Simulate Business Scenarios and Prototype New Products in Second Life

Second Life enables participants from distributed locations to prototype products, simulate business situations, and rehearse training scenarios-all in real-time.

Creating prototypes in Second Life has many advantages. You can avoid the time and expense of creating physical prototypes at the beginning phases of product concepting and design. Instead, you can replicate your product inworld and bring teams together to walk around it, manipulate it, get inside of it, and experience it, to provide more informed and immediate feedback that can be incorporated directly into the design-on the fly. The build tools in Second Life make it easy to quickly create these prototypes and make changes. Organizations can speed innovation cycles by virtually brainstorming and testing different options before deciding on the “final” prototype that can then become a physical prototype.

Virtual simulations are incredibly powerful in Second Life, particularly in training environments. In Second Life, you can create simulations that would otherwise be too expensive, dangerous, or impossible in the real world. Teams participating from their computer, can experience real-world situations and safely learn emergency evacuation procedures, how to operate equipment, or difficult customer service scenarios. Not only are virtual simulations less expensive than real world training, but they are also as, or more, effective.

Prototyping and Simulation Solutions

Second Life Solution Providers have created these prototyping and simulation solutions to meet your needs.

• AHG’s Collaborative Knowledge Management (CKM): CKM allows employees to work together on creating interactive flow chats, mind maps and diagrams, in Second Life and on the web. The application combines ability to enter, organize and retrieve information with capacity to define flow between information pieces, show them graphically and visualize the concept or process. Both Second Life and web interfaces are completely compatible. Second Life interface is best for collaborative work, while the web interface can be used for individuals to review information and make quick updates. CKM can be used to create visual knowledge base, creating mind-maps during corporate meetings and brainstorming sessions, create interactive e-learning materials and project timelines.
  
  For more information, visit the AHG website. For sales information, contact Alex Heiphetz at AHG.
  
  
• Daden Limited’s Discourse: Daden’s chatbot and AI technology can be used on the web and in virtual worlds—and even from some mobile phones. At its simplest, the chatbots can help reduce the load on your call centre, handing basic queries and flagging difficult questions up to human staff. In virtual worlds the bots can control avatars, which are visibly indistinguishable from human controlled avatars—making them ideal for a variety of uses from customer service and training & education, to eDrama, mentoring and coaching.
  
  For more information, visit the Daden Limited website. For sales information, contact David Burden at Daden Limited.
  
  

Case Studies and Blog Posts

• Northrop Grumman Case Study: “Simulation Training and Prototyping in Virtual Worlds: Northrop Grumman in Second Life,” (PDF)
  
  
• NOAA Case Study: “Engaging the Public in Environmental Learning & Enhancing Scientific Collaboration: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Second Life,” (PDF) (Video)
  
  
• Ernst & Young Blog Post: Ernst & Young has created a cookie factory simulation to teach their auditors how to conduct physical inventories. (Video)
  
  
• Nortel Blog Post: Nortel is exploring customer service simulations in Second Life. (Demo Video)