of the Producers Guild. In 2007, Hoffman founded RocketOn, a social media and virtual world startup. Prior to this, Hoffman was the COO of Tap11 (formerly Zannel), a venture-funded startup that provides businesses with advanced analytics and CRM for Twitter.
Before that, Hoffman was the North American Studio Head for Infospace, where he ran the US mobile games publishing & development group. From 1998 - 2002, he was the Chairman & CEO of Spiderdance, Hollywood's leading interactive television studio, whose customers included NBC, Viacom, Time Warner, TBS, GSN and A&E. He also consulted for R/GA Interactive, designing projects for Kodak, Disney, Intel, AdAge, and Children's Television Workshop.
In Japan, Hoffman worked as a game designer for Sega, generating new concepts and designs for games and amusement rides. Prior to Sega, he was a Hollywood development executive at Fries Entertainment, where he managed TV development. He graduated from the University of California with a BS in Electrical Computer Engineering and went on to earn a Masters in Film & Television from USC. He is also the co-author of the first-edition of "Game Design Workshop" published by CMP.

Albert Heekwan Kim

Born and raised in Seoul, Korea, Albert Heekwan Kim earned his B.S. at Ohio State University and his M.Sc. at Northwestern in Computer Engineering.  Since 1993, Albert has specialized in designing complex software architecture for platforms ranging from S/360 to FPGA.  His current venture, Zenitum, focuses on computer vision tracking technology for Mobile Augmented Reality.  With the world's best computer vision professionals, his also spends time on a "video based rendering" system for potential AR/VR uses at the start-up he founded called Voxelogram.  Albert believes "bringing the virtual into the real space" and vice versa can be done for creating the 3rd realm with his two endeavors.

Jim Parker, President and CEO, Digitell Inc.

Jim Parker is currently President and CEO of Digitell, Inc., a full service company that specializes in the development of virtual immersive environments and their applications for businesses.  Mr. Parker is a 30 year veteran in the conference industry, servicing 90 organizations, such as the American Academy of Family Physicians, CSC, Oracle, and many more.  Digitells's VirtualU platform focuses on ease of use, flexibility and full service capabilities. With a staff of over 20, Digitell provides its clients with everything they would need, from custom environments, to training, tech support and event execution. Client applications range from urban design, and museum replication to immersive webinars, Hybrid Conferences and 365 persistent corporate office space.  Mr. Parker is a well known speaker in the association industry and presently lives in Western New York.

Chris Platz, Creative Director and Art Lead, Stanford Sirikata Labs

Chris Platz is an artist and educator in the fields of traditional fine art and digital 2D/3D arts. Currently he teaches at the Art Institute of San Francisco in the Game Art and Design Dept, the Academy of Art Interior Architecture Dept, and Game Creation courses at the Digital Media Academy. Chris' industry projects include video game interface designs for Vampire the Masquerade, RuneQuest, and other titles. For the Digital Media Academy, Chris teaches how to utilize the latest digital tools for creating memorable games, environments and characters. Chris is continually amazed at how fast the younger generation of gamers can learn tools that took him years to grasp. Away from the computer Chris enjoys painting murals, sculpting clay, and family time in the Bay Area with his wife and daughter.

Jeffrey Pope, Founding Partner, Spark Sky Ventures

Jeffrey is the Executive Vice President of ngi US, a Silicon Valley based, wholly owned subsidiary of ngi group Japan. Within his role at ngi US Jeffrey is chartered with identifying investment opportunities, performing market analysis, and assisting portfolio companies with North American strategy and entry. In addition, he is the US representative for 3Di, which is also an ngi group subsidiary company and a leading innovator in virtual world and 3D technologies.

