Announcing the Virtual Worlds Innovation Awards

  There has been a huge amount of innovation in virtual worlds over the past year. To acknowledge that fact, we at Virtual Worlds Management are kicking off a new awards program to recognize top innovators at the Virtual Worlds Expo in Los Angeles on September 3-4, 2008. "Innovators" is a broad term, though. To help us finalize both the concept of the awards and pick the winners, we've tapped experts from throughout the industry without ties to any one product: I (this is Joey Seiler, Editor, Virtual Worlds News) will be chairing the Virtual Worlds Innovation Awards, but I'm excited to have plenty of help with the heavy lifting from Christian Renaud (CEO, Technology Intelligence Group), Erica Driver (Co-Founder and Principal, ThinkBalm), Nic Mitham (Managing Director, K Zero), Steve Prentice (VP and Fellow, Gartner), and Robert Bloomfield (Founder and Host, Metanomics; Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Director of the Business Simulation Laboratory, Cornell's Johnson School). I know several of them are soliciting advice from the audiences of their respective blogs and shows. I'll welcome any insight as well. Feel free to shoot me an email or a leave a suggestion in the comments.

We will announce the Virtual Worlds Innovation Award winners at the Virtual Worlds Expo on Wednesday evening, 5:00 to 6:00pm, Wednesday, September 3, 2008, on the stage in the expo hall. The reception kicks off with free beer for attendees, celebration, and a good time for everyone.

Comments

[len]

This is a conversation we've been having at the Web3D Consortium and has been blogged. The challenge is to identify 'essential problems'. By example, the Wright Brothers are not really historically the first to achieve manned flight of a heavier than air vehicle. That prize goes possibly to Gustave Whitehead. That dispute aside, the question is then, what should the Wrights be remembered for?

During this time, most of the innovators were attempting to solve the problem of light engines thinking the critical problem was power and the essential problems of aerodynamic lift were solved.

They were wrong. The essential problem was three axis flight control. That is the innovation of the Wright Brothers for which they received patents.

Nine times out of ten, innovation is asking the right question and engineering is answering it. So I repeat, what are the 'essential' problems of virtual worlds. Until you identify those, you won't recognize innovation. You may only recognize incrementalism.

[Just Some Guy]

Half the people on this committee operate their own VW businesses - won't it be a little uncomfortable when their own firms are awarded? Guess not.