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FountainBlue's Virtual Worlds Annual
Conference
Topic: Virtual Worlds: Where We Were, Where
We're Going, What Does It Mean to YOU?
Date & time: Friday, September 24,
2010, from 8:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.
Location:
Cisco, MCCARTHY RANCH 3 (SJCMR3), 155 North McCarthy Blvd., Milpitas, Great
Dane Conference Room
Cost: Register by September 22 at noon: $42
members, $52 partners, $62 general
Late and On-Site Registration: $62 for members,
$72 for non-members
Registration Link:Click on the adjacent PayPal link to pre-register by 9/22
at noon
Audience: Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs and Investors only. No service providers please.
Second Annual State of the Virtual Worlds
Industry Event
FountainBlue's Second Annual State of the
Virtual Worlds Industry conference updates entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and
investors on the successes, challenges and trends of the industry overall, and
showcases corporate and entrepreneurial
virtual
world demos. Beginning with a panel sharing the growth of the industry from the
legal, venture, research and corporate perspectives, the program will next
highlight how leading corporations are leveraging virtual worlds solutions to
better serve their constituents, and culminating in showcasing early stage,
funding-bound virtual worlds entrepreneurs with a range of solutions pushing
the technology and business envelope.
Please pre-register for by September 22 at noon or pay the late and on-site fee!
Agenda
8:30 Registration and
Networking
9:00
Welcomes
and Thank Yous
9:15 Trends in the Virtual Worlds Industry: An
Update on What's New and What's Coming
Facilitator
Jeff Pope, Founding Partner, Spark Sky Ventures
Tim
Chang, Principal, Norwest Ventures
David
Helgason, CEO and Co-Founder, Unity
Chris
Platz, Creative Director and Art Lead, Stanford Sirikata Labs
Eilif
Trondsen, Research and Program Director of the Virtual Worlds @ Work Consortium
at Strategic Business Insights
Mark
Wallace, Conversation Manager, Linden Lab
10:20 Morning Break
10:35 Corporate
Panel: Serving Customers, Building Communities, Training Users
Facilitator
Dennis Shiao, Director of Product Marketing, INXPO
Sai
Allavarpu, CITRIX
Mic
Bowman, Intel
Kenny
Lauer, George P Johnson
Dannette Veale, Global Virtual
Event Strategist, Cisco, Lead, Virtual Component, Cisco Live
11:40 Lunch and Networking
12:30 Entrepreneur Panel: The
Tools, The Goods, The Immersion Experience
Facilitator Nina Gerwin, The NRG Group
Michael Gold, CEO, Electrotank:
Steve Hoffman, CEO, Rocketon: virtual world for tweeners
Albert Kim, CEO, Zenitum: Augmented reality with 3D displays
Jim Parker, CEO, Digitell: SaaS 3D immersive virtual events and virtual
training
Reuben Steiger, Founder and Chairman, Virtual Greats
1:30 Adjourn and Further
Networking and Corporate Exhibits and Entrepreneur Showcases open until 2:00
Tim brings a combination
of operational, technical and international business experience to NVP. He focuses on investments in mobile, gaming,
digital media, and also leads NVP's investment practice in China and Asia-Pacific.
Tim led NVP's investments in and joined the boards of directors of ngmoco,
Lumos Labs, Brite Semiconductor and 3jam. He also led NVP's investment in PCH
International, a turnkey global supply chain services firm based in Shenzhen.
Tim is a board observer working closely with Borqs, deCarta, Double Fusion and
Veveo.
Nina Gerwin, The NRG Group
Nina Gerwin is Principal of The NRG Group, a management and marketing
consulting practice that advises start ups on business and product strategies,
and develops and executes marketing strategies and campaigns for corporate
clients. As a former start-up COO,
Nina's background includes Comcast, Disney, HBO, Bare Escentuals, Architectural
Digest and Bon Appetit magazines.
