2 Weeks in the ThinkBalm Innovation Community

For the last 2 weeks, I have actively participated in ThinkBalm's Innovation Community. For those of you who haven't heard of this new community, here are my impressions:

What is it:

In a nutshell, it's an online approach to inovation management. Built on the Spigit's serious game platform (see my earlier post explaining Spigit), ThinkBalm's community focuses on generating and critiquing ideas relating to the immersive internet. The ideas are refined through community member interaction and feedback.

How it works:

Take a brainstorming session, mix in equal parts of Wall Street, facebook, your favorite blogs,

market economics, election politics, LinkedIn, and academic peer reviewed journals, hit purée, and you start to get a feel for what it is and how it operates. Members have a range of methods to engage in the process, but it all starts with someone posting their idea.

The idea founder's goal is to progress their idea through a standard process of peer review hurtles, structured much like a business startup, with a hopefully successful IPO and strong market capitalization on the game's "spock" market. Based on peer feedback, founders can refine their ideas and, if necessary, even recruit partners with "spock" ownership incentives. Members provide feedback through discussion forums, by writing reviews, and by voting to "spig" or "scrap" the idea. Your can choose to change your vote if compelling evidence is presented in discussion or if the idea's team improves the idea. You can also spig and scrap discussion comments, which not only voices you opinion of the comment but also impacts the reputation of the member that posted the comment.

The Performance Feedback:

The variety of performance feedback provided quickly draws you into the community's "game" of innovation. The leaderboard gives the low-down on member and idea performance, ranking both on reputation, popularity, and wealth. It's a thrill seeing your ideas and your name rise and fall through the rankings.

So, why you should pay attention:

It's practical...

Sure, there is some pie-in-the-sky prognosticating (like one of my my ideas: Arrival of Ubiquitous Augmented Reality), but the collective wisdom of the vigorous community discussion always keeps the proverbial one foot on the ground. I have discovered it is a great way to improve the ideas you've developed, as long as you are willing to listen and adapt.

Stay on the cutting edge of innovative virtual environment thinking...

If you are interested or involved in virtual environments, whether it be for education or the enterprise, the community is an excellent source of innovative cutting-edge thinking.

Games are the future of work...

I'm very impressed with the way this "game" approaches the process of innovation. It's not a top-down, let's-meet-to-discuss-ways-our-organization-can-step-out-of-the-box, typical enterprise approach to promoting innovative thought and action. It's a fun, grass-roots, games approach to gathering innovations from the workforce, which is often the source of the most significant innovations.

It's fun...

Even after a long day of work, I still enjoy logging on and contributing my thoughts. It's just plain fun. And any tool an organization can deploy that taps into the heart of their stakeholders has enoromous potential.

Tools of the Trade: Google Apps as a Production Planner (part 1)

The Background

I produce a monthly satellite broadcast show for one of my clients focused on informing, developing, and motivating their statewide employees (see some production shots at my flickr site). The final showreel is assembled from segments and stand-up shoots developed by multiple producers. We end up interviewing roughly 10 different employees, highlighting multiple divisions & programs, and visiting roughly 6 different locations during the month's production. Naturally, sharing information quickly, timely, and effectively is key to keeping everyone (Client, Production Crew, & myself) on schedule, on budget, and focused on producing a cohesive and high-quality end product.

The Story

My first step to improve coordination of the production for the client was to develop a Google Apps site. I learned a few tricks from my own personal projects on how to setup wikis, schedules, simple databases, and published documents using Google Apps, so I was eager to apply the knowledge. We needed one central location to store and display all information relating to each month's production. It also needed to be easily accessed and updated by all involved with the production. So, I began development.

I started by brainstorming a running list of features that I knew from experience the site could provide and that were relevant to the production needs.

• Multiple Calendars with customized viewing and updating features
• Centralized communications platform allowing message posts, comments, idea log, and concern record.
• Online location for documents (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF)
• Ability to web publish and update simple spreadsheet databases

Of course, the site will not meet all needs and will never replace traditional communication tools, but it addresses some of the key challenges of coordination and rapid information sharing.

