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LLAN FMNK has a tendency to talk a mile a rninute, zigzag- sionals,and the needfor the virtual realitynavigationalaid envisionedby
ging betlveen earthy exclamations and lofty abstractions. The
Frankis strongerthan ever.In 1993,KPMGrestrucruredits tax, account-
first impression he gives is of an unstoppable force trying to
ing,andconsultingpracticesinto multidisciplinaryteamsfocusedon spe-
go offin all directions at once. cific industrieson a globalbasis,addingto the demandfor instantdata.
"Sometimes, we have to rein him in when he gets philosophical This fall, Frankis putting togethera skunkworks at his officesin
about the power oftechnology and connectivity," adtnits Ted Fernan- Radnor,Pa.,to bttild a prototypeof Ihowledge Master,the virtual real-
dez, national managing partner for strategic services consulting at ity environment where a handftil of specialistswill support IGMG's
KPMG Peat Malwick LLP in New York. But when it comes to the appli- orofessionals.
cation of new information technologies, Fernan- To build the prototype, KPMGis using
dez says,"Boom! It's like a rocket launch." WorldUpand WorldToolKitfrom Sense8Corp.
Launch is the right word. Frank, named on in Mill Valley,Calif.Both productsenablethe
Oct. 20 as the first chief technology officer at creation of artificial environmentsfor simu-
I(PMG, where he also serves on the board of lation or virtual reality purposes,explains
directors and leads the enabling technologies StuartAlexander,EastCoastsaleslnanager
consulting practice, is turning the entire firm for Sense8.WorldUp, releasedfor general
into a "lMng lab." One of the lab's first experi- availabilityin late October,lets nonprogram-
ments will be to test virtual reality for storing mers point and click for instant changesin
and accessingKPMGdata. the artificial environment.
It's a journey Frank started in 1989 when How will it worl0 The search-and-retrieval
KPMG collaborated with Thinking Machines, specialistwill be fully immersedin virtual
Apple Computer, and Dow Jones on Wais (Wide reality,Frank explains.E-mailqueries,even
Area Information Server), the natural language videoconferencingscreens,will pop up in vir-
search-and-retrieval software.'A very interesting tual space to connect the specialistwith
KPMG's AnaN FnaNx
hh-ha!' occulred," says Frank. He recognized that KPMG'sprofessionals. The specialistthen can
every individual in KPMG is the firm, and if all unleashvirtual intelligent agentsto help and
their knowledge could be accessible in one place and everyone could search directly through sensory cues such as color and shape, perhaps
go in and search, "that would be goodness,"he notes. even musical tones, associatedwith data.
The problem was how to navigate through that knowledge. Virtu- As excited as Frank is about the project, he has his worries. "What
al reality could help by providing visual and other sensory guides to happens if you exist in virtual reality for a long time?" he asks. "I can
data, but an impossible amount of bandwidth would be needed to see Knowledge Masters becoming the 21st century's drones." There
deliver virtual reality to everyone in KPMG,which employs 72,000 pro- are other more technical concerns: Should data be organized hierar-
fessionalsin 1,100offices across134 countries. chically and visually represented by a tree, or would time lines, viewed
Most professional services firms have relied on Lotus Notes for as long, curving, player-piano rolls, serve the purpose betteP
knowledge sharing, but two years ago, Frank took KPMG down a diC "We think of the world [today] in terms of nested folders," says
ferent path. FirstClass,electronic-messagingand conferencing soft- Frank. "I'm trying to throw away the old paradigm." In the end, he
ware from SoftArc Inc. in Markham, Ontario. was enhanced with says, accessing information through associations, as with hypertext
search engines to open all the electronic databases at IGMG to the links between Internet sites, is likely to become widely accepted as
firm's professionals. the best means to cut through the complexity of content stored online
Corporate data now is accessibleto more than 15,000 KPMG profes- by corporations.
Copyrighlo1995by CMP Publications,Inc., 600 CommunityDrive,Manhasset,NY 11030.Reprintedfrom INFORIViATIONWEEK
with permission.