Nina maintains a steadfast, customer-centric foundation on which to
build market share and profits. She
drives brand awareness and delivers customers with traditional, digital and
social media with an expertise in consumer media and products (tangible and
digital). Areas of interest are mobile, virtual worlds / events /
learning, social media, TV entertainment, online video and their convergence.
Michael Gold,
CEO, Electrotank
Michael Gold is
the CEO of Electrotank, the leading browser based multiplayer game and virtual
world development studio and licensor of ES4 and EUP development platform for
MMOGs. In that role, he is responsible for supporting Electrotank's worldwide
client base and guiding further development of the award-winning development
platforms that have established Electrotank as the premier partner for browser
based multiplayer games and virtual worlds. Prior to joining Electrotank,
Michael was the COO of Animation Collective where he directed all licensing,
business, and production and drove the company's growth from six to eight
figure revenues with no outside capital. Michael also co-founded the
award-winning educational technology start-up Learnimation, LLC. Under his
guidance Learnimation was awarded 10 Small Business Innovation Research Awards
from the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation.
Michael is the
executive producer of over 150 half hours of children's broadcast programming
and dozens of online games for Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Scholastic, AOL,
BBC Kids and Lionsgate. He earned a B.A. in Economics from Amherst College.
David Helgason, CEO and
co-founder, Unity
David served as CEO of the
game technology company Unity Technologies since co-founding it in 2003. Unity's
vision is to democratize game development, and develop technology for the next
generation of the industry. From in-browser MMO, through mobile, to social,
casual, serious, and beyond. Unity is currently used by dozens of big game
publishes and media companies, hundreds of smaller studios, and thousands of
independent professionals, hobbyists, students, and 14 year old boys.
David's background is in
software, having participated in several startups during and around the .com's,
in areas such as early experiments with news & community integration, music
business content distribution, and IT-consulting for a variety of local and
global companies. David currently serves on the boards of serious game studio
Serious Games Interactive, and fashion-technology startup World On A Hanger.
Steve Hoffman, CEO & Cofounder, LavaMind and RocketOn
Steve Hoffman (a.k.a. Captain Hoff) is a high tech serial
entrepreneur. He's the CEO & Cofounder of LavaMind, which publishes
Founders Space http://www.FoundersSpace.com,
as well as numerous websites, games and mobile applications. Information can be
found at LavaMind http://www.LavaMind.com
and RocketOn http://www.RocketOn.com.
Hoffman is also a founding member of
the Academy of Television's Interactive Media Group and was the Chairman &
Founder of the San Francisco Chapter of the Producers Guild. In 2007, Hoffman
founded RocketOn, a social media and virtual world startup. Prior to this,
Hoffman was the COO of Tap11 (formerly Zannel), a venture-funded startup that
provides businesses with advanced analytics and CRM for Twitter.
Before that, Hoffman was the North American Studio Head for Infospace, where he
ran the US mobile games publishing & development group. From 1998 - 2002,
he was the Chairman & CEO of Spiderdance, Hollywood's leading interactive
television studio, whose customers included NBC, Viacom, Time Warner, TBS, GSN
and A&E. He also consulted for R/GA Interactive, designing projects for
Kodak, Disney, Intel, AdAge, and Children's Television Workshop.
In Japan, Hoffman worked as a game designer for Sega, generating new concepts
and designs for games and amusement rides. Prior to Sega, he was a Hollywood
development executive at Fries Entertainment, where he managed TV development.
He graduated from the University of California with a BS in Electrical Computer
Engineering and went on to earn a Masters in Film & Television from USC. He
is also the co-author of the first-edition of "Game Design Workshop"
published by CMP.
Albert Heekwan Kim
Born and raised in Seoul,
Korea, Albert Heekwan Kim earned his B.S. at Ohio State University and his
M.Sc. at Northwestern in Computer Engineering.
Since 1993, Albert has specialized in designing complex software architecture
for platforms ranging from S/360 to FPGA.