The Status

Thus far, I have deployed about 25% of the planned solution. We are currently using a published spreadsheet to summarize each month's production plan. The client, producers, and crew can view the month's plan from any browser. Key production personnel can update the plan via a web form or a form embedded in an email. The summary sheet automatically updates with the most current information. This may not seem like much, but read below if you want to learn some of the challenges developing this deceptively simple spreadsheet solution.

Developing the Monthly Production Summary Sheet in Google Spreadsheets

In a nutshell, it was difficult. I knew I wanted a summary sheet on the web that did not require my constant maintenance and updates. I also wanted a solution that only a few key people could update, but viewable by many. Here are some lessons I learned:

1. Google spreadsheets allow only one form per file.

My initial plan was to use one file with sheets for each month and one master sheet showing a summary of the entire year. Neat, clean, and simple. Well...since only one form was allowed per file, the necessary update form would have been huge, thus I had to split it up. Each month needed its own spreadsheet file saved in Google Docs.

2. Google Forms are thus far not customizable

They are functional, but they do not look pretty, and currently you cannot customize the look or layout.

3. Forms for updating and adding information to Google spreadsheets require their own sheet within the file.

Data inserted into sheets via a form require a horizontal orientation and are quite ugly. I wanted my summary sheets in a more condensed readable format (vertically alligned). So, I gave the form its own sheet. When information is submitted via the form, it is added to the sheet in the lowest empty row. The summary sheet displays only the most updated production information in the form sheet.

Production updates submitted via a forms into this sheet

4. The spreadsheet formula to display the last entry in a column should have been easier to develop (I blame both MS & Google)

So, in order for the Summary Sheet to display only the most recently updated information, I needed it to pull values from one row in the Form Sheet. The cells in that one row needed to display only the most recently updated information in each column. After a few hours of research & experimentation, here is the formula I developed:

=ARRAYFORMULA(OFFSET(A1,INT(MAX(NOT(ISBLANK(C3:C200))*(COLUMNS($B1:$IW1)*ROW(C3:C200)+COLUMN(C3:C200)))/COLUMNS($B1:$IW1))-1.0,MOD(MAX(NOT(ISBLANK(C3:C200))*(COLUMNS($B1:$IW1)*ROW(C3:C200)+COLUMN(C3:C200)))/COLUMNS($B1:$IW1),1.0)*COLUMNS($B1:$IW1)-1.0))

This formula is placed in each cell in the 2nd row of the Form Sheet (with some adjustments to each formula based on location). It returns the last non-blank value in the column.

To Be Continued...

I will update you occasionally as I make more progress on this project.

Managing a Large Virtual Event in Second Life

Recently, I assisted some of my Second Life contacts in preparing and running PeaceFest 08, their multi-location fundraising event. Along with developing a LSL script for distributing the event schedule and calendar, I helped greet people and manage security at the main event sim location. The following are suggestions (based on my observations of what worked and what needed improvement) for anyone planning a multi-location event in Second Life (focused on text chat only without voice).

1. Security

Griefer attacks will happen at any well-publicized event. You must have a plan to deal with this eventuality.

• Prepare your frontline staff to identify possible griefers. Be sure they know who to IM if they spot something suspicious.
• Have adequate staff with the power to ban people from land ready to respond to frontline staff requests.
• Lurkers, or avatars dancing or standing underwater or at corners of the sim could be griefers in waiting. Ask if they need help. If they don't respond, warn them. If they remain unresponsive, boot them from the sim for safety.
• Watch out for the imposter leaches too, especially if you are collecting money. While welcoming guests, someone arrived with a sign above them announcing, "give $1 here". Since our event had donation stations located around the area, they were obviously attempting to skim donations from the event. After requesting them to leave (with no response) we eventually booted them.

2. The Schedule

The schedule of events must be easily found, distributed, understood, and updated.

• Make the schedule easily accessible. All too often, event planners think in real life terms that limit distribution possibilities. Put the schedule in a publicly accessible Google Calendar. Staff can chat the calendar link to guests, which then need only click to access the schedule. You can also script objects to chat the schedule link automatically, leaving the human staff to be more personable in their interactions with attendees.
• I also scripted a simple calendar sign so that people could touch and receive the event main location and the link to the google calendar. This automated approach helps for remote locations without welcome staff and to augment efforts of human staff.
• Be sure to clearly communicate what timezone is used. Since it is an online event, you will probably have worldwide visitors. Either provide functionality in your schedule to display times from the viewer's timezone, or stick with the SL time (PST).
• The staff also placed their schedule on a notecard. I noticed each time there was a change, the staff had to not only IM the new version to all the greeters, but also put the correct version in the automated schedule distributors. It caused a bit of confusion and a lot of needless work. Just like printed schedules for real life events, notecards are tough to update when changes happen. Thus, they are probably not the most effective schedule vehicle.

