Tateru's Monday Reality Mix

IBM's virtual business center.

A corporate presence in a metaverse is not just like a website. A website is where people come to interact with your marketing or information. A metaverse presence is more like a conference booth or a showroom. People expect to be able to ask a question, learn more, interact. The problem is, like a website, a metaverse presence is always on, at all hours and timezones.

This week, we're looking at promotion, presence, what IBM is doing about it-- and, conspicuously, what other companies in SL site are not.  That plus our weekly roundup of recent mixed reality happenings, including iCommons, Turin, an SL-based Artists Residency Prize, and a Virtual Venture Competition worth $20,000.

Would you spend weeks working on a launch and then announce the location and time with less than an hour's notice? Or schedule a conference call where the participants are in diverse geographical locations and different timezones, and give five minutes' warning, not knowing if the participants are awake, asleep or otherwise engaged? Metaversal Developers/Marketers and their clients tend to do just that.

It is almost miraculous to receive as much as 24 hours' warning of a major launch event; more common is a mere one or two. Oftentimes invitations lack information about the location of the event, the people to contact or the time and date. Pick any two.

One of the top Metaverse Marketers sent me an invitation on a notecard this week, with the notecard permissions locked down - I can't read it. They've not responded to my messages. Whatever I was invited to I may have already missed it. A lot of the time that leaves you picking over the cooling corpse of a launch or promotional event, looking to see if there's anything chewy that will nourish the metaversal audience in days or weeks to come.

Sitting with Anne Zsigmond in the sales reception area

That brings us to the IBM Business Center (SLURL). A virtual sales center staffed by IBM representatives, there to answer questions and help you find IBM solutions to meet your needs. I attempted to contact the people responsible for the virtual sales centre several times during the week, and was unlucky enough to not encounter any IBM staff.

I finally managed to contact Anne Zsigmond, Lead Design Manager for the IBM Business Center. It turns out my Asia-Pacific timezone, plus a little bad luck, was to blame for some near-miss encounters with IBM staff.

Zsigmond's team for the Business Center numbers over 50 people, front-office and back, supporting the effort to answer questions, provide information answers, resources and advice for people who are seeking IBM solutions. As for folks like me, out in the Asia-Pacific regions, Zsigmond says that staffing plans are being currently worked on to support all timezones on business days.

Obviously this is no lightweight effort for IBM. Resourcing for the center is global, the build is intricate and attractive and people cost money. You'd think that this would be costing a bundle to operate. Zsigmond says that this is not the case, "The people staffing have special technology that allows them to continue to work while being in world at the same time. When someone comes close (within 16 spherical meters) they are alerted and can switch into world."

IBM sales representatives are always at work, just switching between the medium they are using to communicate with the customer. Immediately, I wondered how they weighed in on the voice/text debate.

"We aren't doing voice," Zsigmond told me, "For a few reasons."

She cited lack of universality, noise-clutter and crosstalk, privacy and difficulties identifying a given speaker. She indicated that IBM might move into the voice arena at some time in the future, but not yet. For now, your IBM sales experience in Second Life will be a melange of text, object interaction, notecards, and the 2D Web.

Reading the sign in the sales reception area (and puzzling your way through timezone conversions) you would expect staff on hand approximately 16 hours per day. Zsigmond is the only one I've met so far, however - partly due to issues of timing, and a possible technical glitch with their notification system. Likewise if you turned up today expecting to find someone, you'd be disappointed, as there are holidays in both the USA and Europe today.

Some sort of calendar in SL days and times would seem to be in order. Whether it's a bit of bad arithmetic in timezone conversions, a grid glitch or an unexpected holiday, it's not a thrilling experience to arrive expecting staff, and to find none.

Admiring the Mole Antonelliana.

Mixed Reality Happenings

• Torino1 (SLURL) is to be the site of replicas of the primary monuments of Turin to foster tourism, in honor of the 2006 Winter Olympics. The first monument (Mole Antonelliana) is up and construction is ongoing. [Thanks, Luca Marchino]
• iCommons Summit 2007 to be held simultaneously in Second Life and Croatia. [Thanks, Sitearm Madonna]
• Colorado Technical University and the House of Flames present BONFIRE 07, 24 hour music festival (1-2 June). [Thanks, Schuyler Kent]
• A mixed reality event in Cologne featuring a blend of gender identity and commerce. [Thanks, Florian Kuhlmann]
• 900 avatars attended the Second Life Best Practices in Education Conference. [Via Second Life Insider]
• The Australian Council for the Arts is offering a $20,000AUD artistic residency for a team of intermedia mixed reality artists. [Via Second Life Insider]
• McKinsey & Co have launched a Virtual Venture Competition, with a prize of $20,000USD. [Via 3pointD]
• Intel launches more than just motorcyles in Second Life. [Via Millions of Us - who are an NWN partner]
• Linden Lab director and philanthropist, Mitch Kapor, spoke on removing barriers to education and investing in the next generation of talent. [Via Electric Sheep]

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Got a mixed reality tip for Tateru?  E-mail her at [email protected].  And visit her blog.

 

Comments

[Sean FitzGerald (aka Sean McDunnough)]

The McKinsey & Co link is wrong.

[Tateru Nino]

Oops! Well spotted, Sean. Link fixed!

[Ravenelle Zugzwang]

For more information regarding the IBM region highlighted here in this article you can go to http://virtualworlds.nmc.org/portfolio/ibm-center/ to find some of the background on this incredible build designed and built by NMC Virtual Worlds for the IBM team.