His current venture, Zenitum, focuses on computer vision tracking
technology for Mobile Augmented Reality.
With the world's best computer vision professionals, his also spends
time on a "video based rendering" system for potential AR/VR uses at
the start-up he founded called Voxelogram.
Albert believes "bringing the virtual into the real space" and
vice versa can be done for creating the 3rd realm with his two endeavors.
Jim Parker, President and
CEO, Digitell Inc.
Jim Parker is currently President
and CEO of Digitell, Inc., a full service company that specializes in the
development of virtual immersive environments and their applications for
businesses. Mr. Parker is a 30 year
veteran in the conference industry, servicing 90 organizations, such as the
American Academy of Family Physicians, CSC, Oracle, and many more. Digitells's VirtualU platform focuses on ease
of use, flexibility and full service capabilities. With a staff of over 20,
Digitell provides its clients with everything they would need, from custom
environments, to training, tech support and event execution. Client applications range from urban design,
and museum replication to immersive webinars, Hybrid Conferences and 365
persistent corporate office space. Mr.
Parker is a well known speaker in the association industry and presently lives
in Western New York.
Chris Platz,
Creative Director and Art Lead, Stanford Sirikata Labs
Chris Platz is
an artist and educator in the fields of traditional fine art and digital 2D/3D
arts. Currently he teaches at the Art Institute of San Francisco in the Game
Art and Design Dept, the Academy of Art Interior Architecture Dept, and Game
Creation courses at the Digital Media Academy. Chris' industry projects include
video game interface designs for Vampire the Masquerade, RuneQuest, and other
titles. For the Digital Media Academy, Chris teaches how to utilize the latest
digital tools for creating memorable games, environments and characters. Chris
is continually amazed at how fast the younger generation of gamers can learn
tools that took him years to grasp. Away from the computer Chris enjoys
painting murals, sculpting clay, and family time in the Bay Area with his wife
and daughter.
Jeffrey is the
Executive Vice President of ngi US, a Silicon Valley based, wholly owned
subsidiary of ngi group Japan. Within his role at ngi US Jeffrey is chartered
with identifying investment opportunities, performing market analysis, and
assisting portfolio companies with North American strategy and entry. In addition,
he is the US representative for 3Di, which is also an ngi group subsidiary
company and a leading innovator in virtual world and 3D technologies.
With over 13
years living and working in Asia, Jeffrey has an extensive background in
business development, negotiating critical business alliances and opening new
markets. Prior to joining ngi group, Jeffrey held a position with Microsoft
Japan where he was involved with the development of Japans Xbox live game
server infrastructure, and overseeing an MSN data center. Thereafter he spent 6
years with Sun Microsystems Japan where he managed various aspects of Sun's
Services and Sales business. He was instrumental in helping Sun to streamline
its Services processes, primarily through the Six Sigma quality control
methodology of which he was the lead practitioner and trainer. His last role
within Sun was that of the head of Sun's Emerging Technologies Division in the
Asia Pacific region. Having served as a consultant, a conference speaker, and
participated in industry committees, Jeffrey is an acknowledged authority on
Virtual Worlds and the Online Computer Games (MMO) market.
Dennis Shiao, Director of Product Marketing, INXPO
Dennis Shiao is an
evangelist, strategist and practitioner of virtual events. Currently, Dennis
serves as Director of Product Marketing at INXPO, the leading provider of
privately branded virtual events and virtual business communities. At
INXPO, Dennis is responsible for go-to-market strategy and execution, and for
shaping product and platform evolution via the "voice of the customer".
Dennis provides
strategic consulting to clients on their virtual events and has managed virtual
event campaigns for Cisco, HP, Oracle and Microsoft, among others. Dennis
blogs about virtual events and virtual worlds at "It's All Virtual" and is a
frequent author and speaker.
