In 2003 the US Department of Agriculture created the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP, then known as “Section 9006”) to provide grants to farmers and rural small businesses to cover up to 25% of the total costs associated with purchasing and installing renewable energy systems and making energy efficiency improvements.

As with any government program however, there’s a tedious process to go through and paperwork to fill out before receiving the funds. One of the first steps in the process is having an independent professional engineer conduct an audit estimating the potential energy savings on the specific project that they’re applying for to receive grant money. Kurt Creamer, Ph.D., says that the “actual percentage energy savings, in some cases are quite phenomenal.”

That’s where Senergy Inc., the Apex-based company hired to conduct these energy audits, comes in. Kurt Creamer, PhD, president of Senergy, founded the company in 2003 in response to REAP while he was still enrolled in the Biological and Agricultural Engineering PhD program at North Carolina State University and working full-time at the school. Even though there was a new need for energy auditors, business remained relatively slow for a few years.

“In the early days farmers had to pay up front for the energy audits which were often times quite difficult for the farmers,” Creamer said. Business for Senergy spread solely through word-of-mouth and only those farmers that could afford to front the initial costs of an audit got on board for the first 5-6 years of the program.

But then, in 2008, the North Carolina Farm Bureau got involved. The Farm Bureau covers the costs of the audits up front so that the farmers are much more willing to go through the process of applying for the REAP grants. The program (and business for Senergy) skyrocketed. It’s “been a real boom to my business to have the Farm Bureau involved in the project,” Creamer said.

Senergy’s work

Senergy typically works with farmers in Eastern North Carolina specializing in grain farms, but has had the opportunity over the years to work with a variety of types of farms including tobacco farms, some on swine & poultry farms, and a handful of dairy farms, often times on some very nontraditional projects.

One particular project on a hog farm required comparing the energy efficiency of burning the dead hogs to composting them—composting is more energy efficient, in case you were wondering. Creamer has also worked on energy efficient organic dairy farm feed grinding systems, poultry barns, irrigation systems, and grain dryers. But he’s not just limited to working on energy efficiency projects. Kurt also works on some renewable energy projects, including one this fall where he’ll be working on a “project to look at the use of sweet potatoes in an anaerobic digester,” Creamer explained, that “could generate enough biogas from the sweet potatoes to meet the requirements of the farm.”

What’s next?

Creamer says that he would love to expand in several ways:

• Geographically: There is still plenty of opportunity to pursue this program in other parts of North Carolina and beyond
• Explore the energy needs of rural small businesses (outside of the farm base)
• Take on more renewable energy projects
• Improve his engineering methodologies

At the end of the day Creamer says he really enjoys the work he does and “it’s a really good program for the farmers, and a good program for the environment.”

I first saw Phaedra Boinodiris speak as the opening speaker at TEDxRTP (my review) back in March, but this was a different kind of talk, geared more towards scientists and science communicators.

I remember playing Pong when it first came out. I remember spending many hours back in 1980 or so playing The Hobbit on Sinclair ZX Spectrum. And I played many games at arcades (still not knowing which games started out as arcade games adapted to computers and which the other way round). Then I quit playing games for a couple of decades until my kids were ready for them. I loved Zoombinis – an amazing game of logic and a brilliant preparation for taking IQ tests! I loved Richard Scarry’s Busytown – the one and only game I know about infrastructure, where players build stuff and deliver it to others for the good of the town – from baking bread to paving roads – learning along the way how those things are done.

And sure, Phaedra Boinodiris started with a slide depicting Pong (to the chuckle of the audience) but soon got into the real stuff – the serious gaming and the story of how she got involved in developing such games, as well as about studies of gaming and how different kinds of games help develop different real-work skills, from eye-hand coordination to leadership to cooperation. Her first game – INNOV8 – was developed as a prototype, a proof of concept, in only three months and instantly became a huge hit. It is used by businesses and business schools around the world to teach Business Process Management. It is essentially a first person shooter game (without guns) in which the player is brought as an outside consultant into a company where s/he has to figure out the flow, the bottlenecks, etc. (including by interviewing employees, as well as data-sheets) and experiment in making it more efficient. The 2.0 version came soon after, adding such problems as traffic, customer service and supply chains.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The next game, recently announced and coming out in October 2010, will be a Sim-City-like serious game CityOne, designed to help city planners, town councils, citizens, and engineers plan better, more efficient infrastructure for their cities. Put in your city’s specs and start building new infrastructure, see how much it will cost, see what problems will arise, see what solutions are available – probably something you could not have thought of yourself and may be surprised.

