Webinars tend to be dull to look at and tedious to listen to. They largely depend upon the skills of a moderator who hopefully has an engaging voice (qualities that are often lacking). Webinars also tend to be formulaic and predictable and, as my last post observed, they are rather sorry objects to look at. The poor visual quality of webinars goes a long way towards explaining our ensuing attention drift and poor memory recall.
An attempt to show the movement of attention when viewing the two-dimensional webinar screen.The red arrows indicate the short 'attention loop' generated by webinar viewing.
This short visual attention loop is very similar to the movement pattern of a goldfish swimming in a fish tank. The fish swims from one end of the tank to the other, as it reaches the end it bumps into the glass wall of the aquarium, and turns to swim to the opposite end of the tank. It then meets the glass wall at this end of the tank and swims back, and so on, ad infinitum. (Does the fish’s brain contain enough memory to know it has been to the end of the tank and back already?)
The Goldfish Attention Loop
In the case of humans staring at a relatively unchanging computer screen, the low demand of the webinar ‘goldfish attention loop’ triggers us into finding something more visually stimulating to look at. Based purely on anecdotal evidence it is well known that people open up their email while ‘attending’ an online meeting or training. Others simply carry on working, making phone calls or chatting to colleagues.
Now, when we look at the 3D environment of a virtual world depicted upon our computer screen our eyes can peer into a synthetic distance. This gives us the illusion of space and by adding the visual representations of familiar objects, we can create an ambiance, or mood, to this virtual meeting space. These extra peripheral visual details plus the use of additional ambient sound effects assist concentration and we end up remembering more as a result!
Companies are switching over to the web to deliver many of their training programs. This is due to the current economic climate coupled with our growing concern for the environment. A training delivered online is cheaper, and leaves a smaller carbon footprint than a face to face meeting with people driving (and sometimes flying) in to attend. It makes a great deal of sense to run meetings and trainings online, unfortunately the quality of such trainings often leaves a lot to be desired.
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Talking to educators and trainers involved in such courses I get the impression that everyone accepts the fact that these trainings are as dull as dishwater. They, the trainers, know that many of the remotely based ‘attendees’ are continuing to work, surf the net, check their email and make phone calls etc, during the course of the training. The trainers are given limited resources (that are being pruned back more and more in many cases) yet they are expected to churn out training programs to hundreds of employees. Managements do not want to provide additional resources to help the trainers do their job, they just want to know the training has been delivered. A recipe for depressed trainers delivering mediocre and bland training programs to say the least!
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Having sat in on a few web based seminars myself I have been wondering just why they are so difficult and dull? I began surfing the net (sometimes during webinars) to see what the real scoop on these particular training applications might be. I soon found plenty of glowing adverts for webinar platforms scattered across the web, but little is available that actually analyzes just how effective webinars are for delivering trainings.
A typical webinar screen window
I decided instead that it is possible to speculate on how we really look at a webinar site based on a study conducted by Jakob Nielsen PhD. Nielsen, a former Sun Microsystems Engineer, has become world renowned as a (if not the) web usability expert and web user advocate. In 2006 he carried out a study where he observed the eye-tracking movements of 232 individuals when they were looking at websites. This eye-tracking study found that individuals tend to hover over particular areas of a web page regardless of the information on that particular page. He called these areas ‘hot spots’ and showed that we have a tendency to view web pages according to a specific pattern that shows an ‘F’ shape. (Nielsen, J. 2006). X
Nielsen’s eye scanning study has been the focus of considerable attention from website designers. Naturally they aim to place the most important information at the point on the page where the viewer’s eye is likely to linger most frequently. (However, it appears that webinar site designers have not sat down and taken a look at how our eyes look at 2D web pages.)
Image above taken directly from Nielsen's 'Reading pattern eye tracking' study
The image above shows the eye tracking hotspots on three different web pages. Please see Jakob Nielsen’s website useit.com for more information.
I have taken my diagram of a typical webinar page and superimposed the Nielsen ‘F-shaped’ viewing hotspots to see where webinar viewers are most likely to be looking when participating in a webinar. (See below).
A typical webinar window with superimposed Jakob Nielsen eye scanning hotspots.
My conclusion is that people wander off to other activities because of the low degree of visual stimulation provided by a webinar site!
Five and twenty ponies trotting through the dark,
Brandy for the parson and bacchy for the clerk,
Laces for the ladies and letters for the spie,
Now watch the wall my darling while the gentlemen go by.
(Rudyard Kipling. The Smugglers Song.)
The virtual world can be used to train people in customer service, managing conflict resolution, science, architecture, medicine and much more.