3. Getting the Masses to the Places

People need to know how to get to the event locations, and navigating in Second Life is often difficult, especially to those just beginning.

• Establish SLURLS for the main locations in each sim you use. Station human staff at those locations to greet and answer questions. You can publish the SLURLS on the web (maybe in a Google Doc, Event website, or event blog) and list them in a notecard inworld. Staff can chat the SLURLS to give guests instant clickable access (teleport) to the location. The easier it is for the guest to get to where they need to go, the better.
• Be sure to make it flexible enough so that when (not if) the location changes for an event, you can easily update everyone simply by updating one calendar, not multiple ones.
• At the event, use signs judiciously. Don't overcrowd the area. Arrowed signs work well, as do glowing or particle-emitting signs.

4. Frontline Staff

Frontline staff are the face of an event. They need to know the schedule, where things are, when they happen, and how to quickly explain this to multiple guests simultaneously.

• Have frontline workers pull-up each visitor's profile when they arrive. Check for unusual names with numbers such as "sean874902 Hax" and for birthdates within a few days. These may be disposable alt accounts that griefers will use for an attack. Having a recent birthdate indicates this avatar was recently created. IM the avatar and ask if they need any help, since you notice they are new (nice gesture if they are innocent, acknowledgement that you are watching if they have nefarious intent).
• Equip your frontline staff with basic chat scripts for the anticipated repeatable statements, such as, "Welcome to PeaceFest 08," and, "You can find the schedule at the following link: http://tinyURL.com/PeaceFest08". This frees up time to be more interactive and personable. Workers can copy and paste into chat to save time. I used these today and trust me, with 20+ IM conversations occuring at the same time with guests, they were a lifesaver. You could even use scripted greeter programs for this augmented by humans, but it does lose the personal touch.
• Even if they are volunteers, take the time to do some basic training/orientation with the greeters. It should at least cover all the numbered items in this post.

5. Staff Coordination

Staff must have multiple back channels for effective communication to all levels of Staff.

• Create a group for the Welcomers, Security Crew, and whatever other logical groups your events require. Use the group chat to keep everyone within that group up-to-date on changes, problems, and status. We utilized this to great effect to insure we balanced the appropriate number of greeters at each location, instantly moving staff to where the crowds needed them the most.
• You can use Skype or in-world voice direct call when typing is just way too slow.

MetaHappenings: PeaceFest 08

Date: Friday, August 15th - Sunday, August 17th
Time: 10am-Midnight (CST)
Location: At over 30 different sims within Second Life

What: "A global, interfaith, cross-cultural effort to create lasting peace through mobilizing support for and learning with real-life peace organizations. All proceeds from PeaceFest ‘08 will go to benefit Amnesty International, UNICEF, World Conference of Religions for Peace, Uthango Social Investments, and Kids for Peace.

This event represents a true cross-over from real-life to Second Life and back again as we bring real-life speakers in-world to discuss peace-related initiatives in our global open and free SL forum. Musicians and speakers will be streamed into SL while panel discussions and performances are streamed back out."

Personal Notes: I'll be working at a few of the Saturday events. If you have a Second Life account, log-in and stop by. I believe this SLURL will get you there.

MetaHappenings: Diplomacy, Business, and Islam in Virtual Worlds

Date: Monday, July 21, 2008
Time: Noon SLT, 2pm CST
Location: Within Second Life (SLURL)

Metanomics is a speaker series sponsored by Cornell University and conducted within Second Life. Monday's event, featuring Rita J. King and Joshua S. Fouts of Dancing Ink Productions, addresses, "the roles virtual worlds can play in globl diplomacy and business."

Webkins stuffed animals for sale at local Gordmans

Just saw this display at Gordmans tonight. Webkins Virtual World selling stuffed animals in a display promoting their online world.

