SL with your RL Boss ???

Was watching this video
http://youtube.com/watch?v=synxFmQJ_0A


Have you ever had a RL business meeting in SL, with your RL career ?

I can't even imagine talking to my boss and co-workers etc in SL, do you think that will ever catch on ?

My boss as an avatar (cartoon).................hmmmmmmmm.................lol.

I think it could, especially for companies where poeple are scattered over a wide geographic area. SL gives you a way to be together visually. This is one area where voice might be well-used (and indeed, I think that's one reason LL has been so gung-ho about voice, to make SL attractive as a teleworking tool.)

I doubt that it would be necessary for smaller companies where all or most people are in one office much of the time anyway, but for far-flung ones? Yes.

been there, done that. my ex was also my work colleague IRL and he invited a lot of our workfriends (including the boss) to Second Life. neither of us work there anymore, but that's nothing to do with SL.

don't forget that LL already has this kind of distributed employment regime, and i suspect lots of RL companies that have come about due to SL's existence (Electric Sheep, Rivers Run Red, etc.) do too.

lol y'know not long ago there was a supreme court justice come into sl for a speech/q&a session (i believe that was his ranking, sorry don't quote me - too busy to search on it right now but i think NewWorldNotes blog had an entry on it - quoth the judge, 'nice raccoon suit.' (paraphrasing - something like that. you get the point.

Every day. My RL business is 3d development, SL is one of a few platforms we work on.

What you do is bring an alt over to seduce one of your coworkers.

There was a time when it felt awkward to tap on a telegraph transmitter.

There was a time when it felt awkward to ask the telephone operator to patch you through to so and so.

There was a time when it felt awkward to pick up a telephone handset, and actually dial a number directly, and have someone on the other end pick up.

There was a time when it felt awkward to print up a contract, and set it face down on a fax machine, dial a number, and hit "send".

There was a time when it felt REALLY awkward to type up a message in email, and hit "send".

Today, it feels awkward to use Second Life as a conduit for business communication. Tomorrow, it won't.

zaph

I agree. This will only be seen as a game for a little while longer...almost anywhere I go in Chicago, folks have at least *heard* about Second Life...if I show em some pics I took in-world, the first thing they usually bring up is making RL money in SL. When I tell them that I know some folks who have done just that, they usually at least check it out.

I wish I could talk my company into buying an island in SL. The concept seems too new for most companies though. But think of the team building potential!

I really can't imagine what kind of value add there is in having an SL meeting for most RL businesses.

GoToMeeting and several similar programs have far better performance and reliability, plus give you the ability to share desktops or applications and documents. That's really all you need.

Frankly, I'd be embarrased to meet with any of my clients in Second Life. I would never wish to risk an interuption by various unsavory sorts, and the constant reliability issues would not speak well for my choice of venue.

I love SL for SL business and play, but it's just not suitable for most RL business relationships.

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I dunno, I think it would add an interesting twist to the work day when a random naked n00b wearing a giant freebie penis wanders into the room where your having a meeting.

I, and several others, have speculated a number of times that this is the main reason voice is being added to the grid.

SecondLife as a platform for business meetings? I think there is much to be done before one may consider that seriously. And voice support would be of minor priority on that list.

Security and realiability of service would come to my mind. What good would be a communication platform which is offline once a week for a good part of a business day, and where one cannot be sure if it continues to work after each update?

Updating would be a major issue I'd think. No matter what time you shut down, it's prime business time for someone somewhere.

I've been trying to learn morse code for 30 years. I still have a practice key. It just takes so much time.

I'd imagine these spurious rolling restarts would put the kibosh on an international board meeting/whatever.

Oh, and how about these 'listening devices' I read about? Not conducive for commercial security methinks?

Uhmm...I am the boss and no way I'm gonna perform business in SL and as for it being good for meetings, we use vid conferencing equipment. Works great and no lag...

Mandy C

I don't want to spend RL time with my Boss if I can avoid it, let alone in SL.

My warped sense of humour wants to say, now all you need is someone else on the other end to converse with!

but ... I've been spending almost as long trying to remember the Phonetic Alphabet.

You'd be surprised how many times I'm told to Foxtrot Oscar ... or maybe you wouldn't

Hehehe, my colleagues would be surprised to read in my profile that I am in BDSM-related groups and I have worked as a stripper in a nightclub. I think there is nothing wrong with that, but it is better to keep that information away from RL...

It sure would be a good way to grief your boss!

Yes!! AR him/her for harassment

I know parts of IBM here are seriously considering it. When they teach classes with online tools that are basically no better that a chat-room with voice and a forum's attached to it, morale can drop considerably. Motivation is down, and the idea of using something like Second Life, that adds so much more to the experience is appealing to them.

Of course, they don't realize that Second Life is a bug-ridden crashy-lagfest but they will

I kid. I'd actually like to see more companies use it. To get paid to play around on SL is a dream

This is not a new concept by any means and has already been done. Back in 2001 I was involved with a VR project, called Adobe Atmosphere. The project was server and client open source. The concept was to create 'worlds' similar to a single SIM(AWM=A World Maker) that can be hosted on a intranetwork, or the internet, whereby you send colleagues the url or VPN and they could meet in a VR environment. Admittingly in those days there was only dialup connections, but you could still fit over 20+ ppls into the world. To go to 'adjacent worlds', there were teleport pads that you simply walked into, the whole thing became very creative with a prolifercation of themed worlds created by the enthusiasts of the platform. If there had been a level of trade and commerce applied to the programme and Adobe had continued to support it, it would have potentially been a SL beater.

Although Adobe don't support it anymore, we all have the open source programmes and can make stand alone worlds for any company seeking a VR meeting/conferencing that fit on a floppy disc. The levels of shading/rendering/texturing are as good, if not better than SL is even today.

I still have a couple examples of my early work, hosted on my website http://www.aworldmaker.co.uk/virtualreality.html