Probably the most well publicized simulation was created by Ken Hudson of the Loyalist College’s Virtual World Design Centre for the Canadian Border Services Agency. Post 9-11, the agency could no longer send student border guards to the actual border crossing to gain first hand interviewing experience. Due to heightened security concerns students had to role-play interviews within the college environment. The students were struggling with this aspect and the pass rate for students dropped. Instructor Ken Hudson decided to recreate the border crossing in Second Life. The students then ran interview simulations in the virtual world. The result of this role-play interviewing caused a dramatic improvement that could be measured. In 2007 student’s interview skills (without the Second Life simulation) had the average grade of 58%. In 2008, after the use of the simulation, student’s interview skills averaged 86%, showing an improvement of 28%. (See New World Notes for the original story). Check out the following YouTube video (also shown on Wagner James Au’s blog) this provides a sense of the simulation conditions for the students:
Two thoughts intrigue me about this simulation. One is the thought about smugglers attempting to carry illegal goods across so-called ‘real world’ borders. Smuggling has changed from the days featured in the romanticized Rudyard Kipling poem above. An example of this is the ‘Cocaine cast’ story’ where a man tried to smuggle cocaine compressed into a plaster cast for a broken leg.
The second thought revolves around using Second Life to create a virtual border post, intriguing when one of the wonders of Second Life is that it is multi-national and has no border controls… But then, perhaps the new ‘mature’ sims will have controlled border crossings? And then, that begs the question what would a virtual world smuggler smuggle?
Honored guests gathering for Bryn Oh's '4Jetpacks4' immersive adventure. We all checked each other out as we waited for Bryn to transport us off to the performance area. It was like an opening scene to an Agatha Christie novel... who was going to be murdered? Who was the assassin? Or as Dirk Talamasca said 'We are just having smokes and boozing it up in the lobby.'We finally arrive at the Research Centre for the Study of Interplanetary Organisms. Glyph Graves, one of the mad scientists, presented findings following his intensive 'exploration into the forefront of Organic Transmutation'. Glyph explains that he has melded a Paramecium and a common, everyday coelenterate respectively (otherwise known as a single cell organism and a jellyfish). The result is what he describes as a friendly, placid and strangely attractive specimen that 'may even provide a suitable replacement for the household pet'...The gelatinous 'pet' suddenly sucked Dusty Linden into its squidgy self via aggressive osmosis. Glyph shouted 'ummm don't be alarmed... its just mistaken you for its offspring... they seem to carry them around much like a kangaroo... it should realize its mistake shortly....' Sure enough, Dusty was squirted back out, yet she managed to retain her poise admirably (despite being covered in pastel colored, salt flavored goop).Nonnatus Korhonnen (seen here as none other than Gattina Dumpling) then presented creatures that existed eons ago in 'pre-nonnatus history'. Somehow, Nonnatus had managed to retrieve two small seed fragments from 'the oceans of infinite combinatorial possibilities'. With the help of an 'entirely artificial pulsating red mass' Nonnatus was able to coax fresh new organisms to be brought to life!Nonnatus' creatures rising from the artificial ocean of endless possibilities. 'This mass sustains the whole system, yet I had to create it from scratch. It is a vital part of the whole, it was not until after I had completed it that the system became completely self sustaining. I can only wonder what held its place before my time.' (Nonnatus Kerhonen March 13. 2009) Bryn Oh then began summoning a Rain Pixie which she described as ' The cutest little thing you have ever seen!' Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to reveal the cute little rain pixie, or the grand finale with the species that stands 8 stories high and can read minds! I am bound by complex laws of Organic Transmutation and Immersive Secrecy, plus I fear reprisals from Glyph Grave's pet... (I don't have the family connections of Dusty Linden after all).
Only 10 avatars can take the Bryn Oh’s tour of the Research Centre for the Study of Interplanetary Organisms at one time (more avatars generate too much lag). However, there is a chance to win a visit, and see the cute Rain Pixie, and the 8 stories high mind reader for yourself! Visit Bryn Oh’s blog post ‘4Jetpacks4’ for more information on how finding a Wonka Bar wrapper on Immersiva will entitle you to this magical immersive tour.
I attended this week’s Gronstedt Group meeting in Second Life to hear David Castera of Crédit Agricole describe the French bank’s activities in the virtual world. He told us that 30% of their educational meetings are slated to take place on their virtual campus. The bank’s CEO, Jean Philippe, was reported as saying he wants 100% of his employees to have an avatar by the end of 2009! Anders Wildcat, of the the Gronstedt Group, observed that strong CEO support makes all the difference when it comes to businesses exploring the potential of virtual worlds. Anders cited IBM, Cisco and Sun Microsystems as examples of companies working in Second Life with strong CEO backing.
