Tech -- Culture -- Humour
During July last year we reported on the Australia Council’s second virtual worlds funding initiative, MMUVE IT! Thirty thousand dollars was provided to the successful applicants, Andrew Burrell and Trish Adams, and mellifera is the result.
The installation revolves around bees and the way they interact with their virtual eco-system. Like the previous project, Babelswarm, it’s a mixed reality event with an exhibition at the Gaffa Gallery, 1/7 Randle Street, Surry Hills in Sydney. The exhibition will run until April 21, 2009. The launch itself commences at 6pm today (16th April).
Why the bees? Andrew Burrell: “The European Honey Bee is an extremely complex creature, with an equally complex social structure making them ideal subjects to explore and question surrounding the functioning of networked and social structures in real and online environments.”
The Australia Council for the Arts has certainly demonstrated its commitment to virtual worlds as art spaces, and it’ll be interesting to see what future projects are funded. The original announcement of this project mentioned the use of VastPark in the final product – there’s no mention of it now, which is a shame. We’ve put the question to the Australia Council and will update this story once a response is received.
Check it out in-world or check the mellifera website
It’s been rumoured for months now, but Linden Lab have finally confirmed that they’ve entered the alpha phase of “a server solution that is completely disconnected from the main Second Life environment with all of the rich functionality in the box.”
As far as virtual worlds and enterprise, it doesn’t get much bigger than this. The announcement has a bunch of significant implications:
1. Key security issues / intellectual property issues minimised
The ongoing and legitimate criticism of Second Life for business is its limitations in ensuring security of information. I constantly cite the power of Second Life for prototyping, but most businesses aren’t going to put key intellectual property on the public Second Life grid. The new solution will allow all the development to occur internally, with the company then potentially able to do some more public testing if desired.
The more obvious security benefits come around improved monitoring of activity and on-site backup of key data. I’m assuming the ability to do roll-backs will come with the package, which gives business greater peace of mind that they alone are ensuring their own information can be retrieved in the event of problems.
2. Enterprise virtual worlds now have a crowded marketplace
The proposed new product is far from assured of being the dominant player in the enterprise marketplace, but its brand recognition will certainly help it get a substantial foothold. OpenSim is the obvious competitor on the face of it, but no-one would be claiming they have a viable enterprise solution yet. The more realistic competitors are platforms like Forterra’s OLIVE, the open-source Project Wonderland and business function specific offerings like NoviCraft. The advantage most of these incumbents have is an ability to argue direct business outcomes, whether it be improved remote training, better team-building skills, or some other outcome negotiated as part of the enterprise-specific installation.
Where the new Linden Lab product will gain true traction is where it’s able to compete on ease of installation and the all-important price. It’s hard to imagine Linden Lab will launch something that’s more expensive than current offerings unless they can make the case for markedly superior features. I’d also expect some third-party vendors like Rivers Run Red are well underway in their preparations to offer development services for enterprise once this launches, and there’s probably a bunch more that will seriously look at expanding into development in the space now that the uptake is potentially more widespread.
3. Another nail in the mirror world coffin?
If the Linden Lab solution does gain traction, it really starts to squeeze out any enterprise arguments made by mirror worlds such as Twinity. The ability for business to run a grid internally and the large user base of the public grid to leverage from makes the smaller worlds vulnerable to losing the businesses they may have already attracted. That said, enterprises that are in the virtual world space for purely marketing purposes may still find worlds like Twinity a worthwhile investment.
4. The unknowns
At this early stage there’s more not known about this new product than known. The key questions I’d like to see answered are:
a. What interoperability will there be with the main Second Life grid?
b. Will there be off-the-shelf capability to connect to other enterprise grids?
c. As mentioned above, what will this cost, and will there be discounts for educators or other non-profit entities?
d. What support mechanisms will be in place. Will those mechanisms be Linden Lab driven or outsourced?
5. The sum up
It’s hard to put anything but a positive spin on this development. At worst it may lead to some loss of variety as smaller players have difficulties. At best it may be a catalyst for more widespread adoption of virtual worlds for enterprise. The most likely outcome in the short-term is slight growth in interest by business and some strong encouragement for Second Life developers.