Reuben Steiger, Founder
and Chairman, Virtual Greats
Reuben Steiger was the
founder and CEO of Millions of Us, a company dedicated to helping businesses
use virtual worlds and online communities. He also founded Virtual Greats, a
company that sells branded virtual goods in online environments. From 2004 to
2006, Steiger was the Evangelist for Linden Lab, creators of the 3-D virtual
world Second Life. He also served as Chief Development Officer at OVEN Digital,
an award winning New York based web design company. While there he oversaw
revenue and strategy for the company which grew to 11 offices and 350 employees
worldwide. Steiger is a graduate of Brown University and lives in Marin County
with his wife and two young children.
Eilif Trondsen, Research
and Program Director of the Virtual Worlds @ Work Consortium at Strategic
Business Insights
As research director
of the Virtual Worlds @ Work (VWW) at Consortium Strategic Business Insights (SBI),
a spin-out of SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute), Dr.
Trondsen's research and consulting focuses on the use of technology for
innovation, learning and performance improvement. He has 30 years of experience
at SBI and at SRI International, leading or contributing to a variety of
projects for U.S.
and foreign clients in the private and public sectors. At SRI and SBI, Dr.
Trondsen has held the position of Research Director of the Business
Intelligence Program (now the Scan program), the director of the Learning on
Demand (LoD) program (exploring the role of technology in learning and
training), and is now leading VWW. In his tenure at SRI and SBI, he has given
numerous presentations on various eCommerce, eLearning, innovation and
virtual-worlds topics at conferences and to SRI clients around the world. Dr.
Trondsen is also the author and co-author of numerous publications on
eCommerce, eLearning and virtual-worlds issues.
Dannette Veale, Global Virtual Strategist, Cisco Live, Cisco
As the global virtual strategist for Cisco
Live and Networkers conferences at Cisco, Dannette Veale lives and breathes new
media. In addition to creating and driving the strategy for Cisco Live and
Networkers virtual, Dannette has also managed global online and virtual
programs for a variety of Cisco groups - most notably emerging markets. When
she's not evangelizing the use of virtual environments to extend the reach of
an event and broaden the overall audience demographic participating, you'll
find Dannette engaged in such varied hobbies as producing streaming media,
designing Web sites, or watching classic films such as Blade Runner. Outside of
her daily immersion in the bleeding edge of collaborative media, Dannette's
also been known to partake in such real world activities as gardening, baking,
and knitting - while watching cyberpunk anime, of course.
Below are notes from our first annual virtual worlds conference.
FountainBlue's first Annual Virtual Worlds Conference, on
the topic of Where We've Been and Where We’'re Going took place at Sun
Microsystems on September 25, 2009. We would like to congratulate our winning
entrepreneurs and thank our speakers, presenters and panelists for freely and
candidly sharing their knowledge and advice and contributing to our excellent
program. We would like to recognize them below.
Introductory
remarks, framing the discussion were provided by:
Michael
Gialis, New Business Development for Sun Microsystem's Lab and Chief
Technology Office, Founder of Virtual Worlds Roadmap Group
Barry Holroyd, CTO, Masher Media
An Overview of
the History of Virtual Worlds – What is it, Where Has it Been? was provided by:
Benjamin
Duranske, Associate, Pillsbury Winthrop
Our first
Panel Discussion: Virtual World Business Trends featured:
Moderator
Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company
Below are notes from our conversation, along
with resource links from our presenters.
Virtual Worlds
offer a dynamic, ever-changing landscape of technology, community, interaction.
Although Virtual Worlds have evolved over the past few decades, it is now
coming to the mainstream, and its impact is deep and broad. It affects many
facets of the way we do business from the financial, economic, technology and
legal aspects, as well as HOW business is done, leveraging software the enables
creative and dynamic interaction between people with virtual presences and
online communities overall.
Virtual worlds are
evolving from the walled gardens of the 1990s to more and more dynamic,
interactive and creative sites that incorporate user content and creativity.
This seems to be following the familiar evolution of the web itself; America
Online and Prodigy became supplanted by more open browser standards from
Mosaic.
