New report warns of dangers of trashy avatars

So... like this:



Not like this:

What if your avatar IS a giant bat?

Told you not to hang around with that Canadian furrier...

Told you not to hang around with that Canadian furrier...

So I guess soon, logging into SL will give you this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOaMeq7HQwE

It stings a bit. I buy Bactine in bulk.

Clothing does make a difference.

Shortly after I took over NCI back in September of 2005, I started wearing a suit and tie, as my normal SL apparel. It made a difference in how people treated me, and by extension, the fledgling NCI. It also helped put me into the right mindset for management and marketing work.

Strange, because I don't even own a tie in RL...

I'm addicted to Silent Sparrow. A coat and tie is dressing down.

Maybe mechanical brass steam-driven flying penis with plenty of gears and pistons?

As long as they don't demand that my off duty avatar conform, I have no problems with this.

Well... one... I still insist that I get to pick my professional wardrobe, and my skin / avatar shape (assuming I don't come as a Frankenbarbie or child av).
- You can make a dress code, but don't force me to get it from 'Noob central'.


Oh, and on this note, I discovered day before yesterday that Bare Rose has a new set of outfits - male and female business suits. Seriously thinking of buying the women's suit - but it didn't have the color options I wanted.

Can you hook me up? LOLz

Pussycat, I couldn't agree with you more. I have a volunteer gig that has a dress code. I designed clothes for professional wear. Actually, a dress code for female, human avatarot, is a no brainer.

It involves what stays covered....

1) Quite obviously breasts and genitals
2) Shoulders (No wife beaters, no tank tops, no cammies)
3) Thighs (Skirts need to be just above the knee or longer and no short-shorts.)
4) The bottom half of the sternum (No outrageous decoltage or super plunging necklines)


One can also describe dress as streetwear not beach wear.

Where dress codes get a bit sticky is shorts and gowns. Are Bermuda shorts or walking shorts OK? There are real world jobs for which people wear shorts (delivery people and orientation tour guides.) Long dresses are also work wear for certain ethnic groups, though the prom gowns sold in Second Life aren't quite the same as a long skirt with a more casual or modern cut.

My own professional wardrobe includes polo shirts/blouses, sweaters, dashikis and pants.

I think buying or designing one's own clothes (and also making hair) teaches building for those who don't have land and world navigation skills for those who refuse to put in some time with GIMP or in a sandbox. If you want people in a teaching role, letting them dress themselves rather than wear a company issue uniform makes good sense.

My husband works for Sun. One of his common comments on Sun's dress code is "You must". Shorts and sandals are normal for him in the summer, but when he is working a booth at a conference or meeting with an important client, he is expected to wear Kakhis and dress shirts or polo shirts.


I do have to dress in what is called "Business Casual", but I cannot remember the last time I wore a skirt or dress to work, let alone an actual suit.

Out East, business-casual started coming en vogue over formal business in this decade for the whilte collar jobs. A lot of it was meant to convey, I think, the attitude of, "We are so good, we don't have to dress to impress you. Dressing to impress is what desperate companies do." That approach may be effective when times are good and clients seem to be in such endless supply that it seems they are competing for your services rather than you competing for their business. I can see how the current bad financial times deflated the arrogance and brings formal business back now that companies have to fight over clients.

So you're saying that it's chic to be desperate?

Always!

It's been really interesting reading this thread.

What I'm taking away from this (rightly or wrongly) is that job "role", regardless of sector, still plays a big part in dictating how people dress.

It seems that dress for back-office technical roles is less prescribed, and even when taken out to meet "real" people, there's an understanding that the "techy" falls outside of "normal" requirements for business dress.

Before people start jumping up and down, I spent 15 years of my career as the programmer/techie so I'm not denegrating the role or the culture at all.

Also, despite what the firebrands on this thread might think, this isn't particularly a new thing, I originally started out in engineering, and it really did seem the case that you weren't a real engineer unless you could stand in as Dilbert's body double.

As Desmond has pointed out too, when you get to the top end of the pecking order, you can wear what the hell you like. At this level I guess it's based on culture and maybe even climate!

While I do hanker for the idea of shorts and sandals to work, I'm thinking it probably suits California a little better than a January morning on Oxford Street.

I know there are people who will stick by their right to express their unique personalities through their clothing, regardless of the cost.

I do salute you for that, but I think most people (that I meet anyway) really aren't that bothered and prefer to stand their ground in battles that mean more to them.

I'm not sure that in a world where there are still so many other descriminatory practices in the workplace:

1. race
2. gender
3. disability
4. age

The list goes on.

That I can really be worried about whether I have to tie a half-windsor in the morning or not.

That's just a middle-aged corporate suit talking though, so what do I know?

5. species

Even Species!

I admit though, I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.

As yet I've never had to consider a non-human job applicant, although to be honest the way some people dress for an interview you could easily be mistaken.

Oops.. Oh no the mask has slipped.. oh well.

It might be shocking to some but I work for the milatary designing landing strips for airfields and I dress up/look like an avarage rock teenager and not even the colonel leading the please could care less about how I dress or look even when visiting the costumers (the airbases and marine flight camps) so if there was a meeting in SL I would have no problem at all showing up as a child avatar, especialy a furry one.

I am 45, and I have to disagree with you. From personal experience in the work world, my WORST experiences (as employee and as a customer) have been with businesses with hard dress codes. Its always some suit-wearing dink who thinks their title and their suit somehow makes them infallably superior to the mere peons that buy or produce their product. I've had far better experiences with casually dressed folks over the years...seems to me, and just my personal experience, they check their egotism at the door, unlike the suits. I see someone in a suit, it does not make me feel good that they are business-like, it puts me on the defensive (we shook hands, better count my fingers and check my ring is still there).

I've worked in manufacturing and in IT. And it seems the suits and dress codes are mostly clustered in manufacturing industries...the industries that cling to the past in both dress and operation to the end. I have not seen the great comeback of suits (outside of dying industries that think going back in time will somehow save their collective asses) that others have mentioned.

Now from a second life perspective....WTF would you want to go into a virtual world to hold a meeting where you dress and act just like you would at the office? Just as well hold the meeting in the conference room down the hall or have a conference call with remote office locations. Giant waste of time to get into SL if you are going to ignore the customization and ruthlesly supress every iota of creativity to do what you can do RL with less effort (installing a client, setting up a meeting place, getting everyone involved their 'Approved Business Avatar', etc versus go to the conference room and/or dial a conference call).

For businesses that have a reason to be in SL, I would think they would want their avatars to project an image of "we understand Second Life". The bot in Anya Ristow's signature, for example, is one kind of conservative business-like ideal any company should be proud to be associated with.

Well, I agree with you entirely, but . . . I suspect that the corporations who might want to come here couldn't give a flying you-know-what about the creativity of SL. They want a cheap and utilitarian way to do virtual conferencing and training. They probably DO value the interactivity and sense of "presence" that SL affords (as opposed to a conference call, for instance), but I suspect that, in most cases, encouraging a corporate ethos of obedience and conformity trumps creativity every time.


NOT directed at you, Iyoba (I know this is a standard way of referencing this kind of garment), but have I ever mentioned how truly ABHORRENT I find this term? (And can you guess why?)

No? Ok, consider it mentioned.

I know one business person in SL who wear an avatar that just SCREAMS 'I don't understand SL'. Our ex-leader, him of the jeweled codpiece and weird hair, Philip Rosedale. He's downright SCARY!

Frontier Linden's pretty cool, though, even if he doesn't show up on radar.

What would be the politically correct term for it? Spouse beaters?