Archive for the 'numbers' Category

2pm PST Today: Supermarket Planograms in 3D

Justin Bovington, CEO – Rivers Run Red

You would be shocked at how much time and effort goes into planning your supermarket experience. Stock isn’t just tossed up onto the shelves by category, but careful work goes into how to lead people’s eyes across the products and onto what they need to move the fastest. There’s an entire art and science at play that you’re a participant in every day, even if you don’t know it.

Every shelf is designed ahead of time using a “planogram”, which is a drawing of the shelf showing exactly where each product goes. The thing is, up until this point this has all been done on paper. Justin Bovington of Rivers Run Red came up with a much better way to plan shelves that work: use a 3D environment.

This week, Justin is going to showcase and explore the potential of virtual worlds in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and Retail Sector. Taking it beyond meetings and collaboration: An exploration of how Rivers Run Red are developing immersive solutions and applications.

Join us today at 2pm PST (10pm GMT) in Second Life for this latest session of Virtual Worlds Keynote. Question and answer period will immediately follow this quick 10-15 minute presentation, so make sure you are there!

To join us in Second Life, you’ll need to do the following:

  1. Go to SecondLife.com, create an account, and install the software.
  2. Log in through the Second Life software using your user name.
  3. Click here to be teleported to our studio before 2pm Pacific.

Video: Strategic Planning with IBM & Schneider Electric

Virtual Worlds Keynote
Strategic Planning with IBM & Schneider Electric

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Last night Anders Grondstedt, President of The Grondstedt Group Inc., gave us some fantastic insight into how million-dollar ideas were developed at Schneider Electric and IBM. Executives from a number of locations were able to engage with each other and really work creatively by using a virtual environment. Costs were kept low, and productivity was even higher than usual for a meeting of this type.

Business in Virtual Worlds News – mid Feb 2010

I think I’ll have to start doing these general “Stuff You May Have Missed” news roundups on a regular basis again. There’s just too much good stuff out there!

Disclaimer: As with everything on my blog, the opinions expressed here are mine and do not reflect on Clever Zebra, the vBusiness Expo, my friends, my family, my blip channel, any of the other “Jack of All Strange” stuff that I do, etc etc etc… k here we go:



Top Stories

Interview with Mark Kingdon, CEO, Second Life
Talking about Second Life as a business tool:

ProtonMedia Upgrades ProtoSphere
Includes 250 person auditoriums, single-port firewall traversal, and a healthy bundle of gadgets.

The Bottom Line on Second Life 2.0
My attempt at being both succinct and in-depth at the same time about the new viewer upgrade.

Events

UPCOMING: Monday, March 1st at 2pm Pacific – Anders Grondstedt, President of The Gronstedt Group, as he tells us how Schneider Electric and IBM have found a strategic planning solution in Second Life. Attend the live event here.

Virtual Fashion Offers Opportunities for Designers
Using virtual environments to launch fashion products.

Why We Sold Our Real Building and Went Totally Virtual
Presentation on the transition into using virtual environments as training and collaboration tools.

Real World Expos in Virtual Spaces
How sales were impacted by having a virtual component to a real world expo.

Training and Education

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference – March 12-13
The “big show” in education. Don’t miss it!

Problem-based learning in Second Life: new resource
University of Derby and Aston University releases “Best Practices in Virtual Worlds Teaching: A guide to using problem-based learning in Second Life”, download it here.

Government and Military

Second Life at Work
The Department of Agriculture seeks to use Second Life as a meetings and collaboration tool.

Gaming

Child’s Play Goes Virtual: CBSNews.com Visits Engage Expo Floor
See video below on CNN’s coverage of the Engage! toy fair:


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Advertisers are disappointed with Sony’s virtual world as an ad platform
… because it sucks. Sorry Sony.

Health

Imagine Solutions: Transforming health care through a patient-focused delivery system
The Mayo Clinic looks at SL.

Virtual Poster Session = Green Travel
Pharma covers a global pharmaceutical firm conducting a virtual poster session in ProtoSphere.

Second Lives Clinic: demonstrating autologous stem cell transplant in Crohn’s disease
Take THAT Crohn’s disease!

Nerds

Scientific Research in Virtual Worlds
Detailing efforts in Sociology, Psychology, and Engineering. Lots of cool stuff here.

Newbs

Is ‘Virtual World’ replacing reality?
Everybody panic!!!

Misc.

Virtual worlds pose compliance risks
A fantastic breakdown of the issues surrounding communication, behavior and archiving risks in virtual worlds.

Why sales of virtual goods are soaring.
Forbes takes a look at virtual goods.

Linden Lab boss: sex isn’t the key to Second Life
PC Pro is embarrassed into thinking before typing. Kudos to Linden Lab for responding to this kind of thing; a good change in policy.

Video: Real World Expos in Virtual Spaces

Last night Hélène Zuili, CEO of MakeMyWorlds, covered a specific case study of prototyping and rehearsing processes around a trade show exhibit using Second Life. She covers what tools were used for booth conception, marketing and sales, as well as how the virtual world component was used during the real world event to complement the exhibition and optimize the investment.

Virtual Worlds Keynote
Real World Expos in Virtual Spaces

To embed this video on your own blog, right-click on the video for the embed code or click here for social networking options.

What I really enjoyed about this presentation was the specifics on how this experience impacted sales. In addition to information on how salespeople became better prepared before the expo, we saw some actual conversion numbers on people visiting the virtual exhibits and following up with the company in question.

Please join us next week (Monday, March 1 at 2pm Pacific) when our guest will be Anders Grondstedt, President of The Gronstedt Group, as he tells us how Schneider Electric and IBM have found a strategic planning solution in Second Life.

Virtual Worlds Keynote Launches Monday!

Virtual Worlds Keynote logo

This Monday at 2pm PST (GMT -7) the first episode of Virtual Worlds Keynote will be recorded in Second Life. If you’d like to be in the audience you can click here (SLurl) to teleport to the studio. Please note: we intend to keep the live audience small and exclusive, so get there early!

Our presenting guest will be Justin Bovington, CEO of Rivers Run Red. In his talk Supermarket Planograms In 3D Justin is going to give a specific example of how virtual worlds can be used in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and Retail Sector.

I’ll have a full writeup, including the video, linked up shortly after airtime. For now though, to whet your appetite, I’ll let you know about some future talks we’ve lined up:

  • Real World Expos in Virtual Spaces
  • Why We Sold Our Real Building and Went Totally Virtual
  • Golfing With Clients Online
  • Turning Data Into Information With Google Maps In 3D
  • How Dell Took the Consumer Electronics Show Online

Getting involved is easy! Just email me at info [at] calebbooker.com.

Meanwhile, see you Monday!