With over 13 years living and working in Asia, Jeffrey has an extensive background in business development, negotiating critical business alliances and opening new markets. Prior to joining ngi group, Jeffrey held a position with Microsoft Japan where he was involved with the development of Japans Xbox live game server infrastructure, and overseeing an MSN data center. Thereafter he spent 6 years with Sun Microsystems Japan where he managed various aspects of Sun's Services and Sales business. He was instrumental in helping Sun to streamline its Services processes, primarily through the Six Sigma quality control methodology of which he was the lead practitioner and trainer. His last role within Sun was that of the head of Sun's Emerging Technologies Division in the Asia Pacific region. Having served as a consultant, a conference speaker, and participated in industry committees, Jeffrey is an acknowledged authority on Virtual Worlds and the Online Computer Games (MMO) market.

Eilif Trondsen, Research and Program Director of the Virtual Worlds @ Work Consortium at Strategic Business Insights

As research director of the Virtual Worlds @ Work (VWW) at Consortium Strategic Business Insights (SBI), a spin-out of SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute), Dr. Trondsen's research and consulting focuses on the use of technology for innovation, learning and performance improvement. He has 30 years of experience at SBI and at SRI International, leading or contributing to a variety of projects for U.S. and foreign clients in the private and public sectors. At SRI and SBI, Dr. Trondsen has held the position of Research Director of the Business Intelligence Program (now the Scan program), the director of the Learning on Demand (LoD) program (exploring the role of technology in learning and training), and is now leading VWW. In his tenure at SRI and SBI, he has given numerous presentations on various eCommerce, eLearning, innovation and virtual-worlds topics at conferences and to SRI clients around the world. Dr. Trondsen is also the author and co-author of numerous publications on eCommerce, eLearning and virtual-worlds issues.

It's All Virtual, with Dennis Shiao, Interview with Linda Holroyd

On virtual worlds and "where we're going", what is your opinion? September, 2010

The opportunities in virtual worlds brings together the best of enterprise solutions which automate business process to better serve customers at all levels, the best of social media and its capacity to expand audiences virally leveraging technology, and the best of gaming with its fanatical appeal to extremely loyal customers. It is a hot Web 3.0 opportunity, which takes the technology, community, and monetizing potential of Web 2.0 to the next level.

http://allvirtual.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/fountainblue%E2%80%99s-virtual-worlds-annual-conference-2010/

FountainBlue's first Annual Virtual Worlds Conference, on the topic of Where We've Been and Where We’'re Going took place at Sun Microsystems on September 25, 2009. We would like to congratulate our winning entrepreneurs and thank our speakers, presenters and panelists for freely and candidly sharing their knowledge and advice and contributing to our excellent program. We would like to recognize them below.

Introductory remarks, framing the discussion were provided by:

• Michael Gialis, New Business Development for Sun Microsystem's Lab and Chief Technology Office, Founder of Virtual Worlds Roadmap Group
• Barry Holroyd, CTO, Masher Media

An Overview of the History of Virtual Worlds – What is it, Where Has it Been? was provided by:

• Benjamin Duranske, Associate, Pillsbury Winthrop

Our first Panel Discussion: Virtual World Business Trends featured:

• Moderator Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company
• Panelist Joshua Bell, Director, Technology Integration, Linden Lab
• Panelist Tim Chang, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners
• Panelist Benjamin Duranske, Associate, Pillsbury Winthrop
• Panelist Michael Gold, CEO, Electrotank

Our Second Panel Discussion: Virtual World Case Studies featured:

• Moderator Jeffrey Pope, Founder of Virtual Worlds Roadmap Group, Former Virtual Worlds VC and Virtual Worlds Entrepreneur
• Panelist Jack Buser, Director of Sony Playstation Home
• Panelist David Helgason, CEO, Unity
• Panelist Damon Hernandez, Lead, Web3D Outreach, Web3d Consortium
• Panelist Greg Nuyens, CEO, Teleplace, formerly Qwaq

Below are notes from our conversation, along with resource links from our presenters.

