Non-profit organizations in SL

Hi, I'm currently working on a data-mining project where I have to figure out if it's worthwhile for the non-profit organization I'm working for to bring the organization on to Second Life. All I can say is that the organization is a Jewish based educational medical center in Pennsylvania, and they have me and a few other employees on this project.

If anyone can help, that would be great.

Okay, the first thing I have to know about is the cost. How much is it for a non-profit organization or educational business to bring itself on to Second Life? Are there different levels of cost for signing up or buying virtual land? Is it the same as premium membership subscriptions? How much is it for an enterprise level community? Per month, year? And so on.

The other thing I have to find out is how difficult it is to operate Second Life. Such as, can a person with literally no gaming or chatting simulation (or low computer knowledge) experience use this program? Is it a high learning curve? Would it require a high level of knowledge of 3D based programs, or programs that utilize/manipulate images for use of textures?

This is all I have to ask for, so far. It would be great if someone could help me, or point me in the direction to find answers to these questions. Thank you all.

Wow! You are to be commended for stating upfront exactly what you motivation is as opposed to the usual "Student working on a project" crap.

For your first question, I'd suggest calling Linden directly.

As far as using SL, the learning curve for basic use is overly hyped in my opinion. I had NO experience in gaming or online socializing whatsoever, and was able to grasp the basics rather quickly. If you are not going to create any content, no external knowledge is necessary, and the inworld tools are not overly difficult to learn.

That being said, since you are talking about a medical facility, we can assume some of those users may have some limitations that will change the difficulty to some degree.

Again, I suggest calling LL directly for any overall questions.

You can also look here: http://secondlifegrid.net/

I suggest you look at Non-Profit Commons (http://www.nonprofitcommons.org/), and visit with them or some of the member organizations inworld to see what deals may be available to you.

RL educational institutions are big in SL, and you may want to check them out as well. For a list of them, and some pointers on using SL in education, look at:
http://simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life_Education_Wiki
.

Totally agree with Brenda on both being up front and calling LL directly.

Also agree the learning curve is not that steep for getting into SL.

In addition, in my previous life, (early career) I spent a large part of my time within a 1,500 bed hospital and then at the state and national hospital association levels getting senior staff, association board members, nurses, and tumor registrars into 2D collaborative computer conferencing environments. This was pre-web when we used different private data networks. Long story short, the processes for ensuring the success of collaborative work environments are the same...our current technology is just soooo much better now. If you are interested, IM me and I'll point you to a NYAS publication we did for their medical networks conference in the early 90's. We outlined steps we took in creating a 2D environment and lessons learned in bringing a RWJ fnded collaborative nursing project together. We also described our experience with tumor registrars that the nurses built on. While the technology is different, SL is the perfect application environment. Good luck in making this happen.

One other note, while I am in Tejas, one of my RL long time colleagues in bringing these projects together lives in Philly. While he is retired now, he might be worth a call too. He had a national reputation in working with non-profits in this area. He also helped in my hospital-focused work.

It's probably listed in the above URLs, but was going to suggest contacting the American Cancer Society in world as one of the best-known non-profits in SL (sponsors the yearly Relay for Life).

The question of the learning curve on SL is not whether it is steep but whether everyone can climb it comfortably. Everyone here on this forum (or nearly everyone) is a good fit for the interface. If we weren't, we'd find something else to do and we surely wouldn't be paying money to upload textures, buy virtual items, or buy/rent land.

That said, I watched a colleague enter SL, get totally flummoxed, and then run screaming for the door. Every so often on this forum, one reads similar stories. I don't know what percentage of the population just bombs out with a three dimmsional multi player world, but it exists.

Worlds like Second Life have been around for less than a generation, and I don't think we really know a lot about why this interface works with some people and not with others. In addition, the mainland hardly presents a professional image. Though your operation is on an island, your clients, workers etc... can sneak off to the mainland. If you want your business to have a presence on the mainland, you will also be dealing with the mainland and its culture.

