ProtonMedia

LIFE SCIENCES 2010: The transcript

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:18:18 PDT

If you thought we squeezed all the audio/visuals out of our LS2010 event from January, well, think again. We had a bit more water left in the sponge: The transcript of our panel discussion.

As you might imagine, proofeading a 90-minute transcript (30 pages!) takes some time. But we wanted to make sure there weren't any typos and our transcriber got everything down accurately. Nothing has been altered beyond correcting typos.

Here's the LS2010 transcript as a Word doc. We're also prettying it up in a nice PDF, and will have that for you on the blog in the next day or so. If you want to listen to the podcast or watch the video, you know what to do. (Hit the links!!!)

ProViWo research project: How virtual worlds can be used for professional collaboration

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:18:04 PDT

Dr. Petra Bosch

Virtual worlds might traverse the globe, but I've found that they can still fit under a microscope. A virtual microscope, if you will. (What else would you expect anyway? ;-))

Dr. Petra Bosch-Sijtsema and her colleague, Dr. Anu Sivunen, are leading a new research project that studies how virtual worlds can be used for professional collaboration, and if virtual worlds can enhance productivity in globally distributed teams.

They've dubbed their project Professional Collaboration and Productivity in Virtual Worlds (ProViWo). Janelle talked to Dr. Bosch recently about it, and we wanted to share their conversation with you in a podcast.

The project is based out of Aalto University in Finland, where Dr. Bosch and Sivunen are researchers, and is being conducted in close corporation with Stanford University here in the U.S.

Dr. Anu Sivunen

Drs. Bosch and Sivunen began their study in fall 2009, so they're still in their initial research phase. Right now they're interviewing a spectrum of companies that are using virtual worlds.

Eventually, they'll explore managerial and user perspectives on virtual worlds at work, and the various collaboration and productivity possibilities. They aim to complete their project in 2012.

If you're interested in exploring virtual worlds for your company, if you've already deployed one, or if you just want to keep up with the latest industry research developments, I'd encourage you to take a listen to Janelle and Dr. Bosch's podcast.

We hope to follow Drs. Bosch and Sivunen throughout their project, so watch the blog for an update on their progress.

Merck's use of ProtoSphere featured in Nature Chemistry

dom.naccarato@protonmedia.com (Dom Naccarato) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:16:33 PST

Nature Chemistry covered Merck's ProtoSphere use in its latest issue. The five-page piece details Merck's entire experience, from what their collaboration challenges were; to what they used ProtoSphere for; to the training, collaboration, and knowledge management metrics they pulled out from their deployment.

Unfortunately, due to copyright restrictions, we can't feature the article here. But if you're interested in enterprise virtual collaboration and conferencing, the article is well worth the $18 read. You'll get Merck's objective, scientific analysis of their ProtoSphere deployment, including both the positive and negative aspects.

I'd encourage you to download the article. Or, if you're in our offices, you can read the copy I bought. :-)

LEARNED SCIENCE: Merck publishes its ProtoSphere experience in Nature Chemistry

Jay Cross "heartily recommends" Karl Kapp and Tony O'Driscoll's "Learning in 3D"

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:22:01 PST

If you're reading Karl Kapp and Tony O'Driscoll's new book, "Learning in 3D," or planning to, you might want to know Jay Cross has given it his recommendation. Jay is a well-regarded international speaker on enterprise learning. He penned a post on his blog where he pulled out what he thinks are the most valuable parts.

So if there are certain things you want to be sure not to miss, surf over to Jay's post. But if you're not in a rush, I encourage you to give the entire book a read. And don't skip the forward. I wrote that. ;-) Jay also gave a nod to ProtoSphere, so thank you!

CROSSWORDS: Jay Cross says "Learning in 3D" gets the clue

How Microsoft Active Directory integration links ProtoSphere to identity management lifecycle

reginald.best@protonmedia.com (Reggie Best) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:02:08 PST

Management of the identity lifecycle is crucial for modern enterprises. The identity lifecycle is established when an employee is hired. Their role and job determines what information they can access or what building and campus areas they can get into. This changes as they move through the enterprise during their career. And if/when the employee leaves the company, their access rights must be revoked.

Most large enterprises deploy identity and access management (IAM) software and elaborate directory infrastructures based on LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) or Microsoft Active Directory to facilitate this process. These tools automate things including single sign-on to applications, the ability to handle password resets (which are hugely expensive, costing $60-$300 per reset depending on the system if done manually), and the ability to assign roles and change them.

