BU SHI KE FOU

It's a Big World Out There.

February 2007

Great blogpost by John Fortt over on Business 2.0, about how 3D design tools are finding new niches in the rush to develop content for virtual realities, notably Second Life.

Though the SL virtuality has its own building tools, master builders normally prefer using tools like AutoCAD, Maya, and Sketch-Up for offline build creation, then import their builds in a range of compatible XML formats (real master builders do high-prim/dense-mesh models offline, texture and light them, then capture the resulting complex textures, import them to Second Life, and impose them on simpler models -- so use of sophisticated offline build tools is not only germane to 'making things pretty' in Second Life, but in making pretty things perform well in the resource-contended virtuality).

According to Fortt, Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, is psyched on the idea of a possible partnership with Second Life's Linden Labs. Bass says that a great deal of his 3D business is now in 'digital prototyping' -- creating design and usability models of structures, etc. And Second Life is, in many ways, an ideal environment for sharing, evaluating and doing research on these models. Bass says that his fastest-growing customer bases, in India and China, are skipping 2D tools and jumping straight into 3D as a way of meeting perceived coming demand of digital prototyping services.

So the next time I quip that (because everything's so cheap there) Second Life is really "virtual China," I guess I'll remind myself that metaverse development is yet another digital service that can migrate globally to optimize cost.

Posted by John Jainschigg at 12:45 PM  Permalink |

InformationWeek's Outsourcing Blog, by Paul McDougall, this week wonders if there's menace in the growing rumble, by Indian commentators, that outsourcing threatens traditional Indian values (e.g., by obliging workers to adopt a Western holiday schedule, assume 'Western-sounding' names for telemarketing work, or simply by exposing Indian workers to 'Hallmark Holidays').

I'm not sure this is a bad -- or threatening -- thing, either way. The fact is, India is no longer a crown colony, nor is it the "dirty little secret" of Western service industry. As citizens of a huge nation, and as valued trading partners, Indian service providers have a certain right to begin to expect not to have to call themselves 'Bob' and 'Alice' and learn to say 'Happy Valentine's Day' in a Midwestern accent. Or, conversely, if Western firms really think they need this stuff, they should be willing to pay a premium for it.

As to claims of cultural imperialism: On the one hand, participation in the global economy demands adaptation to a nascent global values-system -- but on the other, part-benefit of _successful_ participation means you get to start dictating what's on the global values-agenda. So it all evens out: I lead with Valentine's Day, and you match and raise with Vinayaka Chaturthi!

Read more here.

Posted by John Jainschigg at 02:19 PM  Permalink |

The program for SD Best Practices Russia (April 3-4 at the Radisson Slavianskaya Hotel, Moscow) continues to fill out -- the XML and Agile Development tracks look particularly strong. But what caught my eye, today, is the fact that development-best-practice-for-real-and-lasting-human-benefit and use-case-writing guru, Alistair Cockburn, principal of Humans and Technology, Inc., will be keynoting on Day 1.

You have to love Cockburn (pronounced 'CO-burn,' as he notes on his main website -- a Wiki-based open collaborative forum). He's a poet. He's an outdoorsman. He has one of the world's most memorable bad hair photos. And for at least a decade, he's been the source of a great deal of inspiration and wisdom about adaptive and Agile software development methods and practice -- much of which is encapsulated here, in his long page of links to talks.

Check it out, as they say in Scotland.

Posted by John Jainschigg at 11:41 AM  Permalink |