As I am currently reading ‘On The Grid’ it occured to me that the developers of CityOne should read that book, and that Scott Huler should be given a test-run of the game, perhaps for him to review for Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News&Observer and the local NPR station. And for Science In The Triangle, of course.

Monday, May 17

BizMix: A Professional Approach to After-hours Business Connections

5:00 – 7:00pm

The Matthew House, 317 West Chatham Street, Cary, NC 27511

Looking for a business after-hours that’s worth your time? Benefit from a structured setting, connect with leaders and meet our reporting staff.

$15 Triangle Business Journal subscribers; $25 others. Read more here.

Tuesday, May 18

Widening the Pipeline: Excellence in STEM Education (Luncheon)

12:00 – 1:30pm

CED’s Entrepreneurship Center, 100 Capitola Drive, Durham, 27713

How Do We Build the Pipeline of Next Generation STEM Employees? Join the Contemporary Science Center for lunch as we explore and discuss with award-winning Science, Technology, Engineering & Math educators from Charlotte and Raleigh.

Registration $20. Register here.

TARDC May Lunceon

12:00 – 1:15 pm

RTP Headquarters, 12 Davis Drive

Speaker: Dr. Maria Escolar, Director of the Program for the Study of Neurodevelopmental Function in Rare Disorders at UNC Chapel Hill. Lunch will be provided.

Free for TARDC members; $35 others; $25 CED members. RSVP to rousseau@rtp.org

Wednesday, May 19

President’s National Export Initiative Luncheon

11:30am – 1:00pm

Hotel Indigo, 151 Tatum Drive, Durham, NC 27703

TOPIC: President’s National Export Initiative; Speaker: Ro Khanna , Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration, Office of Domestic Operations.

Free. More info here.

CED’s BioTech Forum

5:30 – 8:00 pm

North Carolina Biotechnology Center, RTP, NC

During this presentation and interactive panel discussion we will answer several key questions to provide insight into what will likely drive the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries’ partnering efforts moving forward.

Find out more here.

Speed Networking in the Triangle

5:45 – 8:45pm

Wyndham at RTP, 4620 South Miami Boulevard, Durham, NC

Based on the format of speed dating, attendees will have five minutes to network with each new person you meet. Once the five minutes is up, you will move to the next person and continue networking.

Only 50 attendees allowed! Purchase a ticket here.

Thursday, May 20

If It Isn’t Broke, It Will Be! Reinvent your Business Model

11:30 – 1pm

CED Headquarters, 100 Capitola Drive suite 106 Durham , NC 27713

Participants will focus on evaluating, creating and re-inventing current business models.  This seminar teaches state-of-the art methods that produce transformative ideas and solutions.

$20, including lunch. Sign up here.

Quality In BioPharma Conference (through Fri, May 21)

8:00am (5/20) – 5:00pm (5/21)

NC State University, Centennial Campus, 2410 Campus Shore Drive #218, Raleigh, NC 27695

The focus of the two-day event will be Environmental Monitoring in Biomanufacturing, and will have noteworthy talks, discussions, and networking events for professionals involved in the Quality, Manufacturing, Environmental Microbiology, and Process Engineering areas of the industry.

Register here.

Friday, May 21

BTWW: Cyclists’ Breakfast at RTP HQ

7:00am – 9:00am

Cyclists can mingle and enjoy free breakfast
courtesy of the Research Triangle Foundation.

Saturday, May 22

ProductCamp RTP: Share In The Innovation!

8:00am – 6:00pm

Cambria Suites @RDU Airport, 300 Airgate Drive, Morrisville, NC‎

In the spirit of BarCamp, ProductCamp is a collaborative, user organized unconference, focused on Product Management and Marketing.

Register online here.

Ongoing (All Week)**

Bike to Work Week

All around the Triangle!

Sponsored by GoTriangle.

Find out more here.

——————————-

To view a complete calendar of RTP community events, please visit the Science in the Triangle calendar.

While it would be impossible to separate the global from the state-level issues discussed at the forum, some of the local business people offered examples for specific challenges to innovation that they faced.

