Meet Me in Cyberspace

By Jodi Mardesich for The Geek Weekly

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In early December 2008, a group of scientists from around the world traveled to the Elucian Islands for a conference on climate change -- without paying for plane tickets or hotel rooms. When the meeting adjourned, they “shook hands” -- virtually. The Elucian Islands can’t be found on a map of the Earth -- they’re the virtual home of Nature Publishing Group and its parent company Macmillan Publishers Ltd. in the virtual world Second Life.

While 3-D online virtual worlds have largely been the setting for gaming, Second Life has gained some notoriety as a valid way for business people to collaborate and share information without having to be in the same physical location. In the near future, you might attend a conference or meeting, receive training, or even get recruited for a new job in a virtual world.

By holding press conferences, training sessions, or other collaborative meetings online in a 3-D space, companies can save on travel and other event costs. Erica Driver, an analyst with ThinkBalm, predicts that enterprise use of the so-called “immersive Internet” will be mainstream within five years.

Business activities enabled by virtual worlds
Hundreds of companies have already created virtual spaces (usually in the form of an island to which you can “fly” or “teleport”) to connect people, whether you’re an employee or a potential client. Some of the top business ways you can engage in virtual worlds include meetings, training, education, and recruiting.

• Meetings When you can’t gather everyone into the same physical location, virtual meetings in Second Life can be better than Web conferencing or teleconferencing, says Will Zachmann, senior analyst with Wainhouse Research. Using avatars, participants who enter the meeting room become aware of others in the same virtual space.

• Training People become more assertive and confident by practicing everything from procedures and responses to presentations in Second Life, according to Fisher. “You can repeat something 100 times in Second Life,” Fisher says.

• Education On the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) island, you can read about diseases like AIDS and cancer. Some companies -- like Cisco Systems -- have islands where you can learn about their products.

• Recruiting Employment agencies like Manpower and Kelly services are recruiting in Second Life, as are companies like FedEx and Accenture. Agencies can reach tech talent where they live, without spending on job fairs.

Virtual worlds are still immature, and behavior there can sometimes be inappropriate for business. Driver says that in an early meeting she held in Second Life, security settings weren’t correct, and someone she didn’t recognize walked in -- and started asking for money. “I had to eject them,” she says.

Though Second Life isn’t the only virtual world -- OpenSim, Activeworlds and others are open for business uses -- it is the biggest, with over 16 million people registered, supporting up to 75,000 concurrent users, according to Glenn Fisher, director of business programs for Linden Lab, the developer of Second Life.

For now, none of the virtual worlds are capable of holding company-wide meetings with hundreds or thousands of employees. The conference on climate change at the Elucian Islands had seats for about 30 participants, though there was also room for standing attendees, and dozens participated remotely, in conference rooms and university classrooms. Second Life reports it is working on plans to roll out worlds that will accommodate larger events.

Use virtual worlds in your business
Are you ready to integrate this technology into your own business world? Here’s how:

1. Become familiar with virtual worlds and experiment To get started, your company needs to buy or lease land, construct buildings and conference rooms, and become familiar with the economy. 

2. Get acquainted Don’t make your first stop the welcome island, Driver advises. Go in to do something specific, like attending a conference, or get a friend or company representative to show you around.

3. Help newbies become acquainted Before holding an event, invite participants to get familiar with the environment so that when it’s time for the meeting or event to start, attention can be focused on the meeting, not on how to move or find your way around.

4. Focus on solving an existing business problem Rather than talking about how cool it is, use the technology to solve a problem, like cutting your travel budget, Driver says.

5. Be mindful of security settings Security is a big issue for business use of virtual worlds, Driver says. “If I want to have a private meeting, I want to make sure nobody can hear or see the text chat, or even know the meeting is happening.”

During the next five years, we’re going to see a rapid increase in innovation, new start-ups, mergers, and acquisitions, Driver says. “There’s tremendous business potential.”

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Jodi Mardesich is a former staff writer for Fortune and the San Jose Mercury News. She has written about technology for 20 years and has been published in The New York Times, Slate, Salon, The Advocate, and Yoga Journal.