Notes from virtual worlds

Online developments have unleashed the power for the spreading of ideas from peer to peer, at low transactional cost, lowering or levelling barriers to entry. Clearly with the speed of current development some new technological developments will be truly revolutionary, while others will become a technological cul-de-sac adopted by only a few hardy fans. How can an organisation engaged in international communication begin to assess its options?

In thinking about the question of options within the technological landscape and how it can be used, three links present interesting perspectives.

John Hagel’s notes on his presentation at Community 2.0 provide an insight into the challenges in building virtual communities. He highlights 4 challenges; language, integrating diverse skill sets, shifting mindsets, and organisational barriers. He also offers some potential metrics to measure success.

While thinking about virtual communities, the recent production of From Fire Pit to the Forbidden City by Rita King of Dancing Ink Productions provides a view on the development of virtual worlds from the perspective of an outsider looking at IBM. It demonstrates the power of a truly collaborative platform and the story of a group of early adopters. Apart from the issues raised directly by From the Firepit to the Forbidden City, one question for those working for organisations engaged in international communication is how to empower the innovators within the organisation? How can those with an early adopter mentality be given the freedom to experiment?

The potential of virtual worlds is not just in marketing Real products in imaginary worlds, but in understanding the way people act. Edward Castronova’s work On the Research Value of Large Games: Natural Experiments in Norrath and Camelot suggests some uses of games to investigate the way people act in various situations. This suggestion is supported by the study published in the The Lancet Infectious Diseases of the spread of the corrupted blood disease in the game World of Warcraft, which demonstrated the way people acted during the outbreak and potential lessons which could be learned.

These articles suggest the power of virtual worlds for research. They also demonstrate that one of the key considerations when engaging online will be the reason people have chosen to huddle around a particular area in a game / virtual world, or a particular platform or social space out of the many available online. To paraphrase; do they choose the place because they believe that site is technologically the best, or is it because they believe the people they want to contact will be there? After all if you want to contact people there’s no point having the most high-tech site and nobody to talk to…

Hagel, King and Castronova, collectively highlight the importance of

• considering the challenges of organising online engagement within a bureaucracy,

• defining what exactly the engagement online is for,

• understanding why the potential participants huddle in certain areas, what keeps them there and as a result whether an organisation should engage them around their chosen node or attempt to tempt them to a new, or purpose built, environment for engagement.