Alexander Macris is the president of Themis Group which is based in Durham, N.C. and is a strong example of the power of a science park like RTP to attract additional tech-based businesses to the region. Macris said that the Triangle region is one of the largest concentrations of gaming companies in the U.S. Most of the innovation potential in gaming is at the gaming engine and software level, he said, and the average median income of someone in the gaming industry is about $75,000. He expects to see about 300 to 400 new gaming-related jobs in the area over the next three to five years, he said, because the industry is growing in the double digits. But at the same time, the cost of game development is going up – whereas a decade ago it may have cost $1 million to develop a game, it costs $20 to $30 million to do so today, Macris said. Foreign countries give more tax credits to their gaming companies, he said, which makes them more competitive in the global field and is hurting U.S.-based gaming companies. “Targeted tax credits are a huge attractant to small and start-up businesses in the gaming industry,” Macris said. “And cool downtowns, the creative class really likes a vibrant downtown too.”

While deeper tax credits may help some start-ups get a toe-hold in emerging markets, retaining the best talent is necessary to sustain them over time. And while uber cool downtowns like the American Tobacco District in Durham are one component of enticements to retain the best brains, it’s a smaller part of the issue. Jennie Hunter-Cevera of RTI said that 50 percent of foreign students who earn a doctorate in the U.S. end up exporting their knowledge by returning to their home countries. “We have a brain drain going on, and we need to make it easier and more attractive for the brightest to stay,” she said. (What do you think will help retain top-graduating foreign students in the U.S.? Leave a comment.)

Tim Toben, who chairs the NC Energy Policy Council, said that certain existing state policies were attempting to tap emerging markets by requiring utility companies to use renewable energy for 12.5 percent of their energy mix by 2021. While critics say the target is too low, Toben said that N.C. has a record of being one of the most progressive southeastern states when it comes to energy and the environment. “The utilities know we are moving into a carbon-constrained future,” Toben said, citing a Duke Energy plan to drop their reliance on coal from 42 percent today t 32 percent in 2030, or even as low as 17 percent. “For entrepreneurs, what resources will replace this ? Wind? Nuclear? Biomass? There’s a lot of opportunity for entrepreneurs in a carbon-limited future and we want N.C. to be the leader in the Southeast in the new green economy.” (Which begs the question: What specifically is the state energy office doing to help start-ups like MegaWatt Solar or BioRxn?  I have not looked into this at all, so if you have any insight then please leave a comment down below.)

But even if the policies, foreign visas and the vision of local leaders and educators all align into the perfect climate for innovative business, what sort of characteristics do innovative businesses and visionary business leaders typically have? Clay Thorpe, a partner of Hatteras Venture Partners, shared a list of just such traits he amassed from talking to high-level personnel in Genentech. “I’ve been asked why N.C. has not had a homegrown success, a globally-innovative business develop here,” Thorp said. “And I’ve thought about this a lot. We’re the number three biotech hub in the country, and we’re good at attracting existing businesses to the area.” Thorp said he had an opportunity to meet with leaders from Genentech, widely considered one of the main founding companies of the biotech industry, and he asked them what they thought contributed to their success.

“You have to have a driver, like Bob Swanson at Genentech, who set the cultural tone.” Thorp said. “I hesitate to say it, but it’s almost 5 to 10 percent the quality of the technology and 90 to 95 percent the driver.” In addition to having a visionary and energizing leader, Genentech spent an inordinate amount of time hiring good people, he said. They would court people they wanted to attract, sometimes for years, and chose very carefully. The leaders also fostered an ethic of loyalty and hardwork, which resulted in dedicated employees “going the extra mile” when it was needed. The company was also built upon a foundation of “patient, long-standing capital,” Thorp said, which gave them the stability and time to do proper research. In addition, Genentech required its scientists to publish scientific papers on their research and they held them to such high academic standards that often Genentech papers were cited over papers by ivey-league academic researchers.

While there were no clear answers presented at the Global Innovation Forum on Friday, a lot of conservation was generated. We want to hear from you — what are your thoughts on state or federal policies, or cultural shifts, that will help carve a climate favorable to business innovation with global trade potential? Let us know in the comments section below.

“We’re here today to learn from you so that we can go back to Washington and do what we do,” said NFTC president Bill Reinsch in his opening remarks. “We want to build relationships with companies and open a conversation with them to develop stronger links.” Reinsch said that his group was traveling to technology-innovation clusters like RTP and Silicon Valley to find out first-hand from companies what sort of policies were encumbering them from doing business globally, which were helping, and what sort of ideas they had for the future.

How to create and sustain jobs and businesses is a question that both federal and local governments have wrestled with sharply and frequently since the economic downturn. Research Triangle Park, NC has long been a technology-hub and economic engine for the state, noted RTP CEO Rick Weddle, and the area has excelled in life sciences, information technology, and biotech markets, but capturing emerging markets like gaming and clean energy technologies will be vital to RTP maintaining its vitality in the future. But how can science parks like RTP, and the states they’re rooted in, cultivate homegrown small businesses (and they jobs and economic resilience they generate) in emerging and established markets, especially when the banks are slow to lend — if they lend at all — and cash is plain hard to come by?