What are your thoughts? Do you see the announcement being a game-changer?
DeeAnna Nagel and Kate Anthony are psychotherapists and founders of the Online Therapy Institute. The pair have only recently expanded their work to Second Life, but they have extensive experience in working with people therapeutically online. The pair now have a presence on Jokaydia in Second Life. I caught up with them to talk online counselling / therapy.
Lowell: Can you give a brief outline of your professional experience /qualifications pre-Second Life / online therapy?
DeeAnna: I have a Master of Education in Rehabilitation Counseling and a Bachelor of Science in Mental Health and Human Services. I have worked in the mental health field for nearly 20 years. About 10 years ago I discovered the power of the Internet and began providing online chat and email through a couple of e-clinics. Over the years I have always maintained a part-time practice online and have integrated technology in work settings working with interns, employees and clinical supervisees. I have been training therapists since 2001 about the ethical issues pertaining to technology and mental health. Now 100% of my work life is devoted to either providing online therapy or teaching others about online therapy.
Kate Anthony: I have a Master of Science in Therapeutic Counselling and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, and am halfway through a PhD on the topic of Technology and Mental Health. At around the same time as I discovered how powerful relationships over the Internet can be and based my MSc thesis on that. From that, I co-authored the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) Guidelines for Online work (including Supervision) through its 3 editions. I have trained mental health professionals to work online since 2002, have published widely including textbooks, and was recently made a Fellow of BACP for my work and DA and I are both past-Presidents of the International Society for Mental Health Online (ISMHO).
Lowell Cremorne: What was the event that led to you realising the potential of virtual worlds for counselling interventions
DeeAnna Nagel: There was no single event for me; just a realisation that virtual world settings offer another level of sensory experience that could enhance the therapeutic process.
Kate Anthony: I realised this in 2001 after speaking at a conference about Telephone Helplines. The Keynote speaker was head of BTExact Technologies, and he referred to the future of virtual worlds, and avatars specifically, being part of the future of health care. Most of the audience was laughing at the concept -– I wasn’t. I went on to work with him and his team to explore the concept and write a white paper on the topic (Anthony, K. and Lawson, M (2002). The Use of Innovative Avatar and Virtual Environment Technology for Counselling and Psychotherapy. Available online at www.kateanthony.co.uk/research).
Lowell Cremorne: Your Online Therapy Institute offers consultancy including advice on marketing counselling services online, but it seems you’ve carefully differentiated your SL consultancy to avatar familarisation etc. Would you agree that virtual worlds as an actual intervention mechanism are not evolved enough yet?
DeeAnna Nagel: The potential for therapeutic intervention in virtual world settings is already available – but not necessarily cost-effective for the private practitioner. Second Life is not encrypted and while we could offer therapy using secure methods such as a Sky Box, we have chosen not to. Proprietary software is being developed by companies and institutions for use in SL and other virtual worlds, and at some point private practitioners will be able to provide secure and encrypted services. Until that happens, we can, as you say, utilise our SL office as a way to meet people who want to provide an avatar representation and for other educational and consultancy opportunities.
Lowell Cremorne: What do you think needs to occur for people to be able to trust in-world therapy?
DeeAnna Nagel: Security including encryption is paramount. In addition, virtual world platforms need to be less cumbersome and be able to run on different platforms without the constant risk of technological breakdowns.
Lowell Cremorne: A common component of media coverage of virtual worlds is addiction – for the small percentage of people who may have a definable addiction, can the cause also play a role in the treatment? What I’m getting at here is whether in-world therapy for those addicted to virtual world interaction is a sensible treatment option or a damaging option.
DeeAnna Nagel: This should be taken on a case-by-case basis- I do offer online text-based therapy via chat and email to people who identify with Internet addiction. I think working with addicts inworld allows the client to experience a healthy relationship online and offers a way to model use of technology in appropriate ways. Technology is such a part of our social and vocational fabric now that people need to be able to integrate back to using technology but in healthy ways with appropriate boundaries. The work becomes about establishing and maintaining healthy relationships just as we have done with face-to-face clients for years.
Lowell Cremorne: Rapport-building is key for successful therapy – how best is that done online?