As a collaboration platform, ProtoSphere is tied into the existing tools for managing user identity and identity lifecycle because it integrates with Active Directory. By linking with the Active Directory authentication and groups functions, corporate policies about access rights are mapped into the ProtoSphere virtual environment. So if an employee is allowed to access XYZ information in the organization, he can also access XYZ information in ProtoSphere, no more, no less.

For example, only pharmaceutical employees working on the marketing team for Drug A could be allowed to virtually access the ProtoSphere workspace for Drug A, and any of the relevant data feeds visible there. Clinical trial data, competitive information, and manufacturing process information might be contained in that virtual floor. But only authorized employees can access it, as dictated by the firm's Active Directory authentication settings.

This makes it easy for organizations to maintain their identity and access policies when working in ProtoSphere, and saves IT a great deal of time and headache when conducting an enterprise-wide roll-out. Systems administrators don't have to maintain multiple sets of credentials or enter and manage potentially thousands of user accounts in the system.

"Enterprise Learning and Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds" webinar resources

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:32:03 PST

If you missed Tony O'Driscoll and Karl Kapp's webinar on 3-D environments the other week, they're sharing their slides from their presentation. Let the knowledge persist, as we always say! ;-)

The webinar, "Enterprise Learning and Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds," covered key concepts from Tony and Karl's new book, "Learning in 3D." They discussed the value of social learning for organizations, and how to integrate existing training and business into productive 3-D virtual work environments. If you have any questions or want to learn more after viewing the slides, hit up Karl's blog where he posted several related informational resources.

Bah Learning In 3 D

View more presentations from kkapp.

Hypergrid Business profiles ProtoSphere 1.4 for enterprise training

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:15:37 PST

Hypergrid Business writer Maria Korolov reported this week on some of the training and learning functionality in ProtoSphere. I want to thank her for pulling the article together. You can get the scoop by sliding over to Hypergrid Business. And while I'm at it, thanks to What Is a Virtual Office? for sharing Maria's story on its site, and to Hypergrid Business's editors for picking up our press release announcing the new version of ProtoSphere.

GET SMART: Hypergrid Business covers ProtoSphere's training functionality

ProtoSphere 1.4 has left the building

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:29:14 PST

LEARNING IN ACTION: A virtual poster session in ProtoSphere

It's official. We released the latest version of ProtoSphere today. I'm excited to get it in the hands of our customers, because we built this version based on what they told us they wanted most out of an enterprise virtual world. And now that our hard work has come to a pause, we're dying to know, well, how did we do???

I invite you to peruse the press release we issued this morning, which lists the seven major new features of ProtoSphere 1.4. You can also watch our video demo, and, if you're feeling bold, download our beta release to give ProtoSphere a test drive.

We also put together a press kit containing a medley of other information about ProtoSphere, including a Reviewer Guide, Product Profile, and more. Of course, if you have questions or just want to talk, drop me or our sales team a note, or give us a ring at 215-631-1401.

ProtonMedia Upgrades ProtoSphere, the Leading Virtual World for Business

New release extends ProtoSphere’s lead as the enterprise-ready 3-D virtual world for collaboration, meetings, and learning

LANSDALE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today ProtonMedia released ProtoSphere v.1.4, a milestone update of the company’s market-leading 3-D virtual world for business. The new release boasts the seven major features most requested by global life sciences companies to meet their most demanding meeting, collaboration, and learning requirements.

“There’s a reason why ProtoSphere is now the #1 virtual world in life sciences, and the best-selling 3-D collaboration platform in the industry,” says Ron Burns, founder and CEO of ProtonMedia. “We listen to our customers, not trends. We’re delivering the next-generation teaming and learning capabilities that global businesses want. We’re forged by the real business needs of life science executives and scientists, not consumers, gamers, or e-commerce providers. If you want to bring your best talent with their collective knowledge together to make an optimal business decision, then talk to us.”

This latest version of ProtoSphere provides a visually stunning virtual space and an arsenal of tools that globally dispersed teams need to collaborate online, including life-like avatars with gestures and emotions, programmable training bots and guides, document and application sharing, VoIP conferencing, real-time text chat, presence awareness, video streaming, blogs, wikis, feeds, role-playing simulations, content workflow, compliance features, and enterprise social networking. New features include:

1. Presentation Boards that make it easy for users to put single images or Microsoft PowerPoint presentations with multiple slides onto any surface. This includes whiteboards, easels, screens, or even walls. With the PowerPoint API, users can apply content to Presentation Boards in real-time as a meeting is unfolding, or load content in advance. Unlike other collaboration tools, such as Cisco’s WebEx, ProtoSphere’s Presentation Boards are ideal for team/war room settings where content must remain persistent, and where multiple streams of sharing are needed for complex problem solving and brainstorming. With full support for user and group permissions, they also allow for posting public or private agendas, announcements, note taking, navigation signage, branding, and personalization throughout a ProtoSphere 3-D world.

