Process Modelling in Second Life
Now this concept may be a little “out there” for some but it does offer some amazing collaboration opportunities.
Take a look at the IBM Sametime 3D product used by large organisations to conduct virtual meetings in Linden’s Second Life.
For $50 000 corporations can use this product that also includes conferencing tools that integrate with internal directories and have been developed by IBM specifically for use in this virtul environment. Some of the collaboration tools in this app include whiteboards, calendars, ppt slides, video, text messaging and voice integration that can be used in virtual meetings of up to 20 people. According to IBM, a couple of companies across a wide range of industries are already using these environments for corporate strategic planning and the product is commonly used within IBM for daily team meetings where staff are geographically dispersed.
With this application in mind, I’m currently exploring the concept of process modelling in Second Life and specifically the effectiveness of these collaboration tools to a process improvement initiative. I’ll share my findings as we progress with this. 
Birgit has addded some great thoughts on Business Process Modelling using Social Networks on her excellent blog site. She mentions how Organisations have different levels of collaboration and also some BPM vendors who incorporate social networking in their methodology. Well worth a read!
Hi Paul,
interesting thoughts
)
Web 2.0 principles have been recently introduced in some BPM tool vendors, eg.:
Lombardi Blueprint: http://www.lombardisoftware.com/bpm-blueprint-product.php
Align Space (Beta): http://www.alignspace.com/
IBM: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/connections/
I am curious about further research results.
Paul
BEE is doing some interesting collaborative design in 2nd life and Law is conducting virtual crime scene investigations
Interesting use of new technology
cheers Peter