If you just need collaborative space, I'd choose Wimba, Meebo, or something similar which offers a much more familiar interface for chatting.

Well, the problem with all that is, it would take my colleagues months to understand Second Life. I mean, I've just been noodling around on it myself, I don't quite understand all of it, and I'm apparently the most "computer savvy" person in the office. Go figure.

Though, honestly, we're not looking to actually bring the organization onto Second Life. We're just looking for the information to find out if this is even viable for our office to operate a Second Life account for the medical center. So far I'm thinking, no, because our machines are really out of date, and we'd need a much better server or stand-alone modem just to log on to Second Life. The interface itself would blow their minds.

I really wished they would just list this kind of information for the grid and for organizations. Having them contact you for more info is just so backwards.

My 2L here. K there are huge discounts to setting up a non profit sim, but you need to talk to Linden Labs about that. I don't know the current price structure.

If you are educational, I would really talk to other educational institutions, there are hundreds of colleges and universities in SL. Some are private, some public, and I assume all have different motivations for being there.

I don't even know where to start, the NSCC sim is the only sim I know of in my home town, and it is a college here. When I teleported to it I did notice on the large map that it is the university area, there were a good dozen university sims surrounding it, so maybe that is a good start. Just go to the large map and throw in NSCC, which is the Nova Scotia Community College, oddly my fine arts university that I attend does not have a clue what SL even is. Oddly.

Either way teleport there and then open the big map, wow, dozens of university sims from all over the world are justnext door.

I assume you know how to figure out who owns a sim. Edit the land, and if it is a group, then edit the group, find the group creator, and start IMing people for advice.

Try and find other teachers and ask them, they would be the best people to ask.

That's an interesting point. I came to SL with six other friends from IRC. Two of them hated SL and went back to IRC - text-only chat. The interesting thing is, one of them isn't the most computer-savvy person but the other is a professional geek that was our go-to person for any type of computer questions. So for that person, it wasn't the learning curve per se, just his continued preference for text-only interaction.

The person in our group who is the *least* computer savvy (and readily admits it) is still here over a year later, has purchased land and is the head of a thriving rp community.

Tatsu, totally understand and that's what we addressed in the NYAS pub. It's been that way since technology was introduced to hospitals. I was the first person to introduce Macs into the 1,500 bed hospital...and this was the first hospital in the US to install a mainframe computer. There was a little resistance to this idea. The VP of Finance also introduced Compaq luggables with Lotus1-2-3 at the same time. Believe me, I can truly appreciate the initial first steps. My noodling at that time came from playing with a Radio Shack Color Computer which was designed for games - go figure. All this too say, introducing technology - hardware, software, processes, and projects is sometimes hard and can involve a lot of steps you did not anticipate.

You are correct, it does take months for some people to see the light - no instant gratification in this, but just in case you haven't thought about how to get some new computers to run SL...to even see if the concepts are sound is to create a very small project to demonstrate "proof of concept." Doug Engelbart (the inventory of the original graphical interface, the mouse, and a lot of other things we now take for granted, called this the bootstrapping method). Essentially, you want to find a decision-maker who has some budget authority to upgrade two or three computers to SL standards. Even in today's tight budget constraints it's possible if you think through how to show SL can increase collaboration and improve productivity. I could give you several real world examples that have worked. The person I mentioned in Philly ran the Non-Profit Connection on one of the services that pre-dated AOL. We did this to help people introduce technology into NPs, including hospitals..people just like you who are noodling and want to see how to apply something they have learned to their organization.

The key to all this is taking the first steps. You're doing that by noodling in SL. There are next steps and all it takes is making them one at a time...and before you know it, you have actually done more than you thought. A lot can happen with noodling. Congrats on taking the time to noodle and think how you can apply it to your situation.

Bingo...terrific example!

