Archive for the 'Virtual Business' Category

First Life?

Published at 23 June, 2007 in Virtual Business. 0 Comments

From the “too cute” file, First Life. My comments on SIGIA-L:

The only links that work are the affiliate marketing ones - tshirt
sales and the google ads. The cafepress link was borked when I tried
it. Good concept, but I would have built the whole site and THEN used
it to sell the tshirts. Maybe a forum or blog for people to talk about
their first/Second Life balance. It is vaguely amusing now but they
could’ve done so much more with it. 2 stars/5.

Second Life: Dress for success

Published at 22 June, 2007 in Virtual Business. 2 Comments

GigaOM discusses Second Life trade shows and asks “Should my catwoman avatar wear a business suit at the virtual interview with Microsoft?”. Big business is taking to Second Life like a duck to water - and as virtual business  moves towards the top of the adoption curve, I predict that there will be fewer “this is cool” buzz posts and more “this is how we do it around here” information.

I don’t have a catwoman avatar on Second Life - rightly or wrongly, I chose to use my own name, so my avatar is relatively conservative:

andrew_closer.gif

I wished that I still had that much hair in First Life :) That said, I am fairly conservative, but I do need to lose those sandles.

So what does dressing for success mean in Second Life? According to Iris Ophelia,

They likely won’t care if you wear a prim tie, or even if you should up in a default newbie avatar. However, imagine representing that company to the population of SL as an unfashionable newbie avatar. How well would that reflect on them, and on you, to the naturalized SL residents they want to appeal to?  “Show up badly dressed at a corporate event,” Shiryu tells me, “and your audience will think, ‘Look at that corporation, it’s represented by noobs’.â€?

Now that is a concern - my appearance is, rightly or wrongly, straight out of the stock avatar library and within the limits of the available customisations. Hmm. I am not representing anyone but myself on Second Life currently, but that may not always be the case. I’ve added “Second Life business fashion makeover” to my todo list.

The company that I work for, SMS Management and Technology, has a very clearly defined dress code. For male consultants, it is easy - shirts in any colour (as long as they are well cut and white), suits in any colour (as long as they are well cut and black, preferably devoid of stripes), ties of any style (as long as they are structured and tasteful), shoes of any style (as long as they are  conservative, well polished black leather). It is easy getting dressed in the morning - no matching differing stripes. We look good in black and we know it :)

So how does the SMS dress code apply itself to Second Life? For me, the comparison is easy - we dress for success because it is expected of us, regardless of the environment. If that means a black suit in First Life and a black custom suit in Second Life, then that is an acceptable cost of doing business. It’s a bit like Stephen King’s admonition to “Write to your audience…”  - give people what they are expecting and you will excel.

If you are interested in dressing for business in Second Life can heartily recommend reading the Iris Ophelia article.

Second Life: Thinking about a virtual shopfront?

Published at 18 June, 2007 in Virtual Business, Life and Marketing. 2 Comments

More government bodies and large corporations are looking towards Second Life as a way of leveraging resources - using a person-hour of effort to create more than a person-hour’s benefit. An effective virtual presence can be had for a little under USD5,000.00 per annum [1] plus staff costs.

Why would you bother?

There are several reasons:

  • because it is a low-cost channel for connecting to potential and current clients.
  • because being an early adopter in this channel is a remarkable thing in and of itself.
  • because Linden Labs, owners of Second Life, want to help make it happen.

For more background on why large organisations (including government) are looking to Second Life, please see:

And it should be noted that not every organisation is suited to Second Life. Some disqualifiers include:

  • no potential client base on Second Life: while this does not apply to most organisations, there are some (such as local government or intelligence) that might be better served by alternative means.
  • low organisational will: if you do not have an organisational website, chances are that your corporate culture does not support early adoption, and it may be a difficult thing to manage a Second Life implementation.

So what is involved?

Costs can be broken down into:

  • Land: this can be the “big-splash - let’s buy our own island” model - this is USD1,675.00 plus USD295.00 a month. A 16-acre virtual territory on the “mainland” is around USD4,000.00 for a good location plus USD295.00 a month in maintenance. You can set up a presence in someone else’ building for a lot less. How notable a presence do you need? For more information see Real estate: buying and selling land in Second Life
  • Setup costs: It is possible to spend a lot of money setting up a government office in Second Life - costs in the low nine figures are bandied about for the likes of setting up the virtual corporate HQ for Dell and IBM. That said, there is a lot of help in-world for those interested in learning to build, as well as plenty of people that will create custom designs for you (for a fee - like every other builder, you should ask for references and examples of their work). For an illustration of how easy it is to get started and create simple structures, read Mitch Wagner’s article on Building in Second Life. You can get your corporate IT providers to create the whole thing for you, or utilise in-world experts.
  • Maintenance costs: Apart from the USD295 a month that owners of islands and 16 acre quadrants pay to Linden Labs, what costs are there for maintenance? At a minimum, none - unless you want to add more functionality (i.e. a bigger virtual shopfront, more online information, and more staff members).
  • Staffing costs: Depending on how you staff your virtual shopfront, this is probably the biggest single cost to the organisation. Do you have volunteers that can be rostered on at opportunity-cost only for eight plus hours a day? Most organisations do not. In-world labour varies (as in real life) in quality and cost - you can hire virtual receptionists with reasonable language skills from a few (USD) dollars an hour and up, or have the best client service/sales/marketing minds in your organisation. Help desk operations are probably a good comparison - first-level operators help with the simplest enquiries and ensure that calls are logged and escalated as required. Fourth-level support pulls the system to pieces and rebuilds it - with all the graduations of specialisation (and cost) in between.

The early adopters are making hay while the sun shines in Second Life - the fad, if it is one, does not look like failing soon. Do it properly by all means, but think about doing it soon.
[1] calculated at an island “purchase” cost of USD1,675 plus USD295 a month thereafter.