A movie showing the avatar of Jean-Philippe, CEO of Crédit Agricole
Crédit Agricole runs computer servers dedicated to e-learning outside their firewall, this means Second Life can be safely accessed by staff as it well beyond the reach of the secure banking systems. At this stage Castera estimated just 5% of their staff (of around 1800) have a Second Life account thus far; as he said, they are just beginning the drive to equip all staff with avatars. Castera saw Crédit Agricole conducting an experiment to create ‘digital territory’. He added that the bank also runs a blog La Seconde Vie du Crédit Agricole and a facebook account, and they are considering the creation of an island to help more French people discover Second Life.
Crédit Agricole
It is intriguing to see a bank experimenting with virtual worlds (Crédit Agricole are also delving into OpenSim). Banking types have tended to project themselves as ultra conservative and cautious; I wonder if the recent examples of banking scandals, with their episodes of feckless, reckless, and greedy mismanagement here in the US, might cause banks to project themselves differently? There has certainly been some hypocritical bahavior on the part of US banks (as well as UK banks, I don’t know about the track record of French banking). I see Crédit Agricole starting a new trend. One where banks behave in a more approachable (and accountable) fashion whilst also cutting down on travel and thereby helping the environment.
One of the most positive aspects of virtual words is the break down of national boundaries. Imagine if this could mean the ability to walk into a virtual bank on the synthetic high street and open an account there. It might be the case that I physically live in one country, and the bank is located in another, but accounts would link into something like the LindeX Exchange. As those long in the tooth of Second Life years will recall there was a banking scandal in the virtual world itself, and people lost considerable amounts of ‘first world’ money. Read Technology Review’s Second Life Closes Banks for an uncanny foreshadowing of the recent ‘real world’ financial collapse. In both the real world and virtual world the problem boiled down to lack of regulation, and a laissez-faire attitude on the part of governments (I include Linden Labs as a government in this context). As Technology Review writes, Linden Labs eventually ‘banned virtual banks that can’t furnish “proof of an applicable government registration statement or financial institution charter’. Now, could a bank like Crédit Agricole open up virtual world banking because it can comply to these strict regulations? I wonder if they will give incentive gifts for registering with them? What would a virtual incentive look like?
Last week I heard Sarah ‘Intellagirl’ Robins give a talk at one of the excellent Gronstedt Group meetings in Second Life. She describes herself as being up to her eyeballs in Web 2.0 examining how these new technologies can be used by organizations. Intellagirl said that it is an uphill battle getting companies to adopt Second Life as a communication and training platform. The reasons she gave for this were that staff feel they are not tech savvy, computers are not up to speed, and training in Second Life requires a different pedagogy. Intellagirl suggests that here training must be student centered, as the traditional lecture approach does not work. Educators and trainers need to use their imaginations, and find ways to exploit this new medium, rather than resorting to ‘the same old, same old’ conventional teaching models.
nonnatus Korhonen's world creatures found on mellifera (scripted to interact with your avatar).
At this point in the talk, Intellagirl briefly took off on a fascinating tangent. She said she had been looking into Stigmergy, and she used this reference in the context of social insects such as ants that leave chemical trails for other ants to follow. Intellagirl then applied this analogy to patterns of use and human behavior on the World Wide Web. I wonder if this makes those of us exploring 3D online environments into scout ants? With our pixel sized avatars we are off foraging for locations, ideas, scripts and builds that will help us with our work. We leave trails, creating millions of highways and byways that will lead others into virtual spaces ‘en masse’.
An enticing giant strawberry hovering on a strange floating platform high above Caerleon Isle.
Will it seem as though something spontaneous has suddenly happened when hordes of people move into virtual worlds to carry out their work, meet friends and take classes?
Stigmergy is a mechanism of spontaneous, indirect coordination between agents or actions, where the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a subsequent action, by the same or a different agent. (Wikipedia)
My last post showed the recent T-Mobile dance held in Liverpool Street Station, London, UK. This apparently spontaneous moment belongs to an intriguing tradition that, according to Wikipedia, began in 2003 and is known as ‘Flash Mob’. If you type ‘Flash Mob’ into YouTube you can see some great examples of Flash Mob happenings (often shakily videoed on mobile phones). The Liverpool Street dance was highly organized and carefully choreographed (and no doubt cost a small fortune). Yet, the final effect was an event that seemed spontaneous (at least initially).
