With all the nerves of an opening night on Broadway we launched our first foray into virtual worlds on Tuesday 14 October. As I have noted previously the uptake for the session was impressive. Now that we have held the session I am happy to report that the members that attended were treated to a great presentation by two experts on virtual worlds and collaboration, Lindy McKeown and Lee Hopkins.
As with many of the projects that we have undertaken this year (including this community!) the virtual worlds session was very much an experiment to see if we could extract member value from this new technology. We know that one of the important goals for CPA Australia is to create an “anytime, anywhere” culture where our educational offer is as accessible in Beijing as it is in Melbourne.
It was with this thinking that we undertook the virtual worlds experiment and I am pleased to say that the current results for this first session are looking promising.
The first measure was reach. As mentioned above, we must continue to think outside the capital cities to regional Australia and our global members. I am happy to report that at our session we had members log in from Tamworth, Tumut, Euroa, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, the UK and the USA!
The second measure was quality of service. It’s no good reaching every member in the world if the only thing we can give them is a poor experience. Second Life is a relatively new technology so we were unsure of the level of service we could get from the virtual world. On this measure I am also happy to report positive news. Through the entire session all members had full audio and video streaming.
The third and most important measure is member value. Initial feedback from members has been very positive! Here is a sample of what our attendees said directly after the event:
“…More events would be good.”
“Yes, it would be good to use again.”
“I would like to see more events held in this way too.”
“I would like to sere more events like this.”
“I would definitely like to see more events like this please!”
Once I receive the formal evaluation forms from attendees I will have a better view on the member value of this type of immersive learning, but from all accounts it is looking positive.
For more information on CPA Australia in Second life and to watch the full length videos of the session follow this link: http://bit.ly/3GYEH1
And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for…. the highlights of the event!
October 30, 2008 at 12:41 am |
I’ve just had a look at second life. It’s very modern & hip & everything else. However, apart from a social gaming type application (play to get money, etc.)< I’m not really sure what the point of second life is. We have so many ways to communicate with one another. Apart from a group communicating together, I’m not sure I see a practical, work-related benefit of it.
We tell businesses to stay focused on their “core business” – are we as CPA’s following this advice?
I want CPA Australia to be a meaningful part of my life in terms of keeping me up-to-date with accounting/taxation type information. I agree that there is an IT aspect to our roles, but is second life really within our membership charter? Is it something a majority of members will use & gain benefit from?
The CPA members that I interact with via discussion group already bemoans the costs of Public Practice audits & the high cost of membership fees, seeing very little preceived benefit. I think that this should be discussed with the members (us) & not some specialist who has a vested interest in developing something like this. If my view is in a minority, then I’m ok with that, but I ask members to ponder this question & really think about what CPA Australia represents & means for you individually.
October 30, 2008 at 6:19 am |
Hi Mark, thanks for your comment. You’ve raised a very important point about CPAs focusing on their core business skills and I couldn’t agree more.
Second Life as a product can be seen as a social gaming type application, but more and more it is being used for non-gaming and very productive purposes. A search for Second Life on You Tube will bring up many results from universities using Second Life as a tool for learning and collaboration.
This is where CPA Australia is trying to leverage the benefits of Second Life. For members that are based in major cities I could not stress more the importance of regular face-to-face contact with their colleagues, but for many of our members based in regional areas of Australia and in international locations face-to-face contact is not possible.
Also, CPA Australia hosts many very interesting events across the globe, but due to costs or demand many events are limited to a single city. While the content may be globally relevant the delivery is currently limited to a single location.
Location of members and location of events are just two examples of how CPA Australia needs to look at ways to bridge the gap between members and their ability to learn.
It is understandable that experimenting with Second Life may seem quite ‘out there’ but there is a genuine need for CPA Australia to try as much as it can to provide a level of service that is as equal to members in regional and international locations as it is in our Australian capital cities.
I hope that this brief explanation helps to show that we are definitely focusing our efforts on making sure that CPAs are able to focus their learning on core business skills and that Second Life is just a medium in which we can help make this happen!
October 31, 2008 at 6:12 am |
Hi Alex and Mark,
A very interesting discussion! I think it is important to view Second Life not as a product, but as a vehicle or a solution. Second Life can be used to deliver core, technical learning (perhaps a session on the latest in tax, or IFRS) and has a wider reach than a face-to-face event.
Mark, in the future we’ll be exploring opportunities to deliver technical sessions via Second Life – we’d love to see you there and hear what you think.
Cheers,
Anja
January 21, 2009 at 1:17 am |
Hello –
How was this a success then ? Looks pretty standard, almost lame to me.