Second Life

USF Undergraduates Tackle Global Product Development in Second Life
Special Topics in Entrepreneurship: Global Product Development

The ability of an enterprise to introduce successful products or services in a timely manner is critical to create shareholder wealth. Over the last several decades, product introduction has become a synchronized occurrence
in global markets, with enterprises launching new products in 20 or 30 or more countries simultaneously. Such a feat is an enormous task that requires a high degree of integration to navigate complex government approvals, product localization, customer support, etc. to seamlessly introduce a synchronized product launch that reaches the market at the same time across the globe.

The process to develop new products or services is a critical process of a multidisciplinary nature which integrates multiple and diverse areas of a firm.  Furthermore, the product conception, design, development, manufacturing and support is a global value chain.

Over the past business school faculty has struggled on how to bring this experience to the classroom. Most of the experiences were insufficient for the students to understand the market dynamics and the diversity of issues a Global Product Manager face in managing all the issues of a global value chain for the product to navigate a global journey, from its conceptual phase to a market success.

Carlos Baradello has introduced Second Life to help teach this class in Global Product Development and the students are immersed in a real-life simulation of market unmet needs and the opportunity to fill those needs with specific products and services. Using Second Life is teaching is at the frontier- it engages the typical class age students (20-24 years old) in a virtual environment of gaming and that is often as natural (if not more) as the real presence environment, that was the norm for older generations.

Tthe first reactions of the students seem to be of approval, engagement and interest in using Second Life as an educational tool.