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Title:

Getting Real About Virtual Worlds

Your vote:
Level:
Intermediate
Type:
Panel
Category:
Business / Entrepreneurial
Organizer:
Paul Hemp, Harvard Business Review
Description:
Two generally parallel trends are shaping online 3D environments: users’ desire to ESCAPE reality and their drive to REPLICATE reality. Both create opportunities for real-world businesses – though it gets trickier when the two occasionally intersect, as in Second Life. How can businesses make use of virtual environments that mirror real life exclusively?
Rebecca Newton
on 8/8/08
This is FANTASTIC. I'm so happy to see this panel and someone from the HBR (best in the biz!).
Donald Schwartz
on 12/8/08
Heavy doses of truthiness expressed in a style unencumbered by acronyms.
Paul Hemp
on 9/10/08

This would be a practical session designed to help businesses and other organizations use virtual worlds – in this case, worlds designed to REPLICATE rather than to ESCAPE reality – as a way to further their goals.

The panelists would likely include

• people from companies experimenting with the use of realistic virtual worlds in their businesses (for example, Johnson & Johnson [training sales reps] or Unilever [collaborating across geographies])
• someone from a company working to develop virtual world platforms and networks for commercial use (for example, Sun Microsystems or Cisco)
• an academic or a consultant studying cutting edge applications of virtual worlds in business (for example, Eilif Trondsen of SRI Consulting).

Since submitting my panel proposal, I have a written an article for Harvard Business Review (“Getting Real About Virtual Worlds,” October 2008; http://tinyurl.com/4prj8z) on the topic. I’m also the author of the HBR articles “Are You Ready for E-tailing 2.0” and the groundbreaking "Avatar-Based Marketing," which inspired a SXSW panel of that name that I appeared on in 2007.

Any questions or suggestions? Email me: phemp@hbsp.harvard.edu

Thanks.

Do it today!
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    0
    Zilch - I have no interest in this idea.
    1
    OK - But this is not really my cup of tea.
    2
    Good - I might attend this panel.
    3
    Better - I probably will attend this panel.
    4
    Best - I will definitely attend this panel.
    5
    Amazing - This justifies my trip to SXSW.
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P
= Philosophical panel
B
= Beginner level
I
= Intermediate level
A
= Advanced level
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