Convincing Management
From Virtual Worlds
The riddle: "What question comes up more often then others, but is never answered in any FAQ?" The answer: "How can I convince management that we should start using virtual worlds for our training projects?"
This question comes up at least several times a week in the e-mail, in the newsgroups and blogs I read, when I talk to somebody over a phone or on a conference. "What you showed was very interesting and I see how we could immediately use in our company, but it will be hard to convince our management. They are pretty conservative." Or, "my boss told me to get more information about Second Life and report to him on a planning meeting next week. I want you to demo your technology, I think that is something management would be interested in."
Unfortunately, short semi-generic demo, or even something close, but not exactly fitting company's immediate needs will not work to your (or virtual world's) benefit. Approaches below, on the other hand, are known to work well:
- The best one is to make a small "proof-of-concept" project, that will illustrate how SL can be used to an advantage
in your specific organization. Depending on the kind of training you are doing, this project may run anywhere between $1,000 and $5,000.
- The other option is to arrange an executive-level 2-3 hour to one-day training that can be conducted on-site or even remotely. We at ahg.com have such courses; other companies perhaps have similar options.
You need a course that would include general information / demonstration of applications of virtual worlds for corporate training and that can be customized to make it applicable to your industry and organization.
- Finally, "Training and Collaboration with Virtual Worlds" contains 9 case studies from large known companies, and plenty of other info, including financial outlays (managers love financials!) you might find useful that you could summarize in a memo to complement the first two items. There are other published reports and data, showing significant business and financial benefits of using virtual worlds in general and Second Life in particular
Heiphetz 14:22, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
