Capgemini will participate in Secondference, the first meeting of Second Life’s users and professionals in Spain, which also includes the participation of Linden Lab.

Companies and users will speak about Second Life as a business, educational and entertaining platform.

Everett Linden, director of community initiatives and social networks from Linden Lab, will travel to Spain and participate in the event, which will be attended by major industry and user groups.

>> more info

Almost anything is possible in Second Life. Entering the world for the first time, a person has to choose a name and a look for their avatar, and then they free to roam. Entry is free for individuals although additional goods and services can be bought using the virtual currency, Linden Dollars, which are exchangeable with real currencies. In SL people and businesses occupy virtual land. And just like the real world, building rights have to be agreed and buildings must be constructed and furnished (an industry in itself), paid for or rented. Companies tend to establish their offices on islands in order to control access and to build and protect their brand.

To date, Capgemini’s involvement in SL has been driven by a handful of people in various business regions around Europe. Staff in France, the UK, the Netherlands and Spain have made their first steps into doing business in this popular virtual world, or metaverse.

Tim Kelly, based in our office in Sale, UK, even publishes a regular newsletter for the community. Last year he managed to get a small investment to set up Capgemini UK’s presence in SL and is trying to encourage other parts of the business to get involved. “SL has enormous potential for communication,” he says. “It provides a ‘3D immersive experience’ – in other words, it feels like being there. People can meet, chat, attend presentations, hold meetings and even host virtual trade fairs. It’s a great way to bring together colleagues from all around the world, while saving the company money and time, and reducing our CO2 emissions..”

Island Under Construction

The UK’s Technology Services (TS) obtained an island just a few days before the end of 2007. Its meeting rooms are now being furnished and equipped with communication links. “We are now at a point where we can trial UK TS meetings and invite people with creative ideas to make use of the testbed environments we have created,” explains Tim. However, unfortunately it’s not possible for everybody in Capgemini UK to access SL through the company’s firewall at present.

Meeting Clients

Vythillingum Ramasawmy of the Financial Services Stratgeic Business Unit (FS SBU) in the UK has already met with two clients from HBOS at our island on Second Life. “HBOS is interested in looking at social networking capabilities, including SL, as a means to alleviate some of the physical constraints that they currently have, regarding meeting rooms, training and conference facilities,” he says. “They are also keen to find out more about the potential for recruitment events in SL. They were impressed with the island, and I hope to have several more sessions there soon.”

Real Business in Virtual Worlds

Capgemini Spain even has its own Virtual Worlds team. In March 2007, the team started doing business development, introducing their customers to opportunities in branding, marketing and communications in Second Life and other virtual worlds. “It’s a convenient environment to welcome clients and introduce our offerings,” says Gemma Vallet (right). “Clients are certainly interested in attending conferences and events in SL and in making a real time connection to their customers.”

After one year of business development, the Capgemini Spain Virtual Worlds team, led by Claudio Lobos (left) in Madrid and Gemma in Barcelona, are achieving real results and winning real business. They are working for two brand new customers - a well-known wine company and a prestigious business school in Spain - in their strategy, creativity and visuals in order to make their brands more notorious in virtual worlds and Web 2.0, improving with this strategy its interactive marketing.

Gemma says there’s a big potential for a mashup between SL and Google Earth and other Web 2.0 platforms. “We are in discussions with Capgemini Netherlands and a Real Estate firm,” she explains. “The idea is to show potential buyers a location in Google Earth and then take them on a tour of the property in SL.”

Recruiting and Brand Awareness

Sogeti Sweden is using SL to attract and interact with new recruits, and raise brand awareness. Rasmus Bodin Löfgren and Rita Fernandes work on this initiative on a voluntary basis outside of work hours. “We started the project in September 2007 and have since been working to engage fellow Sogetians to explore this exciting new media and raise awareness of its possibilities and development,” says Rasmus (right). “Our current focus is to build a base for recruitment and branding. Second Life boasts a large relevant target group of users in the age group 18-25 with high knowledge of and interest in computing.”

Rasmus and Rita (left) have set up Sogeti Sweden’s island as an informal meeting space to meet and welcome potential new consultants. The island holds some impressive facilities including an open air lecture hall for exhibitions and demonstrations where streamed media such as video or PowerPoint can be shown to guests. There’s even a games room and a marina with boats using Second Life’s physics to simulate real sailing.

Gemma and Claudio agree that SL is ideal for recruiting. They took part in a recruitment fair in SL in October last year, and were very close to hiring a new employee.