Indeed, Virtual Worlds
are evolving from a fad and a toy to a valuable business tool, serving and
connecting various stakeholders. The graphics abilities introduced in the 80s
and 90s brought in the era of avatars and games which were wildly popular, with
some running still today. Now these graphics are being harnessed in virtual
environments to effect value in a variety of non-game related use cases.
As more people
got more deeply engaged, user communities arose and questions on policies,
procedures and how users can interact and communities can grow arose. In
addition, a business model evolution is now occurring where we are redefining
who developers, publishers and retailers are and how they work together, as
well as who is funding, marketing, and servicing these individual users and
user communities. Users continue to raise the bar for what they can do and how
they can do it, increasingly demanding more customized solutions and experiences
tailored to themselves personally, and to the communities they join.
Adoption has not
reached explosive double-digit figures yet for most virtual world communities,
but with that said, in general the virtual worlds for kids sub-industry has
benefited from the fastest and broadest adoption rate and continues to grow,
showing that this is not a transient fad, but a real opportunity. Indeed, savvy
publishers, manufacturers, producers and others selling to the kids market are
factoring in web sites, books, toys, and virtual world communities as part of
their marketing and outreach efforts. Successful examples of this maturing mass
market segment include Webkins and Club Penguin.
Both panels
remarked on the huge opportunities available in the media and entertainment
industry. According to latest PriceWaterhouseCoopers Q2 2009 report, media and
entertainment investments, totaled $115B, averaged $2 million per deal and
totaled 52 deals, mostly from Silicon Valley (19), but also 10 from New York, and 6 from
LA/Orange County. https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/print.jsp?page=industry&industry=7100®ion
The panelists
and presenters had the following advice for virtual worlds entrepreneurs and
intrapreneurs:
The growth of an individual virtual world, and
the industry altogether might grow in fits and starts, depending on technology
availability, user communities, adoption of standards, bandwidth constraints
and other factors. Awareness of these challenges and addressing them headlong,
in collaboration with other stakeholders will help drive the growth of the
industry.
Minimize the barrier to adoption and drive the
user base for your community: making adoption friction-less a critical factor
for success. Make sure that there are no technology hassles (installing
separate plug-ins and technologies), process hurdles (logging in, taking
surveys, confusing steps), or marketing/branding confusion (they have to know
where to go and that their trusted colleagues have recommended the experience),
for example.
Take advantage of the 'Hybrid Tiered Solution',
where general users (about 85%) get in free, and a certain percentage (around
15%) pays through micro transactions for premium services and a smaller
percentage (1-3% for example) pays for ongoing subscription levels. The
successful organization will offer a solution which would serve the individual
needs of all three types of users, treating them all as valuable members.
Leverage the social communities (FaceBook,
Twitter, iPhone, etc.) of the audience to leverage the growth of your
community.
Content is king. Everyone wants more content,
richer interaction, more activities, more engagement, etc. The successful
company offers solutions which engages users while also setting appropriate
controls and boundaries.
Focus on the needs of your target audience,
whether they are frequent texters, or users of Twitter or FaceBook, creating a
virtual world that lets them interact the way THEY want to will attract the
audience you’re targeting.
Research patents in your space, and consider IP
issues associated with user-generated content. Find the edge of the law to remain
competitive, but stay on the right side of the law to avoid litigation and
other problems.
Policies, regulations and enforcements in the
virtual worlds space are rapidly evolving. Leverage resources to stay informed
and be prepared to help shape, respond to these changes.
Adoption of hardware such as headsets and webcams
etc. will continue to occur, but not nearly at the pace of the evolution of
software. Therefore, if your virtual world incorporates hardware components,
create games which work with existing hardware, and leverage existing markets.
Create a simple communication device to share
information to the whole community, like a leader board, as it would generate
discussion, invite more engagement, and help with the viral growth of the community.
Ease of use can be defined as the first 30
seconds, the first 30 minutes, the first 30 hours, and the first 30 days.
