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To save money in these tough times, universities, conference planners and global companies have started holding gatherings for far-flung employees and students in the online world known as Second Life.
Sun Microsystems Inc., a Silicon Valley tech company, has only one rule: Employees should show up looking like humans.
Other companies don’t seem to mind if their workers take the form of animals and other entities while they’re on the clock.
On a recent afternoon in Second Life, about 20 avatars – the personalized character each inhabitant of the virtual world adopts – gathered for a lecture on software development sponsored by Intel Corp. The semiconductor giant planned the event to spark conversation about complex technical topics among employees and others across the globe.
The Intel employee who opened the event was a tuxedoed half-man, half-lynx. He turned over the talk to an avatar in a tight, white shirt who called himself Zombie Bob. In the audience, a woman with a ponytail and sunglasses slept in the front row, a blue-skinned man with spiky hair listened attentively and another, clad in jeans and a T-shirt, stood in the background with her arms extended as if being crucified.
Corporate America is still learning to embrace Second Life, where creative self-expression is expected. Since Linden Lab, a San Francisco company, opened the online community to the public in 2003, it’s been an eclectic place where strangely appointed avatars meet, build fancy palaces, go sailing, buy virtual goods and have cybersex.
Where people are, marketers want to be. Two years ago, companies such as American Apparel and footwear maker Adidas started filling Second Life with stores and buildings. The virtual world’s early inhabitants, who largely disdain anything with a corporate tinge, rebelled by launching terrorist attacks and starting gunfights in the shops. Faced with empty storefronts and ridicule, many companies pulled out.
Now, other companies are carving out parts of Second Life as their own. They are creating employee-only islands and office buildings, then encouraging their staff to meet there. Compared with plane tickets and hotel bills, it’s not that expensive: A 16-acre private island in Second Life costs $1,000 plus a $295 monthly maintenance fee.
Forrester Research, a respected company that focuses on the technology industry, recently highlighted the potential for its clients in a report titled “Getting Real Work Done in Virtual Worlds.”
Swiss construction giant Implenia, for instance, worked with IBM Corp. to test ways to turn off lights in real buildings by flipping virtual switches in Second Life. The University of Maryland simulated a highway emergency and had participants respond in a different virtual world, designed by Forterra Systems Inc. And a company called Qwaq created a zone of oil rigs, refineries and offices to enable energy professionals to walk through their properties and discuss repairs while viewing actual equipment.
“Virtual worlds are relatively inexpensive, don’t require a great deal of start-up technology infrastructure and provide a naturalistic, immersive approach to simulating space, people and objects,” wrote Forrester analysts Erica Driver and Paul Jackson.
IBM, which has nearly 387,000 employees in 170 countries, began building in Second Life in late 2006. Now, about 5,000 workers visit Second Life and other virtual worlds to conduct meetings, train employees and hold orientation sessions.