NC State Treasurer Janet Cowell presented one state-level contribution to the problem: a still-forming program called the Innovation Fund that will invest $230 million in N.C. businesses over the next three to five years from the state’s $67 billion pension fund. “Our pension fund is bigger than General Motors,” Cowell said. “Other states have used this approach for distressed parts of their states, but we’re applying this method with a market-based approach which makes me confident we can expect a return on our investment.” In other words, the state may be coughing up cash from the pension fund in the short-term, but they expect the money to generate more cash over time. The state plans to allocate about 10 to 25 percent of the $230 million as venture capital, 5 to 15 percent will be growth equity, 40 to 60 percent will be used for buyouts, and 5 to 35 percent for special situations. They will sprinkle their investments across established and emerging market sectors including: agriculture, life sciences, clean technology, green technology and renewable energy. The Innovation Fund is managed by Credit Suisse which has 1,050 employees in N.C. out of 47,000 global employees, and Cowell said the state chose them because of their performance record managing similar funds. (For more information, visit www.ncinnovationfund.com.)

But cash is only one prong of the multi-pronged solution to stimulating local scientific and business innovations with global potential. Access to a well-educated and prepared talent pool is a second prong; policies inducive to global trade are a third. These aspects were hashed out at length by two panels focused on the role of state and federal policies.

Sandy Merber, a specialist in international trade regulation and sourcing for General Electric, cited a study that found 84 percent of U.S. businesses said they’d lost business opportunities with China in 2008 because of visa problems in getting their Chinese business partners to the U.S. “It took me one day to get an emergency business visa to get into China, while the average is four days,” Merber said. “Guess what the average is for a Chinese businessman to come here? 31 days. That holds up deals, and that’s got to be expedited.”

Jennie Hunter-Cervera, executive vice-president of RTI, shared that a big challenge her company faces is the labyrinthine international laws that businesses must navigate to get business licenses to work in other countries. RTI works in 40 countries and holds 40 different business licenses in these countries, but she said the process of obtaining a license often slows down the companies ability to grow. She also noted that collaboration is difficult in some foreign countries because they don’t honor the same gene patent laws. RTI wants to take its research “from the bench to the bank” she said, meaning that the group seeks a return on dollars sunk into basic research and development. But it’s far easier to get government-funded grants for basic research than for research demonstrating proof of concept – data that may be necessary to convince a bank or venture capital group to invest in translating a project into a marketable product. “Proof of concept grants are not well-represented in the federal grants mix,” she said.

Heather Osborne Clark, director of trade and policy for Merck & Co., said that her company earns 50 percent of its income outside the U.S. in about 140 different emerging markets, and she reiterated that streamlining foreign visa processes would be helpful to Merck’s growth. She also noted that the resources allotted to foreign government agencies tied to trade and commerce are proportionally larger (in comparison to gross domestic product) than what the US allots to our agencies. “We need to better fund our agencies so that we can be more competitive,” she said.

Most of the business people attending seemed to agree that one area they would like to see the federal government help them abroad was in protecting intellectual property rights in foreign countries. While their rights were well-protected in the U.S., they noted serious infringements could occur in other countries with little in the way of laws or hegemony to help them.

… Part II of this post explores NC-centric issues discussed at the Global Innovation Forum, such as green energy markets, gaming, and characteristics of a globally-innovative business.

Today, I asked Sabine Vollmer to answer a few questions:

Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? What is your (scientific) background?

I’m a journalist by trade and a thrill seeker by nature. There’s nothing more thrilling to me than Eureka! moments, my own and those of others. That’s why I chose to study journalism instead of biochemistry, why I left Germany to come to the U.S., why I enjoy reporting more than writing. Writing keeps me sane, but finding out stuff I didn’t know keeps me going. In the more than 20 years I worked for newspapers, I covered just about everything: Crime (too emotionally draining), politics (too much hot air), business (too much granularity, not enough color) and science. I got stuck on science about 10 years ago after moving
to North Carolina’s Research Triangle and the Eureka! moments keep on coming.

Becoming a science writer was a logical step for me, because I’ve always been interested in science, particularly in biology and chemistry. I took a heavy load of biochemistry classes in high school (German high school is different from American high school), but selected mass communication as my major at the university in Munich. I have never regretted my decision, because it has allowed me to experience scientific breakthroughs without having to toil in the lab doing experiments over and over again.

