Idea: Avatar Voodo: Extending Avatar Action from SecondLife to Real Life Execution: Avatar Voodo, Avoodo for short, is a mashup of SecondLife with Amazon Mturk. Avoodo is a way to extend/spill Avatar action to real world. The way it is done is, Avatar action is set to trigger posting of Human Intelligence Task(HIT) in Mturk market through Linden Scripting Language(LSL) scripts. The Linden dollar based micropayment mechanism is bridged to the Mturk based micropayment to make the HIT enticing enough for Mturk worker to complete. The HIT can be geographically targeted so that the SecondLife as geography barrier basher can be further enhanced. Profit: One of the biggest complaint about SecondLife as a marketing medium is that it is just toyland and activities there and transactions there cannot be linked to real world and revenue generating commerce. With Avoodo, it is possible to engage the user in mixed reality play which can be a very effective marketing tool. For the seocndlife developers, they don't need to huge budget to create a mixed media experience like the CBS CSI:Virtual that involves huge hype and fanfare to work. As an illustrative case of the profit, Teepu is an use case that uses Avoodo to give opportunity Avatars to participate in mass tree planting movement despite geographic barriers. In short, Avoodo, Treepu makes (digital/real) tree a social object for participation and conversation!.
As for a survey by big corporations goes, typically, suites decide what market intelligence they need. Then they charter an internal or external market research team to do the market research/survey. They churn out data, charts, and reports and the Suites further decide on their course of action. Shel Isreal spearheading the SAP Global Survey is approaching the Social Media survey in a When In Rome approach. It is a clear demonstration of shift from Push to Pull.
There is a lot SAP can help to make doing business through Social Media sustainable. There is a lot of drudgery in engaging with multiple social media. For instance, uploading photos and tagging each one of them takes a lot of time. SAP with its tight involvement with the internal and external ‘business process plumbing’ can make Living the Business Aloud easy and drudgery free. For example, workflow could auto generate a draft of a blog post summarizing the work done for a customer, with pictures and link to relevant customer public profiles, relevant tags, etc. This draft could be further embellished with human interest elements by a human and published. I have high hopes on SAP in helping SME businesses ride two significant trends, viz., Mashability and Serendipity. Let me explain.
Make Our SME Business Mashup Ready. I believe judicious exposition of capacity through mashup(interface) is a good technology antidote for technology driven rapid commoditization. I believe mashup is an attractive channel to graduate cold calls into revenue generating relationships. An ERP with built in support for mashup exposure: a doorway that knows both sides – the internal business process, as well as the Wild Wild Web, will be very attractive. I believe mashup is a potent strategic tool to increase capacity utilization as well as a low cost business development method.
Enhance Serendipity for Our Network of Suppliers and Customers. When Geography is History, Serendipity is the new Geography. This, I believe, again is a strategic tool that will prevent premium erosion. With our continued practice of Living our Business Aloud, our social media engagements will increase the findability of whoever that has done business with us. In other words we want ‘Doing/Done business with UPSL’ as a social networking factor just like musical preference, interest in books, pet ownership, etc. And of course the ERP will have to help in achieving it in a sustainable manner.
