In a recent interview with Peggy Daniels Lee, who left corporate America to teach operations and supply chain, first at Penn State University and now at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, Peggy mentioned working with her students in the virtual space -- specifically Second Life.
Intrigued, I created an avatar and went about exploring the Second Life landscape. Peggy Lee referred to the learning curve as "steep," but worth it. "Steep" doesn't begin to describe the learning curve. It's more like climbing a ladder to the moon without rungs. Still, Second Life residents logged more than 400 million hours in 2008, and according to the Second Life website, owned 1.76 billion square meters of land, so there must be something to this.
Back in October, Aliza Sherman wrote an interesting article for WebWorkerDaily.com about using Second Life as a business tool. She admits that Second Life has "limitations and downsides," but also sees its benefits and details "nine skills that we can all learn from regular engagement in Second Life that can be applied to any business use of 3D virtual world environments," including presenting, teaching, collaborating, branding and building 3D models. (See link below)
Both Peggy Daniels Lee and Aliza Sherman agree that 3D virtual worlds will become increasingly important, and I will admit, after spending about an hour roaming around, I could see the potential for people with the time and patience to learn the ropes.
