Among the exciting lineup of speakers at the Smithsonian weekend on May 8-10, 2008 is Claudia L'Amoreaux. She will speak on Friday May 9 and discuss, inter alia, how Second Life and the Metaverse is being used for learning and innovation.
Steve Denning talked with Claudia recently about her work in Second Life and the Metaverse. Here's what she said.
Steve: Let's start with some basics. What is the "Metaverse"? And what is "Second Life"?
Claudia: Many people today use "The Metaverse" to refer to the 3D internet. "Second Life" is one of several three-dimensional, immersive, networked worlds in the Metaverse. Because of its richness and complexity, and because it is entirely created by its inhabitants, Second Life happens to be my favorite 3D world. Philip Rosedale founded Linden Lab in 1999 in a small lab on Linden Lane in San Francisco. Second Life officially launched in 2003 and has seen tremendous growth in the last few years. For a little background, author Neal Stephenson first described the "Metaverse" in his 1992 science fiction novel, Snow Crash. He told a prescient story about a place where humans, as avatars, interact with each other and software agents, in a three-dimensional space that uses the metaphor of the real world. Metaverse is a compound of the words "meta" and "universe".
Steve: You were involved in virtual worlds long before Linden Lab and Second Life. Could you tell us about that?
Claudia: I began exploring virtual worlds back in the 1980s when I bought a Macintosh computer and the game Manhole designed by the creators of Myst. Manhole was a graphical world for exploration and it whetted my appetite for using virtual worlds for learning. I co-founded an experimental media lab in the late 80s -- we were building 3D worlds and playing with early motion capture software.
One of the very early networked immersive worlds was WorldsChat, launched in 1994. It came out of some work that Steven Spielberg was doing called StarBright which involved creating a virtual world for children who were seriously ill. It enabled them to enter into a really beautiful world together while they were isolated in the hospital.
Worlds Chat was so new and fresh. It enabled people to take on a character and to be "embodied" in this imaginal realm—the Metaverse—to be able to create a character for yourself and to "inhabit" these different spaces. WorldsChat used a space station visual metaphor.
One of the first times I used it, I had a conversation with a European teenager. It struck me that I never would have connected with this person in the physical world. I saw how the technology could help us cut across boundaries and open up new kinds of relationships. This was very important in my work with young people.
Claudia: What's always driven my interest has been the application to learning and transforming how we learn. I could see how this could be an extraordinarily powerful tool on so many levels. On one level, it could be used to transform how we study mathematics or science--one of my passions. And on another level, it could be used to practice global citizenship. In those early examples, the worlds were already created, so you were more like a tourist. You could decide what you wanted to wear, but you couldn't build the world yourself. Now, the most interesting worlds are created by the participants themselves.
ActiveWorlds was one of those worlds where you could build. It was really taken up by educators. Cornell had a science museum that was just wonderful. I remember meeting some young people who were building an environment in ActiveWorlds. For them, it was a natural extension of their years playing with Legos. I saw how it could create new opportunities for learning. It was a constructivist learning heaven.
It was a matter of putting the tools in people's hands so that they could take it wherever they want it to go, whether it's citizen diplomacy, or modeling different kinds of ecological systems, or whatever your imagination could dream up.
Steve: What's new about the Metaverse in Second Life?
Claudia: One of the things I love about Second Life is that they made a decision early on to give the Second Life residents intellectual property rights to their own creations. This was a stroke of genius. The Second Life residents create all of the landscapes and objects and the avatars themselves. So you have an incredible range of self-expression. The scale of it is quite extraordinary, new lands, new worlds, new characters, are being created every day. To put it in perspective, Second Life today is 390 square miles of virtual land--over six times the area of Washington, DC. That's a lot of creativity!
People are inventing new narratives that take on a life of their own, because people that they don't know yet can come there and inhabit the space, and leave their contributions. The story evolves.
Steve: I joined Second Life and I must say I found it an exhilarating experience, flying around in three-dimensional space. Then I started to ask myself: this is fun, but what could I use it for?
Claudia: The 3D internet is relatively new and expanding rapidly. A recent Gartner Group report predicts that 80% of today's internet users will be in a virtual world in just 3 years. In 1994, the World Wide Web was new and initially people didn't recognize its potential.
