Virtual World Metrics

[Beverly Gay McCarter]

Greetings, All. Does anyone have any metrics regarding the ROI or effectiveness of virtual environments in 1) reduction in travel and amount saved, 2) green tech--reduction in bldg and support costs etc, 3) building trust and collaboration, etc? Thank you for your help.
Beverly Gay

[Beverly Gay McCarter]

Thank you, Ken, for the link.
I appreciate the help.

Kind regards,
Beverly Gay

[Matt Norton]

I think the most compelling numbers I've seen involve the substitution of Virtual environments for Live environments for Military training.

Quick research on Google shows Operating cost per hour of an F-18 was $5k (in 1998 dollars). Average mission-time of 2+ hours. Plus any munitions expended (e.g up to 7 Mk-84s @ $2.5k each, or JDAMs @~$25k each). So, average training bomb run, might cost $27k (more in 2010 dollars of course).

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/weekinreview/the-costs-of-endurin...


Let's pretend that the Navy's super-overpriced versions of MSFT Flight Sim cost $1000/hr to run. The savings there is still astronomical. To be fair they use version that have full cockpits, integration with other training pilots, and the cockpit moves around to simulate aircraft acceleration/deceleration/movement. So, total cost $2k per mission (and no wear & tear on airframe, engine, no ordnance expended, etc.).

The low-cost reasoning applies to civilian aviation as well. Most airlines use simulators to save money, time, and equipment wear & tear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_simulator

Same reasoning applies to ground combat simulations. I believe that the US Marines, Australian Defence Force, and UK MoD are using a version of Bohemia Interactive's Virtual Battlespace 2 simulation.
http://www.army-technology.com/contractors/training/bohemia-interac...

VBS2 is built on BI's Operation Flashpoint game engine.

So, there's a lot of money in (and being saved by) the use of virtual environments for training.

Hope you find this useful. :)

[Beverly Gay McCarter]

Thank you, Matt. :)

Yes, it is very helpful! I am familiar with all the work the military is doing in training and virtual worlds, but had not seen the metrics for it.

Again, thank you very much for the links.

Beverly Gay

[Janice Morris]

Hi Beverly,

I have 4+ years stats based on personal experince of my staff providing a virtual community as part of telework solutions. We are not aware of anyone with the same business model.
Thanks!
Janice

[Beverly Gay McCarter]

Hi, Janice. Thank you for the information.
I appreciate it. :)
Beverly Gay

[Deepak Sharma]

Hi Beverly,

Below information on Virtual World Metrics might be helpful:

“Our virtual conference cost was $35,000 USD, the budget for our face-to-face event was around $300,000 USD.” — Elaine Cook, Intel Events Manager

Thanks,
Deepak

[Beverly Gay McCarter]

Thank you, Deepak.
I appreciate your help.
Beverly Gay