2. Private VoIP Zones that make communicating inside busy rooms or other areas as natural and lifelike as it is in the real world. Users can step aside to enjoy private one-on-one “sidebar” conversations or “breakouts” at the same time other users are chatting or a conference is taking place nearby.

3. The Large Presentation Auditorium provides a massive virtual meeting place where hundreds of attendees (up to 250) can take in a live presentation in a gorgeous trade-show like venue. For presenters, there’s a virtual green room where they can prepare, a podium and tools for presenting, and a virtual remote to control the display of PowerPoint slides or other presentation materials -- including material from Microsoft SharePoint. Meanwhile, attendees get a front-row view of the stage, projection screen, and presenters, so they can see and hear the presentation with perfect clarity.

4. Single-port firewall traversal minimizes security risks and speeds deployments by requiring only one port (the standard https port 443 by default) to be opened. IT leaders can optionally specify their choice of port.

5. Microsoft Active Directory integration brings single sign-on access to ProtoSphere, making it easy for users to log on once to their Microsoft Windows Domain, and have access to all of their enterprise resources, including ProtoSphere. For IT leaders, ProtoSphere’s Active Directory saves time, because they don’t have to administer a proprietary database of user accounts, rights, roles, and other directory services information. ProtoSphere user profiles are automatically and transparently synchronized with the businesses Active Directory store.

6. The optional SharePoint Media Carousel makes ProtoSphere a true team player in any SharePoint environment. Now users can easily browse and import SharePoint content into ProtoSphere for sharing, viewing, or collaboration. Access to the SharePoint Media Carousel is configurable via permissions, while content is subject to the standard SharePoint Access Control.

7. Support for Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Firefox 3 ensures that the ProtoSphere server and clients are fully compatible with the latest and greatest Windows operating system and browsers. Other compatibility improvements include a new 1024 x 590 display mode for netbook and small laptop displays, support for the standard Microsoft Installer (MSI) for mass, in the background, client installation, and Microsoft Code Signing Certificates for security of ProtoSphere executable code.

“Journalists, analysts, and business leaders alike consistently cite security issues, unproven metrics, and lack of integration with popular enterprise platforms as barriers preventing 3-D virtual worlds from achieving critical mass in the enterprise,” says Cheng T. Chen, CTO of ProtonMedia. “And notably, they never mention ProtoSphere among those environments. And they never will. Once again, ProtonMedia is setting the pace by defining the standard for virtual worlds in the enterprise.”

ProtoSphere’s Standard Environment Package provides 15 zones, including a Welcome Center, a Collaboration Center, six collaboration rooms, two meeting rooms, two classrooms, a trade show hall, a small auditorium, and a large auditorium. Every space supports Presentation Boards and Media Carousels. And every installation includes the Zone Capacity Control for managing attendance in any zone, and ensuring optimal performance due to load; and an Environment Admin Tool for account, zone, and permissions administration.

ProtoSphere v1.4 is available now via ProtonMedia direct sales and select systems integrator partners. Call 1-215-631-1401 for sales information. To download a free demo of ProtoSphere, please visit ProtonMedia’s Web site.

ABOUT PROTONMEDIA

ProtonMedia is the developer of ProtoSphere, the #1 virtual world in life sciences, and the most advanced 3-D virtual world for enterprise collaboration, meetings, and learning. Since 2006, ProtonMedia has been helping businesses overcome the limits of traditional online collaboration tools with engaging environments that improve the productivity and organizational effectiveness of globally distributed teams. ProtonMedia’s customers include some of the world’s most respected brands, including AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck Inc., BP, Chevron, Duke University, Deloitte, TIAA-CREF, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Cisco. For more information, visit www.ProtonMedia.com.

PRESS RESOURCES

Visit the ProtonMedia press kit online.

Contacts

Press and blogger contact:
Gregory FCA
Matt McLoughlin
610-228-2123
Matt@GregoryFCA.com

Pharmaceutical's first virtual poster session featured in Pharma Magazine

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:54:52 PST

Our case study about a global pharmaceutical firm conducting a virtual poster session in ProtoSphere opened the eyes of the editors of Pharma Magazine. They invited me to contribute an article covering the story. It's out now in the current issue, or you can read it online.