Meta Happenings: SL Virtual Worlds Business Panel

Friday, July 18th
Time: 2pm CST
Place: Within Second Life, Nokia Island, SLURL

"We invite all aspiring Second Life entrepreneurs and those already in business that want to learn the down-and-dirty on how business really operates within the metaverse to come and hear what we have to say. The event will be held as an informal, moderated panel discussion with direct audience Q&A to get *YOUR* questions answered by some of the best people in the business, all in a euro-friendly time frame. Please feel free to bring friends as well, and also feel more than welcome to send your questions to Hydra Shaftoe beforehand."

Tools of the Trade: Spigit's innovation management applications

Most organizations are incredibly inefficient at utilizing the collective creativity and knowledge of their employees and customers.

Juxtapose the dynamics of organizational relationships with social relationships outside the workforce. Facebook, LinkedIn, Skype, Second Life or any number of socially enabling technologies help us not only stay connected, but enhance our ability to share experience and thought.

Spigit applys these social concepts to the workforce. Their enterprise software IdeaSpigit & InnovationSpigit allow workers and customers to not only easily share ideas & concepts, but to also evaluate, contribute, and rank the contributions collaboratively. Those that make positive contributions gain in reputation, effectively increasing their workplace social capital. Effectively deployed, I can see how this would move brainstorming and innovative thinking away from meeting-centered to a daily routine (and who wouldn't want a workforce that constantly thinks innovatively).

Props to Erica Driver of ThinkBalm for pointing me towards this fascinating suite of applications.

Tools of the Trade: Jott.com

"Who would you like to jott?"

Jott.com is a thus far free service that converts your short phone messages into text, then sends that text to any of your pre-established contacts. I primarily use it to take quick notes or set reminders for myself while I'm on the go. I also have a setting to automatically post messages onto this blog and a setting to text my wife. There are a multitude of applications...imagination is your limit.

Most recently, I've set up a system that will allow me to easily track my mileage for work. When I get to the location, I simply look at the odometer, and state the mileage in a jott message to myself. When my outlook receives the jott message about mileage, it auto transfers it to the mileage folder. Then, at the end of the month I can easily process all the mileage claims.

I've been impressed with the accuracy of the voice-to-text conversions, although I do keep the messages brief and simple. It sometimes converts "too" as "2" and vice versa. On difficult words, it allows you to say the word, then spell it out (eg "watt... However, the converted text in such an instance only displays the word, "watt."

Happy Jottin!

MetaHappenings: Upcoming Cisco Talk on Learning 2.0

When: Noon PST on March 13, 2008

Where: In Second Life, click here for map.

What: (taken from Cisco website)
This TechChat features John Connell, Education Strategist and Business Development Manager at Cisco. During this TechChat Connell will discuss the concept of “Learning 2.0,” in which social technologies are brought to bear on the central issues and relationships in learning. John will share his thoughts about the future of education in a world where the onset and permeation of digital technologies are transforming the way we live, work, and learn.

Today on Tomorrow: Orchestrating Information in 3D

We are stuck in the past, in an antiquated paradigm. We are sipping through a tiny coffee stirring straw while we remain parched. We require a new information processing model for individuals, one with the ability to match the ever increasing levels of available information produced by our world.

We google search, read feeds, watch TV News, browse websites, read and write blogs, store bookmarks to sites, scratch notes onto paper, daydream while commuting, read/write/reply/forward emails, stuff thumbdrives, get managed by planners, cram papers into binders, interact over the phone, IM statements, attend meetings, record meetings, set more meetings, (did I mention meetings?), read & write books, have truly brilliant ponderings that evaporate in an instant before recording, wandering wikis, absorb excel spreadsheets, record/revise/file way word documents, solidify filing cabinets, hear podcasts, watch vodcasts, and so on. And while we do, all too often brilliant innovations vanish before birth due to the lack of the individual's ability to weave the disparate multi-disciplinary bits of information into a cohesive meaningful construct of knowledge. And not only that, even if and when we do achieve some semblance of a construct of understanding, new information always arrives to erode or eradicate the order.

Information orchestration models and tools of the future will empower individuals to navigate the oceans of information, assimilate useful streams of information, organize these streams into rapidly understood and useful forms, process these forms into useful and timely knowledge. Whatever these models will be, they will undoubtedly utilize more of our bodily senses in an effort to optimize the transaction (improve efficiency of throughput) between the human individual and the tool.