Strategies for retaining and securing users for each of the ‘first 30s’ may
vary, but they are also inter-dependent, and must always focus on the needs of
the customers.
When designing a virtual worlds solution, speak
to the people who would use it, like nurses or service station attendees rather
than doctors (if they are not the ones who will use the solution) and managers
(if they are not the ones serving the customer).
The panel raised
some questions which could lead to hot virtual world business opportunities:
What are the challenges and opportunities in
synchronist and asynchornistic communication? How can solutions bring more
people from more places together and more richly interact?
How can virtual worlds assist with visualizing
and modeling to support the innovation process and more cost-effectively make
real technology- based solutions?
What opportunities can data analytics and data
visualization provide?
Solutions across sectors offer opportunities.
What might work for the education market, for example, might also serve a life
science market. In addition, the technology for conducting a quest for a game
might be adapted to organizational and productivity tools for businesses. What
could this mean for YOUR company?
What are the intersections of where gaming meets
music or education or homework and what solution could you create to serve the
needs of that market?
In summary, our
panelists and presenters have shown and told us that Virtual Worlds:
Are not only becoming more and more useful, they
are also engaging and fun and potentially profitable.
Are being adopted in different ways to create and
serve communities for personal and business benefit.
Are being increasingly more integrated into
everyday business functions from training to education to service, branding and
outreach. As such, challenges such as IP, security, privacy, and other factors
will arise.
Are mature enough that metaphors and examples
exist, making it easier for potential customers and partners to understand new
technology and business model solutions. Second Life, early games, Mosaic,
Silicon Graphics, Tivo, Qwaq and other others have forged the business,
technology and cultural grounds and helped grow the industry. They have been
around long enough so tools and technologies and solutions are available, and
the technology adoption curve is not as steep.
Is not dominated by the US, as adoption of virtual goods and mobile
platforms for example is 4-5x faster in Asia and Europe.
Additional
information and resources:
Presenting Entrepreneur Brian Bauer, OnTrack Health,
winners in the Enterprise,
Other Category (Collaboration in Health Care): http://ontracktechnology.blogspot.com
Linden Lab:
Second Life enters the realm of the enterprise
Joe Miller, VP of Platforms and Technology Development,
at Linden Lab talks to CNET’s Dan Farber about the challenges in developing
dynamic and reliable backend operations for the 3D virtual world of Second
Life. Miller also discusses how they’re incorporating new hi-tech conferencing
tools for business users such as VoIP solutions and video streaming
technologies. http://video.zdnet.com/CIOSessions/?p=310
Emcee, Speaker
and Sponsor, Michael Gialis, New
Business Development for Sun Microsystem’s Lab and Chief Technology Office,
Virtual Worlds Roadmap Group and
Survey: http://virtualworldsroadmap.blogspot.com/
Presenting Entrepreneur Troy Hipolito, CTO and Owner, ISO
Interactive, winners in the Consumer, Teenagers to Adult Category: http://www.isointeractive.com
Presenting Entrepreneur Stevan Lieberman, SpotON3D,
winners in the Enterprise,
Other Category (Virtual Real Estate and Office Tools): http://www.spoton3d.com
Demo
presentation by Chris Platz, Creative
Director, Sirikata, Stanford Humanities
Lab and Computer Science, projects: Virtual Museum and Virtual Live Music
Performance: http://www.sirikata.com
and http://shl.stanford.edu
Panel
Moderator Jeffrey Pope, Founder of
Virtual Worlds Roadmap Group, Former Virtual Worlds VC and Virtual Worlds
Entrepreneur, and Founding Partner, Spark
Sky Ventures:http://www.sparksky.com
Presenting Entrepreneur Terry Thorpe, Chairman, KohdSpace,
winners in the Enterprise,
Virtual Events and Tradeshows Category: http://www.kohdspace.com
Demo presentation by Nicole Yankelovich, Principal
Investigator, Collaborative Environments program including Wonderland v0.5, Sun Labs will demo the new features /
functionality and capability of our re-architected platform: http://www.projectwonderland.com
In conclusion,
the opportunities in the virtual worlds space are massive, with the convergence
of technologies and markets and solutions. And it will take basic business
principals, including strategic leadership and superior execution, constant
education, lots of hard work, and a network of influential contacts to remain
competitive in this rapidly growing and evolving space.