If you've ever been part of a poster session, you're probably familiar with the logistical challenges and costs involved. But with ProtoSphere, this firm was able to save these costs AND headaches.

The company's IT team did a study afterward to measure the effectiveness of the virtual event, and this stat jumped out at me: Eighty-three percent of attendees said the virtual event was the same or better than meeting in the real world.

I think this firm's case study gives other pharmaceutical and life sciences enterprises a starting ground for exploring how they can use virtual worlds for their own poster sessions, and in other areas of their business. If you're interested in learning how they did it, turn your eyes to the article.

POSTED: Pharma Magazine covers industry's first virtual poster session

ProtoSphere 1.4 Feature Peek: Here's what's included with your baseline ProtoSphere license

dom.naccarato@protonmedia.com (Dom Naccarato) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:15:05 PST

When you license ProtoSphere 1.4, just what do you get in the box?

We call ProtoSphere's standard, or basic, platform the "Standard Environment Package." From day one, you get 15 virtual zones, including:

ATTENTION CLASS: A large ProtoSphere classroom

One Welcome Center
One Collaboration Center
Six collaboration rooms
Two meeting rooms
Two classrooms
One trade show hall
One small auditorium, for small conferences
One large auditorium, for large events of up to 250 people

Those are the default names, but you can easily rename each zone. For instance, you might want to call a meeting room your "Sales Meeting Center" for your sales team. And for those of you interested in having a fully customized 3-D environment, don't worry ... we can still accommodate your needs.

Every space also supports Presentation Boards and Media Carousels. And every installation includes the Environment Admin Tool which gives you account, zone, capacity, and permissions administration capabilities.

There you have it. Any questions, feel free to write to me or comment here.

ProtoSphere 1.4 Feature Peek: Compatibility with Windows 7 and the latest browsers

dom.naccarato@protonmedia.com (Dom Naccarato) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:27:39 PST

Rounding out our new features in ProtoSphere 1.4 is support for Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Firefox 3. Here you can see what ProtoSphere looks like on the desktop in Windows 7:

UP TO SPEED: ProtoSphere 1.4 in Windows 7

Other compatibility improvements include a new 1024 x 590 display mode for netbook and small laptop displays; support for the standard Microsoft Installer (MSI) for mass, in the background, client installation; and Microsoft Code Signing Certificates for security of ProtoSphere executable code.

ProtoSphere 1.4 Feature Peek: Present to large audiences in the Presentation Auditorium

dom.naccarato@protonmedia.com (Dom Naccarato) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:31:46 PST

One of the most-requested new features we've baked into ProtoSphere 1.4 is the Presentation Auditorium. It's a massive virtual meeting place where up to 250 users can participate in a live presentation.

You can watch how it works in this video I created. It shows how presenters (moderators) control the presentation of content and can freely move about the stage. Meanwhile, all attendees have a front-row view of the stage, projection screen, and presenters, so they can see and hear the presentation with perfect clarity.

There's one thing about a virtual conference that's always better than life in the real world: No matter where you sit, you're guaranteed the best seat in the house! :-)

Black Enterprise eyes ProtoSphere in virtual reality coverage

reginald.best@protonmedia.com (Reggie Best) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:20:19 PST

Black Enterprise's Sonya A. Donaldson rang me up as part of her reporting on a story about African-American entrepreneurs involved in developing virtual reality platforms. She covered both the consumer and business side of the equation, and, as you might expect, featured me as the business protagonist.

Hit the Black Enterprise story to enjoy Sonya's reporting. Let me know what you think by commenting here or dropping me a note. And Sonya, if you read this post, thanks again for using me as a source.

VIRTUAL COVERAGE: Black Enterprise covers the development of virtual reality platforms

Technically Philly highlights our BP case study among latest industry buzz

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:20:54 PST

Technically Philly has started a new series, Startup roundup, where it highlights some of the latest news, developments, and innovations coming out of companies in our region. Its writers featured our BP case study this week, so thank you to their team! More happenings around the tech industry are included in Technically Philly's roundup.

A'BUZZ ABOUT BP: Technically Philly covers our BP case study

And in case you haven't seen it yet, we also posted our styled PDF version of our BP case study this week, which you're welcome to download and share.

Pretty PDF version of our case study showing how BP benefited from a ProtoSphere virtual world

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:47:26 PST

As promised, here is a PDF of our case study with BP. It covers how BP used a ProtoSphere virtual world to create an immersive learning and collaboration environment for its annual graduate conference.

