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Digital Collaboration Drivers and Opportunities

Ron Edwards

Ambient Performance

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Agenda

1. Collaboration: The Issues

2. Current Solutions

3. Virtual World Solutions

4. Implementing Digital Collaboration Tools

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Trends: Transitioning to Knowledge Work

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The Context

• The World of Work has Changed

– Widely distributed teams: co-located people in offices acting as though they are remote workers

– Recruitment and retention: the demographic profile - ‘digital natives & digital immigrants’

– Diversity and Inclusion: it’s contribution that matters

– Current methods of team collaboration e.g. mail, IM, videoconferencing, are only very partial solutions

– Travel is an environmental issue

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Trends: Knowledge Work: Where?

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Mobile Broadband Use Will Double in 12 Months

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The Issues

1. Business

1. Efficiency & Effectiveness: resulting from poor distributed co-ordination due to inadequate collaboration tools

2. Engagement for Innovation: high trust, close proximity teams perform. Distributed collaboration over distance with poor communication tools often leads to low trust and poor performance.

2. Costs

1. Travel

2. Telecommunications

3. Opportunity

3. Carbon: effect on environment from excessive/unnecessary travel

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1. Business: Efficiency & Effectiveness

• Technology has made people more productive but most IT applications were not designed for collaboration.

• Dominant model is that people work individually and

then merge their respective efforts

• “Collaboration often means pulling up your chair next to your colleague so that you can look at the same screen”

‘Mesh Collaboration’ Andy Mulholland. The Economist 25/10/08

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1. Business: Engagement for Innovation

• Innovation remains key to growth. Trust is the key to innovation.

• In distributed organisations technology is known barrier to developing trust

• Existing collaboration technologies –audioconferencing, videoconferencing, team workspaces, document sharing – are only very partial substitutes to face-to-face meeting at best

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2. Cost

• Travel:– “Considering air fare, car rental and hotel stay, we expect the average domestic trip for European companies to increase two per cent, or €21, to a total of approximately €1,020 - Amex

Business Travel advisory services vice-president Joakim Johansson. October 2008

• Telecommunications:– ‘For our global distributed mobile professional workforce our biggest telecoms cost is mobile telephony’ Tier 1 Consultancy.

• Opportunity– “The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you

could have received by taking an alternative action.”Answers.com

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3. Carbon

Source: UK Dept. of Transport

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Summary

????Cost Business

Carbon

• Travel

• Telecoms

• Opportunity

• Efficiency

• Engagement

ICT

!!

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Much Of Today's Technology Leaves Communication Problems Unsolved

Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 2008

“Today, information workers use technology pervasively to get their jobs done — to communicate with others, complete tasks, and learn new skills. – mobile and landline phones, – conference bridges, – email and calendaring, – instant messaging, – text messaging, – team workspaces, – Web conferencing, – videoconferencing, – project management software, – office productivity tools, – eLearning modules, – wikis, – blogs, – podcasts, – social networking tools.

But the vast majority of organizations deploy just a small subset of these tools. Even if a broad portfolio of technology is in place, it's usually just a collection of nonintegrated, disparate tools.

And where tools like these are available, widespread suboptimal utilization is common.

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Now add in….the Dominant Work Model

• Dominant work model is that people labour individually and then merge their respective efforts

• “Its not much different from the age of paper….Collaboration oftens means pulling up your chair next to your colleagues so that you can look at the same screen”. ‘Mesh Collaboration’. Andy Mulholland.

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Virtual Worlds…

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The Exploding Range of Virtual World Communities

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Virtual World Capabilities

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2-D vs. 3-D

Characteristic The World Wide Web Virtual worlds

Dimensionality 2-D experience 3-D experience

Organizational metaphor Web sites or Web pages, panels, windows, and frames

Rooms, buildings, islands, objects,.. Experience is borrowed from the physical world.

Representation of the user in the environment

In most cases, a person's presence on a Web site is unknown to others

A person is represented by an avatar. In some virtual worlds, the user can also be an invisible observer.

Means of navigating Scrolling to view content not visible around the environment on the screen. Clicking on links or typing or copying and pasting URLs to go to other Web sites or pages.

Walking, or typing in the name of a room, object or location and"teleporting" there. Zooming in and out and changing camera angles to view content

Content Primarily text-based, though visuals of many types are supported (e.g., graphics, icons, photos, and videos).

Primarily visual, though text (e.g., on virtual signs and on documents) is supported.

Interactivity The average user cannot modify content on Web sites other than to post comments on forums or blogs

User can create, view and manipulate realistic or recognizable representations of objects (e.g., furniture),

Realism Does not simulate real-world conditions… Realistic or recognizable representation and simulation of objects, space, perspective, etc. Simulates gravity, day/night cycles, travel distances, collisions, picking up objects, and wearing clothes, etc.

Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 2008

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Getting Work Done In Virtual Worlds Versus More Traditional Alternatives

Comparison criteria Using more traditional alternatives

In virtual worlds

Multisite conversations or meetings Conference calls, video conferencing, telepresence.