DeeAnna Nagel: Consideration should be given to the disinhibition effect. Online, people are less inhibited and likely to disclose information due to the person’s sense of anonymity. When working therapeutically, on the surface, this can be a plus in establishing rather quick rapport, but therapists also have a responsibility to prepare clients about disclosing personal information too quickly and then helping the client modulate the emotional intensity throughout the process.
Kate Anthony: The concept of “presence†is also important here – where is the client and where are you during the process? Most of my trainees agree post-training that the therapeutic work takes place somewhere between the two pieces of hardware (including mobile hardware) in Cyberspace. The mutual journey – and the rapport that goes with it – seems to take place in a nebulous arena, but actually the understanding by both client and counsellor as to how it exists for them facilitates the rapport.
Lowell Cremorne: How much real-world identification do you believe needs to occur prior to therapy commencing?
Kate Anthony: I think it essential for the client to be able to verify identity of the therapist, but this could be done via a third party – such as a professional organisation. Opinion varies widely from a client-identification point of view. Purists prefer to work with whatever the client is offering, subject to some legal identity checks in some places such as the client possibly being under age. The argument there is that the psyche that the client presents, via avatar or text, is a valid psyche to work with. Other practitioners prefer to make several checks as to how the client exists offline (we feel the phrase “real-world†is outdated, incidentally, so prefer to refer to online and offline). Personally, I feel that with a robust intake form and assessment procedure, further identification may simply get in the way of the therapeutic work which often depends on uniquely online societal norms (such as disinhibition and the perceived anonymity).
Lowell Cremorne: Is confirming real world gender / age / cultural identity important for good therapeutic outcomes online?
DeeAnna Nagel: Yes- as with face-to-face, the person’s identification is important to determine if the work between therapist and client is a good fit. Cultural differences should be taken on a case-by-case basis.
Kate Anthony: Yes, particularly with regard to age and informed consent.
Lowell Cremorne: What issues / mental health states would you feel uncomfortable dealing with online?
DeeAnna Nagel: For the most part, I am comfortable working with people online that have issues I am comfortable working with face-to-face. As long as I feel competent about the clinical issues and have the proper training, most mental health interventions can occur online. For me, it is difficult to work with someone who is obviously intoxicated or obviously decompensating and showing signs of delusional and irrational behavior- but this is whether the client is face-to-face or online. Certainly, when working via distance, the client’s geographical resources should be determined should crisis intervention become necessary.
Kate Anthony: And that exact point is how I train upcoming online mental health professionals– that with the Internet it is simple to explore a clients alternative crisis interventions based on their geographical location. Other concerns are working with people who are in a relationship that involves domestic violence. Safety issues for the victim come into play if he or she is using a computer that the perpetrator has access to and may be monitoring with a keystroke program.
Lowell Cremorne: Whether it be in a virtual world or via more traditional online methods, do you find you’re less likely to run into personal boundary issues, or is it just as much a challenge?
DeeAnna Nagel: For me, the boundaries are not blurred. I have always maintained boundaries in person and online but with the advent of social networking, I am consulting with more and more professionals who are struggling with this issue. What to do if a client friends their therapist on Facebook for instance and many times the dilemmas are ethical in nature- with regard to either confidentiality or dual relationships.
Lowell Cremorne: Are you aware of any formalised professional associations for online therapists to communicate and if not, how do you see the momentum developing so that this occurs?
Kate Anthony: There is the International Society for Mental Health Online (ISMHO) as mentioned, and more recently ACTO-UK (Association for Counsellors and Therapists Online – UK) – an organisation for UK based online therapists. The latter is holding it’s first conference (online and offline simultaneously) in April. Our fear is that many small organisations will crop up here and there with narrow ideas – what the Online Therapy Institute strives for is a global agreement as to how each of these associations can work together to disseminate knowledge and stimulate growth of the field to the greater good of online work, whether in virtual worlds or via other modalities.
DeeAnna Nagel: To that end we have developed the Ethical Framework for the use of Technology in Mental Health that offers Best Practice standards regardless of the practitioner’s geographic location.
Lowell Cremorne: What are your plans over the coming year for your Second Life work? Have you considered other worlds?