Virtual Worlds offer a dynamic, ever-changing landscape of technology, community, interaction. Although Virtual Worlds have evolved over the past few decades, it is now coming to the mainstream, and its impact is deep and broad. It affects many facets of the way we do business from the financial, economic, technology and legal aspects, as well as HOW business is done, leveraging software the enables creative and dynamic interaction between people with virtual presences and online communities overall.

Virtual worlds are evolving from the walled gardens of the 1990s to more and more dynamic, interactive and creative sites that incorporate user content and creativity. This seems to be following the familiar evolution of the web itself; America Online and Prodigy became supplanted by more open browser standards from Mosaic.

Indeed, Virtual Worlds are evolving from a fad and a toy to a valuable business tool, serving and connecting various stakeholders. The graphics abilities introduced in the 80s and 90s brought in the era of avatars and games which were wildly popular, with some running still today. Now these graphics are being harnessed in virtual environments to effect value in a variety of non-game related use cases.

As more people got more deeply engaged, user communities arose and questions on policies, procedures and how users can interact and communities can grow arose. In addition, a business model evolution is now occurring where we are redefining who developers, publishers and retailers are and how they work together, as well as who is funding, marketing, and servicing these individual users and user communities. Users continue to raise the bar for what they can do and how they can do it, increasingly demanding more customized solutions and experiences tailored to themselves personally, and to the communities they join.

Adoption has not reached explosive double-digit figures yet for most virtual world communities, but with that said, in general the virtual worlds for kids sub-industry has benefited from the fastest and broadest adoption rate and continues to grow, showing that this is not a transient fad, but a real opportunity. Indeed, savvy publishers, manufacturers, producers and others selling to the kids market are factoring in web sites, books, toys, and virtual world communities as part of their marketing and outreach efforts. Successful examples of this maturing mass market segment include Webkins and Club Penguin.

Both panels remarked on the huge opportunities available in the media and entertainment industry. According to latest PriceWaterhouseCoopers Q2 2009 report, media and entertainment investments, totaled $115B, averaged $2 million per deal and totaled 52 deals, mostly from Silicon Valley (19), but also 10 from New York, and 6 from LA/Orange County. https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/print.jsp?page=industry&industry=7100&region

The panelists and presenters had the following advice for virtual worlds entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs:

• The growth of an individual virtual world, and the industry altogether might grow in fits and starts, depending on technology availability, user communities, adoption of standards, bandwidth constraints and other factors. Awareness of these challenges and addressing them headlong, in collaboration with other stakeholders will help drive the growth of the industry.
• Minimize the barrier to adoption and drive the user base for your community: making adoption friction-less a critical factor for success. Make sure that there are no technology hassles (installing separate plug-ins and technologies), process hurdles (logging in, taking surveys, confusing steps), or marketing/branding confusion (they have to know where to go and that their trusted colleagues have recommended the experience), for example.
• Take advantage of the 'Hybrid Tiered Solution', where general users (about 85%) get in free, and a certain percentage (around 15%) pays through micro transactions for premium services and a smaller percentage (1-3% for example) pays for ongoing subscription levels. The successful organization will offer a solution which would serve the individual needs of all three types of users, treating them all as valuable members.
• Leverage the social communities (FaceBook, Twitter, iPhone, etc.) of the audience to leverage the growth of your community.
• Content is king. Everyone wants more content, richer interaction, more activities, more engagement, etc. The successful company offers solutions which engages users while also setting appropriate controls and boundaries.
• Focus on the needs of your target audience, whether they are frequent texters, or users of Twitter or FaceBook, creating a virtual world that lets them interact the way THEY want to will attract the audience you’re targeting.
• Research patents in your space, and consider IP issues associated with user-generated content. Find the edge of the law to remain competitive, but stay on the right side of the law to avoid litigation and other problems.
• Policies, regulations and enforcements in the virtual worlds space are rapidly evolving. Leverage resources to stay informed and be prepared to help shape, respond to these changes.
• Adoption of hardware such as headsets and webcams etc. will continue to occur, but not nearly at the pace of the evolution of software. Therefore, if your virtual world incorporates hardware components, create games which work with existing hardware, and leverage existing markets.
• Create a simple communication device to share information to the whole community, like a leader board, as it would generate discussion, invite more engagement, and help with the viral growth of the community.
• Ease of use can be defined as the first 30 seconds, the first 30 minutes, the first 30 hours, and the first 30 days. Strategies for retaining and securing users for each of the ‘first 30s’ may vary, but they are also inter-dependent, and must always focus on the needs of the customers.
• When designing a virtual worlds solution, speak to the people who would use it, like nurses or service station attendees rather than doctors (if they are not the ones who will use the solution) and managers (if they are not the ones serving the customer).

