21st Century Organization

Outside Inverse

The avatars are coming in from the cold! that is their real life owners are going to meet their makers. A unique meld of Eve Online game players will be joining the  game company, CCP designers in Iceland to  oversee  what goes on behind the virtual scenes.

Today's New York Time's Art section story In a Virtual Universe, The Politics Turn Real might be from any business headline.  The users perceive something is not above board and want more transparency, but the resolution is far from the typical business spin on an issue gone public.

Apparently, a large portion of the community perceive CCP of "rigging the game" although Eve Online is a virtual world massive player online game (MMOG) hosted by CCP in Iceland.  Unique to this game is that all of the players - 200,000, just 100,000 shy of the Iceland's population appear to be on on a single server.

A scene from the multiplayer
Internet game Eve Online.

CCP says it will tackle the problem the way a democracy would. In what appears to be a first, the company plans to hold elections so that players can select members of an oversight committee.

The company will then fly those players to Iceland regularly so they can audit CCP’s operations and report back to their player-constituents. And taking cues from transitions to democracy in the developing world, CCP says it will call in election monitors from universities in Europe and the United States.

“Perception is reality, and if a substantial part of our community feels like we are biased, whether it is true or not, it is true to them,” Hilmar Petursson, CCP’s chief executive, said in a telephone interview. “Eve Online is not a computer game. It is an emerging nation, and we have to address it like a nation being accused of corruption.

“A government can’t just keep saying, ‘We are not corrupt.’ No one will believe them. Instead you have to create transparency and robust institutions and oversight in order to maintain the confidence of the population.” 

Imagine bringing the outside in to your universe or key customers to GM, Enron or any other company when perceptions of corruption were afoot.  What about key constituents to FEMA post Katrina.  I like these folks at CCP and think they are on to something smart.  Stay tuned the elections are in the fall of 2007.

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

Second Life: Art in Conversations

What does it say about adoption of Second Life when art news site ARTINFO.com (May 31,2007) leads with an intriguing story about the growth in virtual art galleries.

Reporter Jacquelyn Lewis tours Second Life and reports the online art community has tens of thousands of participants.

Artist and Second Life art expert Richard Minsky says:

"a recent count tallied at least 700 Second Life galleries—and that’s not including museums, artist colonies, projects such as Campbell’s, and countless other online creations that can’t even be defined."

"The sheer volume has inspired Minsky to create SLART, a magazine devoted to all things art-related in Second Life. The Web version is available now, and a print edition launches this summer."

Minsky's observations about where artists find value in Second Life caught my attention:

"Chatting with other artists is one of the main draws of Second Life, he added. “You can talk to people from all over the world. It’s bizarre who you’ll run into—I think the best work [comes out of] those conversations.”

and

"Sometimes those conversations bleed over into real life, too. At a recent open studio at Yale, a visitor was able to identify Campbell after noticing similarities between his real-life and Second Life works. “It was a really weird experience,” Campbell said."

"Campbell" is Shane Campbell whose Second Life artworks created in 2007 as part of his coursework in Yale's MFA program grace the ARTINFO.com story.

Worth a visit.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Virtual Worlds in Business: Unisfair, ITE Expo Inworld, Ludium II

A number of interesting events revealing the burgeoning business use of virtual worlds, and indications that more to follow:

1. Unisfair and Conference 2.0

Thanks to Nitin Karandikar at Software Abstractions for a detailed and insightful review of Unisfair, a conferencing platform described as a combination of:

"WebEx with Second Life, with a dash of LinkedIn thrown in". 

Unveiled at the Web 2.0 Virtual Events for Enterprise Unisfair indicates another enterprise software wave to watch.

2. International Technology Expo Inworld

Via Bill Lessard who spent last week busily preparing for the event, a pointer to the International Technology Expo, ITE’07 held inworld April 20th-22nd. Striking is the global reach of companies participating. Not surprizing as indeed Second Life is "virtual" but interesting to consider the far reaching new business opportunities opened.

3. Ludium II: Synthetic Worlds and Public Policy

From colleague Victoria Axelrod who closely follows Edward Castranova's research through the Synthetic Worlds Initiative at Indiana University, notice that registration is open for the Ludium II conference. 