New Virtual Worlds, New Business Opportunities

“There are more worlds beyond Second Life, worlds that can fit better with the needs of our customers,” says Claudio Lobos. “The Spanish team is currently assessing ‘Wonderland’, a virtual world developed by Sun under open source standards, for a bank. Of course, it is not as glamorous as Second Life, its design is really poor, but its strong points are:

• Creation of private worlds, like virtual worlds intranets or extranets
• Virtual meetings with applications like Google Docs
• Creation of customized worlds without Second Life limitations.”

“These kinds of worlds are clearly opening up new business opportunities,” adds Gemma.

Virtual Disaster Training

Johan Vermij of Sogeti Netherlands had his doubts about SL to begin with. After a brainstorming session with colleagues his opinions changed. “Virtual worlds are here to stay,” he says. “Our clients will want to use these worlds so as a service provider we’ll need to know how to make the most of them.”

Sogeti purchased an island in SL in March 2007 and opened an office on the land in November. The island, close to Sogeti Sweden’s island, is now open to the public so any avatar can walk in to find out more about the business.

Johan explains how the office will be used: “This year we intend to start experimenting offshore projects and training exercises through SL. I’ve also been talking to a few companies about disaster training because SL offers a safe environment for emergency services and other organizations to practice escape procedures in times of floods and fire.” Such a service could interest the Dutch Government, which runs national training for floods every two years. Johan thinks this is another area where a SL-Google Earth mashup could work really well.

“At Sogeti, we are currently working on a First Aid training program for companies to deal with fire in the workplace,” Johan explains. “We’re considering adding a tool to record user training to help people improve in areas such as emergency protocol and chain of command.”

Mixed Reality Kick Off

One Sogeti executive has also begun using SL to reach out to employees. From the virtual world, Sogeti Netherlands CEO Jeroen Versteeg held a Kick Off in January, to all staff in the business.

Finding out more

You can find out more about virtual worlds, Second Life and Capgemini’s activities by visiting the following sites:

• Virtual Worlds Teamroom which contains a wealth of information including all editions of the Virtual Worlds Gazette
• Knowledge Management 2.0: Virtual Worlds and web3D Community
• Sogeti Sweden Second Life blog
• Ambling in Second Life blog, by Tim Kelly
• Capgemini Spain blog
• Youtube (not accessible in all countries) also has several video clips of Capgemini in Second Life.

Contacts

If you would like to find out more about Capgemini’s work in Second Life, get in touch with the following people:

• TS UK: Tim Kelly, Vythillingum Ramasawmy
• Spain: Gemma Vallet, Claudio Lobos
• Sogeti Netherlands: Johan Vermij
• Sogeti Sweden: Rasmus Bodin Lofgren, Rita Fernandes
• France: Sophie Heinrich

Thanks

Talent would like to thanks all the people who helped put this article together. They are Tim Kelly, Gemma Vallet, Claudio Lobos, Johan Vermij, Rita Fernandes, Rasmus Bodin Löfgren, Vythillingum Ramasawmy and Sophie Heinrich.

Demo Project Sun Wonderland, virtual world open source.

“There are more worlds beyond Second Life, worlds that can fit better with the needs of our customers” says Claudio Lobos. The Spanish team is nowadays analizing “Wonderland” a virtual world by Sun done under Opensource Standards.

Of course it is not as glamours as Second Life, its design it is really poor, but it strength points are:

• Creation of private worlds, like virtual worlds intranets or extranets
• Virtual meetings with ofimatics applications, applications like google docs
• Creation of customized worlds without the Second Life limitations

“This kind of worlds are cleary oppening us new business opportunities” Gemma Vallet

If you want a presentation about this subject, please, contact us:

Claudio Lobos in Madrid: claudio.lobos-carreno@capgemini.com

Gemma Vallet in Barcelona: gvallets@capgemini.com

A talk with, Victoria Bracewell Lewis

Senior Analyst Forrester Research at the European eCommerce Conference, ECC, in Barcelona for Interactiva magazine.

In your speech at EEC Barcelona you were talking that in the coming years will see a big impact of the virtual worlds into the eCommerce. Can you explain us the evolution of virtual worlds into this landscape? Nowadays as you were saying because of their technological complexity the impact in eCommerce is still low.

VB

What we have to understand that brands that will success on Virtual Worlds will be brands that they will be integrating other media: mobile, TV, etc.

I want my avatar going shopping to different eshops online. I can try clothes, using my real sizes, even using my own pictures. And buy them any where online.

One of the best practices of last year was I WANT ONE OF THOSE.com, they are specializing finding really cool things. In 2007 summer they decide to create a shop in Second Life. A place where you can create products in Second life and then “I want one of those” send to you a real object. This practice was a huge PR.

We interview some of the audience in Second life: male, 30 something. They told us “I like shopping in SL. I don’t like go shopping in real time, I don’t have time to go shopping.”

