Innovation Through Virtual Worlds

Thursday, March 10, 2011

What is a hybrid reality and how can we put it to use in our work? On March 10, the Business Innovation Factory and Dancing Ink Productions (DIP) conducted an incredible workshop where participants engaged in the idea of how to utilize virtual worlds as a method for innovation in their organization. Led by DIP co-founders and virtual world aficionados Rita J. King and Josh Fouts, attendees learned how to cross the bridge from this world to the digital world through an in-depth discussion with the BIF community.

This free-flowing interactive conversation covered the basics of virtual worlds. Rita and Josh shared statistics and case studies of business, government and cultural use of virtual worlds. Participants were encouraged to explore with the group through dialogue and questions transformative opportunities using hybrid media.

For more than 15 years, King and Fouts have been working with governments and organizations to contextualize the evolving culture of the Internet in order to create a collaborative and immersive virtual terrain for businesses to up their game. Come prepared to slip away from the physical boundaries and experience a more expressive, more interesting and, for businesses, more valuable work environment.

About Rita King

Rita J. King is Innovator-in-Residence at IBM’s Analytics Virtual Center, a Security Futurist at the Aspen Institute, a Senior Fellow at two think-tanks: The Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York City, and the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress in Washington DC. She is the Creative Director of the Imagination Age and Founder of Dancing Ink Productions. Her essays, various writings and works of art have been commissioned, published and exhibited globally. She thinks of technology as a prism held up to the bright beam of the imagination to create a new global culture and economy.

About Josh Fouts

Joshua S. Fouts is a cultural relations futurist, and a frequent consultant and speaker on the use of new technologies, games, virtual worlds and social media for social change and cultural collaboration and its applications for foreign policy, public- and cultural diplomacy. He is Chief Global Strategist of Dancing Ink Productions, a company that develops business strategy, compelling storytelling, immersive narrative and mixed-media, mixed-reality content, games, conferences and other events for a new global culture and economy in the Imagination Age. Fouts is a Next Generation Fellow at The American Assembly and a Senior Fellow for Digital Media and Public Policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency. He is recognized as the world’s leading expert on Digital Diplomacy.

Related

• Rita King Profile: Muse of the New Digital Reality
• Rita King Video at BIF-6