I see companies setup a pressence in Second Life, costing huge sums of money to both buy/rent the virtual land and create the content upon it, and the most you can get into the sim at any one time is 100 people (which would be extremely laggy), and most of the time they sit empty as the actual members of SL are more interested in listening to pirated music and having SLex.

If you're looking to built a 3D environment where the 3D is any way influenced by outside data in order to collaborate on information realised in 3D, or if your 3D realisation needs to be accurate, or your 3D realisation needs dont conform to the most limited 3D format ever invented (the sculpty), then SL isnt for you.

If you're looking to promote your RL business to the SL audience (most of whome are automated bots and the rest sex-starved computer addicts) then SL isnt for you (unless you are selling automated bots or sex).

If you want a virtual presence because "its the latest cool thing and a couple of grand makes no odds to our bottom line, so we'll invest in it so we can appear trendy even though the venture itself will be a sink hole" then SL is for you.

The bottom line is, no matter who it is glossed up and presented, SL is fundamentally a video game where the plot is MSN Messenger. Whilst it is possible to bring collaborative teams into SL and use it as a 3D tool (service maintenance schedule and asset server outages depending) I, as an I.T. professional, could not bring myself to condone it as the best method of deployment.

SL's 3D realisation is the more primitive than any computer game available in a shop today, including those released on budget. It's file format is constrictive and unworkable for realisation of graphics to a standard which a hobbyist game programmer would be happy, the interface is clunky and it's server-client interactivity is plagued by extreme lag that in any other game would not be tollerated.

God I love it.

What would you expect to get out of being in SL? I don't see how a data-mining project would relate.

I understand how some non-profits might use it for fund raising. I could also see how some educational/literary non-profits that use social activities might use it. One obvious example would be science fiction conventions, many of which are run by non-profit groups. But neither of these seem to apply to you.

Tatsu,

I work with a couple of non-profits (board member and volunteer for one, legal counsel for another) that are looking into SL. Both are already involved with Facebook and Linkedin.

There may be ways you can offer services, such as educational services, to people who use SL. That is what my organizations are exploring. I would not expect to attract people to SL who are not otherwise involved in SL.

There is difficulty in using SL that will turn away people who are not using it. It is not a matter of computer knowledge or ability but a matter of how much time someone is willing to spend and how much patience he or she has. For example, in RL I ordered some underwear online. I simple went to the merchant’s web site, clicked on “women’s clothes”, “intimates”, and “bras” in rapid succession. Then a set of categories of bras came up, I clicked on the category I wanted, found the item I wanted, and ordered. In SL after getting to the store I had to spend time wandering around looking at pictures on the wall—mainly waiting for the pictures to download. (Is there an easier way in SL, more like the on-line RL that I described?)

If there are a sufficient number of people involved with SL who would like to receive your services on SL, it would be a good idea if the cost could be justified. I would not want to have people needing the services or volunteers go to SL just for your organization, however.

You could also consider having ads on SL provide your URL and a link to your website. One organization I work with provided educational material, Q&A, and person to person work with volunteers by a variety of methods. Now their website accounts for over 50% of all their services.

Hi, I manage the West of Ireland. We are the in-world representative of a RL charity raising awareness of and donations for Project Children (projectchildren.org).

IM me in world and I'd be happy to talk with you about our operation. We've been around since February 2007, a reasonably long time for SL, and have a good working business model.

It depends on what sort of presence/use you intend. Second Life is free for individuals to use. You could set up accounts for each of your staff and patients, and use the platform at no cost other than the computers and the high speed internet connection (which may not be insignificant. SL is a resource-intensive program). If your organization wants a permanent place in SL, click on the Second Life Grid link on the front page. Basically, you'll want to buy a private estate region, or regions, and possibly hire a builder to create your virtual facility. You do NOT need a Premium membership. That's only required if you want to own land on the mainland. I understand that Linden Lab also will do special things for corporate accounts, such as create a unique surname for your staff (Lindal IBM, say, instead of Lindal Kidd).



