Baba Sucks

Irving Wladawsky-Berger of IBM met with several colleagues from around the world recently in Second Life. They met for a press briefing to discuss what effects MMOGs and other platforms such as Second Life will have on business.

About two years ago, a study conducted by the IBM Academy of Technology concluded that technologies and capabilities from the gaming world would have a very strong impact on all aspects of IT, and made a number of recommendations for follow-on activities, which we have proceeded to implement. 

To learn what is required in a practical way, we have been using the Second Life platform to conduct a series of experiments, such as holding virtual meetings on a variety of subjects with groups of various sizes.  The meeting participants are represented visually by their individual avatars or personalized icons in the virtual world.  We are very interested in understanding how best to conduct such virtual meetings.  We have learned that many of the visual clues from the physical world should be embraced in the virtual world.  For example, meeting participants should be seated facing each other, as they would normally do in a meeting, and whoever is currently speaking should gesture with his or her arms. 

More at eightbar, which is run by several IBM employees who use Second Life.