FountainBlue's Virtual World's sub-group was launched on
March 9, with the production of our Virtual Worlds event on the topic of
Virtual Worlds: The Hype, The Reality, The In-Between, featuring a panel of
investors, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. As a follow-up to our March 9
launch event, FountainBlue will be producing an annual conference on Virtual
Worlds, with the first one scheduled for September 25 from 8:00 a.m. – 3 p.m.
This annual conference will update us on Virtual Worlds trends and feature case
studies, while also profiling corporate virtual world solutions and entrepreneurial
pitches from the winners of this business plan competition in six categories.
FountainBlue's Virtual World Program Team congratulates our six funding-bound virtual world start-ups who submited an executive summary and will be making their pitches at our annual Virtual Worlds Conference,
scheduled for Friday, September 25 from 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. at Sun Microsystems. We have executive summaries from each of the submitting categories:
Consumer
Six to Twelve
Teenagers and Young Adults
Adults and Seniors
Enterprise
Virtual Events and Tradeshows
Virtual Meetings
Communities and Cross-Over Solutions, including·Virtual
Identity across platforms and Convergence of On-Line and In-Person
Each Presenting Team will receive:
Submitting entrepreneurs will
receive one passes to the 9/25 event, as well as informal feedback from
FountainBlue Virtual Worlds Committee members.
The selected six presenting entrepreneurs will receive
two additional passes to the 9/25 event and have the option of meeting
informally with members of FountainBlue’s volunteer Virtual World committee
members, between September 15 and September 22 at noon to prepare for the
presentation.
Process for Pitching During the Annual Event
The six virtual world entrepreneurs, winners from each of
the identified categories, will be conducting fast pitches, 20 minute rounds
each, broken down as follows:
5-minute pitches
5-minutes Q&A with judging panel
5-minute feedback
Deadlines and Announcements
August 14 Deadline for Exec
Summaries Submissions (@ noon)
Sept 15
Announcing Six Finalists (by noon)
9/15-22
Informal Meetings with Finalists
Sept 25
Annual Virtual Worlds Event, with Presentation by Winners to Investors and
Entrepreneurs
Our Team
FountainBlue would like to thank our virtual world
program team for their support and contributions:
Program Team
Paul Cutt
Benjamin Duranske
Nina Gerwin
Michael Gialis
Robin Harper
Barry Holroyd
James Kempf
Matt Perez
Jeff Pope
Dennis Shiao
Sibley Verbeck
Exec Summary Team:
Sandy Adam
Laurie Dineen Dieck
Damon Hernandez
Sarita Mallya
Karen Marshall
Curt Ward
Get Involved
We welcome your feedback, input and involvement! Please
e-mail us at info@svvirtualworlds.com if you are interested in joining the
FountainBlue Virtual Worlds community as a volunteer to:
Spread the word,
Recruit entrepreneurs,
Evaluate pitches,
Recruit corporate partners, or
Manage the September 25 on-site event.
FountainBlue’s
March 9 High Tech Entrepreneurs’ Forum was on the topic of Virtual
Worlds: The Hype, The Reality, The In-Between and featured:
Facilitator Glenn
Von Tersch, Partner, TIPS Group
Panelist Anne-Marie Roussel,
Microsoft
Panelist Michael Gialis, Business
Development Manager, Project Wonderland and Project Darkstar, Sun Microsystems
Panelist Robin Harper, Former VP of
Marketing and Community Development, Second Life, Linden Labs
The
emergence of social virtual worlds as a cultural and business phenomenon has
astounded and mystified some, and excited and profited others. In these trying
economic times, people are escaping to fantasy lands and adopting new online
personas, businesses are profiting from the upsurge of people actively participating
at many creative levels, investors are looking carefully at the returns for
existing companies, and corporations are wondering how virtual worlds will make
them money, while providing better service for their customers.