BP was able to save $3.7 million by holding the event in ProtoSphere instead of at a physical location. Those savings, plus other performance metrics and the complete story of BP's ProtoSphere deployment, are documented in our case study. Feel free to download the BP case study and share with colleagues.

How BP improved collaboration while cutting costs with a ProtoSphere virtual world

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:24:06 PST

We've shared with you case studies covering two of our life sciences clients. Today, we have one of our energy clients, BP, on the record.

BP usually holds an annual three-day conference in London to mark the culmination of its Graduate Induction program. Graduates network with BP executives and get fully indoctrinated into BP's corporate culture and values.

But the company took a completely different approach for its most recent conference. BP used ProtoSphere to create an immersive learning and collaboration environment for its graduates. I think you'll find the project and results to be very compelling. BP certainly did. It calculated savings of $3.7 million compared to producing a physical event.

That's just one major benefit the company realized. You can read about the rest, as well as BP's complete virtual world deployment story, below. We also have a fancy PDF coming shortly, which we welcome you to share with colleagues.

BP improves online collaboration and reduces costs with Protosphere

Customer name
BP

Industry
Energy

Situation

BP holds its Global Graduate Forum annually in London. The three-day conference marks the culmination of BP’s Graduate Induction program.

After two years with the company, some 450 graduates from 70 BP offices worldwide are given the opportunity to attend the Forum. Those who sign up travel to London for three days of networking with BP’s top brass, peer networking, and indoctrination into BP’s corporate culture and values.

The program cost $5 million annually, yet only a third of global graduates attended. In some geographies, only one in 10 graduates attended through a lottery. Attendees characterized the event as “a PowerPoint festival,” and said their generation demanded more interaction. And by 2008, economic pressure to contain expenses was strong, resulting in travel restrictions and other cost-cutting measures.

Company officials sought an alternative. They insisted any new approach achieve three goals. First, it must ground participants in the company’s broader business objectives to qualify them as managers of the future. Second, it must create global networks that allow BP to quickly identify and share best practices around the world. Third, it must connect BP’s future leaders with the company’s senior leadership.

It also had to meet BP’s technical requirements, including compatibility with myriad IT environments; secure global access; realistic avatars that looked like the graduates; fast and reliable performance; and real-time document sharing with full screen views on demand. The solution also had to be cost-efficient with measurable ROI.

The Solution

ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere was among 15 technology platforms tested and considered. The joint BP/ProtonMedia team developed a scenario-based teaming project, dubbed the “Global Graduate Challenge” (GGC). The month-long event would divide graduates into 15 teams representing BP’s future leadership.

The year would be 2025. The teams would face a realistic dilemma that required them to measure up energy security against environmental pressures. A fictitious territory would hold immense promise for oil and gas reserves, but it would be cold and desolate, hard to access, and home to protected species. The graduates' dilemma: Decide whether to tap the protected region’s alternative energy resources.

The decision was also made to expand the scope of the event from three days to several weeks, because a virtual event doesn’t have to be bound by time and travel restrictions. Using an iterative process with weekly project meetings, it took several BP and ProtonMedia teammates six weeks to design, build, and launch a secure virtual Global Graduate Village in ProtoSphere. The team also engineered how people would move and interact in the Village.

The resulting immersive space had 51 futuristic rooms, including briefing rooms, conference rooms, and 35 team rooms. Each briefing room held 24 people, featured a flat-screen TV to view videos created for the challenge, a Wikipedia document describing in detail the fictitious territory, a schedule of subject-matter expert (SME) sessions, and an intelligent bot to play back audio to the students. Some featured audio conferencing.

All supported VoIP, chat, document sharing, and text chat, and whiteboard interaction. A two-week beta test was held to train grads on the environment’s basics, swat bugs, and verify secure access through different firewalls at 70 BP locations.

The Experience

The challenge kicked off in March 2009, with 178 graduates taking part. Teams were organized within two or three time zones of each other. Every day the graduates entered ProtoSphere and went to their assigned rooms.

A bot told them what was on the schedule for that day, such as an SME session, documents or materials required, or tasks they had to complete.

The 22 SMEs were executives, VPs, and directors from a variety of internal disciplines. Exploration experts covered access and geography of the theoretical region. Health and safety executives covered safety. External affairs people covered how to work with government. Managers covered project management, and executive and public communications. The sessions typically lasted 60 minutes, with 15 minutes of presentation and 45 minutes of Q&A.