DeeAnna Nagel: We explore other worlds as they appear, and not always necessarily in an obvious way. For example, the Online Therapy Institute has a strong interest in the prevention and treatment of Cyberbullying, and a virtual world such as Club Penguin, for example, could be instrumental in that aim. Plans for the coming year is to explore those platforms that meet the Institute’s requirements for safe and secure client-therapist interaction, and continue to develop training for conducting therapy in virtual worlds.
Linden Lab have posted two useful stories on their blog that are worth passing on.
The first is a heads-up on a Knowledge Base article on how to instant message a group of up to 20 of your friends without them being in a group you’ve created.
The second is a look at how an in-world meeting was held for 160 people in Second Life. The standout sentence for me was:
Gronstedt led all participants through a 30-minute training session and all speakers and exhibitors through a 60-minute training session to ensure that when the conference day arrived, everyone was ready to walk, talk, text chat, and participate in this new virtual event experience.
Half an hour to an hour of training to be able to participate isn’t that high a premium, although without doubt it’d be a disincentive to a lot of people. To me, that’s a big hurdle for one-off meetings but a more than worthwhile expense for a business using virtual meetings regularly. Of course, the enterprise solution that reduces the learning curve even further will have an advantage as enterprise comes on board with offerings that reduce real-world travel expenses.
British firm Daden have been releasing virtual worlds products for a while now – we covered their in-world web browser last July. Their latest launch is an “open-source learning system or virtual worlds, the web and iPhone”. Its moniker is PIVOTE and it’s the result of a project called PREVIEW funded by the UK Government’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). The project’s focus was problem-based learning in virtual worlds, and PIVOTE is the end-result. Paramedic training for St George’s, University of London was the initial focus that’s led to final product.
Essentially, Pivote is a web-based learning management system where detailed exercises can be formulated as fairly standard, text-driven scenarios with decision pathways, or as avatar driven exercises in Second Life or OpenSim (Daden states its platform can easily be adapted to other virtual worlds). The text-based options can also be utilised in-world via what is presumably Daden’s in-world browser. St George’s have a sim in Second Life (click here to see for yourself) that is publicly accessible.
St George’s Senior Lecturer in Paramedic Science, Alan Rice said “This programme provides the students with a fun learning environment, where they can afford to make mistakes online, which they could not afford to make in the real world. When they make a mistake online, they are always keen not to make the same mistake again.†A paramedic student at St George’s, Fiona Cropp, was happy with the virtual training process – “It’s a really useful tool. It’s much better to be able to actually perform treatments rather than just talk about it. Everyone is online at the same time so you can bounce ideas off each other and make an informed decision. I had never used Second Life before, but I found it really easy to get on with.â€
A useful overview of the paramedic training scenario can be viewed here:
Pivote isn’t the first integrated training solution using virtual worlds, but it’s certainly progressed things considerably. The challenge for any platform is convincing key management that scarce health dollars should be sunk into virtual worlds-based training. Health professionals and academics are perfectly positioned to demonstrate just that, and there’s no shortage of evidence of the cost benefits of effectively trained clinicians. Anything that increases the confidence of new practitioners in the breadth of the clinical decision-making in a cost-effective way, will surely gain some traction in what is usually a very conservative space.
Anyone wanting to install PIVOTE for themselves can do so for free by installing it on their own servers or paying Daden to host it for them. The full instructions can be found by browsing the ‘Getting Started’ section of the PIVOTE website.
I spent this morning at a session organised for a team of French innovators called ‘Lead Educators : Virtual Worlds and the Immersive Web’ . I’ll talk more about that in another post but I wanted to devote this one to a topic we’ve covered previously: Skoolaborate.