Numbers are limited as the conference will be conducted as a live game but based on the topic, "Synthetic Worlds and Public Policy", stated intent, and Castranova's influence, outcomes and consensus reached could be far reaching:

"Ludium II will bring together experts on virtual worlds from academia, industry, and government to play a live-action political game leading to an extremely serious, timely, and important contribution: a consensus Platform of 10 Statements answering the question "What policies should real world governments have with regards to synthetic worlds?" The hope is that this Platform will provide answers when legislatures and administrators wonder what to do in response to the critical public issues that will be raised by these unique social technologies."

~  Jenny Ambrozek

PODCAMP NYC: Energized Media, Rising Stars & New Roles

Even for a remotely cynical TechVet like Bill Lessard Saturday's NYC PODCAMP left no doubt podcasting is REAL and a growing media force. Attending a NYC Podcasting Meetup had shown me podcasting had arrived, but Saturday's gathering with 1,000 plus entrepreneurial individual podcasters and emerging businesses to support them, was an eye opener.  The conference challenge was choosing among an abundance of interesting sessions. With apologies to ther presenters I had to skip, here are my highlights:

• Jason Van Orden- Consultant, author, interesting session on blogging and podcasting basics.

Reminded me to dig for Dave Winer's 2005 admonition:

"Not having an RSS feed for a business site is like not having business cards."

• John Havens- About.com podcasting guide hosted a terrific conversation with Streaming Media Executive VP Dan Rayburn, an industry veteran and blogger. (StreamingMedia is an Information Today Inc. company.)

• Nancy A, Shenker, President of OnSwitch revealed real world marketing experience in her refreshing presentation on communication "timeless truths" including:

"Experiences, Relationships, Mind expansion and Memories"

and reminders about:

"trust, quality, manners, true interest, loyalty"

• Heath Row, now Research Manager with DoubleClick, encouraged thinking about interactive online advertising. Tagging ads. Interesting.

• Reena Jana, a Business Week writer who also produces their "Innovation" podcasts, provided an invaluable business of podcasting presentation despite the technology limiting playing her podcasts!

My quick sponsor count numbered about 50 with some companies like Podango no doubt paying more for their branded room.  Credit for most creative and fun promotion goes to Adam Varga for his podcasting cards reading. Thanks Adam for the heads up about my challenges! OddPodz provided an environmentally conscious goodie, a recycled calico tea bag?  Did I understand that correctly? After intriguing conversations with founders Jocelin Ring and Karen Post, I'm adding OddPodz, "a community for the creative class", (soon to be headquartered on the "Creative Coast"), to my companies to watch list.   

Take Aways

1. Emerging business and job opportunities in podcasting.

Growing fields include podcast marketing and publishing networks. Podcasting 'stationmaster" is a new job title and actors are finding work as podcasting hosts. Interesting the number of entrepreneurial Canadians represented from interactive marketing agency Caprica to enthusiastic zine producer Vergel Evans.

2. Wake Up Call to Established Media Brands

Business Week's experience reveals the value for traditional media in using podcsating to promote their content and brand, and create new sponsor opportunities. My sense is if you are an established media brand not strategically using podcasting your brand potential is in decline. Anyone care to tell me I am wrong?

Congratulations to the NYC PODCAMP organizing team and to all the individuals and sponsor companies who pitched in to make it a rich, and can you believe, "free" event.  Testimony, as the open source movement has demonstrated, to the power of networks and individual contribution and sharing. Thanks to colleagues Kiki Mulliner and Jeffrey Keefer for sharing the day and encouraging me to attend.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Life beyond "Second Life" - The Metaverse Earns an "Intraverse"

Being a tech vet comes with certain disadvantages. Sure, there is the sense of history that makes imagining the future possible, but there is also the whole "been there, done that" mindset whose cynicism blinds you to that big box under your nose with "NOW" printed in big block letters along the side.

Last week, friends, I had such a moment. A client was in town for the first-annual Virtual Worlds 2007 conference, and I was dutifully preparing for the usual round of schmoozing and media wrangling when something totally unexpected happened: A smack, a well-aimed and apparently well-deserved smack that wiped that Web 1.0 smirk right off my face.

The realization? That the 3D Web, known as the "metaverse" to the kiddies, is the cat's iPod, and not for all the hyped-about reasons.

Alongside the scads of press about the newest mall to be erected in Second Life or the latest celeb to take his/her first 1995-style baby steps across the only real estate that seems to be going up these days came the news that companies are using worlds like Second Life for much more than branding and the distribution of virtual goodie bags to the day-glo, griefing citizenry.