In addition, simulated news videos covered the issues of the day. Multiple “interventions” were staged, where bots representing the views of interested parties around the globe made their case. In one case, bots keen on opening up the land for exploration presented, followed by bots so opposed to the possibility that they threatened legal actions.

Another intervention had bots from oil and other national companies presenting their exploration strategy. That was driven by actual competitive intelligence data, and gave the graduates a realistic view of how competitors might play off of anything BP does.

Ultimately, the grads had to collaborate in ProtoSphere to produce a 15-minute shareholder presentation on what BP’s strategy was going to be. They used ProtoSphere’s application sharing and social networking tools to share information with one another and access data to present their findings. Some used video capture technology to record their sessions as part of their presentation.

The Benefits

A quantitative study of the event was conducted by a consortium of three universities, led by Duke University. A qualitative study was conducted by MIT Sloan Business School. The study looked at expectations across the board, and concluded the experience was “positive in all aspects,” according to BP’s Joe Little.

“When people compared it with Web conferencing and other online events and technologies they’d had, the [Global Graduate Challenge] came out with a positive response across the scale,” says Little.

The grads learned to use ProtoSphere in 10 to 15 minutes. Most reported they were “impressed” by the seriousness of the environment, its corporate branding, and “futuristic” feel. They cited ProtoSphere’s integrated approach as superior to a collection of stand-alone tools.

Graduates overwhelmingly said the experience expanded their understanding of BP’s business. They also strongly agreed that it exposed them to BP issues and activities outside of their current role.

They agreed the GGC further developed their leadership, project management, and problem solving skills. Most also agreed the program allowed them to build new global networks; and discuss business issues, options, and solutions with senior executives.

Grads characterized the project as “a significant learning experience” that allowed them to acquire “significant know-how.” Most agreed the project enhanced their teamwork, and made it possible to work more effectively with others online.

They also agreed the SMEs/senior leaders who presented were “relevant and insightful,” and the sessions were “enjoyable and engaging.” In fact, they reported the virtual SME sessions were among the best aspects, brought the challenge to life, and gave it credibility.

A majority said they preferred the GGC’s integrated virtual world over Web conferencing and other point solutions for online collaboration. They felt comfortable approaching and asking questions of senior executives in the virtual world, compared to discomfort in the real world.

They said the virtual environment fostered better communication and collaboration between grads and superiors, because the graduates could share ideas and thoughts more readily. In the end, all of the teams demonstrated a strong understanding of the concepts being presented. And the top three teams demonstrated an advanced level of applying knowledge to the challenge.

When the final numbers were tallied, BP found the virtual Global Graduate Challenge saved the company $3.7 million, compared to producing a physical event.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

ProtonMedia Inc.
1690 Sumneytown Pike
Suite 200
Lansdale, Pa. 19446
215-631-1401

protoninfo@protonmedia.com
http://www.ProtonMedia.com
http://blog.ProtonMedia.com

Webinar: Enterprise Learning and Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds, with Tony O'Driscoll and Karl Kapp

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:18:27 PST

The good Drs. Tony O'Driscoll and Karl Kapp will be gracing computer screens on Tues., Feb. 9, when they hold a free webinar about 3-D environments, virtual worlds, and immersive learning spaces. The webinar, "Enterprise Learning and Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds," will cover key concepts from Tony and Karl's new book," "Learning in 3D." They'll discuss:

The value of social learning for organizations.
The impact of virtual immersive environments on society, business, and learning.
How to integrate existing training and business into productive 3-D virtual work environments.
3-D learning experience design principles and sensibilities.

The webinar will be a great opportunity to learn how 3-D virtual worlds can (and should) be used for enterprise learning and teaming. You'll also have a chance to bend Tony's and Karl's ears with any questions you might have.

The webinar kicks off tomorrow, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. EST. For more information and to register, visit the invitation page.

ProtoSphere 1.4 Feature Peek: Presentation Boards let you display and share content on the fly

dom.naccarato@protonmedia.com (Dom Naccarato) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:32:15 PST

Our engineers have been hard at work on ProtoSphere 1.4, and have made some improvements to the dynamic billboards feature we showed you a couple months ago. It's evolved into Presentation Boards. They appear throughout the ProtoSphere environment on any surface, including walls, whiteboards, easels, screens, etc., and provide the ability to display and share content to anyone that enters those spaces.

But now we've created two types, Single-Slide and Multi-Slide Presentation Boards. Single-Slide Presentation Boards let you display image files and text. Supported image formats include .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .tif, .tiff, .png, .bmp, .tga, and .dds. You can also add text to the surfaces using the editor function. These surfaces are useful for agendas, announcements, note-taking, navigation signage, or other types of branding and personalization.

