The early part of the article is focused on a new marketing firm using Second Life as a big part of their business model. Second part of the article gives additional details about how Second Life is being used to conduct business (IBM, Sears, Coca-Cola, Starwood Hotels) and recruit new employees. Here is a snippet - worth the time to read the whole thing:
"Here's a sense of how some early adopters are finding career/workplace/professional development applications in Second Life:
• CMP Technology, based in Manhasset, N.Y., just wrapped up a seven-day professional development summit in Second Life, complete with keynotes, panels and networking breakfasts for about 1,000 registered senior program developers -- in avatar form, of course -- from business, academia and government.
• About 5,000 IBMers belong to that company's Second Life employee community -- networking, mentoring and collaborating avatar-to-avatar through real-time online messaging. So extensive is such virtual world activity that IBM has issued virtual-world guidelines for employees, reminding them that chats and actions are public and that ``dialogue is similar to having a discussion or meeting in a public place, such as a hotel lobby or an airport.''
• Manpower, the Milwaukee-based staffing firm, in July set up a Manpower Island to help new SL residents learn some basics in avatar management -- sitting, flying and teleporting from one location to another -- as well as provide coaching in real-world and virtual-world job hunting and résumé-writing techniques.
Among the benefits to networking in such spaces as Second Life, Verdino says, are ''the wow factors. . . . It's cool and interesting and different to do.'' Plus, he says, it removes geographical and financial restrictions to attending far-flung training and meet-and-mingle events.
But there are plenty of drawbacks and glitches, some related to learning to maneuver an avatar. An interviewee at one of the job fairs put on by TMP, the recruitment advertising firm, ended up flying into the interview room, instead of walking. Another, not knowing how to sit, ended up standing the whole time. And yet another mistakenly handed the company representative a beer can instead of his résumé."
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