Erica Driver is co-founder and principal of ThinkBalm, a technology consultancy in Little Compton that recently marked its first anniversary. Driver, who spoke at last week’s Providence Geeks dinner, talked with Providence Business News recently about ThinkBalm’s specialty, the “Immersive Internet.”

PBN: Let’s start with the basics. What exactly is the Immersive Internet?

DRIVER: ThinkBalm defines the Immersive Internet as a collection of emerging technologies combined with a social culture that has roots in gaming and virtual worlds. Think IMAX movies, surround sound and World of Warcraft applied to the Web and business applications, and you’ve got the Immersive Internet. What we once called “virtual worlds” as a catch-all category now only describes one small piece of the picture. Other important elements are virtual campuses or 3D intranets, immersive learning environments and serious games, and 3D tools and business applications. These all … deeply engage – even engross – the person using them. A combination of these technologies and an emerging culture with roots in gaming is opening up new dimensions in collaboration, engagement and context.

PBN: The Immersive Internet seems “out there.” Are you seeing that the technology is providing business value?

DRIVER: While work-related use of immersive technology is still in the early-adopter phase, practitioners are beginning to quantify and obtain business value. We published a report in May of 2009 where we discuss this in great detail. Here is a link: “ThinkBalm Immersive Internet Business Value Study, Q2 2009.”

PBN: You used to be at Forrester Research. What made you decide to found ThinkBalm, and what do you do there?

DRIVER: In June 2008, I left my job as an IT industry analyst at Forrester Research to join the free agent nation. My husband, Sam Driver, and I founded ThinkBalm – a tiny next-generation analyst firm focused on work-related use of the Immersive Internet. We offer independent IT industry analysis and strategy consulting services.

Lots of people thought I was crazy to go off on my own, especially while focused on such an early-stage market. But we just celebrated our first anniversary in business and there’s no turning back now. Being a free agent focused on an emerging technology market has given me permission to experiment and innovate in all sorts of ways.

One of our recent experiments is the ThinkBalm Data Garden on ThinkBalm Island in the virtual world of Second Life. The ThinkBalm Data Garden is a data visualization experience built around the ThinkBalm Immersive Internet Business Value Study, Q2 2009, which we published on May 26, 2009. Creation of the data displays was a collaborative effort between me, Sam and several members of the ThinkBalm Innovation Community, including Jeff Lowe and Jonas Karlsson. This display is open to the public — feel free to come by and visit. You can also watch a nine-minute video tour on YouTube:

PBN: How is what you are doing different from what other industry analysts are doing?

DRIVER: We’re breaking the mold in how we perform our industry analysis. Rather than study a technology market from afar, every day we use the emerging technologies we cover. We hold nearly all our meetings and advisory sessions in immersive environments. We use immersive environments to hold training sessions, brainstorming, and role-playing sessions. We have learned how to build out and administer various immersive environments, and know first-hand about the issues involved. Also, rather than gather information from occasional conversations and interactions with practitioners, we founded and operate the ThinkBalm Innovation Community. This community, which currently has about 280 members, has a mission of advancing adoption of immersive technology in the workplace. Since its launch in August 2009 the community has evolved into a mix between a social network, a collaborative laboratory, and a guild. Members of the community are Immersive Internet advocates, implementers, explorers and technology marketers.

PBN: Would you tell me more about the ThinkBalm Innovation Community?

DRIVER: The mission of the ThinkBalm Innovation Community is to advance adoption of work-related use of the Immersive Internet. The community is focused exclusively on work-related use of the Immersive Internet — virtual worlds and campuses, immersive learning environments and 3D business applications. We are interested in use cases like learning and training, meetings and conferences, business activity rehearsal, collaborative design and prototyping, collaborative 3D data visualization, remote system and facility management, and human resources management. As of late July, we have approximately 280 community members in the ThinkBalm Innovation Community group on LinkedIn. We encourage anyone with an interest in work-related use of immersive technology to request membership in the group. The culture of the community is what makes it so effective: we have created a marketing-free haven for explorers to meet and learn from each other, collaboratively solve problems, discuss big picture theory and network with an open and helpful group of people. The challenge for most of us is in finding a fellow explorer: often there simply aren’t any allies within one’s organization, and the innovation community can provide that gang of allies.