A Brief Note On Research
At the risk of over-posting TED talks, I felt many points in Brenda Laurel’s talk from 1998 apply directly to our industry. This is 13 minutes well spent, with salient points for this post at around the 7 minute mark and at the end.
All too often I find myself reading well-reasoned academic papers and articles about the nature and application of virtual worlds (or lack thereof) that omit anything resembling real research. Every week as I assemble the Business in Virtual Worlds News Roundup there’s a sense of awe at how much hype itself is valued in place of real facts or solid case studies.
Why is this?
At Clever Zebra we find ourselves doing a tremendous amount of ongoing research. Being out on the “bleeding edge” is a lot like sailing uncharted waters – if you’re not looking very closely you might not notice the rocks just up ahead.
This often means changes of direction, detours, and even risking the discovery that we’re dead wrong about something. In the process we create some very valuable charts and get to where we’re going before others, but none of it feeds the ego.
Hype is instantly satisfying and amusing, mind you, but so are explosions. Just… don’t blow up your company.