The panel raised some questions which could lead to hot virtual world business opportunities:

• What are the challenges and opportunities in synchronist and asynchornistic communication? How can solutions bring more people from more places together and more richly interact?
• How can virtual worlds assist with visualizing and modeling to support the innovation process and more cost-effectively make real technology- based solutions?
• What opportunities can data analytics and data visualization provide?
• Solutions across sectors offer opportunities. What might work for the education market, for example, might also serve a life science market. In addition, the technology for conducting a quest for a game might be adapted to organizational and productivity tools for businesses. What could this mean for YOUR company?
• What are the intersections of where gaming meets music or education or homework and what solution could you create to serve the needs of that market?

In summary, our panelists and presenters have shown and told us that Virtual Worlds:

• Are not only becoming more and more useful, they are also engaging and fun and potentially profitable.
• Are being adopted in different ways to create and serve communities for personal and business benefit.
• Are being increasingly more integrated into everyday business functions from training to education to service, branding and outreach. As such, challenges such as IP, security, privacy, and other factors will arise.
• Are mature enough that metaphors and examples exist, making it easier for potential customers and partners to understand new technology and business model solutions. Second Life, early games, Mosaic, Silicon Graphics, Tivo, Qwaq and other others have forged the business, technology and cultural grounds and helped grow the industry. They have been around long enough so tools and technologies and solutions are available, and the technology adoption curve is not as steep.
• Is not dominated by the US, as adoption of virtual goods and mobile platforms for example is 4-5x faster in Asia and Europe.

Additional information and resources:

• Presenting Entrepreneur Brian Bauer, OnTrack Health, winners in the Enterprise, Other Category (Collaboration in Health Care): http://ontracktechnology.blogspot.com
• Panelist Joshua Bell, Director, Technology Integration, Linden Lab http://www.lindenlab.com
• Linden Lab: Second Life enters the realm of the enterprise
• Joe Miller, VP of Platforms and Technology Development, at Linden Lab talks to CNET’s Dan Farber about the challenges in developing dynamic and reliable backend operations for the 3D virtual world of Second Life. Miller also discusses how they’re incorporating new hi-tech conferencing tools for business users such as VoIP solutions and video streaming technologies. http://video.zdnet.com/CIOSessions/?p=310
• Linden Lab’s Blog on the Economy https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2009/04/16/the-second-life-economy--first-quarter-2009-in-detail
• Second Life Starts To Grow Again, Wagner James Au, Wednesday, April 15, 2009 http://gigaom.com/2009/04/15/exclusive-internal-second-life-data-shows-returning-growth/
• Panelist Jack Buser, Director of Sony Playstation Home: http://www.playstation.sony.com
• Panelist Tim Chang, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners http://www.nvp.com
• Presenting Entrepreneur Dustin Clingman, Immediate Mode Interactive LLC, winners in the Enterprise, Virtual Meetings Category: http://www.immediatemodeinteractive.com
• Presenter, Sponsor and Panelist Benjamin Duranske, Associate, Pillsbury Winthrop
• 10 Frequently Asked Questions About Virtual Worlds http://www.pillsburylaw.com/index.cfm?pageid=34&itemid=39364
• Virtual Law: Navigating the Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds, by Ben Duranske http://www.amazon.com/Benjamin-Tyson-Duranske/e/B001JP104A
• Entrepreneur with display booth, Andrew Filev, CloudMach, http://www.cloudmach.com
• Emcee, Speaker and Sponsor, Michael Gialis, New Business Development for Sun Microsystem’s Lab and Chief Technology Office, Virtual Worlds Roadmap Group and Survey: http://virtualworldsroadmap.blogspot.com/ 
• August 2009 Survey Results http://virtualworldsroadmap.wikispaces.com/Survey+Aug+09
• Sun Research Labs http://research.sun.com/
• Panelist Michael Gold, CEO, Electrotank http://www.electrotank.com
• Presenting Entrepreneur Sherry Gunther, CEO, Masher Media, winners in the Consumer, Six to Twelve Category: http://www.masheredia.com
• Panelist David Helgason, CEO, Unity: http://www.unity3d.com
• Panelist Damon Hernandez, Lead, Web3D Outreach, Web3d Consortium http://www.web3d.org
• Presenting Entrepreneur Troy Hipolito, CTO and Owner, ISO Interactive, winners in the Consumer, Teenagers to Adult Category: http://www.isointeractive.com
• Presenter Barry Holroyd, CTO, Masher Media, http://www.mashermedia.com
• Presenting Entrepreneur Stevan Lieberman, SpotON3D, winners in the Enterprise, Other Category (Virtual Real Estate and Office Tools): http://www.spoton3d.com
• Entrepreneur with display booth, Greg Howes, IdeaBuilder, http://www.ideabuilderhomes.com  
• Panelist Greg Nuyens, CEO, Teleplace, formerly Qwaq http://www.teleplace.com
• Demo presentation by Chris Platz, Creative Director, Sirikata, Stanford Humanities Lab and Computer Science, projects: Virtual Museum and Virtual Live Music Performance: http://www.sirikata.com and http://shl.stanford.edu
• Panel Moderator Jeffrey Pope, Founder of Virtual Worlds Roadmap Group, Former Virtual Worlds VC and Virtual Worlds Entrepreneur, and Founding Partner, Spark Sky Ventures: http://www.sparksky.com
• Presenting Entrepreneur Terry Thorpe, Chairman, KohdSpace, winners in the Enterprise, Virtual Events and Tradeshows Category: http://www.kohdspace.com
• Panel Moderator Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company http://www.electricsheepcompany.com
• Demo presentation by Nicole Yankelovich, Principal Investigator, Collaborative Environments program including Wonderland v0.5, Sun Labs will demo the new features / functionality and capability of our re-architected platform: http://www.projectwonderland.com

In conclusion, the opportunities in the virtual worlds space are massive, with the convergence of technologies and markets and solutions. And it will take basic business principals, including strategic leadership and superior execution, constant education, lots of hard work, and a network of influential contacts to remain competitive in this rapidly growing and evolving space.

FountainBlue's Virtual World's sub-group was launched on March 9, with the production of our Virtual Worlds event on the topic of Virtual Worlds: The Hype, The Reality, The In-Between, featuring a panel of investors, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. As a follow-up to our March 9 launch event, FountainBlue will be producing an annual conference on Virtual Worlds, with the first one scheduled for September 25 from 8:00 a.m. – 3 p.m. This annual conference will update us on Virtual Worlds trends and feature case studies, while also profiling corporate virtual world solutions and entrepreneurial pitches from the winners of this business plan competition in six categories.