Ant and nonnatus korhonen maze, mellifera
Thinking along these lines of stigmergy and flashmobs I was reminded of a post by Botgirl Questi’s titled ‘Are we ants or are we avatars? Botgirl has been taking an extensive look at social networking on her blog, and in this post mused
‘ Something about Twitter recently has made me feel like a minuscule and insignificant ant scurrying from data crumb to data crumb in the semi-aware hive-consciousness of social networking.’
Visit Botgirl’s blog and watch the YouTube video she placed there, this video reveals the phenomenal size and structure of an ant colony. The ant’s nest was created well out of sight, and reaches far beneath the African soil. Virtual worlds are also growing out of sight, expanding out in cyberspace.Take a look at Metaverse Journal’s How big is Second Life? which states Second Life is 22400 square km in size (8648.9 sq. miles). That seems quite big! Has the ‘spontaneous’ moment already arrived? How will we know? Synthetic worlds are a bit like invisible ink, you will only see them if you know they exist and you know where and how to look.
And finally, a question: How big does a virtual world have to get before it is put on the bus route?
Foot bridge to the bee hives in mellifera
Additional Information
Title quote: ‘How do you tell when you have run out of invisible ink’ by Steve Wright and found on ‘notstevewright’ on Twitter.
Images above taken on Caerleon Isle, showing mellifera a mixed reality project by Andrew Burrell and Trish Adams (nonnatus korhonen and neurone schism). mellifera created with the assistance of the Australian Council for the Arts.
There are many levels to how we can interact with the virtual world of Second Life. We can completely immerse ourselves in the virtual space, and as some people say ‘live Second Life’. I understand this to mean that we integrate the virtual life into our real/physical lives, moving smoothly between the two environments almost as we move between work and living spaces. (Others may interpret this quite differently, feel free to send in your own definitions!) Our minds see, and remember images and activities, and save them to the same filing cabinets in our brains; and our brains do this whether what we see or experience is virtual or ‘real’. Does this mean that we cannot tell the difference between the virtual and the real? Are we on the brink of madness?
Zwagoth Klaar creation at Quadropop Tree Isle
I suspect we have a slew of safety valves protecting us from becoming unhinged! After all, if venturing into virtual worlds really knocked us off our ‘reality’ pedestals so easily, we would have similar trouble with books, plays, movies and video games. Humans would achieve little as a race if we were so susceptible to becoming lost in imagination, ultimately imagination itself would suffer and so would we. The secret of creativity must lie largely within the ability we have to walk in and out of imagined scenarios and ideas, and make sense of the experience. For instance, Albert Einstein imagined how the universe might look if he was traveling through space and time sitting upon a beam of light, Einstein’s imagination actually altered how we perceive reality.
Chasm by Nebulosus Severine (Quadropop Tree Isle)
One safety valve is the fact that we step into virtual spaces carrying with us all the knowledge and conditioning of our physical world. What is more, if we are open to the experience, wandering through virtual spaces gives many insights into our first life and our self perception. I recently came across a video posted on NPR’s Bryant Project blog back in 2007, this shows NPR’s reporter Win Rosenfeld meeting with the psychologist Nick Yee when he was at Stanford University. Nick Yee was examining how human nature remains the same when we enter virtual worlds. As Yee says in the video, he is interested in studying ‘how much our virtual lives, and virtual interactions are bound to a certain extent by our real life stereotypes, and how we are not as free in virtual worlds as we think we are’.
He demonstrates this through a simple exploration of how much space we like to maintain around our avatars in Second Life, and how we feel about too much eye contact in our virtual worlds. What Yee has found is that we follow the same rules in both worlds, and he suggests the reason is because we have a ‘hard wired innate component as well as a social component, and we are so used to these norms as we are growing up that when someone violates them we find it uncomfortable‘.
Above: Win Rosenfeld and Nick Yee explore ‘The Elevator Effect’ in Second Life
This theory known as ‘The Elevator Effect’ illustrates how little difference there is between real and virtual worlds. In turn, we bring much more of the ‘real’ world to our virtual world than we think we do, and much less of the virtual world influences us in the real world. The really fun part of virtual worlds lies in consciously transcending the confines of our programming, the pre-ordained ‘preferences’ we carry over from our ‘real’ world. Groups like Bettina Tizzy’s NPIRL artists are doing exactly this with their Not Possible in Real Life creations. The challenge lies in developing the virtual skills necessary to experiment with imagination itself.
