Several organizations have implementation within the virtual environment of Second Life (SL). After spending several hours exploring different corporate Implementations I came back to reality feeling very disappointed. Most of the corporate sites I visited seemed as if they were hastily created and were void of any avatar presence. Across that expansive void, I found a couple gems. These organizations stand out as active participants in creating a new medium for socializing, collaboration, and information sharing.
Manpower (104, 97, 27)
“Manpower’s mission is to help people, companies, and governments understand what’s coming next in the changing world of work” (Manpower, para. 1). They are using SL to help define the next stages of virtual work affecting people, companies, and governments to best support their needs with proper services.
After teleporting to Manpower’s virtual island, an actual staff member of Manpower greets you. They have personnel available nearly 24/5 and post a notice when no one is available with a date and time when someone will next be online. The Manpower Lounge is located in the building directly behind the greeter. There you can find terminals to learn about virtual work, how to find jobs in SL, and even interview tips! I had a great conversation with Horatio and Belize Decosta SL brothers and long time Manpower employees. They explained that Manpower’s virtual island not only for job seekers but a way for Manpower’s global employees to meet and interact with each other (personal communication, April 24, 2008). SL provides Manpower employees scattered across the globe a single platform for creating social bonds not easily created through less rich medium as email. According to Horatio, many employees continue to socialize in SL outside of Manpower sponsored meetings. “Extracurricular activities do more to cement a team than a passel [large amount of] of team meetings or team-building sessions” (Geber, 1995, p. 37) and Manpower also includes a beach where you can even go wind surfing. While the extracurricular activities might be virtual, employees are interacting and creating social bonds with each other.
IBM (106, 6, 23)
IBM is leading the way in virtual reality technologies for organizations. According to Brodkin (2008), IBM and Linden Lab, the creator of SL will be jointly working to create enterprise-ready virtual worlds. These worlds will be located behind the corporate firewall instead of Linden Lab’s servers providing much needed security but still allowing travel to the public spaces in SL.
When I teleported to IBM’s “front door” in SL I found a 3D representation of the different locations across IBM’s multiple islands. However, this map provides no information about what you would find at these locations. There are no staff members to assist visitors either. Actually, I was unable to find any IBM personnel and only a handful of other visitors. This surprised me since IBM uses SL for a variety of corporate functions and meetings. Ms. Kearney, IBM’s global director for 3-D Internet and virtual business says, “5,000 of I.B.M.’s 300,000 employees worldwide now participate in the company’s virtual business” (as cited in Wetzler, 2007, para.8). IBM has private locations for their employees and their public area is visually interesting, but information poor.
Alliance Library System - ALS(114, 238, 34)
American Library Association - ALA (128, 109, 28)
In 2006 several people of the Alliance Library System out of Illinois ventured in to SL and created the Library 2.0 to bring programs and services to the virtual world. Originally the ALA created their first presence in SL in the ALS’s Information Archipelago, and then at the end of 2007 purchased their own island in the archipelago. Their site consists of several islands with small and large library districts and academic organizations contributing to the innovative Library of the future.
The main library reference desk normally has someone there to greet and assist people. Many of the librarians are reference librarians in real life (RL) and are more than happy to answer any questions you might have. ALA’s island, created with assistance of San Jose State University Master of Library Information Science students, has information about the organization and a wide variety of activities to keep you occupied. Similar to Manpower and IBM there are several areas for conferences and networking for librarians and ALA members.
Oberon Octagon, known in RL as Donavan Vicha is the Web Program Officer for the ALA. Due to RL requirements, we were unable to connect in SL, but using SL’s IM feature he provided information on the ALA Island creation strategy. The vision of the ALA is to “develop and maintain a dynamic virtual space to support the goals and objectives of the organization and to facilitate the collaborative and informational needs of its diverse global membership” (Vicha, personal communication, 23 April 2008). Donovan further described that the space is intended to be different from traditional brick and mortar building by having an open air garden type feel to it. They are not “pushing SL out to members” but have created another mediated communication tool to interact with members and the public. “The effects of technological advances can take many years to come to fruition” (Miller, 2006, p. 296), observing how virtual reality changes the perception of libraries remains to be seen.
Though many of the organizations I traveled to offer little to keep my interest, these three provide promising examples on how to create a presence within a virtual environment. They all provide a way for staff or members to participate and socialize though they are separated by distance. IBM is expanding the technology behind the scenes, Manpower is porting their RL mission to the virtual and the ALS/ALA are bringing the future to libraries.
References
Brodkin, J. (2008, April 03). IBM, Second Life create business-friendly virtual worlds. Retrieved April 24, 2008, from Network World: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/040308-ibm-second-life-virtual.html
Geber, B. (1995). Virtual teams. Training, 32(4), pp. 36-40.
Manpower. (n.d.). Manpower Inc. and Second Life. Retrieved April 24, 2008, from Manpower: http://www.manpower.com/press/secondlife.cfm
Miller, K. (2006). Organizational communication: Approach and process (4th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
Wetzler, C. M. (2007, September 16). Exploring the vast business potential of the metaverse. The New York Times.
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