BIF-3 Storyteller Irving Wladawsky-Berger on Virtual Worlds

I've been having a lot of great conversations of late. As BIF gears up for our annual Collaborative Innovation Summit in October, I've been spending much of the summer talking to our storytellers about innovation. A couple of weeks ago I spoke to "semi-retired" VP of Innovation at IBM Irving Wladawsky-Berger. At 62, he's headed off to MIT in the fall to teach.

Wladawsky-Berger is a futurist. And an emerging technology champion. But he’s also a business realist. As former general manager of IBM’s internet division he was one of the few raising his hand against the prevailing assumption that internet-only businesses would rule the world. “No, no, no, I said. Anybody can leverage the internet for business value. And of course, that’s what turned out. The internet became a major part of every business.”

This soft-spoken man with a slight Spanish accent is incredibly articulate. And while he continues to immerse himself in new fields of research, a relative newcomer to the technology scene has captured his attention—virtual worlds. “I drank the kool-aid and haven’t looked back,” he says. “I am frankly fascinated by our increasing ability to deal with all kinds of applications in a highly visual, interactive way. After all, that is how we generally deal with the world around us.”

And while platforms like Second Life have certainly reaped a lot of media attention—some not always good—Irving has taken the idea to a whole different level, with infinite possibilities beyond the mere social networking tool it is today.

“Over the last year, especially when my colleagues in IBM started interacting with virtual worlds, they weren’t just playing games, they were experimenting on how to use this virtual world to have more effective distance meetings, to offer distance education courses.” Irving says.

This was his a-ha moment. “All of a sudden,” he explains, “the lightbulb went off. Suddenly I’m seeing how the types of visualization I used in science and engineering could be applied to many more applications like learning, commerce, and communications.”

After listening to Irving, you get a sense of the massive potential this platform has for all kinds of new applications; new ways of thinking; new ways of learning. “My view is that this will be one of the major ways we deal with all applications in the near future.”

Are we ready for this? “People are drowning in information,” says Irving. “Biologically speaking, we handle information all kinds of ways but primarily, our brains are wired for sight and sound. But in the last 100 years or so, text-based information has become the primary channel for receiving information. Why is that when it feels like a much narrower channel into our brain?”

I have to admit, until my conversation with Irving, I did not drink the Second Life kool-aid. For whatever reason, I was unable to see the potential beyond its current iteration. During our call, I was reminded of a symposium I attended earlier this year on vocational education. A neuroscientist by the name of Frank Wilson offered research related to the hand body connection. As a species, we learn with our hands, he said. Imagine a world where hands-on, real-world experience might be introduced very early into a student’s academic career through these virtual worlds.

Learning happens at the intersection of content and experience. This is a great divergence from our current model which is based solely on content. Virtual worlds represent an opportunity to peek behind the curtain in order to see how things work. My guess is that it's a much better way for text and data to be contextually understood and new opportunities created. It’s reminiscent of something David Macaulay, author of The Way Things Work, once said: “"My days were mostly spent watching things being made and being out in my own world, fueled by my own imagination. That was a priceless combination, as it has turned out."

Virtual worlds suddenly make sense to me. And I'm really looking forward to hearing more from Irving. He'll be sharing his story at the BIF-3 Summit on October 10th and 11th.

RELATED LINKS:

• Learn more about how you can participate at the BIF-3 Summit