Build a virtual room as large or small as you need. All attendees convene

Presence Basic (usually self-administered) You can not only see a visual representation of who is in the meeting but what they are doing

Non-verbal, non- text communication Can be done well using hyper-expensive telepresence systems and less well via in-room video conferencing and Web cams.

Typically use a series of menus for facial expressions and body gestures.

3-D model sharing reality mechanisms (augmented reality). Or reduce three dimensions to a 2-D

Put it on the virtual table in the center of the room and walk — or fly — through or around it.

Document sharing Team workspaces, application sharing via enterprise IM clients. Real-time, in- line editing via a good user experience is sorely lacking in most of today's information worker tool portfolios.

All participants in the virtual room can edit that document in real time. When done, the user can save the document back onto his or her desktop.

Voice conversations Torturous teleconference systems requiring voice identification and 15- digit access codes. Some systems don't allow for speakers to hear while they are speaking, which prevents them from noticing when others on the call want to speak.

VoIP-enabled.. Easy to mix in multiple remote parties. Sometimes tied in with traditional conferencing systems so participants who are not in the virtual world (e.g., are on the road) can still participate by voice.

Videoconferencing Room-based videoconferencing, Web cameras (desktop video cameras), and telepresence systems like Hewlett- Packard Halo or Cisco Telepresence at the top end of the market (for hundreds of thousands of dollars to outfit a single room).

A shared video experience without high-end expensive monitors.

Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 2008

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Value Proposition

•Requires visiting installed sites

•Large download

•Proven effectiveness

•Easy entry for employees

•Same as audio

•Single media sharing

•Pay extra for audio or VoIP calling

•Poor participant attention span

•Discussion context

•No display of data

Challenges

•Face-to-face like

•Face-to-face like

•Multiple media sharing

•Appealing to Internet generation

•Familiar

•Ubiquitous

•Inexpensive

•Familiar

•Ubiquitous

•Perceived to be inexpensive

Benefits

Video

Conferencing

Virtual

Worlds (OLIVE)

Web

Conferencing

Audio

Conferencing

• $1000s• $60 to $167 • $500 to $1000s

Costs(per person per year)

• $30 to $100

Enterprise Virtual Worlds Yield Immersive, Engaging, Interactive Experiences

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Virtual Worlds

• Replicate with some accuracy the experience of

working physically alongside others

• Allow people to work with and share digital 3-D models of physical or theoretical objects.

• Incorporate nonverbal communication into interactions where important.

• Make remote training and counseling a more realistic

option.

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Virtual Worlds

“Virtual worlds are relatively inexpensive, don't require a great deal of startup technology infrastructure, and provide a naturalistic, immersive approach to simulating space, people, and objects “ Forrester 2008

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The Need

• Shared private workspaces: secure, dedicated, accessible

• Shared immersive and persistent spaces: real-time engagement; resulting actions and activities remain over time

• Shared access to and control of office productivity applications: MS Office, corporate applications, video….

• Shared ability to manage and extend the team environment

• Secure: inside the corporate firewall if required

• Integration with corporate networks e.g. Active Directory or LDAP

• Trusted: authentication; avatar identity

• Carbon & Cost: cut carbon and cut costs

‘There must be a better way to collaborate’

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Accessible

• Access via any suitable PC with broadband connection anywhere.

• Simple to learn: mimics and extends everyday human interaction

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Immersive: Realistic & Persistent

• True persistent world

• Real time voice – via VOIP

• Highly realistic avatars – breathe, facial expressions and gestures

• 3D asset development in-house or contracted out

• Record and replay reviews on demand

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Workplace Tools

• Standard office tools available in-world: MS Office

• Custom tools and data streams can be integrated

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Secure Environment

• Environment is secure not shared – no inadvertent or malicious access

• In house or own outsourced server attached to secure network

• Multiple locations ‘in world’ can be used simultaneously

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Identity

• Managed access to virtual workspaces

• 2D photos wrap around avatar faces

• Avatar name tags

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NATO Meeting

Source: Euro Atlantic Defense News April 2009

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OLIVE Meeting

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State of the Art: 3D Visualization

Complex Data Sets GIS

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State of the ArtImmersion & Co-Presence

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Intronetworks

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Mapview

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Ambient SocialNet

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Why Bother?

“Creativity is no longer about which companies

have the most visionary executives, but who has

the most compelling architecture of participation.

That is, which companies make it easy,

interesting and rewarding for a wide range of contributors to offer ideas, solve problems and

improve products?”

- Tim O’Reilly, of O’Reilly Media

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Performance Pathfinder

Step 1

Decide

Step 2

Design

Step 3

Develop

Step 4

Deploy

What is the problem?What are the best solutions?How best to deploy?

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Questions?

Ron Edwards

ron@ambientperformance.com

Web: www.ambientperformance.com

Blog: www.ambientperformance.com/connection