Almost Human
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, May 24,2004

Using avatars for corporate training, advocates say, can combine the best parts of face-to-face interaction and computer-based learning.

Corporate training has found a valuable new high-tech tool: the avatar.

Avatars -- well known to players of online games -- are computer depictions of humans, ranging from cartoonish characters to photo-realistic representations. Increasingly, companies are using them as imaginary coaches, co-workers and customers in computer-based training sessions designed to help, for example, sharpen sales skills, reinforce leadership expertise or boost management prowess.

By using avatars, companies find they can combine the best parts of both face-to-face training and computer-based learning. Like other computer-based training programs, those using avatars can be cheaper and more efficient than human trainers, and deliver a more consistent message. At the same time, they offer an almost human touch that may help reinforce that message.

"We have definitely saved money [and] have had an increase in productivity," says Robert Koehler, interactive-technology director in Chicago at SBC Communications Inc., which has used avatar technology from Pulse Entertainment Inc. of San Francisco to create training courses.

For now, the market for avatar-based training is modest, but growing.
Michael Brennan, program manager for learning-services research at
International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass., estimates companies in the U.S. will spend less than $100 million on such programs this year, making avatars a mere sliver of a projected $3 billion market for all types of computer-based corporate training. But he predicts the avatar share of that market will expand as the broader market doubles in size by 2007.

What now? In this SimuLearn leadership course, talk of a company party and a sales retreat isn't engaging anyone. One option is a new topic: cutting expenses.

Typically, corporate trainees see head-and-shoulder views of an avatar who comes and goes as the PC-based training runs its course.

For example, at CDW Corp., a technology products and services company in Vernon Hills, Ill., account manager Danielle Paden took a sales-training
course in which an avatar coach guides the trainee through a series of mock phone interactions with customers.

The course, developed for CDW by Accenture Ltd. of Bermuda, took Ms. Paden through 14 different sales situations and customer reactions. First, the avatar coach would introduce the customer situation, and then Ms. Paden would hear the customer -- represented on her screen by a still photograph -- speaking to her in a simulated phone conversation. It was up to her to determine, with guidance from the avatar, what was going on in the sales process, in part by reading the tone of each customer's voice, Ms. Paden says.

The program is "the closest thing you can get to [actual] client interactions," says Ms. Paden. "I was very pleased with the experience."

"The avatar went through almost every situation you will run across," she
says, a comment that points to one of the main advantages of computer-based training in general: Because computer programs can pull together the knowledge and experience of many trainers and deliver all that identically at each training session, it gives it an advantage over even the most effective human trainers. "Role playing [with a human partner] can be inconsistent," says Ms. Paden. And, she says, playing out scenes with the Accenture program was much more like the varied customer situations she has encountered in her job than the role-playing she's done with class partners, who tend toward limited portrayals of the happy or dissatisfied customer.

Customers also point out that, as with other computer programs, avatar
training allows for repeated reinforcement. "Without penalty, you can try
this again and again," says Mark Tuckerman, who is using Norwalk, Conn.-based SimuLearn Inc.'s Virtual Leader training application for scientists at United Technologies Corp., the aerospace and building-services company in Hartford, Conn.

The avatar coach, meanwhile, adds an element that's lacking in other
computer-based training. "The avatar has a face you can remember," says Byron Reeves, director of the Center for the Study of Language and
Information at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. And that makes it
easier for trainees to remember the knowledge the avatar imparts, he says.

That aspect of avatar training helped attract Kim Holcomb, the e-learning
manager at NetBank Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga., an online bank that is beginning to use avatar technology from New York's Oddcast Media Technologies Inc. for customer-service training. "I think it will make training more personable," says Ms. Holcomb.

Maria Sullivan, CDW's vice president of learning and development, says that while she believes a human element still needs to be incorporated in the training process, Accenture's avatar program has paid off for her company.

"We've seen increased productivity from our staff who've gone through" the avatar-based training, she says.

The Advantage of Flexibility

Customers are finding that there are other advantages to avatar training as well. Compared with in-person training, it can be quicker and less expensive -- especially on big jobs. British telecommunications giant BT Group PLC, for example, was able to train 4,500 salespeople in a little more than four weeks with an avatar-based course from Accenture, rather than the eight weeks such training would take with traditional methods, says Mick Taylor, BT's training manager in London. He estimates that the avatar-based training cost BT about half as much as a comparable "face-to-face solution."

For companies that develop their own training materials, new tools from
firms such as Pulse Entertainment can make development easier and quicker, according to Stanford University's Mr. Reeves. And once developed, an avatar-based course can be easily modified (more easily than, say, video-based training) to evolve along with a corporation's profile or to target training to a diverse work force.

"There's an opportunity to make avatars any race or age -- that's a huge
advantage," says Mr. Reeves, who adds that "it's safe to say" that trainers whose age and race reflect those of their trainees will usually achieve better results.

Avatars also don't tire or care what time it is, giving trainees the option
to replay situations whenever and wherever they want. Rather than struggling to schedule 20 key executives to sit through a two-day seminar on leadership, a firm can let its people train at their convenience, and without the need to travel.

Of course, for businesses that haven't yet warmed to any form of
computer-based learning, the use of avatars can seem far-fetched. And even those companies that successfully use avatar trainers have met with some reluctance as employees experience something like future shock over the notion of being taught by avatars.

"We found people who didn't want anything to do with it," says BT's Mr.
Taylor. He says that promoting this new way of training to employees is the best way to make the introduction of avatars go smoothly. "Be on site and show people how easy it is to use," he recommends.

Some say such resistance may be waning, given that an increasing percentage of the work force grew up with computer games that often involve elaborate simulations of human behavior and of fantastical environments. "Particularly with younger workers, [avatar-based training] fits right in with growing up with video games," says United Technologies' Mr. Tuckerman.

Indeed, Accenture is working on a leadership training course with the look and feel of a computer game -- with three-dimensional avatars and
backgrounds. Corporate executives are represented as avatars on a ship. When the expedition leader is swept overboard in a storm, the remaining
executives -- playing the roles of ship doctor, cook and so forth, each with his or her own objectives -- must together decide how to complete the expedition.

A Glimpse of the Future

Even more realism is expected in avatar-based training in the near future.
Avatar-based training used in military and space-exploration training
already involves far more-realistic, three-dimensional views and avatar
movements than what can be seen now on corporate desktops.

"Eventually this technology comes down to industry," says Bruce Damer,
president and chief executive officer at Digital Space Inc. of Santa Cruz,
Calif., which is working with the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration on avatar programs. "It trickles down."

One simulation developed by Digital Space and NASA represents life in the polar conditions of Mars. You can enter the virtual environment as an avatar that isn't part of the simulation, to simply observe the living and working conditions, says Maarten Sierhuis, a NASA scientist. In another mode, he says, "you can participate as one of the crew members in the simulation, working alongside and together with other avatars. We envision that this is more the training model that we aspire to create."

Ms. Borzo writes about technology and the Internet from California.