Multi-Slide Presentation Boards serve the same purpose, but they have the added benefit of being able to support multiple slides of content. So you can present PowerPoint slideshows (.ppt and .pptx) right in your ProtoSphere environment.

I've put together a video to demonstrate the Presentation Boards below:

Cisco's pipe dream: mainstream enterprise adoption of telepresence

reginald.best@protonmedia.com (Reggie Best) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:44:07 PST

I've written before about why Cisco's push to bring video to the desktop won't achieve critical mass in the enterprise. While telepresence might be justified as an investment for large conference rooms in global enterprises, it fails to address major cost and complexity problems and human factors issues that have historically prevented large-scale video deployments from achieving mainstream adoption.

Joel Stein reminded me of this in a recent Time Magazine article he wrote. He covered problems surrounding Skype and video presence, saying, " ... Skype breaks the century-old social contract of the phone: We pay close attention while we're talking and zone out while you are."

That's just one of several funny, yet compelling comments Stein makes in a great op-ed column that, I think, is a must read for anyone interested in the human factors that drive communication and collaboration.

You can easily say the same of Cisco's WebEx, Microsoft's Live Meeting, and other screen- and app-share tools. How many times have you been on a WebEx or similar conference and put the phone on mute, checked e-mail, surfed the Web, took a mobile phone call, or walked away from your desk?

The fact of the matter is, we don't want to do video all the time. Cisco's pursuing a pipe dream, just like AT&T before them. The first video phones were shown at the 1964 New York World's Fair. They're still not mainstream. And they never will be.

SAIC's acquisition of Forterra: latest step in industry consolidation

reginald.best@protonmedia.com (Reggie Best) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:20:30 PST

You probably heard the news that Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) bought Forterra Systems, maker of the OLIVE virtual world. We shared our thoughts on Forterra's unfortunate demise back in December, when rumors were swirling about the company shedding 60 percent of its workforce.

Now it's official. Forterra is no more. My take is this was probably in a fire sale, since terms of the purchase were not disclosed. It's likely SAIC was attracted to Forterra's government simulation business, which is where the company was strongest.

The acquisition might also have been mission critical to some government contract SAIC was running to purchase the technology. (i.e., Some government organization with a mission critical commitment to Forterra technology got weak knees when they realized the company was caving.)

Twelve Forterra staffers joined SAIC. I interpret this to mean they'll continue some development focused around government projects/simulations. If they were merely after the core technology, they wouldn't have needed twelve bodies.

Ultimately, this deal is in line with my conviction that the virtual worlds market will consolidate along four lines:

Collaboration products and services for business
Training and learning services for education
Simulation products and services for government
Consumer entertainment and gaming products

Where do we fall? In general, bullet No. 1: collaboration products and services for business. As is pretty clear from what we write about here on our blog, we're focusing on addressing the primary pain points our customers are expressing to us. Those largely surround business applications such as global scientific research, data visualization and workflow collaborations within product development, marketing, sales, and overall business process optimization.

Thanks to Technically Philly for covering LIFE SCIENCES 2010

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:39:49 PST

Wanted to thank the fellas of Technically Philly for covering our LIFE SCIENCES 2010 event! They report on how recent layoffs in the pharmaceutical industry are driving companies to look at virtual worlds as a way to collaborate more cost effectively. Click over for their take.

FutureWork Institute's Margaret Regan on why 3-D virtual worlds are the future of workforce diversity and inclusion

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:06:06 PST

Many HR departments have striven to foster work/life balance, increase workplace diversity, and develop ways all employees can make productive contributions to the company, also called "inclusion." But reduced staff and slashed budgets are making these goals increasingly challenging to achieve.

FutureWork Institute, however, is taking a new approach to helping companies create flexible, inclusive workplaces. The organization consults to major global companies in the areas of diversity and work/life assignments. And lately, President and CEO Margaret Regan is championing 3-D virtual worlds as the future of diversity, inclusion, learning, and collaboration.

We interviewed her to learn more, and you can listen to the podcast above. Margaret gives us her take on why 3-D is better than 2-D for fostering workplace diversity and inclusion:

"Without a doubt, we have found that there's a different kind of learning that occurs in the 3-D world," she says. "You know you're at your desk or at home, but you actually feel like you are in the virtual world and the learning is more immediate ... learning seems to be retained better."

Margaret also talks about the Virtual Diversity and Inclusion Networking Event she held, which covered the use of ProtoSphere, Unisfair, and Second Life for large-scale meetings and global conferences.

