IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings

I've had a blog article at the tip of my fingers ever since we started this blog site on the subject of the future of collaboration. The idea seemed a bit crazy to just float out there publically, so I spoke to several of my colleagues about the idea instead of blogging it. Hey, sounding boards are a good thing to have when wandering into unknown territory. During one such conversation I tried to paint a picture of what the Global Crossing virtual work place might look like.

Imagine something like Second Life, but on a private enterprise server. You could re-create the various offices of the Global Crossing campus and integrate it with the other communications systems like MS Communicator. You could launch to a virtual discussion among avatars from communicator, or knock on someone's virtual office door and they'd be notified by IM that you were looking for them in VR.

This idea would most likely be laughed at by most everybody, especially office workers, while telecommuters like me would remain silent, but hopeful.

"Why not just use video conferencing?" the skeptics will ask. "Isn't that the next generation of communication? Why not just use your camera more?"

I don't know, that's a great question! Why does my $50 Logitech camera sit on top of my monitor and never get used?

It's because I like my barrier. I like having conversations on the phone where I can scan email, refresh my google home page, or stare out the window at the beautiful Tucson desert landscape. This is harder to do with a camera watching me...it forces me to be engaged in the conversation 100%, and while communication may be greatly suffering from the short attention span generation, people still want what they want.

This is why I read Jeff Pulver's recent blog entry with such delight. At his talk at VON tomorrow he is going to bridge reality and virtual reality in what's called a mixed world event. A group of VON attendees who couldn't be there in person will congregate in Second Life and view a real-time streaming broadcast of the event. Either they couldn't attend the show in Boston (like me) or they are in Boston but had too bad of hangover to make it downstairs before 9am. The plan is for the group of Second Life Residents to be visible on the screen in the auditorium, so their questions should be viewable by everyone in the audience.

Jeff's even gone to great efforts to create a venue for the people to congregate called the pulveria. It's quite a fancy little place on it's own little island.

I even rushed out to buy a hawaiian shirt for my avatar in honor of Jeff's Birthday. Hat Tip to Andy Abramson.

If this works well it'll be virtually living proof that this whole concept of virtual reality over real reality has merit and a place in the business work place. I also came to find that I wasn't the first person to think of using Second Life in their business. In this article in the September issue of Popular Science, I quote:

Although no major brick-and-mortars are doing business from within SL yet, they are taking note. The banking giant Wells Fargo built its own branded island inside SL, designed to train young people to be financially responsible. Wal-Mart, American Express and Intel are looking at using SL for their corporate training. And why not? With its natural interactivity and open platform for creation, Second Life, or some­-
thing like it, may very well be the next generation of the Web.

The only issue that I see with full-blown corporate adoption is security. It is highly unlikely that most corporations will encourage their employees to discuss potentially confidential material on a public server. It's too easy for complete strangers to even accidentally overhear conversations, so this brings me back to the concept of having private Second Life server for enterprise environment. This would also make integration with other platforms in the private enterpise network, such asMicrosoft Communicator, more feasible.

First, let's see how the event goes tomorrow morning. Even though I have to get up at 5:30am local time, I'll be there bright eyed and bushy tailed, just like I am every morning in Second Life.

See the followup blog along with videos of the event here