Lucky Tree Friends by artoo Magneto (Hotel Dare)
Locations in Second Life:
Hotel Dare Go and visit Hotel dare soon, it is closing on January 15th, 2009
The other day this blog’s stats rocketed to a very high pointy spike! Further investigations revealed that the source of this sudden increase in visits was a website called alphainventions.com. This website cleverly locates recent blog posts from a number of blog sites e.g. WordPress, Blogger and Windows Live, it rotates the newly minted blog posts within a simple white frame. (A blog rotisserie displaying still warm blogs!)
cyberloom displayed on the alphainventions website
Stop the blog rotation with pause/read alphainventions gives you the option to stop the blog rotation and read a particular post, once you have finished reading you press play and the blogs start rolling again. If you don’t press pause/read you have just a few seconds to scan each blog before the next one appears. Like everyone else I am drawn by striking images, stylish layouts, witty or thought provoking blog names and/or blog post titles. If you are considering redesigning your own blog it might help to go to alphainventions to watch the blogs spin by and see for yourself what works, and what doesn’t work on other people’s blogs.
If you don’t click on pause/read you will only have time to read about two sentences before the next blog appears. While I hovered around perusing different blogs I saw that the frame displayed a little green button next to my blog name saying that I was online, and if anyone wanted to comment on my post they could do so. This creates the potential for immediate feedback to blog posts.
Top buttons on alphainventions
Blogs are like little platelets…and the secret of perpetual motion The frame also offers other options, you can add your blogs to join the rotation. If your blog is featured, and you visit the alphainventions site, you generate yet more views to your own blog (in just a few minutes 20 views were generated). Question… did I cause this increase? Were these phantom hits I wonder? Is alphainventions some kind trick with mirrors, reflecting blogs into infinity?
No, perhaps alphainventions is more like a microscope capable of looking into the anatomy of the web revealing blogs spinning by like little platelets flowing down hidden web arteries. It seems as though the creator, Cheru Jackson, has established a kind of perpetual motion, a cycle of reciprocal behavior. First of all he randomly picks blogs and features them in his rotisserie, the blogger is then astonished to see all the hits on their blog and investigates. While visiting alphainventions the hits actually seem to increase; Cheru then encourages his visitors to leave comments on each others blogs; link to his site in their blogrolls; and write about his site. The reward is to get your blog into the rotisserie, and see stats climbing. This appears to satisfy many of Cheru’s visitors, that is, they use the site to get hits, and that is the end of story for them.
Nothing to shake a stick at… However, if you study the stats information few visitors filter through to actually landing on your blog to read it. Out of 100 views, I would say I had 12 visits with 4 people reading the post.That’s nothing to shake a stick at of course, and possibly out of those 4 readers, 1 person might subscribe? Who knows? I would prefer it if alphainventions had some kind of filtering system that would help bloggers find blogs relevant to each other. What you get for now is a completely random array of blogs that cover every topic under the sun. It does not hurt bloggers to lift their heads out of their favorite categories and view the big picture, but I did find myself wondering how alphainventions could be improved.
I would start by making the frame more professional and polished looking; I would add some kind of filters so I could see the blogs that relate to my interests. I prefer to have fewer ‘hits’ and more real visitors; draw in folks because there is truly something of interest for them look at or read. And a funny thing, the view you see of other blogs seems to show the bloggers dashboards, not the public view but a private view as though from inside the blog program? Mind you, Cheru could be onto something if he develops the application. I could see this livening up a blogger’s personal feed aggregator page, rotating selected blogs effortlessly. With today’s information overload, anything that simplifies and helps us manage information is appreciated. If I had a personalized alphainventions application I would keep a ‘random’ button that would occasionally shift me out of my favorite category groove, and remind me of what else is ‘out there’. In the meantime I can visit alphainventions for its glimpse into the vast world of disparate blogs, I suggest you get yourself a cup of coffee and go for a spin and see what you think!
I discovered Wordle today, and though I really ought to be doing much more important things I have been playing with it. Wordle describes itself as a ‘toy’ for generating word clouds. You can drop in text, provide a link to your blog or put in a link to a del.icio.us page. Word clouds are then generated, and you can then select the font, colors, and layout. I put the url for cyberloom in, and then kept hitting the randomize button watching my categories cloud transform every which way.
Wordle - Silentina Movie fontWordle - Superclarendon font Wordle - Coolvetica fontWordle - Tank Lite font
Blog category clouds help to add different sizes to the text in Wordle. To see how Wordle handles other text I tried out a couple of quotes. Below is an Andre Malraux quote, ‘The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.’
Andre Malraux quote in Boopee font
“Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose.” Alan Moore
Alan Moore quote - Gunplay font
You can print out your random text clouds or submit them to the Wordle Gallery. For this post I used my keyboard ‘Print Screen’ button to copy the word clouds, then I trimmed the edges in Photoshop.
I will now go and fling myself between the ‘profusion of matter and of the stars’ and do something more purposeful with my existence…
Meta Looming 