Caleb Booker » numbers

2pm PST Today: Supermarket Planograms in 3D

Caleb Booker — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:12:08 +0000

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:

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

Video: Strategic Planning with IBM & Schneider Electric

Caleb Booker — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:52:02 +0000

Virtual Worlds Keynote
Strategic Planning with IBM & Schneider Electric

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

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

Caleb Booker — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:03:57 +0000

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:

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

Caleb Booker — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:09:03 +0000

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!

Caleb Booker — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:36:23 +0000

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!

Business in Virtual Worlds: A Hive of Activity

Caleb Booker — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:24:56 +0000

I find myself adopting the role of debunker and myth-breaker lately. Yet another “nobody takes virtual worlds seriously” message from a tech blogger. (IT guys… sheesh…) I’m not quite ready to make further announcements about Virtual Worlds Keynote, so how to address this?

Tell you what, its been a few days since I hit the news reader. Let’s see what kind of highlights I can pull out:

Design goes digital in Second Life
Architecture & Design does a big writeup on the recent unveiling of the National Portrait Gallery’s virtual world rendering.

The Virtual Whirl: Community guide to Virtual Worlds
Massively (an AOL property) opens a new section specifically for “virtual environments”.

WV University Creates Virtual Campus on Second Life
Marshall University joins hundreds of other universities in creating a virtual campus.

Avatars of Palin, Huckabee, Romney, Pawlenty, McCain, McConnell, Boehner, Cantor, Pence, Dobson, DeMint, Perry, Steele, and Others Virtually Descending on U.S. Capitol
Haiti support via some tiny paper-doll avatars, demonstrating that it doesn’t matter how non-immersive the environment, avatars still matter…

EA Joins VanEdge Venture Fund
Fresh VC cash to be had for virtual world builders.

Phoenix NAP Launches Virtual Data Center Tour
Pheonix NAP takes a cue from IBM and creates a sales tour / orientation space to help people understand their product better. See video:

Telepresence: Tandberg & Polycom Shine as Mid-Market & Small Business Interests — Event Platforms Look to Integrate with Mid-Tier Vide
Teleconferencing integration with virtual worlds is proving to be a great success, according to analysts.

Tool places learners in virtual world
Language education via a virtual environment called “RendezVu” gets an award.

Prototyping Environment in SL for Dow Chemical: Three Questions with Robert Emory from Scott & Miller Group
Dow Chemical creates a prototype environment. See video below.

ISN Virtual Worlds Rolling Out Platform For Elderly, Disabled
The Oasis Foundation creates an environment aimed at the elderly and disabled to provide education and training.

Building a 3D workspace
Hypergrid Business summarizes the history of technology and interface design, various studies, and shows how it all points to a virtual environment exceeding the efficiency of a real-world environment.

AI Learning Center Being Built in Second Life
IEEE moves its critical training in AI to the virtual environment.

That’s just four random days, two of which were a Saturday and Sunday. Please please puh-lease can we stop loudly proclaiming “I haven’t been paying attention so it must not exist” in the press now?

Thank you.

How International Is Your Business?

Caleb Booker — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:57:07 +0000

One of our points of pride around Clever Zebra is that we live and work in virtual space. I’ve never even been on the same continent as Nick Wilson, for instance, let alone in the same room. Regardless, we work together every day. Space is just a theoretical concept, like international borders.

The growing international nature of business is hardly news of course. The press regularly carries stories of electronics from Japan, outsourcing to India, software from California, the usual chichés. What’s really stunning, though, is the number of countries whose economic power and standards of living the press often underestimates.

I’ll let Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet and Director of the Gapminder Foundation, explain the details:

Hans Rosling: Let my dataset change your mindset

Hans Rosling’s answers to the TED and Reddit community interview

Business in Virtual Worlds – May 25 to June 7 2009

Caleb Booker — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:38:31 +0000

For the first time since last August, I missed a week on the news roundup. I didn’t even realize it until mid-week. Please accept my apologies!

Clever Zebra has been busier than ever (our work on OpenVCE being only one part) and until I’m 100% satisfied that everything is running better than anyone could possibly wish for and far ahead of schedule I’ll be just a blur in everyone’s peripheral vision.

Having said that, I did make a commitment to myself to keep this going lest I lose touch with what’s going on out there. Thus, a two-week edition!

Wait, did I really just use the word “lest” in a sentence?

Anyhow, I continue to operate under time constriction and now there’s two weeks of material to cover, so I probably missed something worth reading. If I did, please contact me or leave a comment!