ProtonMedia, for one, leases portions of its 3D world to pharmaceutical and insurance companies to train their reps, a world that comes complete with real-time whiteboarding in 3D classrooms and the ability to share Office docs on the fly. On a related note, there's also Forterra Systems, a company that also works with big corporations, but whose mainstay is training for emergency services and homeland security personnel.

How useful. And completely and utterly useful. And what a wonderful reminder of why I got into this business in the first place. Oh, and lest I be accused to not keeping abreast of the latest jargon, there's even a buzzword for this sort of thing. They call it the "intraverse" - you know, like the love child of "intranet" and "metaverse."

Anyhow, there it is, friends. The cynic has been shown his true nature - the optimist in disguise. And now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to get back to perfecting my Barack Obama avatar in the hope that his meatspace equivalent decides to do some 3D campaigning.

~ Bill Lessard

Bill Lessard is President and Creative Director of NYC-based PR boutique PRwithBrains; and with Steve Baldwin, is co-author of NetSlaves and NetSlaves 2.0. Bill has also contributed to NPR, Wired News, the San Francisco Chronicle and the dearly departed Industry Standard. When not talking to reporters, he can be found in pitched frag-fests in his favorite first-person shooters or wondering why the poetry in the New Yorker is so bad.

Peer to Patent Review - FAQs are Ubiquitous for Peer2Peer Organization

In reading the frequently asked questions about operating an open system or collective to review patents by peers at Peer to Patent designed by Beth Simone Noveck, professor of law and director of the Institute for Information Law & Policy at New York Law School, it occurred to me that one might substitute any peer to peer process and the FAQs would pretty much be the same.

Think of this as the basic check list of "are we ready for P2P in my organization?"  If the objections out weigh the yeahs, use as a platform for discussion and start exploring the assumptions held by individuals in your organization about p2p.  Add your own FAQs to customize the list.

Beth Noveck will be speaking on "Virtual Worlds and the Future of Collective Action" at the MIT Media Lab on Thursday March 29th in Wieser Rm Fl.2 at 4:00 PM as part of the Center for Collective Intelligence speaker series.

The wider implications of her presentation strike at the core of our assumptions about how we look at organizational design today as well as emerging designs for a networked world.

Read the following description of her talk and substitute "my organization" for "political organizations" and "commerce" for "real world power." Think of the possibilities provided in a synthetic environment or virtual world to explore deeply held assumptions about "what is an organization?"

"Virtual worlds and related and related technologies are helping to bridge the divide between online community and real world power.  Yet our political institutions have not adapted.  The law has not mandated new social practices.  Our theory of democracy has not caught up. This talk focuses on how we might evolve new digital institutions for collective action.  The discussion will focus on the emerging frameworks -- both technological and legal -- that could profoundly reshape the ability of people to engage in their own self-governance.  It starts from the premise that the screen helps us to see ourselves and to visualize the communities to which we want to belong.  When we can see the group, we can act as a group and become more effective at organizing, protesting, deliberating, and resolving disputes [ I would add innovating  for both nonprofit and for profit organizations].  If we understand how our institutions of governance and decision-making take advantage of the technology, we can both design better tools and we can re-think  how we define democracy itself."

Would like to see your applications.

 

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

Influence Points

In the last few years we have experienced "inflection point" (Andy Grove, former CEO Intel). "tipping point" (Malcolm Gladwell, author) and now I wonder if "influence point" may be a way to more deeply understand the process of change?

The first two describe the awareness of change.  The change has happened or emerged to a point of recognition.  The influence point is who is initiating the change and how.  In a network there are more than one influence points yet they are synchronized in behavior.

It seems in many recent conversations about organizations transforming themselves for Enterprise 2.0 that the focus keeps shifting to either the social technology or the content knowledge generated, but rarely the humans at the point of influence.  Granted the  technology tools and the structure of knowledge content are easier to discuss, however the human interaction with the tools and the content they produce is what drives the process.

An announcement for the upcoming "Synthetic Worlds and Public Policy - Ludium II Conference  chaired by  Edward Castronova describes their process for reaching a consensus platform as:

"... a 19th  century political convention putting conference attendees in the role of delegates to a political party convention whose objective is to hammer out a common platform.  CONVENTION's  incentives will lead the group to a set of policy recommendations believed by most participants to be important, sensible, and feasible."