Tell us a little more about your career trajectory so far: interesting projects past and present?

Most of my expertise is in the life sciences. My sweet spot is where business and research intersect, mainly because those stories dominate in the RTP area. I moved here to cover biotech, pharma and health care for the Triangle Business Journal and then switched to the News & Observer to essentially write about the same things.

About a year ago, my job at the N&O got cut in a massive, nationwide McClatchy layoff, which so far has been largely a blessing. Now, I get to focus more on the science than the business angles, I get to mingle with scientists and I have more outlets. In the past year, I met three Nobel Prize laureates, including Ada Yonath, a 2009 winner in chemistry. Compare that to a big, fat 0 in the previous eight years while I was a staff writer with a regular paycheck and benefits.

My stories are now published on Science in the Triangle, an online publication that tracks research activities in the RTP area, and in the Science & Technology pages in the N&O and the Charlotte Observer.

Science in the Triangle is a current interesting project. Past interesting projects include a story about AZT, the first HIV/AIDS drug that was developed in RTP, and a couple of investigative stories about laser assisted in-situ keratomileusis, or LASIK. The AZT story was a doorway into HIV/AIDS research, a very active area in RTP, and Harvard Medical School picked it up and posted it on its Web site. The LASIK stories have since garnered the interest of a national magazine.

I’m still waiting for the curse part to hit.

What is taking up the most of your time and passion these days? What are your goals?

The RTP area generates a wealth of research in a number of different disciplines. Until four or five years ago, local media did an adequate job chronicling the activities. But when the bottom fell out in the newspaper industry, the local science coverage started to decline in quality and quantity. I just couldn’t bear the thought that all this local knowledge would become largely inaccessible to the general public and that the research silos that exist would become more impenetrable. I couldn’t and I can’t imagine how that would improve an area I came to appreciate for its intellectual vitality and cultural diversity.

I spend a lot of time applying my skills and expertise trying to fill the holes in the local science coverage, generate enough income to help feed and house the family and learn from the mistakes my former employers made and are still making.

My goal is to make a national name for myself writing about research and development in the RTP area.

What aspect of science communication and/or particular use of the Web in science interests you the most?

I’d like to see a business model for online science writing emerge that values quality content and provides broad access to new ideas.

How does (if it does) blogging figure in your work? How about social networks, e.g., Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook? Do you find all this online activity to be a net positive (or even a necessity) in what you do?

Blogs come in different flavors. I’m trying to find time to start a personal blog and keep it going. For now, most of my blogging is for Science in the Triangle, where I provide information and analysis rather than opinion. I absolutely love Twitter, because it’s fast and insightful if you follow the right people. Basically, I use Twitter like a science wire service, to get ideas and to distribute blog posts. My twitter handle is @SciTri. I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, but I wouldn’t want to be without any of my social networks.

When and how did you first discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any cool science blogs by the participants at the Conference?

I’m still discovering them and have yet to form much of an opinion. I do find them very interesting as blueprints of publishing alternatives to the traditional, or “dead-tree” as you call it, media.

What was the best aspect of ScienceOnline2010 for you? Any suggestions for next year? Is there anything that happened at this Conference – a session, something someone said or did or wrote – that will change the way you think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?

The Eureka! moments, of course. It was my first ScienceOnline conference and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was great. It brought me up-to-date with a world I realized I knew nothing about as a staff writer for the dead-tree media. The networking was particularly fruitful for me. What I hope next year’s conference will address more and more specifically is a possible business model for online science writing. We need to figure out how to shift from paper to online and still be able to pay the bills.

It is great working with you. I am glad you made it to ScienceOnline2010 and thank you for the interview.

Like the other attendees, O’Driscoll and Ward didn’t travel to VWBPE in person. They sat in front of a computer and had their voice-activated avatars teleport to one of 20 specially constructed virtual islands, where the conference took place over 48 continuous hours. Some of the islands resembled the Guilin mountains in China, an Irish seaside cottage and Stonehenge, the famous English prehistoric monument.

Brent Werber

Wada Tripp, O’Driscoll’s avatar, gave a presentation on 3-D learning, which requires students to interact in simulated, or virtual, environments. Brent Werber, Ward’s avatar, moderated a panel at the conference.