FountainBlue's Virtual World Program Team congratulates our six funding-bound virtual world start-ups who submited an executive summary and will be making their pitches at our annual Virtual Worlds Conference, scheduled for Friday, September 25 from 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. at Sun Microsystems. We have executive summaries from each of the submitting categories:

Consumer

• Six to Twelve  
• Teenagers and Young Adults  
• Adults and Seniors  
  

Enterprise

• Virtual Events and Tradeshows  
• Virtual Meetings
• Communities and Cross-Over Solutions, including·Virtual Identity across platforms and Convergence of On-Line and In-Person

Each Presenting Team will receive:

• Submitting entrepreneurs will receive one passes to the 9/25 event, as well as informal feedback from FountainBlue Virtual Worlds Committee members.
• The selected six presenting entrepreneurs will receive two additional passes to the 9/25 event and have the option of meeting informally with members of FountainBlue’s volunteer Virtual World committee members, between September 15 and September 22 at noon to prepare for the presentation.

Process for Pitching During the Annual Event

The six virtual world entrepreneurs, winners from each of the identified categories, will be conducting fast pitches, 20 minute rounds each, broken down as follows:

• 5-minute pitches
• 5-minutes Q&A with judging panel
• 5-minute feedback

Deadlines and Announcements

August 14      Deadline for Exec Summaries Submissions (@ noon)

Sept 15         Announcing Six Finalists (by noon)

9/15-22         Informal Meetings with Finalists

Sept 25         Annual Virtual Worlds Event, with Presentation by Winners to Investors and Entrepreneurs

FountainBlue would like to thank our virtual world program team for their support and contributions:

• Program Team
• Paul Cutt
• Benjamin Duranske
• Nina Gerwin
• Michael Gialis
• Robin Harper
• Barry Holroyd
• James Kempf
• Matt Perez
• Jeff Pope
• Dennis Shiao
• Sibley Verbeck
• Exec Summary Team:
• Sandy Adam
• Laurie Dineen Dieck
• Damon Hernandez
  
• Sarita Mallya
• Karen Marshall
• Curt Ward

Get Involved

We welcome your feedback, input and involvement! Please e-mail us at info@svvirtualworlds.com if you are interested in joining the FountainBlue Virtual Worlds community as a volunteer to:

• Spread the word,
• Recruit entrepreneurs,
• Evaluate pitches,
• Recruit corporate partners, or
• Manage the September 25 on-site event.

FountainBlue’s March 9 High Tech Entrepreneurs’ Forum was on the topic of Virtual Worlds: The Hype, The Reality, The In-Between and featured: 

• Facilitator Glenn Von Tersch, Partner, TIPS Group
• Panelist Anne-Marie Roussel, Microsoft
• Panelist Michael Gialis, Business Development Manager, Project Wonderland and Project Darkstar, Sun Microsystems
• Panelist Robin Harper, Former VP of Marketing and Community Development, Second Life, Linden Labs
• Panelist Steve Nelson, Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer, Clear Ink
• Panelist Susan Stucky, Research Manager, IBM

The emergence of social virtual worlds as a cultural and business phenomenon has astounded and mystified some, and excited and profited others. In these trying economic times, people are escaping to fantasy lands and adopting new online personas, businesses are profiting from the upsurge of people actively participating at many creative levels, investors are looking carefully at the returns for existing companies, and corporations are wondering how virtual worlds will make them money, while providing better service for their customers.

Virtual World Definition:

• Wikipedia: A virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. These avatars are usually depicted as textual, two-dimensional, or three-dimensional graphical representations, although other forms are possible (auditory and touch sensations for example). Some, but not all, virtual worlds allow for multiple users.
• Excerpted from Gartner Analyst Steven Prentice talk on July 30:
• Prentice said a virtual worlds is a presence in a space where interaction takes place in real time with digital personas.
• Prentice pointed out that our avatar’s identity represents how we want to be perceived.

• There are elements of interactivity, collaboration, immersion and immediacy which distinguish virtual worlds from ‘canned’ games or regular webinars.
• There’s a potential for higher engagement and better connection between participants during the experience, which may lead to a more persistent and relevant memory. For example, a webinar in a virtual world may mean more than a regular webinar, particularly if you identify closely with your avatar.
• The best virtual worlds offer tools which make it easy for people to be creative and express themselves, connecting with others.