Important links:

Archive page of past weeks of Business in Virtual Worlds News
Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Blip.fm, or in Second Life as Onder Skall
Suggest stories at info [at] calebbooker.com

Events

Study: Webinars Rule Digital Events Landscape
Things are coming along here…

ThinkBalm Leads Visualization Tours
Proof-of-concept tours regarding the enterprise case for entering virtual spaces. Hey Erica, funny we should end up touching base this week. This looks good! (A more in-depth look appears on the Linden Lab blog.)

Want to Hold a Virtual Event of Your Own?
Clever Zebra offers event support and white-label services for anyone interested in a branded gathering in a virtual space. Everything from venue setup and hosting to VIP orientation to speaker coordination.

Training and Education

Survey: Travel, Training Budgets Fall
Which, of course, is only good news for companies like ours.

Teachers Enroll in Second Life Webcasts
Pretty interesting stuff: “Called A Virtual World for Professional Learning, the session is the final in a series of webcasts and learning resources made available to teachers across Canada, by the Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION) and the award-winning Advanced Broadband Enabled Learning (ABEL) program, from Toronto’s York University.”

Case Study: CIGNA’s vielife Makes People Healthier in Real Life
Educating the world on the evils of high fat diets.

Students Prefer Real Classroom to Virtual World
Maybe obvious but worth mentioning.

Government and Military

Philippines Department of Tourism Creates Virtual Island on Second Life
Let’s just make it official: if you are a Tourism Department, you are required to have a virtual world presence.

Worlds.com v. NCsoft Lawsuit On Shaky Ground?
… well that’s the end of them then.

‘Virtual Life’: EU’s three year, 3.3 million euro 3D virtual world project
That’s a pretty big project, and one that has some extremely unique notions of how a virtual world should work. It seems to be flying under most people’s radars from the look of things. (WARNING: some NSFW and possibly offensive images.) Discover more about the project on the official site: FP7 VirtualLife.

Army To Build Virtual Support Group for Amputees
Great application for the technology, reaching exactly the group that needs it most.

Gaming

GameGround Secures $4.1M in Funding
The scheme? High-score distribution to various web 2.0 profiles.

EA Confirms BattleForge Sales Forced Freemium Move
Bottom line: the MMO and games market is becoming very saturated, but microtransaction models can save the day.

Other gaming quick hits:

Nerds Only

Shaspa grid is a home to a virtual home
A very unique virtual world server that operates with the simplicity of a home appliance.

Newbs Only

Kossacks in Second Life
Kind of a “Second Life for Newbs” from the Daily Kos.

Second Life lecture – another lesson for antiquated law firms
A short and funny “ORLY?”

Sociological Oddities

Adult Content Changes in Summary
A final summary of the changes in Second Life’s handling of adult content that we’re soooooo interested in. Now, we could have just said: “if you don’t like sex, avoid entering brothels” and be done with it ages ago… but that would have involved people taking responsibility for themselves and nobody wants that…

Linden Lab versus the griefers
A weather report on griefer activity.

The Dares + Free Realms = New Guinness World Record
For whatever reason the Guinness people seem to think this is the first concert given simultaneously in the real world and the virtual one. Whaaaaaat??? (Clearly the Guinness people just needed some press here…)

College Plans Virtual Graduation for Online Students
Isn’t this cute?

Did I miss an important story? Got feedback? Leave a comment below, or email me at
info [at] calebbooker.com

Business in Virtual Worlds News – May 18-24 2009

Caleb Booker — Sun, 24 May 2009 22:35:27 +0000

This week’s Big Question:

What is the biggest missed opportunity in virtual worlds today?

(Answer in the comments!)

Kept it short and fast this week, but what’s here is actually pretty big.

Important links:

Archive page of past weeks of Business in Virtual Worlds News
Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Blip.fm, or in Second Life as Onder Skall
Suggest stories at info [at] calebbooker.com

Events

Singapore fund manager to hold virtual annual meeting
Another instance of an increasingly common and necessary cost-cutting measure.

Training and Education

New corporate training options include virtual worlds
A basic overview of the phenomena.

Case Study: Northrop Grumman’s Simulated Training and Prototyping Programs in SL
A good look at training people on the use of remote-controlled robots for disarming bombs.

Government and Military

The FBI joins Second Life
Well now don’t we all feel safer.

Intersecting Interests: Virtual Worlds and the Law
Metanomics interviews James Gatto.

Naval Undersea Warfare Center: Training, Innovating, and Saving In Virtual Worlds
Navy trains submarine crews using Qwaq Forums.

Gaming

Hello, an Avatar Is Calling You
Looks like SOE is adding VOIP to SWG and EverQuest.

