Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Having virtual worlds is another addition to the many forms of communication that we have come to know today. Virtual worlds allow individuals to creatively form a life in which he/she is able to decide on every aspect of it. This allows the individual to portray almost any situation desired and is then able to live it out. By having these possibilities, many companies have seized this as an opportunity to further develop their employees. Rashik Parmer, IBM's Chief Technology Officer, discussed in CNN.com's article - Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life, that by using technology of this stature, he was able to not only save on travel time but has also received much more feedback in terms of generating ideas. As I have mentioned in my previous blogs, there has been a growing amount of people that much rather communicate virtually rather than personally. By having virtual worlds, one can be more comfortable in expressing and communicating their ideas to a larger group of people. Through Stephanie Simon's article in The Wall Street Journal, Avatar II: The Hospital, we see another example of how virtual worlds have played a pertinent role in the training of employees. When speaking on how virtual worlds have been applied to hospitals, she states that, "participants can build their own virtual clinics and stage just about any training drill they can imagine." This allows for a life-like simulation at a much lower cost and higher usage rate. One very important thing that I think the article has forgotten to mention is that virtual worlds used in training can also help a company achieve consistent standards across all the markets they are present in, by issuing the same virtual world training to all their associates.


But, as with any change/addition in our lives, there are of course some negative factors that play into the use of such a technical system. There are the many technical difficulties that may arise and disrupt the accuracy of its portrayal of reality, coupled with the actual teaching of how to even use the virtual world application itself and we already have a slew of situations.


Other than the minor difficulties that may arise here and there, I believe that this system will have many uses in the near future. I wouldn't be surprised if they even began to use virtual worlds to develop specific play-calls in the sports world. I'm pretty sure it will be more clearer than the X's and O's they currently use on the drawing boards...