Based in London, Victoria contributes to Forrester’s offering for eBusiness, Channel & Product Management professionals. As an expert in eBusiness and using electronic channels for retailing, consumer product goods marketing and product branding, her research focuses on the dynamics and trends centered on eCommerce, interactive marketing and consumer strategies. Victoria has extensive experience in eBusiness strategies for EMEA and emerging markets for Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and South Africa. She helps retailers, mail-order catalog businesses, and CPG brands understand and develop growth strategies for the online channel in existing and new markets and how to build and optimize customer-centric online environments, effective cross-channel integration, and high-standard customer service. Often this involves understanding best practices around eBusiness operations, resourcing and goverance in order to develop effective solutions for global/local customer service, merchandising, fulfillment and logistics, and supply chain logistics.

El pasado 20 de diciembre el equipo de virtual worlds organizó un coctel y una fiesta virtual con el objeto de ofrecer un primer approach en mundos virtuales a nuestros compañeros de Capgemini en las oficinas de Madrid y Barcelona.

En salas conectadas por video conferencia, los compañeros interesados pudieron experimentar de primera mano la interacción con avatares, conocer el enfoque del equipo de virtual world en diversas propuestas y descubrir las posibilidades de los mundos virtuales para nuestra empresa.

A nuestras fiestas tradicionales, este año, se suma una nueva fiesta en Second Life que tendrá lugar el jueves 20 de diciembre. Nuestros compañeros de Virtual Worlds nos invitan a brindar con champaigne y a bailar con nuestros avatares en esta fiesta virtual. Imposible perdérsela.

Fiesta de Navidad de Capgemini Spain en Second Life.
Cuándo: Jueves 20 de diciembre a las 17h.
Where:

Organizan: Los compañeros de Virtual Worlds, Claudio Lobos en Madrid y Gemma Vallet en Barcelona. Con el soporte desde Madrid de Irene Aranda y Núria Martín-Sancho y desde Barcelona con Balma Mir y Fabián Vázquez.

El equipo de Virtual Worlds de Capgemini está experimentando las posibilidades de interacción utilizando las herramientas de voz sobre IP.

Para ello se han realizado diversas pruebas de reuniones virtuales con buenos y sorprendentes resultados.

>> Más información sobre las opciones de voz en SL

Los avatares de Capgemini Spain informaron en el stand de la compañía en la primera feria de empleo en Second Life

El avatar de Claudio Lobos, Claudio Laval, daba el pasado 15 de octubre una interesante conferencia sobre el negocio emergente en Second Life. Dicha conferencia se producía durante la primera feria de empleo española en el mundo virtual y fue seguida online por numerosos avatares tanto de empresas como de visitantes en busca de empleo.

Gracias a las informaciones de nuestros avatares (movidos por Claudio Lobos, Carina Vernis e Irene Aranda) en el stand que Capgemini tuvo en esta feria promovida por Infoempleo, más de medio centenar de personas nos enviaban sus CV desde diferentes rincones de España en los 5 días que duró el evento virtual.

Por otra parte, las entrevistas realizadas online por el equipo de Héctor Huertas (Staffing) sirvieron también como ensayo de esta “interesante experiencia que aún tiene que madurar” (como comenta Nieves Pacheco) y que Capgemini estará ahí, siempre a la cabeza de lo que las nuevas tecnologías nos presentan.

Del 15 al 19 de octubre empresas como BBVA, La Caixa, Banesto, Accenture, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Deloitte, Acciona, Ferrovial, Lóreal, Adecco, Bosch y Siemens Electrodomesticos y Endesa han estado presentes en la primera feria de empleo en entorno virtual 3D, Second Life, promovida por Infoempleo.com

Los candidatos interesados en optar a las ofertas de trabajo de las empresas participantes dejaron su solicitud en Second Life. El único requisito que se pidió a los profesionales para participar en esta iniciativa fue que estuviesen dados de alta como usuarios de Infoempleo.com y que hubiesen introducido su currículum. La feria contó con los siguientes espacios:

Conferencias, en las que se profundizó sobre las distintas posibilidades de inserción laboral de la mano de expertos que dieron su visión sobre los temas candentes de actualidad.

Stands de las empresas participantes. Un espacio abierto al público con azafatas virtuales (avatares) y expositores que atendieron a los asistentes.
Áreas privadas para realizar entrevistas de trabajo con los departamentos de recursos humanos de las empresas interesadas.

En la puesta en marcha del stand de Capgemini, bajo la supervisión de Fernando Relinque, director de Capgemini Spain, colaboraron conjuntamente desde RRHH y comunicación: Balma Mir y Carina Pueyo y, desde el nuevo service offering Digital Marketing & Virtual Worlds, Irene Aranda, Núria Martin Sancho, Claudio Lobos y Gemma Vallet.