If relationships can happen in Second Life, as if in-person, why not experiment with Second Life to overcome the challenges

Imagine socializing with colleagues from your Bangalore, Shanghai, San Francisco and London offices on a snow capped mountain top overlooking a white sand beach, without stepping away from your desk and computer. Consider how one could improve the productivity of globally distributed workers if each U.S. employee could travel in-person to India to meet with his or her Indian colleagues, enjoy a game of chess with them, discuss family, friends, and favorite pastimes.  The premise of my work, and this essay, is that businesses can achieve these benefits while simultaneously dramatically increasing productivity and reducing travel costs and time wasted in international airports.

By now, many of you have heard of Second Life, the virtual reality owned by the U.S. corporation, Linden Research, Inc., a 3-D web-based interface where "avatars", proxies for real users at their keyboards, roam about role playing, purchasing and creating trinkets of all sorts, and otherwise participating in a virtual "world" that, although the subject of much press coverage (some might pejoratively say hype), has been widely viewed by those who follow such things as something of a puzzle:  interesting to look at, but not of much use.  Indeed, Second Life has been panned by some as a marketing tool of little purpose as companies who previously built exquisitely designed simulations or "sims" have deserted them after little, if any, return on their investments.

But Second Life has been used for less than optimal purposes.  If you spend some time in Second Life, chatting with other residents, and commit to immersing yourself in the culture, you will notice that the relationships that develop mimic those in real life.  This has been well-documented in the press and in scholarly writings.  So, once you have spent some time interfacing with other avatars, it comes as little surprise that dating relationships occur and that avatars actually marry each other, sometimes leaving real life spouses out in the cold.  I, for one, have met several people in Second Life who have been "married" multiple times within the virtual world and have experienced the pain of "virtual divorce" before even seeing real life photographs of their so-called spouses.

Some will giggle at the notion of taking a virtual life so seriously, or perhaps that one would spend time in a fantasy life being, of all things, married, but there lies the specialness of virtual reality.  The intimacy that arises in Second Life is real, intense, and I say must be exploited for companies' benefit in real life.  If relationships can happen in Second Life, as if in-person, why not experiment with Second Life to overcome the challenges that we face as we increasingly work with colleagues 10,000 miles away in other countries.  It is not feasible for entire workforces to visit each other in-person, although we might consider it the best way of enhancing workplace relations.  But we can meet each other in Second Life.

Those familiar with the challenges of managing a globally distributed workforce may see where I am going with this.  These workforces can tend to be disconnected, overly isolated, and even demoralized by lack of interaction and the esprit de corps that companies like to engender among their workforces.  Indeed, in the case of many Indian outsourcing relationships, economic disparities among global counterparts, different family backgrounds and traditions, and the divergence in what some call "cultural scripts" (i.e. the socialized assumptions we all operate from based on who we are and where we come from), play such a significant role in interactions that they leave a negative, if not unproductive, impact on the workplace.  How many of us have experienced misunderstandings, hurt feelings, even downright anger, following an early morning or late night conference call with our supposed colleagues.  At minimum, we can all relate to the sense of disharmony that pervades many globally distributed workforces.

So where does Second Life fit in?  To facilitate such interactions, consider a virtual workplace in Second Life where colleagues from around the world can meet, socialize, and collaborate.  The purpose is several fold.  First, to introduce relative strangers to each other in an effort to create real life bonds resembling those that would arise if companies' travel budgets were limitless.  Second, to bring together workforces with different cultural scripts in a completely alien forum where they can develop a new workplace culture at the same time.  Third, to provide a construct intentionally designed to impart human resources best practices so that they may be adopted in the real world.  A "middle" where colleagues of entirely different outlooks can build a mutually acceptable and new alternative consisting of a joint sense of mission, camaraderie, and a shared dedication to each other based on mutual respect.

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This all may seem far-fetched but as companies continue to find the next best place to hire workers, it will become a reality. Already many companies, whose names we all recognize, are in Second Life.  Some hold conferences there from time to time. Others have engaged in recruiting there. But there is more to this than being able to market oneself as hip to the latest in gaming technology. Second Life and other virtual worlds like it are the next best thing to spending time with your global counterparts. This is only technology that is versatile enough to nearly eliminate distances among teams of employees so that they can rise above their differences and celebrate their commonalities.

Dave Elchoness is a virtual worlds entrepreneur and consultant who also practices U.S. employment law and advises on human resources matters.  Mr. Elchoness' Second Life avatar, Da Etchegaray, leads the Second Life group "Second Life Workplace" which is "dedicated to the enhancement of the workplace, human resources, and employment issues through the use of virtual worlds such as Second Life."  Mr. Elchoness previously served as a Director of Information Technologies with Qwest Communications in Denver.  He  can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Issue BG79 Oct07

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