Advice About Virtual Worlds:

• Plan for and understand expectations from you/your company’s participation in a virtual worlds project. Make the outcomes timelined and measurable where possible.
• Consider the importance of the (positive and negative) experiences of the users and what that would say about your brand.
• Be open to letting users experiment within the virtual world, and event to take it in a direction which you may not have originally intended.
• Companies that manage virtual worlds must establish policies for behavior, taxation, democracy, economy, governance, etc., In many ways, it’s a society and a culture should be proactively managed, just like in real life.
• Creating an economy and an exchange allowed people to create their own land, reap benefits from their creativity and ideas, and own their ideas and concepts. The people who are successfully profiting from the economy on Second Life pave the way for others to do the same, and are attracting more people to investigate opportunities for themselves.
• Costs for creating a virtual world are minimal. As this is a new area, this is a good time to experiment with different revenue models and niche markets to find something that works.
• Partner with established entrepreneurial companies and established corporations to leverage their applications, research, and markets and find a win-win.
• Make your virtual world intuitive to use, to encourage mass adoption.

Opportunities for Virtual Worlds Solutions:

• Offer interactive early and secondary education and training.
• Provide interactive training and simulation games which may have military or flight/driver’s applications for example.
• Offer mapping tools which would have real-world applications, like providing law enforcement or military personnel detailed geographic maps of areas where there might be danger.
• Sales force education to learn everything from how to sell the product/service to how to manage/overcome rejection. This type of training might be more real online as avatars can get quite animated!
• Create mixed-reality concepts such as sensors in high-crime or war areas to help identify sources of gunfire for example, to respond quickly, to electronically map area, etc., all to help law enforcement and military professional proactively manage violence and protect people.
• Leverage virtual world tools for project management/collaboration training or execution or for negotiation and sales training.
• Create a virtual world call center to build better connections with customers and perhaps better collaboration between customers/between customer and company.
• Use virtual world experience for diversity or innovation training.
• Use virtual world to create support groups for people of similar interests and challenges, particularly if they have physical challenges making it difficult to connect in person with others or learning challenges like Aspergers where it might feel safer to connect and experiment with people similarly afflicted before trying out ideas and concepts live.

Ideas for Making Money on Virtual Worlds:

• Own the virtual world, like Linden Labs
• Sell virtual goods – millions of dollars can be made annually on selling virtual goods
• Create virtual world tools for mobility, analytics, decision-making, design etc.,
• Be a design agency or Sherpa to help others with their virtual world projects
• Save money on training and communication/collaboration/project management for your company with a virtual world presence.
• Build a reusable virtual world environment.

Resources:

• Blog on It’s All Virtual, by Dennis Shiao of InXpo: Insights and Experiences from Virtual Worlds Experts, http://allvirtual.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/insights-and-experiences-from-virtual-worlds-experts/
• FaceBook group for Virtual Event Strategists http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=52325833170
• Noted Gartner Analyst Steven Prentice Updates His Predictions on Virtual Worlds, August 5, 2008, Donald Schwartz for Fast Company, reporting on the opening session of Clever Zebra’s Vbusiness Expo, July 30, 2008 (http://vbusinessexpo.com) which took place on a virtual world platform created by Forterra Systems Inc (http://www.forterrainc.com).  http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/donald-schwartz/fc-technology-moderator-blog/noted-gartner-analyst-steven-prentice-updates-his-
• Size of Virtual Worlds:
• Strategy Analytics http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=ReportAbstractViewer&a...
• K-Zero http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?page_id=2092
• 30 million active users in virtual worlds although many without a credit card
• IBM Report: Virtual Worlds, Real Leaders: Online Games Put the Future of Business Leadership on Display http://www-07.ibm.com/innovation/au/ideas/giogaming/pdf/ibm_gio_gaming_report.pdf