Virtual World Definition:
Wikipedia: A virtual world is a
computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and
interact via avatars. These avatars are usually depicted as textual,
two-dimensional, or three-dimensional graphical representations, although other
forms are possible (auditory and touch sensations for example). Some, but not
all, virtual worlds allow for multiple users.
Excerpted from Gartner Analyst
Steven Prentice talk on July 30:
Prentice said a virtual worlds is
a presence in a space where interaction takes place in real time with digital
personas.
Prentice pointed out that our
avatar’s identity represents how we want to be perceived.
How Virtual Worlds Are Different
There are elements of
interactivity, collaboration, immersion and immediacy which distinguish virtual
worlds from ‘canned’ games or regular webinars.
There’s a potential for higher
engagement and better connection between participants during the experience,
which may lead to a more persistent and relevant memory. For example, a webinar
in a virtual world may mean more than a regular webinar, particularly if you
identify closely with your avatar.
The best virtual worlds offer
tools which make it easy for people to be creative and express themselves,
connecting with others.
Advice About Virtual Worlds:
Plan for and understand
expectations from you/your company’s participation in a virtual worlds project.
Make the outcomes timelined and measurable where possible.
Consider the importance of the
(positive and negative) experiences of the users and what that would say about
your brand.
Be open to letting users
experiment within the virtual world, and event to take it in a direction which
you may not have originally intended.
Companies that manage virtual
worlds must establish policies for behavior, taxation, democracy, economy,
governance, etc., In many ways, it’s a society and a culture should be
proactively managed, just like in real life.
Creating an economy and an
exchange allowed people to create their own land, reap benefits from their
creativity and ideas, and own their ideas and concepts. The people who are
successfully profiting from the economy on Second Life pave the way for others
to do the same, and are attracting more people to investigate opportunities for
themselves.
Costs for creating a virtual world
are minimal. As this is a new area, this is a good time to experiment with
different revenue models and niche markets to find something that works.
Partner with established
entrepreneurial companies and established corporations to leverage their
applications, research, and markets and find a win-win.
Make your virtual world intuitive
to use, to encourage mass adoption.
Opportunities for Virtual Worlds Solutions:
Offer interactive early and
secondary education and training.
Provide interactive training and
simulation games which may have military or flight/driver’s applications for
example.
Offer mapping tools which would
have real-world applications, like providing law enforcement or military
personnel detailed geographic maps of areas where there might be danger.
Sales force education to learn
everything from how to sell the product/service to how to manage/overcome
rejection. This type of training might be more real online as avatars can get
quite animated!
Create mixed-reality concepts such
as sensors in high-crime or war areas to help identify sources of gunfire for
example, to respond quickly, to electronically map area, etc., all to help law
enforcement and military professional proactively manage violence and protect people.
Leverage virtual world tools for
project management/collaboration training or execution or for negotiation and
sales training.
Create a virtual world call center
to build better connections with customers and perhaps better collaboration
between customers/between customer and company.
Use virtual world experience for
diversity or innovation training.
Use virtual world to create
support groups for people of similar interests and challenges, particularly if
they have physical challenges making it difficult to connect in person with
others or learning challenges like Aspergers where it might feel safer to
connect and experiment with people similarly afflicted before trying out ideas
and concepts live.
Ideas for Making Money on Virtual Worlds:
Own the virtual world, like Linden
Labs
Sell virtual goods – millions of
dollars can be made annually on selling virtual goods
Create virtual world tools for
mobility, analytics, decision-making, design etc.,
Be a design agency or Sherpa to
help others with their virtual world projects
Save money on training and
communication/collaboration/project management for your company with a virtual
world presence.