Just using SL isn't that hard, though it confuses some people more than others. It's a little harder to learn to build, but not as hard as learning, say, Maya or 3DS Max. If you want your personnel to create content in SL, graphics knowledge of a program like Photoshop is almost a requirement. A one day orientation class with an experienced teacher to give hands on advice and answer questions is probably not a bad idea.

If you'd like to see what a small non profit can do in SL, check out the Help People! Institute in Plush Nu. Or IM Brett Dumont. (At least I THINK HPI is a nonprofit!)

Please feel free to visit the Etopia sims. We have a number of non profits and RL companies as well as educational groups and a university incorporated in the vibrant online community. It is not necessary to buy a sim and have a massive build to have exposure in SL. I dont recommend that as the initial proposal to any company or non profit. Better to incorporate into a community, learn more about SL and determine from experience how best to use SL for your company. We have everything from groups who just have a 50L cart to those with extensive builds and exhibits. A stand alone island is NOT the best for most folks even tho that is the standard line from LL.

Feel free to contact me or any of the groups on our sims. We all help each other and are happy to talk to you and try to help you as well. Learn all you can and then decided your level of financial and labor commitment that is best for you.

Well, I am a member of a non-profit that has done more than one event in SL. For the record, for most companies the investment really isn't much. When a well done stand alone booth for a convention/conference can cost $ 10,000 to build, the SL investment is not huge. SL is not useful for this organization in some of the ways some people may have expected. Mostly, it is a way for people to drop in to presentations from all over. It has some advantages and disadvantages over other web education methods.

The one thing that did help was that the organization already has a three deep IT group in the presentation area and are current with their technology. The biggest problem is that there are usually multiple presenters at the events, so there is some degree of coordination needed when there is a RL mike open and the presenter is working with a computer at the dais and they switch, especially male to female. It evidently is disconcerting when the SL attendees suddenly hear a female voice from a male av and vice versa.

So after review, they feel there is some value, and the expense really is negligible (they have two islands), but it is questionable whether it is worth putting the effort into SL over other methods of delivery. We'll see.

One thing I did note was how totally disconnected from the normal SL learning curve they were. When I first went to the two islands, they had a well done Tiki bar, but no streaming audio. They had TPs to various sites, but had the 'Landing Spot' only setting - so you disappeared for a sec and then reappeared in the same place. Things that happen when you limit your experience - I sent a long note based on managing parcels for a year or so as another av and then as this av and they at least acted on all the suggestions. The most fun that first day was to watch visitors arrive, TP into the ether, and reappear in the same spot. Some would try ten, eleven times before I got over to them to let them know...

I would definitely do some talking to LL and some of the other organizations in-world. You could type in keywords in the Group tab of Search. See which RL ones have a presence in SL, look up the group owner(s)name and drop a notecard on them with your questions.

The American Cancer Society(ACS)has had their own sim since September 2007. The RL ACS representative is Stingray9897 Raymaker, just send him a notecard. Don't forget to give the notecard a title(Rename in the inventory window). I usually put the date and either From: your name ,or subject(Have some questions, for example).

Do remember that you are going to be dealing with the time zone issue. Be patient while waiting for people to get back to you. You might want to include what time zone you're in on your notecard request for information.

And be sure to check out NonProfit Commons, which is a great place to go to. I'm sure anyone there will be glad to help you out or point you to someone who can.

Many organizations that have a public relations or marketing department have some baseline dollar numbers for public perception. For example, to be mentioned in the WSJ is worth $5,000. The be in a headline is worth $25,000. To be mentioned on the Daily Show is worth $10,000, and so on and so forth.

For these companies, it is easy to convince them to get an island in SL, even if they don't really plan to use it for anything. That is, IF the island gets favorable mention in the press or in blogs or wherever that organization prefers to be mentioned.