Imagine in the future immersing yourself into your Personal Knowledge Garden, a virtual 3D space containing spacially arranged plants. These plants are repositories of compiled and purposfully sorted information, varying in topic with each different species. Each plant in your garden is of different sizes, shapes, colors, feels, and smells. These differences are not merely cosmetic...the differences represent changes in a certain topic of interest. Grasping one flower, you are instantly exposed to a graphical summary of not the contents, but the changes, the growth of emphasis on one aspect of the topic (i.e. a flurry of information in the world relating to this topic). Further examination of the grown flower petal allows you to see the source information contributions to the plant. A graphical immersive representation of massive amounts of information like this garden would allow humans to utilize their full senses to more efficiently translate massive information into useable knowledge.

The Virtual Thunder Dome

Imagine a virtual environment that you could actually physically move around in. Your body, while moving in the real world, guides the path of your virtual avatar. Imagine an environment similar to a Star Trek holodeck, where you could explore unconfined to physical space restrictions.

Seem to good to be true?

Well, it is. But this product is going to try anyway. For some reason, I just don't see this sphere thing catching on.

Tools of the Trade: Ajaxlife.net

Problem: Got a work computer, or a laptop, that doesn't have the graphics muscles to run Second Life? Do you need to chat with your contacts/friends in Second Life, but don't really need to eat up processor time?

Possible Solution: Ajaxlife.net

My Observations: Accessing Second Life (an Multiple User Virtual Environment) normally requires downloaded software. To experience the world in all it's 3D glory, you do need a somewhat beefy graphics-capable computer system...something I do not have in my work office. Enter from stage right Ajaxlife. Ajaxlife is a web based interface for Second Life. You don't get all the pretty pictures, or get to move around, or voice talk, or even see anything for that matter. What you do get is this:

Access To

• Your inventory (and the ability to sort)

• Avatar profiles (and thus the ability to contact them)

Search Capabilities

• You can find non-friend Avatars

Communications

• Local Chat (Text chatting with avatars located near you in the Second Life sim world)

• Instant Messaging (think of it as a person-to-person text chat)

Tools

• Scan for nearby Avatars (since you are blind, comes in real handy)

• Stats (tells you when there is serious lag in world)

Travel

• Ability to TP to another location via the map
  

Bottomline: Incredibly useful tool for those needing access to the communication features of Second Life when they are away from a graphics-capable machine. It is very difficult to Teleport to another location, since you are as blind as a bat (my apologies to all the bats out there), which may prevent widespread use. No download required! Fairly simple to use (EXCEPT for traveling).

...and btw...this was developed by a teenage girl!

Of HUDs and Cybernetic Implants...

Recently read the "Metaverse Roadmap" study report http://www.metaverseroadmap.org/overview/

I am fascinated by the augmented reality analysis section. It purposes that within 5-20 years, we will have a wide range mobile technology tools that will "augment" our reality with digital information. Imagine a HUD in your glasses or contact lens that displays internet / metaverse information, such as mapquest-like directions complete with pointing arrows appearing 3-dimensionally displayed in the real world. Or a google-like search engine interface accessible anytime anywhere. Or, a text profile information feed floating above local structures or even people ("Hey...I'm single and looking for bla bla bla..."). I can also see it becoming a nuisence, such as web pop-up ads ("Hey...over here...this beast of a car has an inline hemi with bla bla bla...).

There are an infinite number of potential applications to this sort of technological capability. Imagine the changes in education, training, customer interaction. I could even see a day that many businesses forgo an actual brick-and-morter business in exchange for a virtual storefront for their product (I can just see the scene from the Matrix where the long row of guns rush by Neo upon command). But why stop there! You can embed your product with a nano-chip complete with a virtual store. A person is walking down the street and sees, oh wow, the perfect pair of shoes worn by someone on the other side of the street. On command (maybe an eyeflick or voice command or a neural receiver) your HUD pulls the information from the chip and sends your HUD and image of the virtual store, where you can browse that and other available shoes (and of course purchase with a click and have it shipped to your home).

