You may or may not have heard of Second Life and Virtual Worlds. These are 3-D online simulated spaces where people, using animated avatars, can socialize, connect and interact using voice and text chat. I have to confess to finding some of this technology a little too geeky at times. I have had a play around in Second Life, but I’m not a big gamer and quickly got bored. Until that is, I was invited to participate in an online work related discussion in a virtual space. All of a sudden, a penny dropped. The potential of virtual world technologies is really quite staggering and I don’t think we’ve really woken up to this yet in the public sector.

Sure, some local authorities have used virtual worlds to simulate developments, some university’s have excellent virtual learning spaces and I’ve heard of interesting examples with school age children using the technologies to display art. However, I haven’t heard of anyone in the public sector routinely using these technologies for collaborative work purposes. With the increasing pressures on time and the carbon agenda set to force all public sector bodies to squeeze travel, I wonder whether working in virtual worlds will feature in our future.

Here are a few examples of the use of these technologies, kindly provided by Marc Duffy of Second Places, a market leader in developing innovative, interactive virtual worlds;

BP – Angola FPSO

In January 2009 BP contacted Second Places about replicating the build of their new FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading) Vessel called Angola. This vessel is going to be a reconditioned super tanker and is being built in Singapore. We had all the plans and the designs of everything that was going to go in place. So within 2 months we were able to replicate the vessel as it would be at time of completion.

This then allowed BP to have people from all around the world the ability to log in and walk around the FPSO.  It allowed the designers in Aberdeen, the project managers in London, the heath and safety in Houston and the builders in Singapore to meet at a given time in the “virtual” conference room on board the virtual FPSO and walk around the vessel looking at problems as they came to view, before the work had been done.

Some savings were simple, like when it was noted by health and safety that the soup cauldron was located across the likely walk way where people entering the mess would traverse. Simple example, but not something you would ever see looking at 2-D plans or even a 3-D walk through where there was no one else in world.

Another example from BP was the bedrooms.  The FPSO came with 80 rooms, most of which were double bunk beds.  However it was noted from the recreation of the room that there was only enough storage for 1 bag per room, even though there would be 2 people staying. These problems, although small, could have cost millions to change once the vessel was completed.

The project team for FPSO Angola still meet every Thursday on board the virtual recreation to see how the FPSO is developing.  For the first time ever the project team and designers have not had to repeatedly shuttle back and forth to Singapore.

PADI – Professional Association of Diving Instructors

The Professional Association of Diving Instructors asked Second Places to create an interactive virtual office where they could hold E-Learning Lectures and could communicate scuba diving information in an information portal.  This would allow students and teachers from all over the world the ability to attend lectures given by the most advanced PADI teachers.

People were able to interact with the lecture giving the closest real world lecture possible without the costs of travelling to Bristol, where PADI is based. This has since advanced where you can actually do a lot of the course available to the public through their 2-D Web Site through 3-D.  You can simulate swimming in the ice as well as the tropics, making sure you follow the different procedures for different places.  As it’s a virtual world you don’t have to do it solo, there can be someone there verbally helping you go through the virtual class, so if something doesn’t make sense you could just ask, just like in the real world.

Building schools for the future

Second Places have been involved in many schools for the future projects.  Virtual world allows students, teachers and all stakeholders the ability to see and walk through the halls and classrooms before the building has been started.  There is no better way to get buy-in from all the stakeholders than to actually walk the corridors and see what the school will look like. It’s also a great tool to get kids involved early in a project to get their ideas of how things should look.

Conclusion

The world we live in has changed. Travel is expensive and damaging our planet. We no longer enjoy to travel and we are constantly searching out new ways of becoming more efficient and effective. We want the ability to work from home but still be an active part of the organisation.  Virtual Worlds could give people, regardless of their location, the ability to do things they just couldn’t do in the real world.  The ability to interact with people from home, the ability to see and hear things that have not yet been constructed and the flexibility of doing this from anywhere in the world.

What might all this mean for the public sector in the future?