Nerds Only

Second Life to Add Voice Morphing Controls, Voice Mail and Avatar Phone Numbers
That voice morphing function is going to cause more problems than it solves.

Evolve your 3D avatar
Neat gadget that creates a 3D model from data or image import and exports in a variety of virtual world friendly formats.

Newbs Only

Security expert warns of virtual world risks
A security company’s executive says that you should really look into hiring them.

Businesses Seek a New Lease on Second Life
Yet another foolish writer paying attention exclusively to hype rather that what people are actually doing.

Sociological Oddities

Second Life takes you to the moon (almost)
I link this because space travel, as it is today, is purely a sociological oddity.

Did I miss an important story? Got feedback? Leave a comment below, or email me at
info [at] calebbooker.com

Business in Virtual Worlds News – Apr 6-12 2009

Caleb Booker — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:12:00 +0000

This week’s Big Question:

Why has Google stopped short of taking 3D content into true interactivity? (ie: virtual worlds)

(Answer in the comments!)

Happy chocolate bunny day everybody.

Important links:

Archive page of past weeks of Business in Virtual Worlds News
Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Blip.fm, or in Second Life as Onder Skall
Suggest stories at info [at] calebbooker.com

Events

Second Life’s Second Act: Business Teleconferencing?
BusinessInsider takes notice. Also some commentary on Linden Lab’s VP for Business Development Gene Yoon leaving the company.

Celebrate National Library Week Using Second Life
“In celebration of National Library Week, the American Library Association (ALA) will host a series of [...] events in Second Life.”

Training and Education

Towson U. study breaks on Second Life
A nice writeup from Baltimore Sun.

Inside the Smithsonian Institution’s first “virtual museum”
An in-depth look from Networkworld, although sadly no pictures.

Government and Military

Machinima Law Conference
A somewhat random name for a two-day conference at Stanford about legal issues surrounding user-generated worlds.

Virtual World Privacy Paper
One of my all-time favorite academics, Joshua Fairfield, begins a discussion on the serious and strange issues of virtual world surveillance.

Marketing

Metaversum And Virtual Italian Parks In Red Herring 100 Europe
Just a quick 2-paragraph summary of the press release. Gratz Twinity!

VIZ Bleaches There.com
Bleach fans rejoice, samurai action coming your way!

Gaming

Virtual Goods In Chinese Gaming Worth $2 Billion
Is that a big enough market for you? Personally, I’m thinking I should be taking Mandarin lessons…

Sulake Bringing Bobba To Mobiles
The “Habbo-killer” hits mobile devices. Are parents really buying kids cellphones and subscription packages that support online play?

Nerds Only

Second Life goes mobile
The cellphone revolution continues.

Outspark Expands, Creates MMO Service Platform
Oooh, new toys!

Newbs Only

What is Second Life?
Examiner.com introduces Second Life to its readership using the metaphor of a garden. The machinima is quite nice.

Second Life finding new life
A fun overview of the very stupid press Second Life has been getting. Interesting statistic: “The number of “active users” at Second Life has grown 25 percent since September of last year, while the amount of time and money spent in the virtual world has climbed by similar percentages.” If this wasn’t proof that Valleywag jumped the shark some time ago I don’t know what is, and CNET continues the compulsive nose-picking expedition.

Sociological Oddities

Artists visit virtual Second Life for real-world cash
Neat little writeup about talented artists like Cylindrian Rutabaga working in Second Life.

Did I miss an important story? Got feedback? Leave a comment below, or email me at
info [at] calebbooker.com

Caleb Booker » numbers

2pm PST Today: Supermarket Planograms in 3D

Video: Strategic Planning with IBM & Schneider Electric

Business in Virtual Worlds News – mid Feb 2010

Top Stories

Events

Training and Education

Government and Military

Gaming

Health

Nerds

Newbs

Misc.

Video: Real World Expos in Virtual Spaces

Virtual Worlds Keynote Launches Monday!

Business in Virtual Worlds: A Hive of Activity

How International Is Your Business?

Business in Virtual Worlds – May 25 to June 7 2009

Top Stories

Events

Training and Education

Government and Military

Gaming

Nerds Only

Newbs Only

Sociological Oddities

Business in Virtual Worlds News – May 18-24 2009

What is the biggest missed opportunity in virtual worlds today?

Top Stories

Events

Training and Education

Government and Military

Gaming

Nerds Only

Newbs Only

Sociological Oddities

Business in Virtual Worlds News – Apr 6-12 2009

Why has Google stopped short of taking 3D content into true interactivity? (ie: virtual worlds)

Top Stories

Events

Training and Education

Government and Military

Marketing

Gaming

Nerds Only

Newbs Only

Sociological Oddities