O’Driscoll is a professor at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and Ward provides RTI researchers technical assistance as the research institute’s director of commercialization. Both are professionals holding positions of responsibility, but neither thinks twice about slipping into his “digital sockpuppet,” a computer-generated persona that lives in Second Life, a three-dimensional virtual world maintained by Linden Lab of San Francisco.

Wada Tripp

“We’re members of a community who is waiting for the rest of the world to commit to the obvious,” Wada Tripp, a younger looking version of O’Driscoll that speaks with his voice, said at the beginning of the VWBPE presentation. “The immersive Internet is the next wave of the Net,” O’Driscoll himself later added in a phone interview.

How much life is there in virtual worlds?

More and more people around the world are committing to the obvious. The population in virtual worlds such as Second Life has grown to tens of millions in the past decade, which should come as no surprise to those 35 or younger, technology nerds of all ages and anybody who can no longer imagine making a living without the Internet.

Virtual worlds are the product of the same advances in computer technology that brought us Google, eBay and Craigslist. They offer similar benefits: Fast and convenient access to ever more sophisticated information. They come with similar, built-in hurdles: You have to have a computer powerful enough to run the software and you need to adapt to new rules. And they raise similar questions: What should be public and free? What is proprietary and needs to be private and secured behind a firewall?

What’s different about virtual worlds is the out-of-body experience that defies the laws of nature.

Avatars walk, talk, fly and teleport. Some are lookalikes of their real-life counterparts, others are plants, animals or fantasy creatures. They socialize and drink virtual beer, ski on virtual snow and relax on a virtual beach. They meet in virtual conference centers that may look like castles or a moon base. They spend and earn virtual money in virtual economies.

Their virtual worlds are called There, World of Warcraft, Vivaty and Entropia Universe. They use virtual currency such as Therebucks, World of Warcraft gold and Linden dollars that can be converted to real-life currencies like U.S. dollars or euros. Some of the virtual worlds are more game, with guidelines set for role playing. Others are more social world, where avatars are free to be what they want to be.

Launched in 2003, Second Life is one of the most popular virtual worlds.

User-to-user transactions in Second Life topped $500 million in 2009. Its virtual real estate totals about 500,000 acres. Real-life people have full-time jobs in Second Life and some have even become real-life millionaires.

Last month, the Second Life community counted more than 1 million residents – that’s what Linden Lab calls real-life people who go inworld, which means they log in to activate their avatars. More than 1,400 corporations, universities, government agencies and the U.S. military own virtual property in Second Life.

“They’ve got the best game in town right now, if you care about innovation, collaboration, education and community,” Ward said.

Global Research Park

What sets Second Life apart is the ability to build and create content.

RTP goes virtual

Half a year ago, RTI bought some land from Linden Lab and built an island called Global Research Park. The shape of the island mirrors the real-life shape of RTP. Towers rise up in three points of the island to represent Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and N.C. State University. Other structures on the island include buildings for RTI and the Research Triangle Foundation.

Avatars can take a lofty ride in the Wright flyer, complete a real-life survey in the RTI building or teleport to the Story Quest, an island dedicated to HIV/AIDS education.

Marty Snowpaw

Story Quest takes you into the house of Uncle D, where you can listen to his phone messages, read his journal or watch his videos. You can record your reactions and use Facebook, Twitter or Flickr to make these recordings part of the story. Story Quest is the brainchild of Jena Ball, a Los Angeles-based storyteller better known as her avatar, Jenaia Moraine, and Marty Keltz, a former English teacher who co-founded the company that produces the Magic School Bus.

In Second Life, Keltz becomes Marty Snowpaw.

Entering a virtual world as an avatar “sounds so alien,” Keltz said. “But when you do it the worlds become porous. You get a sense of participation. You’re co-creating.”

Lynda Aiman-Smith, an associate professor in NCSU’s College of Management, holds office hours and discusses projects with her MBA students in Second Life. In her management and technology class, she has used it as an educational tool for three years.

DrLAS Emmons

DrLAS Emmons, her avatar, recently took the class on a field trip to the virtual IBM Green Data Center, which sits on one of the Second Life islands in the IBM archipelago. The center is open to the public and staffed 24 hours a day, five days a week. Visiting avatars can learn about energy efficient technologies, solve problems and design solutions for energy and cooling challenges in a data center.

“This wasn’t a computer game,” Aiman-Smith said about the Second Life field trip to the data center. “They were conducting business.”

Duke’s School of Nursing has a presence in Second Life, where students who don’t live in the RTP area can attend class with the help of their avatars. The UNC Center for AIDS Research records HIV 101, a spring course that attracts 400 to 500 students, and provides access to the recordings on Second Life.

