Ernst and Young trains in SecondLife

Ernst & Young has been piloting inventory count training using SecondLife. Interesting. According to the article:

“You’d be surprised how realistic this experience is,” says Michael Hamilton, partner and chief learning and development officer in the Americas. The auditing firm is working with Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) and other virtual world consultants to explore this new way of learning. (For a three-minute visit to the factory, go to http://2b3d.net/eymovie.htm.)

It wasn’t all plain sailing:

Many were skeptical when they first discussed using virtual worlds for enhancing the learning experience. Once the E&Y team had the opportunity to see the technology in use, they quickly began considering other areas of learning and people development where this technology might create a richer learning experience.

However, there are challenges whenever a company introduces new technology. Because this was a pilot, the participants entered Second Life in front of the accounting firm’s firewall, which required the use of wireless cards. At times, this was a clumsy, cumbersome process that was agonizingly slow. As Ernst & Young considers a permanent platform, it will likely be behind the firewall. In addition, some business computers didn’t have the necessary graphics card, so the accounting firm had to upgrade them.

I’ve never been a fan of SecondLife. The idea is sound enough but the execution leaves me cold. Plus, as EY found, you need a meaty machine to get reasonable performance out of the 2L software. This is one of those technology areas that holds great promise but is in the early stages of development.

Put another way by Thomas Otter, Gartner analyst and the person who pointed me to the link:

It seems there are enough challenges in auditing this life, never mind the next one..

Hard to disagree.

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Tagged as: Ernst & Young, Second Life, Virtual reality