Metaverse U Conference

Fascinating stuff was addressed at Stanford's Metaverse U Conference today. I attended from within Second Life at Scilands island. The event was live webstreamed onto a bigscreen inworld. I would say roughly 40 people were in attendance in-world and maybe 60ish in real world. In-world participants not only could submit questions to an real-world moderator and have that moderator ask the speaker, but also conducted their own in-world text discussion over open chat lines.



The most fantastic presentation was by Jon Brouchoud (Wikitecture). I found the open-sourcing and massively outsourcing of architecture very promising, but the most interesting was the information display he developed. Users can come to the in-world island and via a 3-Dimensional display, know the status of various plans. Via a tower interface, users can load, inspect, and contribute to a plan.

This tool of information collection, manipulation, and display is exactly what I believe the world is heading towards. With the increase of the amount and availability of information, it is quickly becoming a world where those that can orchastrate and synthesize information excel. It is not enough to know about one subject. It is not enough to know how and where to get multiple sources of information on any subject. It is the ability to take massive amounts of diverse information, quickly, and synthesize that into nuggets of useful relevant and timely knowledge that will be most needed in the coming future. These emerging virtual tools will slowly develop into the tools used by such people in the future.

Needless to say, it's an exciting time to be involved with the emerging virtuality.

Goodbye Policy Handbook, Hello Policy Wiki

For the most part, I work at a place that is fairly innovative. We do things that often require us to re-write the policy and procedures book to allow us to provide a particular solution to our clients. But even so, we are still tethered to the standard linear, paginated, print-it-cause-we'll-eventually-have-to-read-it policy book format. I suggested to a like-minded digitally-adept coworker the other day that we should scrap the book and use an internal wiki.

Well, I just finished transforming one policy handbook into a wiki. I used the EXTREMELY SIMPLE (and totally free) tiddlywiki . Basically, I copied and pasted the various segments from the handbook into the html-based wiki, then added all the tags. Now for the big sell at tomorrow's staff meeting. I hope that by providing them an example of the handbook in wiki form with some basic instructions, they will see the potential.

Dispatch from Second Life

Object-Name: D3B1
Region: Pockwock (263680, 252160)
Local-Position: (207, 23, 63)

Just spent the last hour or so sorting through my virtual inventory and some of my personal builds in 2L. I tweeked my Droid's email script to allow me to blog straight from in-world on-the-fly. Also got to use the teleport feature I installed. more to follow...

Virtual Reconnaissance

It is my intention, in the coming months, to dive into as many different virtual worlds as possible. Thus far, I have a pretty good take on Second Life. I have recently dug into Dofus, Multiverse, and Active Worlds. Next on my list are Entropia, There, and somehow Forterra and Open Croquet. I've pondered getting into World of Warcraft, but I just can't bring myself to commit to the subscription fee.
I really wish to answer the following:
Which will emerge as the leading business training platform?
What are their capabilities from a training and consulting perspective?
Which is the easiest and most cost-effective to enter?
Which captures my imagination and holds it the longest?

In a nutshell, what are my findings thus far?
Second Life:
+ The most potential, Very beautiful graphics throughout, Relatively good security and privacy features, Quick to pick up on the interface yet feature-detailed enough for the tech crowd, Good interaction and communication features, Strong micro communities throughout.
- Depending on where you visit you can run into a lot of childish jerks, Oftentimes laggy (pieces of landscape, body parts, clothing, movement missing or slowed), Lack of "Quest" or "purpose" can cause frustration.

Dofus:
+ Silly clean RPG fun, Clever artwork, Mildy entertaining storyline.
- This is pretty much a kids game, People in-world hardly ever communicate so no strong communities, Graphics are a bit lacking.

Active Worlds:
+ So far I have found none
- Orientation left me with no useful information, Communication better than Dofus but lacking in substance, Graphics much better visually than Dofus but far under those of 2L.

Virtual Graphic used on NBC Nightly News

I was surprised last night while viewing NBC Nightly News to hear Brian Williams refer to a new on-screen graphic introducing the next segment as a, "virtual graphic". The graphic appeared 3 dimensional and moved in real space, tracking with the camera and the walking correspondent. I haven't been watching the national network news broadcasts lately, so I'm not sure if this is a first, or a growing trend. I wonder if this technology is an offspin of Tobey McElroy's Georgia Tech Grad project (http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2008/01/georgia-tech-gr.html).