Vanie MacBeth

“My hope was to reach a population I wasn’t able to reach otherwise,” said Vanessa White, who manages the community outreach for the UNC Center for AIDS Research. “Second Life was the perfect medium to erase the stigma associated with learning more about HIV/AIDS, because it provides a platform for anonymity.”

White, who is Vanie MacBeth in Second Life, wants to send all HIV 101 students on the Story Quest next year, but the UNC information technology department has to first unblock access to Second Life on campus.

Virtual bothers

Access limitations can be justified despite the rules of conduct that exist in Second Life. There’s a red-light district and even Main Street can be a bit trashy in appearance sometimes.

Also, Second Life isn’t free from bothers, some of them virtual. Just ask Michael Rowe, a gamer who works for IBM Software in RTP.

Big Blue, which has one of the largest corporate presences inworld, got into Second Life in 2006. Rowe was part of a now-dissolved group that tested how well virtual worlds are suited for business and collaboration. One of the projects he worked on was to establish a virtual store for retailer Sears in Second Life.

Ultravox Freeman

As a manager in the group, Rowe made presentations to customers and IBM colleagues in Second Life. During one such virtual presentation a nude avatar suddenly appeared next to Rowe’s avatar, Ultravox Freeman, greeted him and stayed for a while.

“Can you imagine this happening while you’re meeting with a customer?” Rowe said. Luckily, only IBM colleagues attended his presentation, he remembered.

Second Life offered corporations private spaces, sort of like gated communities, in an otherwise public virtual world. Many companies used those private spaces to build virtual prototypes of products. But the privacy didn’t always keep prying eyes away, Rowe said. In a world where the possibilities are only matched by the residents’ creativity, avatars that are locked out of a gated community can detach their eyes and use them as hovering cameras.

“There’s a lot of stuff that still has to be worked on to make virtual worlds Fortune 500 friendly,” Rowe said.

In November, Linden Lab came up with a solution to privacy problems. It launched SL Enterprise, a behind-the-firewall world that cannot be accessed from Second Life. Pricing starts at $55,000, compared to an initial set-up cost of $1,000 to establish a presence in Second Life.

At the launch of SL Enterprise, 14 companies had signed up, including IBM, Case Western Reserve University and The New Media Consortium, an international consortium of universities, museums and companies that are exploring new media as learning tools.

At least one Linden Lab competitor has had a similar idea.

The American Research Institute, a Morrisville software company that employs about 30, came out with its own virtual world learning tool six months ago. It’s secure, custom-built, scenario-based and can be used for meetings and training. The customer determines the ratio of game to social interaction, said Richard Kristoff, chief executive of the American Research Institute.

“It’s not an open, wild Wild West,” Kristoff said. “I didn’t want to create another situation where you had thousands of users and you had out-of-control behavior.”

When the product launched, the American Research Institute didn’t have to explain much. Potential customers had already gained an understanding of virtual worlds from Second Life.

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Dan Ariely

To better understand stock markets or economic recessions, Dan Ariely likes to go where push comes to shove.

The Duke University professor is a behavioral economist who’s been in demand since the economy tanked nearly two years ago. The reason for his popularity is in his research.

Ariely looks at things that make no sense: Why does the price of an energy drink determine how many puzzles we solve? Taking a cue from his mother’s job as a parole officer, he also looks at behavior we know can get us into trouble, such as procrastinating and cheating.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether Ariely has an experiment going.

Case in point: At a lecture Wednesday at N.C. State University, Ariely gave me a matchbook, promotional material for his book “Predictably Irrational,” which became a New York Times bestseller when it was published last year.

Inside was a bright orange condom and instructions on how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS. On the back were nice things that George Akerlof and Daniel McFadden, two University of California economics professors, had to say about Ariely’s book.

“It’s the only condom endorsed by two Nobel laureates,” Ariely said without cracking a smile.

His lecture in front of a standing-room-only crowd of about 200 at NCSU was related to the book, which deals with “The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions,” as the subtitle on the cover says. Ariely talked about cheating, another difficult to understand behavior considering it undermines tenets kindergarteners understand, such as fairness and honesty.

Cheating comes in many flavors, including lying, corruption and fraud, and is a big deal in the U.S. Forensic accountants estimate on-the-job fraud costs U.S. businesses more than $600 billion per year. Cheating on tax returns costs the U.S. Treasury at least $250 billion per year. Insurance fraud adds another $24 billion in annual costs.

