Dvir Reznik | The (old) Blog

After attending and speaking at the Virtual Worlds, Real People Conference this past week, I must say my interest level in virtual worlds has risen. First of all, IDC Herzeliya managed to organize excellent agenda, that really covered, or tried to cover, every aspect of VW. The speakers are active users, either academic of business, including Moshik Miller, a very passionate Ph.D student, doing his Doctorate on the economy of virtual worlds at the Technion. I also met Dr. Yesha Sivan, a metaverse researcher, who spoke about the Full 3D3C (3D, Collaboration, Creation and Commerce) – an interesting way of measuring a virtual world. For instance, World of Warcraft is superb at 3D (amazing graphics) and Collaboration, but lacks in Creation (everything is created by the game) and Commerce (no real economy). Secondlife is good at Collaboration, Creation and Commerce, but lacks in 3D (very low graphical quality). During the break-outs I had some discussions with participants who were intrigued on IBM’s activities and keen to find out how we can work together. There are 2 on-going projects right now, that obviously I can’t comment on, but will do so in the coming weeks.

Here are the slides I showed. You can download them [PDF format, 6MB] here.

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More presentations are available at slideshare.net/dvirreznik.

DC Herzeliya are holding a unique conference coming Tuesday (15th), Virtual Worlds, Real People. The conference is organized by The Asper Institute for New Media Diplomacy, part of The Sammy Ofer School of Communications. Small excerpt from the agenda:
People are spending increasing amounts of time in online virtual worlds and massive-multiplayer online games. Our goal is to bring together people from around Israel (and a few visitors) who are interested in the psychological, sociological, and communication aspects of such virtual worlds.

The conference is mainly academic, with an interesting agenda and speaker list (I’m not saying that because I’m on the list.. ). First of all, I think it’s the first time metaverse has its own conference in Israel, that is both academic and business. IDC has a feel for new media, and even held the first Blogference back in 2007. The discussions will cover almost every field relating to virtual worlds, starting with social impacts, business opportunities, economy, personal interactions, user interface and design, human behavior and much more. Other than my presentation, IBM and the Metaverse, which will focus on IBM activity in virtual worlds, I’m looking forward to hearing my colleagues speak, particularly on the social impacts and human behavior.

In a Global Innovation Outlook report IBM published back in 2007, titled Virtual Worlds, Real Leaders, there is a discussion on how MMORPGs increase leadership skills, and shape the personality of future leaders: If you want to see what business leadership may look like in three to five years, look at what’s happening in online games [Byron Reeves, Ph.D].

The conference will take place coming Tuesday, January 15th, at IDC Herzeliya. I will post my presentation at slideshare.net after the conference.