Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Transforming Business through Virtual Worlds Capabilities – it's Déjà Vu All Over Again

Last week I was in London.  One of the main reasons for the trip was to meet with members of the press to discuss our new initiatives focused on the impact of massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) on business, in particular those games that are truly best thought of as virtual worlds or virtual environments, like Second Life.  Joining me for the press briefings were some of my colleagues in IBM who are experimenting with these new capabilities.  Some were physically with me in London, but most were distributed around the world - in the US, India, Canada, Australia and the UK - and joined as part of a virtual meeting conducted in Second Life.

For awhile now, I have felt that one of the most exciting areas of innovation is to recast our interactions with computer applications in terms of the humans that use them rather than the machines and software that run them.  In particular, since our brains are basically wired for sight and sound, it is not surprising that the more visual an application, the more intuitive and human oriented it is likely to feel.

Managing Open, Collaborative, Multidisciplinary Innovation

I recently read a very interesting book, Innovation - the Missing Dimension, published in 2004 by MIT professors Richard Lester and Michael Piore.  Richard Lester is professor of nuclear science and engineering and director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center.  Michael Piore is professor of political economy in the departments of economics and political science.

The book explores the essence of innovation by examining new product development in three distinct market areas: cell phones, medical devices and blue jeans.  "The central insight to emerge from these case studies is that the most important capability of the US economy (and indeed of any advanced economy) -- its ability to generate a stream of new products, to improve upon old ones, and to produce existing products in an increasingly efficient way -- depends on two fundamental processes, which we call analysis and interpretation."

Survival as the Mother of Innovation

For more than two thousand years people have been using the phrase “necessity is the mother of invention.”  Some attribute it to Plato's Republic.  Others believe that it originated as an anonymous Latin saying from Roman times - Mater artium necessitas, which is still in use to this day.

In my talks on innovation, I paraphrase that ancient dictum to “survival is the mother of innovation.”  For a business, our rapidly changing times are full of opportunities, but they are equally full of competitive challenges and dangers.  In fact, these are two sides of a coin - the same technological, market and societal forces that are democratizing competition and opening up all kinds of opportunities for new businesses around the world often represent big threats to existing businesses, large and small, that have been leaders in their industries.      

The Essence of Blogging

Since I started this blog in May of 2005, I have come back to reflect on blogging a few times, most recently  this last May.  I received some interesting comments to that posting.  One pointed out that  "You know that someone has run out of things to say when they start blogging about blogging . . . Stick to writing about innovation . . ."  But then other comments said "I'm planning to start blogging and that was some valuable insight . . .";  "I appreciate the focus on important issues.  Including . . . the necessary introspection as we all try to understand this new form of communication.";  and "Blogging is still so relatively new that I find there is a lot of interest out there in learning more about it."  So, with your forbearance, I'd like to once more spend some time reflecting on this young form of communications. 

There definitely seems to be a lot of interest out there in learning more about blogs and their influence on society.  Blogs, for example, are playing an increasing role in political campaigns as evidenced by the recent defeat of three-term Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman by newcomer Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary, which quite a few attributed to the influence of blogs.  And as I discussed in a recent posting, a business can take quite a public relations hit when disgruntled customers decide to take matters into their own hands through their blogs.

Furthermore, I find that because this is all so new, quite a few people are very interested in discussing what blogging is all about.  To many, the fact that millions seem to enjoy blogging is a mystery confounding common wisdom as much as the rise of open source communities.  They wonder where the time and energy come from.  Why do you do it?  What's in it for you?  It is clear that quite a few are contemplating whether this blogging is something they should take on themselves, as I did for some years before finally taking the plunge.