And if you're an early adopter of 3-D virtual worlds and trying to get C-suite buy-in, Margaret has some advice. She shares what she says to people who believe 3-D virtual worlds are just for playing games, and are afraid the technology has a steep learning curve.

Hit play for the scoop.

Thanks to editors of the 3D TLC blog

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:44:29 PST

Just a quick thank you to the editors of the 3D TLC blog for featuring our LIFE SCIENCES 2010 event!

Seven questions with ThinkBalm analyst Erica Driver on latest report

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:50:58 PST

You might have heard that analyst firm ThinkBalm published a new report last week, "The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide." It's a use-case-based guide covering how to select immersive Internet platforms and tools.

ThinkBalm's Erica and Sam Driver also feature many vendors in their report, including ProtonMedia. Erica was kind enough to participate in an e-mail Q&A with us about their report, findings, lessons learned, and what's next for ThinkBalm. Read on below.

ProtonMedia: What is your latest report about?

Erica Driver: "The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide" is a use case-based guide designed to aid business decision makers in the process of selecting immersive technology for use in the workplace. We present "if/then" scenarios and highlight good-fit vendors for common situations, focusing on meetings, conferences, and learning and training use cases. This report offers guidance on how to: 1) ask core business questions to frame the discussion; 2) choose a research-and-demo, do-it-yourself, or combination approach; 3) identify requirements based on your use case; and 4) filter your options based on important limiters.

P: Why did you produce this report?

ED: In our interactions with early adopters of immersive technology, we found that many of them were flying by the seat of their pants, trying to make technology selection decisions without a complete picture of the technology landscape. Add to that the reality that non-technologists are increasingly finding themselves in the decision-making seat as organizations turn to immersive technology as a solution to real business problems. We created "The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide" to help business decision makers make an informed vendor selection, streamlining the process and helping to avoid costly mistakes.

P: What was your methodology?

ED: We held structured briefings with 19 enterprise immersive software vendors, including ProtonMedia, and conducted interviews with 15 Immersive Internet advocates and implementers. We talked with early adopters who work for organizations like ACS Learning Services, BP, Cisco Systems, CSC, Defense Acquisition University, Dell, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, National Defense University, Planview, SAP, The Coaches Center, and UCSA International. We combined our insights from these discussions with our hands-on experience using immersive software and our interactions with our clients and members of the ThinkBalm Innovation Community. The ThinkBalm Innovation Community currently numbers more than 400 Immersive Internet advocates, implementers, explorers, and technology marketers.

P: Who is this report aimed at?

ED: We wrote this report for business decision makers, as opposed to technology decision makers. We wrote it for people like marketing executives, corporate events managers, human resources strategists, project or program managers, and chief learning officers -- business people who face budget cuts, resource constraints, or the innovation imperative, and see immersive software's potential to solve business problems.

P: Why should business decision makers read your report? What will they be able to do with the information?

ED: This report helps business decision makers create a cohesive plan that lists critical requirements and important limiters, thereby reducing the risk that they'll select a technology that won't end up fitting their needs. We tried to steer clear of super-techie language and focus on information that business people need as they weigh in on the technology selection process.

P: What lessons have you learned by completing this report?

ED: Doing a massive research project like this gives analysts deep insight into where a market is at a given moment in time. A few big takeaways come to mind. The enterprise immersive software market is still in the early adopter phase, and will remain so throughout 2010. Implementations are starting to break out of the experiment-and-pilot ghetto. The base feature set for the most common use cases is beginning to standardize. And the importance of integrating immersive technology with existing business systems is beginning to mount.

P: What's next for ThinkBalm?

ED: We've got some speaking engagements lined up, and will be putting the methodology in this report to help our clients through the technology selection process. We will be delivering a workshop on the methodology at the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds conference in May. As always, we will continue to host ThinkBalm Innovation Community events for the early adopter and explorer community. We encourage anyone interested in work-related use of immersive technology to join our community to learn and share experiences related to their immersive technology projects.

LIFE SCIENCES 2010: The podcast

ron.burns@protonmedia.com (Ron Burns) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:27:04 PST

Here's the podcast of the complete Life Sciences 2010 seminar and panel discussion that we held in Malvern, Pa., with Microsoft. You can listen to it online using our embedded player, below, or download it to your mobile device of choice.

As I mentioned in my previous post, which features Life Science 2010's complete video, we have more event content in the pipeline. Keep an eye on the blog to grab the upcoming transcript, slide show, and a high-def video of my ProtoSphere demo.