Researching the new

When I was in graduate school for speech pathology, I had a crisis of conscious. I was shocked(!) to find out that most of the therapeutic practices that speech pathologists used didn't have research to show their effectiveness and that the research projects that professors and graduate students were conducting were typically to justify the effectiveness of practices already commonly used. This seemed so backwards to me...how could speech pathologists be charging for therapy they didn't know was effective? Shouldn't research be focused on examining new methodologies, techniques, and technologies??

I'm not as naive as I was back then, but I still believe that the most important research is research that focuses on new discoveries and practices. This is why I'm proud to be one of the sponsors for ThinkBalm's enterprise Immersive Internet business value study.

I'm firm in my conviction of the value of virtual worlds for enterprise and the effectiveness of immersive learning. If you, or someone you know, is utilizing Immersive Internet technologies for enterprise, please encourage them to participate in this survey or agree to be interviewed. The more stories are shared, the more data is collected, the more our practice will be led by the research and not the research justifying our practices.