HOW IBM USES IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENTS FOR TRAINING
BY ROSS C. McKERLICH
International
Business Machines (IBM) believes that virtual-world
technology will make a global impact and change the
way business (and learning) is done. The global
technology company uses virtual worlds to meet many
organizational training needs, including employee
orientation, sales training and employee
collaboration.
IBM is well
regarded in many industries as an expert at applying
technology to business. The company employs 330,000
people in 210 countries. Two out of every five
employees work in an alternative location (i.e., not
a corporate office), and 55 percent are engaged in
some kind of online learning.
Because of the
global dispersion of IBM’ s workforce and the
priority that is placed on life-long learning,
applying new learning technologies to meet corporate
training needs is critical to IBM. As part of its
organizational structure, IBM houses the Center for
Advanced Learning (CAL), whose mission ensures that
technology that is useful for delivering learning is
used for IBM learning programs. CAL accomplishes its
mission by researching new technologies, deciding if
technologies can be used to further learning,
piloting new delivery methods, and assisting in the
logistics of implementing new learning technologies.
These activities take time, yet — recognizing lack
of time as a barrier for an organization striving to
keep ahead of the technology wave — IBM has
committed to spending the time necessary to complete
this research, which is a key component of CAL’ s
success. CAL takes the time to conduct proper
evaluative research of new education technology and
even invents new technology for IBM and others.
One technology
being piloted at IBM is Immersive Environments, but
others are also used. Social software technologies
such as blogs, wikis and podcasts have been used
throughout IBM for years. It also has a “Facebook”-like
tool called BluePages that connects IBM employees
throughout the world. In this global village, IBM
recognizes the importance of relationships and
leverages technologies to facilitate communication
among its globally dispersed employees.
As an innovative
company focused on technology, IBM’ s senior leaders
often take a vocal stance on renaissance technology
like virtual worlds. Was there ever a time in the
company’ s past when the senior voices of IBM seemed
this excited about any other technology? When
e-learning itself was introduced a decade ago, the
intensity of top-down support felt similar to the
current hype over virtual worlds. This time,
however, the enthusiasm permeates from employees at
every level, every discipline and every country. To
borrow a phrase from former President George H.W.
Bush,
Hamilton
characterized this organic interest as “1,000 points
of light.”
A key aspect of
training involves new employees acquiring basic
skills and knowledge before they start their core
work, which can be achieved through mentoring, one
of the oldest instructional methods. Further, by
examining how new technology is applied to an
age-old instructional technique, you will more
clearly see that virtual worlds hold tremendous
learning potential.
MENTORING FIRST
Mentoring has
been used as an instructional technique at IBM for
almost a century. The basic premise involves
experienced managers sharing their experiences with
younger employees via a one-on-one learning
relationship. Traditionally, this relationship has
been conducted face to face or, in later years, over
the phone or by e-mail. Through
CAL’
s expertise, more technological tools have been
added to the mentoring programs. These tools,
including synchronous chat and Web conferencing,
help bridge geographic distances.
Still, despite
introducing these modern technological tools,
mentoring relationships tended to remain regional;
for example, a European employee would likely have a
European mentor. This would be fine if IBM were a
regional company, but, in fact, it is global, so an
employee in
South America
might be a better match for the younger European
employee.
ENTER TECHNOLOGY
CAL’ s
experimentation helped determine that using virtual
worlds might help develop these international
mentoring relationships. When CAL evaluates a
technology, it looks at all products. During the
evaluation,
CAL
identifies and follows a set of standards to which
the technology must adhere: scalability, avatar
capacity, features and functions, and ease of
integration. Based on these evaluations, IBM decided
to use Second Life for virtual world purposes, but
the company does use other virtual worlds as well.
Both Hamilton and Tony O’ Driscoll confirmed one
virtual world trend: in the near future, hundreds of
virtual world platforms will become available.
IBM mentoring now
takes place in Second Life, resulting in more
international mentoring. Employees (as their
avatars) meet in Second Life, where they are
mentored by senior employees who may be continents —
and even cultures — apart.
Hamilton notes
that the impact of removing cultural barriers by
using virtual worlds cannot be underestimated. In
the hypothetical example of the South American
employee mentoring a European employee, these
cultural barriers would be insurmountable using the
previous synchronous technology. Yet these barriers
have been overcome using avatars in virtual worlds.
A second positive
impact of virtual worlds on the IBM global mentoring
system involves decreasing the amount of time
required to meet. For example, using a virtual
world, an employee could e-mail or chat with his or
her mentor, asking to meet in Second Life in 10
minutes, and then that’ s it for organizing the
meeting. Previously, a number of desktop
applications were involved to set up and hold the
meeting, resulting in additional barriers, fewer
connections and less personal interaction.
A third positive
impact of virtual worlds is that the creativity
behind avatars often communicates an employee’ s
entire personality in more breadth without any
words. Before virtual worlds, the extent of
expressing creativity existed, perhaps, in a person’
s choice of a colorful tie. Now, it is perfectly
acceptable — and even encouraged — for employees to
spend time creating their avatars by injecting their
own personalities. For example, Hamilton plays in a
Celtic band in his non-work life; therefore, his
avatar wears a kilt. This feature volunteers a trait
about himself well before any business talk begins.
CAUTIONARY POINTS
Because it is
difficult to measure the success of a virtual
mentoring program, much of the success is determined
through perception. It is difficult to confirm how
many mentoring relationships are maintained in the
virtual world. Plus, the program is still at the
pilot stage; data will be gathered as the program
continues. Despite the difficulty judging the
success of the program, the reaction of participants
has been overwhelmingly positive, and a high number
of employees have chosen to try the program. In a
virtual world orientation program focused on India
and China, thousands of avatars participate and
learn together.
Barriers to
participating in the virtual mentoring program also
exist. The primary technology barrier is that the
interface is new, and learners take time to learn
how to operate in this environment. Bandwidth
challenges also present a potential barrier.
Secondary barriers include accepting “gaming” as a
part of work and fearing resistance from superiors
if they see a gaming environment on the screen.
Resistance from
superiors appears legitimate; however, in the
innovative culture of IBM, this barrier is only
perceived — or simply remains a barrier for a brief
time until the boss learns to appreciate that both
play and serious games are a valid part of the IBM
workplace.
The preceding
information is taken from a new Brandon Hall
Research report titled “Virtual Worlds for Learning:
How Four Leading Organizations are Using Immersive
Environments for Training.”
For more
information on Brandon Hall Research, visit the
Website
www.brandon-hall.com.
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