Ariely said he became curious about cheating in 2001, when the Enron scandal erupted. Lies, shady deals and deception forced the Houston-based energy company into bankruptcy, brought down one of the five largest auditing and accounting firms and cost investors nearly $11 billion.

Since then, more than 15,000 people across the world have participated in experiments Ariely and collaborators conducted to figure out how people cheat. Here are some of the findings:

• The size of the reward and the risk of getting caught don’t influence cheating. “We cheat a little bit, but we can still feel good about ourselves,” Ariely said. He called stretching the limit to where we’re still comfortable with our actions the “fudge factor.”
• Reminding people of their own morality at the time of temptation – before they fill out the tax return or take the exam -reduces cheating. Removing morality – backdating stock options is OK, but taking $100 from petty cash isn’t – increases cheating.
• Bankers cheat more than budding politicians, teen-age boys cheat more than teen-age girls, good storytellers cheat more than people who are less creative and in groups, people cheat more for group members than for themselves.
• Conflicts of interest, created through payments or other forces, make a difference in how people see the world.

Ariely blamed much of the financial meltdown on conflicts of interest, such as debt rating agencies getting paid by banks to assess risks the banks were taking.

“The biggest failure in the market is conflict of interest,” he said.

More on that in a talk Ariely gave in December 2008:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The three tips could have come from self-help books, a consultant or a mentor. Instead, they came from the first TED talk in the Research Triangle Park area. The all-day, free event Saturday at RTP headquarters attracted more than 150 people, who on a sunny and balmy winter day sat inside, listened, did the wave and talked to people they had never met before.

Amy Calhoun

Durham couple Amy and Eric Calhoun organized TEDxTriangle, an offshoot of the TED conference, over the past 10 months using word of mouth, Twitter and Facebook to recruit speakers. In the spirit of TED, whose motto is “ideas worth spreading,” TEDxTriangle brought together local speakers willing to share their ideas and insights.

“We’ve been TED fans for a long time,” said Amy Calhoun, who runs a management consulting business. The goal of the conference, she said, was to get attendees excited, plant seeds of passion and help people connect to solve problems.

TED talks follow in the footsteps of storytellers who spread knowledge and wisdom – at TEDxTriangle they included the director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Initiative at Duke University, a Raleigh author of books for program developers and New Music Raleigh, three clasically trained musicians who played a work of a living composer.

But TED talks go beyond traditional storytelling. They are among a growing number of events that combine old techniques with new technologies.

Raleigh, which just topped Forbes magazine’s most wired U.S. cities list, RTP and Durham have been venues for these digital storytelling events. There’s IgniteRaleigh, which allows for five minutes and 20 slides, and its counterpart, FizzledDurham. And there’s Pecha Kucha Night, which gives each presenter six minutes and 40 seconds to get an idea across in 20 slides.

Together, these events are a grab bag of anecdotes, each with an idea at its core and a kernel of wisdom as inspiration.

A few examples from TEDxTriangle:

• Ideas are fragile and slippery, said Andy Hunt, author of “The Pragmatic Programmer.” Carry a notebook with you and jot them down as a drawing. “Doodling is good for thinking,” Hunt said.
• Christopher Gergen, the director of Duke’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Initiative, is about to open Bull City Forward in the downtown Kress building, where he hopes to nurture innovators willing to take on social problems. To follow through and put ideas into practice, Gergen suggested shifting from fear of failure to fear of regret.
• “Talent is not in short supply, passion is in short supply,” said August Turak, a business consultant and author who gets inspired by regular visits to a South Carolina Trappist monastery, where 24 monks work in silence.

When the stories are told, the new technology takes over.

Social media tools take on the role of word-of-mouth to spread the reach of the storytellers on the Internet beyond time and place. The videotaped TED talks are posted on YouTube, where they can be watched round the clock and the world. Bloggers write about the talks and their posts are distributed on Twitter.

Events like TED and Ignite aim at what Hugh Hollowell called connecting people with yearning to form tribes. Hollowell runs a Raleigh nonprofit to end chronic homelessness. The kernel of wisdom in his TEDxTriangle talk: Tribes spread ideas and change the world.

Zach Ward

To become a member of a tribe could be as easy as what Zach Ward, an impromptu comedian and founder of DSI Comedy Theater in Carrboro, did with a fellow comedian to perform at TEDxTriangle.

To reach his creative place  on stage, Ward said he accepted every idea his counterpart presented him without judgment and then added to it. Ward, who emceed TEDxTriangle, called this “Yes, and …”