Since that time, there’s been some incredible progress, with more than forty schools now involved. I had the opportunity to see Skoolaborate up close at Sydney’s MLC School today. Director of Online Learning at MLC and Skoolaborate‘s founder, Westley Field, spent an hour or so presenting the outcomes to date from the project, which was established in 2007. Essentially, the outcomes demonstrate the power of a well designed 2D content delivery system combined with the use of Skoolaborate‘s islands in Second Life. Here’s a small example of such an outcome:
The main messages I took out of the session aren’t news to educators working regularly with virtual worlds, but they bear repeating for the rest of us:
1. Virtual worlds provide a powerful complementary role within the broader learning context
2. Some students immerse themselves in the virtual world aspects, others don’t like it, and most fall somewhere in the middle
3. Having an evangelist within a school for learning innovations like Skoolaborate is crucial, but having a supportive Principal is even more important
It’s not an entirely rosy picture for Skoolaborate though. Funding has improved although it remains an ongoing battle, and the time commitment from educators involved is significant. Most importantly, I detected a level of frustration around some inequalities existing in accessing Skoolaborate. One of the most stark illustrations of inequality with it is due purely to State Government ineptitude.
Let’s use the NSW Department of Education and Training (DET) as an example. Essentially, no NSW (or Australian) public schools are involved with Skoolaborate. The reason: schools falling under the control of the NSW DET cannot access Second Life. Why? The usual response on blocking content is around protecting children from unwanted information. The thing is, in the case of Skoolaborate, educators have already identified the issue and solved it. Participating schools are set up in Second Life so that only authenticated students and teachers can access in-world activities. In NSW, the private schools involved have mandatory ‘working with children’ checks and worldwide each participating school must complete their own relevant police checks for each adult participant. In fact, successful registration to access any content requires completion of the police check. This would have to make Skoolaborate one of the most child-secure online learning environments in existence.
What makes this issue particularly frustrating is that key bodies within the NSW DET actually understand that initiatives like Skoolaborate are delivering for students. The NSW DET’s own Centre for Learning Innovation (CLI) has staff well and truly across virtual worlds, and there’s recognition from its General Manager down that immersive worlds will be key to further online learning initiatives. 
Given that any school should be attempting to prepare its students for the realities of the outside world, and that units like the CLI already see the potential of virtual worlds for education, why would the DET have a policy of preventing access? It’s either a politically motivated call or a case of plain ignorance at the higher levels of the DET.
Either way, some serious questions need to be asked on how long the situation will occur. This may be a case of failing to protect children by not equipping them with appropriate knowledge. How will kids know how to navigate emerging technologies if they have no exposure in their schooling?
Update: Westley Field has contacted me to correct the assertion that no Australian public schools are involved with Skoolaborate – there are in fact public schools involved, just none from NSW. He also added: “The National Government , through its values in action program is leading the way by supporting us. This support partially based on the fact that we have all three sectors involved. We are very proud of that fact.”
Today, I had the pleasure of facilitating four small group sessions at the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 2009. The topic was virtual worlds and enterprise, and thanks to the participants in the groups, it turned into a very interesting exchange of ideas. The agenda of the overall forum was much wider: the use of Web 2.0 technologies in business. What’s impressive about this forum is the breadth of roles amongst participants – CEOs, CIOs, learning and development professionals, marketing professionals and general operational staff were in attendance.
As I’ve found before at these events, there are a growing number of people in business who see the potential of virtual worlds, but they struggle to get the same recognition throughout the business. That said, Australian business continues to lead the way in the area and it was great to see the level of passion for the opportunities virtual worlds provide.
Some other points that came out of the groups for me:
As part of my involvement I produced a four-page discussion paper: Virtual Worlds in the Enterprise – hype or high-performance?. It’s a bare-bones overview of the opportunities virtual worlds provide for business and a brief summary of five virtual worlds to watch (Second Life, VastPark, OpenSim grids, OLIVE and Metaplace) – there are obviously many more but as an overview they provide a good snapshot.
Anyone regularly exposed to virtual worlds won’t get a lot out of the document, but if you’re one of our readers who’s just dipping their toe in the water, it provides a basic launch pad for a wider exploration.
You can download Virtual Worlds in the Enterprise – hype or high-performance? for free by going to this page.
You only need to provide your name and email address to be able to download a PDF of the paper.
Aside from the group discussions on virtual worlds I facilitated yesterday, the only other time I witnessed them discussed at the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 2009, was when Westpac’s David Backley spoke. As we reported last year, Westpac had trialled the use of Second Life to induct new employees in more remote locations.
