By Jason Walker

Do you remember Neo? In the 1999 Academy Award winning The Matrix, Neo becomes self-aware to the point that he can alter the virtual world he was formerly trapped in.

Now teleport yourself to China, and you will find Chinese business activities being conducted in virtual worlds like Second Life and HiPiHi. Sure, you can also stop bullets in these on-line worlds if you want, but why not help your Chinese business innovate, collaborate, and learn while you’re at it?

Virtual worlds initially look like computer games, but you will notice there is no score, your avatar (i.e. your virtual world embodiment) doesn’t die, and there is no inherent goal to achieve in the world. You set your own goal. Perhaps you want to market to the 69,000 (and growing) members of the Chinese virtual world HiPiHi. Chinese businesses like Origami Frontiers have already linked with the China-developed virutual world HiPiHi to link virtual world communities via mobile technologies. A May 08 article from Business Week tracks how Chinese organizations are already exploring the use of HiPiHi for training and brand enhancement.

Background on Virtual Worlds

Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com/) came first, and has the largest number of residents (over 13,000,000) who span the globe in terms of real-life location. At first, many companies tried to use SL as a marketing and advertizing platform, but that hasn’t proved to be as worthwhile as expected. IBM has created a major presence in SL, and uses the platform for learning, collaboration, and networking among global employees.

HiPiHi (http://www.hipihi.com/) was developed in China a year or two after SL, and opened to the public in April 08. No doubt it will experience growing pains similar to those of SL, so SL’s maturity and global reach place HiPiHi in a weaker position as a business platform.

Uses of Virtual Worlds

Given the current state of the Chinese business climate, virtual worlds provide some creative and sustainable opportunities for conducting business in China:

Design and Architecture: virtual environments allow users to create buildings, textures and shapes, and businesses can create showrooms for mock-ups, model clothes, or even walk-through tours of building designs. Given the amount of clothing manufactured in China, and the popularity of fashion and design in cities like Shanghai, virtual worlds allow inexpensive brainstorming of creative design.

Collaboration: as anyone who has experienced the difficulty of communicating in a second language may now, a combination of visual cues, audio, and written communication increase comprehension and expression of ideas. Second Life allows your virtual team to speak, listen, type, and express body/facial gestures at the same time. You can even present information in .ppt format. The novelty of the virtual environment fosters creativity, and breaks people out of the cubic parameters of the office.

Development and Efficiency: given the increasing cost of labor and fuel, Chinese manufacturers and service providers would benefit from reduced travel costs and more affordable training. A manufacturing site could create a copy of their factory and use the site for employee training, or allow efficiency teams to experiment with processes and production line layout. Virtual worlds enable discussion groups, training simulations, and role-plays among colleagues at remote locations.

Just as Neo broke free from the limitations of his existence, taking an imaginative step into virtual worlds will allow us to conduct our China businesses more efficiently and cost-effectively.
 
 
Jason Walker is Managing Partner of Executive Learning Center’s US office. Executive Learning Center is a boutique learning consulting firm with origins in Shanghai. He also has his own website. If you would like a tour of practical Second Life sites, or resources on business in Second Life, please contact him: jasonowalker@gmail.com