Sunday, March 15, 2009

Second Life, the Gartner Hype Cycle, and the Innovation Adoption Curve

In my last post, this is one of the things I said about Dr. Ellen Wagner’s presentation:
If you look at the Gartner Hype Cycle and the Innovation Adoption Curve, you’ll see that they intersect in the Trough of Dissolutionment area. After that, adoption rises to become mainstream and Hype Cycle moves into the Slope of Enlightment toward the Plateau of Productivity.
Although Dr. Wagner’s slides don’t include Second Life and Sloodle, I think that we are at that intersection where the Gartner Hype Cycle and the Innovation Adoption Curve intersect when it comes to these two things.

She says in her slides that “[t]he path from innovation to adoption is a lengthy journey of implementations and evaluation to determine the benefit/return.”

I think we’re there when it comes to the widespread adoption of virtual worlds and MMORPGs for education. You can’t elicit stakeholder share in newfangled technologies until they’ve somehow been proven, and institutions such as MIT, Stanford, and the Exploratorium, trailblazed this.

So now’s the time, since it’s on it’s way to the Plateau of Productivity, that the technology can be utilized in a more widespread fashion.

2 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed the bit last week about hanging out in second life. Especially when you made friends at the exploratorium. However, If you're in SL and everyone shuns you, is it really a second "life" Does anyone ever commit suicide in SL? And I don't mean just sign off permanently, but actually publicly destroy their avatar. Can one be a suicide bomber in SL? Actually, that's kind of a real topic. Wonder what hacking will look like in the metaverse. Mugging?

    Looking forward to your star trek themed podcast

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, I guess you should buy a "life" in linden dollars! One that's hack-free! Mug-free!

    Phlttt!

    BUT seriously. I don't want to be callous to these thoughts. I just don't think I am able to respond to these deep thoughts -- perhaps someone who is better versed at the SL and other virtual world environments?

    ReplyDelete