Would that most change processes had as clear an objective.

One of the incentives in this convention game designed by Studio Cypher,LLC
is "influence points" which reward those with the ability to exert the most influence.  There are 400 plus participants expected from a diverse set of perspectives on the topic making for "bombastic" conversations in their terms.

We have been looking at organizations as human networks (extended internal/external) and understand that they are political in their operations; to ignore the reality of organizational politics is to be naive. But how often and how well do we look at the positive influential capability of individuals in organization networks?  The Synthetic Worlds Convention is making influence explicit and building it into the consensus building process.  A lesson learned.

Robert Cialdini - Influence at Work, has done extensive research on influence and found 6 principles which one needs in order to move others to say "yes" or change.

They are:

Reciprocation: People are more willing to comply with requests (for favors, services, information, concessions, etc.) from those who have provided such things first. Think open source.
Commitment/Consistency: People are more willing to be moved to a particular direction if they  see it as consistent  with an existing commitment. Think AMAZON rankings.
Authority: People  are more willing to follow the direction or recommendations of a communicator to whom the attribute relative authority or expertise.  Think  relative as in blogosphere or f2f, your expertise counts in rankings by peers.
Social Validation: People are more willing to take a recommended action if they see evidence that many others, especially similar others, are taking it.  Think word of mouth.
Scarcity: People find objects and opportunities more attractive to the degree that they are scarce, rare, or dwindling in availability. Think any niche item.
Liking/Friendship:  People prefer to say yes those they know and like. Of course!

It would be interesting to run a social network analysis of the individuals who amass the highest number of influence points at the Synthetic World's Convention to see if network central roles correlate with influence ability.

My guess is yes ... what do you think?

~Victoria G. Axelrod

Doing business in Second Life conversation with Bill Lessard: Digital goodie bags, street teams & universal identity with avatar

A take away from the Internet Strategy Forum's Second Life presentation was not "if" but "when" an open source alternative platform would emerge to compete with Linden Lab's environment.

In light of that prospect I appreciated my conversation today with PRODIGY alum and absolutely PRwithBrains President Bill Lessard about his experience and insights working with clients striving to create buzz through Second Life promotion.

Bill's take on Second Life today:

"the 3D equivalent of what AOL was in it's day.  It's a proprietary iteration of a future aspect of the World Wide Web. Just as PRODIGY and AOL rolled up all the tools for the Internet and put them in a nice safe proprietary package."

Bill also pointed out that unlike development of the Internet, Second Life protocols are not open source. Not HTML. This puts leading developers like The Electric Sheep Company in a powerful position at the moment especially since their $5m investment from CBS.

As a PR guy who's seen traditional PR strategies, Bill is impressed by the buzz-building capabilities of virtual goodie bags and digital street teams. But, as a tech veteran, he's more excited by what the future holds. Bill makes the case for using Second Life for customer service, especially for demonstrating how to assemble computers, electronic devices. Better than step-by-step instructions over the phone.

More interesting to Bill is what the future might hold. He's looking for the ubiquitous avatar, a set online identity, look and a feel complete with a little digital wallet, that can chat using voice and video and through a phone.  In Bill's words:   

"Imagine avatars on your phones keyed to a different ring tone."

Interesting but how far off?  Last December I attended the opening session of the  Internet Identity Workshop at the Computer Museum, MountainView.  A room full of very smart people focused like Paul Trevithick, The Higgins Project on developing an open source platform to put identity control back in the hands of the individual who owns it. I was struck by Paul's statement that on average an individual has pieces of their personal data sitting in 700 databases that others control.

My sense is the IIW has some work do before the universal identity with avatar emerges but no doubt somebody out there is busy working on it. Anyone?

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Reality: Empty stores in Second Life and an Innovation Elite

I've had a wonderful couple of weeks traveling, talking with really smart people and learning.

First was a trip to Boston seeking wisdom from some of my thought leaders (Patti Anklam, Robin Athey, Mark Bonchek, Rob Laubacher, Sal Parise, Andy Snider and Nat Welch regarding a survey project Victoria and I are emerging. More to come on that. Then to San Diego for the FAST Conference and back in New York the Internet Strategy Forum meeting with Second Life pioneers Reuters and IBM. 

