Welcome to a new regular feature of this blog … "10 questions for … " where we talk to interesting people in the
Microsoft world through a series of 10 questions (more or less, but who's counting?) Think of this as a cross between James Lipton (Actor's Studio) and Robert Scoble (Scobleizer). For the inaugural entry in the series, Microsoft Subnet interviewed two of the people responsible for Microsoft's presence in Second Life and other virtual worlds. (See photos.) This interview was conducted as a live chat in Windows Live Messenger. The following is a two-page edited transcript of the conversation.
Microsoft Subnet: 1) What is it that each of you do for your day jobs?
Zain: I'm a developer evangelist for Microsoft in the South Central District. That means I reach out to the community and engage them any way I see fit to help them use our technologies to great effect.
Microsoft Subnet: 2) All Microsoft technologies or do you focus on specific ones?
Zain: Mostly developer stuff but with virtual world evangelism I don't limit myself to developer stuff. For that, I work with admins as well.
Kyle "G": I do web software development -- things that work online, in a browser. I used to be an aerospace test engineer. I used 3D there to educate engineers and visualize data. In those days I worked for a company but it led to forming G-Squared (G2). G2 was started to use 3D online to visualize data and educate users using models and collaboration
Microsoft Subnet: 3) G2 is your own company? What is your relationship with Zain ... just friends or do you work together in some way?
Kyle "G": Zain is definitely a great friend
Zain: grrrrrreat
Microsoft Subnet: lol … ok, love fest understood ...
Kyle "G": He has really been the inspiration for us to use Second Life and now OpenSimulator to do what we wanted to do with 3D. And we have been hired by Microsoft via Zains efforts for several events in Second Life and hope to do many more but we also work with the community of developers.
Zain: Yep LOTS of events. So I am doing what a good evangelist does and helping to see that vision to fruition. I see G2 as the prototype for the future of ISP's everywhere. Not only will web sites be offered but also virtual worlds.
Microsoft Subnet: 4) What appeals to you about virtual worlds?
Zain: Virtual worlds are the future of interfaces IMHO. They are the conduit through which we will achieve human interaction without the major friction of actual physically relocating.
Kyle "G": Wow nicely said.
Zain: I'm cool like that.
Kyle "G": For me it is purely born from the ROI I experienced using it in aerospace. We were able to retrain people who used to stack piles of paper into people who managed DVD's and 3D Excel Plots. We changed how people worked. We even saved our firm a major government inspection by building a 3D model to explain how we were retraining our staff
not to mention the ability to show a part like the one here www.reactiongrid.com/vision.aspx (in the lower right of the page) to engineers and sales staff worldwide. And now with Second Life and OpenSim, we can have those engineers tour the part in 3D and even overlay data on the part to discuss why performance failed at and what length in the part
Microsoft Subnet: 5) Did the people ever conduct meetings in the virtual world?
Kyle "G": Well we lacked the tools to collaborate. We used 3D everywhere but not as a group. However today is the time to approach that again and tie it all together online -- walk through a CAD part with a worldwide team, in world translators, CAD drawings pulled up, etc. We used to fly the sales staff from around the world to show them a bryce 3D animation I did. Think of what I can do now. A 24/7 tradeshow for every company. So this is pure ROI for education, collaboration, training, etc.
Microsoft Subnet: 6) I've read stuff that talks up training quite a bit as a good thing for a typical enterprise to do in a virtual world. What can you do via a virtual world training course that you can't do in other distance learning formats?
Kyle "G": There's a certain feel to a virtual world -- you don't feel anonymous or that the hosts are anonymous. You feel like you're "there" at a place with peers. Not logged into chat or video where you can see the others but the "space" is not there. So what you can do is recreate a real world event, closer than any other way by far. It's the 3D element that is the point -- you can talk with people in other languages use gestures and movements not possible in Webex, etc.
Zain: I agree. There are some psychological aspects there as well. People are more likely to participate it seems in this type of environment than in a real-world equivalent. And we always have the option of blending those 2d type things if we want. In the 3D space we can mix to taste.
Kyle "G": 2D resources always best for reading, etc., but to engage users on a one-on-one type of level, 3D worlds are a compelling tool, even though they are still in their infancy.
The Microsoft Subnet blog is the official blog of the Network World's Microsoft Subnet community, and is written by Online Community editor Julie Bort. Microsoft Subnet is the independent voice of Microsoft customers and is your gateway to daily Microsoft news, blogs, opinion, books, prize giveaways and more. Visit the Microsoft Subnet index page daily, and while you are there, subscribe to the Microsoft newsletter. The newsletter includes news generated by the Microsoft Subnet community as well as other Microsoft news stories published by Network World.
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Feedback in Second Life
One of the limitations companies have faced in Second Life is how to interact with a population of avatars, if possible, for brand promotion, product development feedback, customer interaction, etc.
This is now possible through the 10,000 members of the most active SL residents in our foundation's First Opinions Panel.
They are studied by 33 "real" and Second Life attributes such as Age, Gender, Country of Residence, How often in SL, etc.
New usage of virtual world platform opensim related
I think the people of microsoft showed a very good initiative with the startup of reactiongrid to explore and understand what the opensim platform could mean for them and try to find out how to make better use of the technology behind opensim. Everything is still basic so this kind of project does need time to evolve. More advanced tools are needed but when that happens people will become more interested. Keep up the good work at what you are doing with opensim G2 and Zain.
New virtual worlds on the rise
It is a very good thing that we see more and more virtual world platforms coming online offering to be a home for 3D content around the Metaverse. A good example of such a new project is Dreamworld at http://www.virtualworld.sl which truely explores beyond the borders of the current simulation environments as we know them today.