Backley reflected back on the pilot, stating that it “had worked well and had been a good idea”. That said, the pilot did not continue due to the departure of the project sponsor – there was no key person to keep the momentum going. The learnings for Backley were that it was a concept ahead of its time, and that until the cost of implementation and maintenance came down, it would be difficult to argue a cost-saving case. Given the tens of thousands of employees Westpac has, it’s a pretty downcast assessment of virtual meetings as cost-saver. That said, Westpac’s platform of choice was Second Life. With the growth in alternate platforms, those costs are reducing, but there’s still a long way to go in that respect.
Aside from that, Backley provided some very interesting statistics around Westpac’s internet banking service. Presently, up to 6000 people are logged in to Westpac’s online banking service at any given time, with close to 700 thousand sessions a day. More value is transacted with online banking per day than is done in Westpac’s branches or call centres. When it was launched a little over a decade ago, the expectation was that perhaps a few thousand people Australia-wide would use the service. For me, that’s a key parallel with virtual worlds. It may be a ‘niche’ for business at present, but like internet banking, the public’s takeup is likely to surprise enterprises in a big way.
The other similarity is in platform: the original internet banking options tended to be standalone applications, then they evolved to be web-based. That’s when the rate of adoption exploded. There’s a very obvious lesson there.
NoviCraft is one of the more fascinating virtual world business offerings by Finnish company, TeamingStream. That fascination comes not from the platform itself, but the theoretical underpinnings of it. This is a world designed purely for business-related training and team-building purposes.
I took the opportunity to fire a few questions at TeamingStream’s CEO, Petri Ahokangas, about NoviCraft.
Lowell: What platform is the application built on?
Petri: NoviCraft is built on Epic’s Unreal Engine and it was officially launched in December last year. NoviCraft is off-the-shelf multiplayer teambuilding, collaboration, and leadership training game developed by a group of learning scientists, human resource development specialists, and serious game developers for the corporate learning industry. Our customers include top HRD consultancies, big and medium-sized companies, universities and other training organizations.
Lowell: Could you give more detail on the team building specifics that are encountered in the game?
Petri: The game is pedagogically scripted to make the participants aware of the different elements of collaboration, team learning, negotiation, and leadership through five team puzzles – and thus learning from the game experience. The first puzzle focuses on enhancing communication, building of psychological trust, and giving and receiving help among the participants. The second puzzle is about encouraging exploration, coordination of work, and establishing goal orientation. The third puzzle encourages
Thinking–out–loud as a team, sharing of information and helps to create an efficient problem-solving skills for the participants as a team. The fourth puzzle brings in risk taking and strategy creation as a team. The final puzzle is about joint planning and efficient execution of the plan.
In a nutshell, all major challenges of the modern workplace have been modeled to the game and can be practiced in a safe environment in a cost effective way. NoviCraft is not a simulation, it is real collaboration between people which makes it very effective as a learning tool. The learning process is theoretically grounded, supported by metrics, and the trainer or consultant (the game master) can monitor and control the performance of the playing team.
Lowell: So what have been some of the more common utilisations of NoviCraft to date?
Petri: Typical use cases for NoviCraft include leadership and management training, cross- and multi-cultural collaboration, virtual and distributed team collaboration training, team building, supervisor training, personnel evaluation/appraisal, and coaching boards of directors and management teams. Our customers have said that NoviCraft is a fun and efficient way to learn about their teamwork skills and it helps both individuals and teams to improve. After the game the participants can go through a workshop where they can analyze their performance, strengths and areas where they need improvement. The NoviCraft game experience can also greatly add the value of traditional management and leadership training.
Lowell: What level of expense is an enterprise looking at to deploy NoviCraft?
Petri: NoviCraft’s price depends on the number of users and the constellation of the software, but the typical limited license is between twenty and forty thousand Euros (20000-40000 €) depending on the case.
—
Serious games initiatives are nothing new, but Novicraft seems to be one of more fleshed out models for business. At close to forty-thousand dollars Australian to implement, only the larger enterprises would consider NoviCraft, but its breadth remains appealing. What will truly differentiate NoviCraft is its touted metrics: if tangible benefits for a business are realised, its implementation costs may suddenly seem less of a barrier.
Thanks to CyberTech News for the heads-up.
Recent Comments