But now I'm catching up and experiencing doses of reality starting with Information Week Feb 26:

"Second Life Opens for Business:  Cisco, Toyota, Circuit City, Dell, Sears, IBM and Adidas have set up shop in the Second Life virtual world.  But their stores are empty. Can businesses find a place with any real-world payback in this fantasyland of overindulgence?"  Page 45

and after hearing both Andrew McAfee (credited with term "Enterprise 2.0" and Tim O'Reilly "Web 2.0" speak in San Diego interesting reading Information Week's survey results on the "Challenges to Web 2.0" in their "In Depth/Enterprise 2.0" cover story:

"Security 64%; Lack of Expertise 55%;  Integration with Legacy Technologies 52%; Difficulty proving ROI 51%;  Getting partners and customers to use similar collaboration tools 32%;  Employee preference for consumer tools 16%; Other 14%"

Page 40. Information Week Research survey of 250 business technology professionals.   Multiple responses allowed.

I'm reminded that implementing new ideas and technologies with real people and agendas in organizations with existing structures and fiefdoms is no mean feat.  That's certainly my experience. Yours too?

Also striking reading both Information Week's "Second Life" and "Enterprise 2.0" stories is how the same company names appear as the leading innovators. Joe Cothrel and I talked about this while working together on our Online Communities in Business 2004 study: what distinguishes the handful of companies that emerge as the leading innovators, especially around new technologies, while wider adoption takes years.

Dan Tapscott's "Wikinomics" has been sitting in my office destined to become one of the estimated 57% of new books not read to completion  but after reading the Information Week articles I have fresh interest in the book. I will be counting how many companies are actually identified as exemplifying "Wikinomics" practices. I'm betting it's in the 10's not 100's.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Bronwyn Stuckey Day 6: The labor of fun

Why should organisations buy into the popularity of what could seemingly be dismissed as recreational activity? Did we take this much notice of television? It would be seriously wrong of us to see broadcast technology, even with developments in interactive TV, as comparable to the many-to-many social capacity of today’s MMORPGs and virtual worlds. Interestingly, research does suggest that the hours devoted to game play have been stolen from TV viewing. Interaction with people seems to be the lure not just vivid technology.

Two aptly titled articles might give us a clue to where this technology could be all taking us. ‘The labor of fun: How video games blur the boundaries of work and play" by Nick Yee and Hans Christian Arnseth’s research paper titled "Learning to Play or Playing to Learn

Playing to learn

Games are socially complex environments where players are continually required to deal with chaos and emergence, being called upon to strategize, make decisions and take on social responsibility. The games allow them to develop as sense of mastery of many real world skills. As the article that I launched this guest spot with suggests, most players do not just engage in the pursuit of mindless fun. Learning in games is less about acquisition (other than goals and rewards) and more about interaction Arnseth would suggest that the games encourage a "practice-oriented approach" and the reflection on that practice can clearly be seen in the accompanying community forums, fan sites and blogs.

Morrison (quoted in Galarneau and Zibit) suggests the key 21st century skill is learning itself. "The most valuable skills someone can acquire are the skills to learn rapidly and efficiently and to go into almost any situation and figure out what has to be learned". Gamers are learning to learn not just through a relationship with the technology but through relationships with others. The games establish a real reason to collaborate and build social capital.

The labor of fun

Fun is much more than escape and friendship. Jen Dornan suggested these games represent the new rituals; the places to build shared experiences.

Who are the people engaged in these rituals? Are they all spotty post adolescents? Yee suggests that "The average MMORPG gamer us is 26 years old. About half of these players have a full-time job. Every day, many of them go to work and perform an assortment of clerical tasks, logistical planning and management in their offices, then they come home and do those very same things in MMORPGs"

Yee proposes that MMORPG are work for the players and at the very least they are causing the boundaries between work and play to become blurred. Constance Steinkuehler’s view of MMORPG as third places would in part be supported by findings in Nick Yee’s Daedalus Project "On an aggregate level, the general categorization of why people play seems to be quite robust and can roughly be described as: 1) achievement, 2) socialization, 3) immersion, 4) vent/escape, 5) competition."

We don’t need to envisage our workplaces transformed into massive game spaces but we do seriously have to contend with understanding how games and virtual worlds motivate, enable and sustain learning and build effective learning systems. Whether we design games and worlds, or adapt and coopt them, we need to learn from them how we can in our workplaces sustain a labor of fun.

I am very grateful to have had chance to highlight some of the issues that intrigue me. Thanks

~ Bronwyn