Ten years ago, hardly anyone had a URL and hardly anyone had any idea how the Web was going to transform everything we do: now it's hard to find anyone who doesn't have a URL on their business card. That's what's happening with the 3D internet and it has the same kind of potential to transform many of the things we do.
Groups like The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation have been quick to recognize the possibilities of the 3D Internet and worlds like Second Life. MacArthur awarded $550,000 to the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School for Communication to explore philanthropy in virtual worlds.
The American Cancer Society held a virtual Relay for Life walkathon in Second Life and raised $118,000 US. They also use Second Life for cancer support groups. These are just a few examples of the hundreds of innovative organizational uses of Second Life going on right now.
Steve: Could you tell us about how other organizations are using the Metaverse?
Claudia: IBM for instance has been very active in the Metaverse. They have been "on-boarding" thousands of their new international employees in Second Life. IBM.com has a sales presence there. In addition to training and sales, they are using it in development for collaboration and design. And they are using Second LIfe in process management and optimization.
Steve: How do they onboard?
Claudia: They have taken their orientation process into the virtual space of the Metaverse. So instead of doing training in the physical world, new recruits are doing their training in this three-dimensional Second Life world. They each have an avatar and go into Second Life in cohorts and do their training there.
Steve: So IBM has created a world where the recruits can go and visit and in fact learn about IBM faster than they would in a First Life version of IBM. Is that how it works?
Claudia: Yes, I'd say more effectively--it definitely helps cut training costs of a globally distributed workforce.
Steve: How has it affected your work in your own organization?
Claudia: I spend large parts of my week in meetings in Second Life in extraordinary inner spaces that contribute a lot to the experience of teamwork--much more than we could ever do in physical space. for one, we can have more fun with space. It's playful. Some of my colleague's avatars are extraordinary. Practically, we can meet inworld and use 3D spatial sound, which is light years beyond the typical disembodied Skype or teleconference experience. I can share what I'm working on. I can even do PowerPoint if I want to. Or I can take it beyond that and explore new ways of presenting that I haven't been able to do easily in the physical world. And I can meet with my colleagues from all over the world. We have brown bag lunches inworld where we meet and discuss topics of interest. I can do a video stream if I want to, so that I can see the other participants. It's definitely changed how I work.
These experiences in-world with my colleagues are as real to me as my face2face meetings. They add another layer of rich information to my relationships.
Steve: How does the Metaverse relate to innovation?
Claudia: Two points. My own experience of inhabiting the Metaverse is that it is a phenomenal Creativity Engine. Creativity just pours out. There's something amazing about it, in bringing all these people together, in this new exciting place that is being co-created. It sets people on fire. Sandra Kearney, IBM's Global Director for 3D Internet and Virtual Business, was asked by someone in an interview how she managed to keep people on task in the virtual world. She told the questioner that she has the opposite problem--she has to tell them to go to bed. They are so enthused. This is not about having content shoved at people. This is about people creating the content for themselves. It's a participatory culture. And it's spawning participatory storytelling. It's going to be exciting exploring this with people who are involved in and dedicated to storytelling.
Steve: How important is it to have an avatar in this virtual world? Is that an essential part of it? Or can you be yourself as well?
Claudia: That's a good question. I think of it as layered identity. In the Metaverse, you can choose different electronic representations of yourself. Different people are going to choose to invent themselves in as many ways as there are people. Some people choose to go with something that is realistic and resembles their identity in the physical world. You can create a super realistic avatar. Or they might choose something very different. In fact, you might have a few or even several avatars and they might all be different. I have three avatars. I use a different one for different contexts.
Steve: I'm a beginner at all this. So let me ask a fairly basic question. When you're having a meeting in Second Life, and everyone is participating by way of an avatar, and the avatars may be quite different from the participants in their "first life", how do you know who's "really" at the meeting?
Claudia: This is where I talk about the ecosystem. There is the Second Life world and then there is the ecosystem that I am inhabiting at the same time. When I am in Second Life, I can and do move fluidly onto a Wiki page with photos of all the people I am working with. We could have a video stream going at the same time. If we wanted to, we could have super-realistic avatars. But just as we have relationships by email with people that we've never met, you don't necessarily need to see what the other person looks like first to develop a trusting relationship. Think about it...actually, not seeing the other person first can sometimes allow for a deeper relationship to open because the first physical impression doesn't get in the way–which they often do.
