Business Goes Virtual - Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

The fifth post of my Business Goes Virtual blog series continues with “Chapter 5 – Making Sense of Virtual Worlds”. Although it may seem like all Virtual worlds (VWs) are games, they’re not. World of Warcraft, Farmville, and other popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have taken the world by storm, but nongame VWs, like Second Life and Project X, are only starting to come out of its shell.

In Business Goes Virtual, we have provided four laws to be successful in VWs.

Law #1: Virtual Worlds Are Not Games

The first assumption that businesses often make is that VWs are games. This is a wrong assumption. The right answer is that VWs are a new, rich media communication channel. While the market for nongame VWs is still relatively emergent compared to MMOGs, VWs are a rapidly growing new market segment. Based on our research preparing for this book, businesses need to start planning an online presence in VWs in order to create interactive community experiences so that they can learn how to exploit new ways of communicating with customers, suppliers, and employees in rich, virtually immersive environments.

Virtual worlds are powerful as they have tremendous online reach and can easily bring together large groups of simultaneous players in a fast- paced online environment; they can provide an interesting capability for the future of organizations. MMORPGs represent a growing business that, according to the Tower Group, will reach 40 million people and generated over $9 billion in revenue by 2010.

Virtual worlds present the next frontier for customer and employee interactions. Organizations need to start preparing now for these new methods of communication, or they will lose talent and customer segments who desire this form of customer interaction experience.

Law #2: Experience Must Be Relevant to Solve a Business Need and Create Value

Law #3: Each Avatar Is a Real Person

Law #4: A Virtual World Experience Is a New Branding Opportunity

Are you a part of a VW? How do you think it will disrupt the market when it becomes more popular in the future?

Buy a physical or electronic copy of Business Goes Virtual: http://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/business-goes-virtual-realizing-value-collaboration-social-and-virtual-strategies

The content includes:

PART I - THE CONVERGENCE

Chapter 1 - Virtual Business: Real or Imaginary?

Chapter 2 - The New Face(book) of Organizations

Chapter 3 - Real Leadership in the Virtual World

Chapter 4 - The Power of Sharing

Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

PART II THE STRATEGIES

Chapter 6 - Any Place, Any Time

Chapter 7 - The People Know Best

Chapter 8 - Everyone Has a Stake

Chapter 9 - Real in the Virtual World

PART III THE WAY AHEAD

Chapter 10 - What Every Leader Needs to Know

Business Goes Virtual - Chapter 4 - The Power of Sharing

The fourth post of my Business Goes Virtual blog series continues with “Chapter 4 - The Power of Sharing”. Knowledge hoarding has become a major problem for companies and causes many lost opportunities. With a newer generation overtaking the workforce, hopefully their innate sharing ability can help with this problem.

There is research that supports that different age groups share at different levels. Returning to the Forrester research that resulted in groundswell, we can see some compelling evidence. For example, using the creator category of the Social Technographic ladder as an example, we see a distinct difference by age. Based on Forrester’s most recent research that was conducted in early 2010 and included 26,913 respondents, we learned that different age groups of creators share more frequently. Recall that creators are those adult Internet users who write or upload video, music, or text, in other words share what they know. The following is a breakdown by age group and the percentage of each age group that create content (share):

• 46% of 18– 24 year olds create and share content
• 32% of 25– 34 year olds create and share content
• 23% of 35– 44 year olds create and share content
• 19% of 45– 54 year olds create and share content
• 12% of those 55 or older create and share content

Perhaps the time is right to stop the debate on the merits of sharing and instead harness the power of the desire to share.

Are you guilty of knowledge hoarding? What are some tips and lessons learned about knowledge hoarding/sharing over the course of your career?

Buy a physical or electronic copy of Business Goes Virtual: http://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/business-goes-virtual-realizing-value-collaboration-social-and-virtual-strategies

The content includes:
PART I - THE CONVERGENCE

Chapter 1 - Virtual Business: Real or Imaginary?

Chapter 2 - The New Face(book) of Organizations

Chapter 3 - Real Leadership in the Virtual World

Chapter 4 - The Power of Sharing

Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

PART II THE STRATEGIES

Chapter 6 - Any Place, Any Time

Chapter 7 - The People Know Best

Chapter 8 - Everyone Has a Stake

Chapter 9 - Real in the Virtual World

PART III THE WAY AHEAD

Chapter 10 - What Every Leader Needs to Know

Business Goes Virtual – Chapter 3 - Real Leadership in the Virtual World

The third post of my Business Goes Virtual blog series continues with “Chapter 3 - Real Leadership in the Virtual World”. Great leadership is always integral to the success of any business, but in the case of virtual businesses, types of leaders can vary depending on the organization.

We discovered that each of the organizations we studied was led (or had been led) by truly amazing leaders. However, as we analyzed the leaders we found that in many cases they were very different leaders. For example, using Eric Berne’s seminal work Transactional Analysis as a basis, we found some of the people we studied could be classified as transformational leaders while others would more likely be transactional leaders. Transformational leaders are those who believe motivating their people is the secret to success... Transactional leaders are those who subscribe to the management practice that combines the triad of power, reward, and punishment.

In short, what we found was that there was no magic recipe for being a successful leader in the virtual domain. It quickly became clear that leadership was essential; however, the type and style of leaders we encountered on our journey was as varied as the type of organization they were leading.

What kind of leader are you and have you encountered these types of leaders during your career? What are your pros and cons transformational or transactional leaders? Comment below!

Buy a physical or electronic copy of Business Goes Virtual: http://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/business-goes-virtual-realizing-value-collaboration-social-and-virtual-strategies

The content includes:
PART I - THE CONVERGENCE

Chapter 1 - Virtual Business: Real or Imaginary?

Chapter 2 - The New Face(book) of Organizations

Chapter 3 - Real Leadership in the Virtual World

Chapter 4 - The Power of Sharing

Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

PART II THE STRATEGIES

Chapter 6 - Any Place, Any Time

Chapter 7 - The People Know Best

Chapter 8 - Everyone Has a Stake

Chapter 9 - Real in the Virtual World

PART III THE WAY AHEAD

Chapter 10 - What Every Leader Needs to Know