Steve: Forgive me for asking another naïve question as a beginner. So take my case. I joined Second Life recently and upon joining, I had to create an avatar with a name that wasn't mine. I actually had quite a bit of difficulty finding a name that wasn't already taken. So I ended up choosing the name, Bollocks Densmith. So if you were to encounter Bollocks Densmith in Second Life, how would you know it was me? Or how would I find out who you were if I didn't know your avatar's name?
Claudia: You're talking about the interesting new challenges of identity, and managing our identities in the Metaverse. We have to keep in perspective that we are at an early stage of the evolution here. Names are actually one of the fun things in Second Life. You go to these very serious meetings where everyone does have this second name, that is very different from their name in their "first life". It adds a playful element. You tell me your avatar name, just like you tell me your email address. I can send you a friend invitation then and we can find each other easily when we're in-world.
At the same time, I wouldn't want to be locked into that. I want to have the option to create my own name if I want to. Second Life is working on that issue now. It's like the evolution of URLs, which has changed over time. The same thing is happening in the Metaverse. We will be able to choose our own names, if that's what we want.
Companies and schools are able to use their own names--for a fee. Or they may decide to use different names and so keep the playful dimension to it. There's a range of possibilities. One of the relevant skill sets is making creative use of the possibilities. You have important new choices to consider here. How do you present yourself?
And you can have several options. You might have an avatar that looks just like you and another one, that is abstract, or mythical, or comical.
Steve: So could we create meeting place in Second Life for participants at the Smithsonian weekend, where they could go and visit and meet and tell stories?
Claudia: Definitely! I just came back from a conference where we did this. Prior to the event, we created a group. In my presentation, I gave people a tour of Second Life. Then after the event, anyone who wanted to dive into Second Life could create their avatar and then join the group. That way they can start right off with kindred spirits in a community of practice.
Second Life is a vast, even overwhelming space and it's easy to get lost in it. So if there is a meeting place for friends or colleagues, a group that you feel an affinity for, that's a good way to get started. Then you can meet up with those people. You can explore the world together. We could even go on something like a field trip and explore other spaces.
Steve: For instance, could we use that space to explore the future of the global organizational storytelling movement and even the annual Smithsonian weekend? How often should we meet? Where? How should we govern ourselves? And so on.
Claudia: I'd love to help make that happen. This group is just made for the Metaverse. I think you'll find yourselves very much at home there, once you master the basics. We need to keep in mind that it will involve some learning. This is another world and you have to learn how to get around and how to use it. Remember making your first web page? There was some commitment of time and energy there.
Steve: Are there any useful guide books out there?
Claudia: There are a number. Second Life for Dummies by Sarah Robbins and Mark Bell (2008) is one that has just come out. I can also recommend Second Life: The Official Guide by Michael Rymaszewski.
Claudia: Actually, one of the biggest challenges now is communication: how to communicate how it's changing me, how it's adding to my relationships with the people that I'm working with, how it's improving my knowledge sharing, opening up new possibilities. I'm still working on how to share my experience with others. It's not easy to explain to someone who has not yet lived it.
It's like back in the early 90s, when I was trying to explain this amazing place called the World Wide Web to someone who had never used the internet before. Now when I try to explain the Metaverse and Second Life to people who aren't using it yet, I usually just say,
"Why don't you create an avatar and get in there, with some friends or colleagues, and begin using it, and start to see for yourself. You'll discover what you can do here and you'll also discover new challenges and opportunities for telling your stories."
I try to show people how to connect, I try to point them where people are sharing their experiences, where people who are new at it can find some mentoring, or learn about best practices, and what hasn't been so successful, so that they can begin to use it successfully themselves.
Come to the Smithsonian and learn more from Claudia's experience by registering here
For more information about the rest of the weekend program, go here.
Steve Denning
consults and gives workshops and keynote presentations
on topics that include: leadership, innovation, organizational
storytelling, business storytelling, springboard storytelling,
knowledge management, branding, marketing, values, communication,
communities of practice, business performance, collective
intelligence, tacit knowledge, business collaboration,
knowledge, learning, community, performance improvement,
visionary leadership, social potential, institutional
community building, and internal communications. You
can contact Steve at steve@stevedenning.com
