I ran across another blog post yesterday that was attempting to pronounce whether Second Life, and virtual worlds in general, were "ready for business". It's the same article I've read in other blogs...just a few words changed and a slightly different example used to prove the case.

This particular post stressed that since Second Life, the current leader in virtual worlds, only has between 60,000 and 80,000 residents in-world at any one time, it does not have serious value for a business to explore....it's just not worth the investment. This gets added to the list of the "steep learning curve", the "high technical requirements", the "looks like a game" philosophy, and several other arguments.

The writer of yesterday's blog announced that virtual worlds "are just not ready", and businesses should save their energy (and resources) and wait until v-worlds become something different...in this case, bigger.

We have the same blogs being posted about education...most commonly with the same conclusion: v-worlds are not ready for serious "education". The problem I see with each of these arguments is that they tend to generalize about "business" and "education". Are virtual worlds ready for "business", implies that there is one thing...called "business"...that v-worlds might serve. The same assumption seems to be made about "education". From my experience, both "business" and "education" are actually made up of a whole pile of different things...with very different wants and needs.

The fact is, there are some really outstanding and highly successful business ventures taking place in the virtual environments right now. One very simple example is Mark Jankowski and his Virtual Training Partners island. Mark has taken his real-world business of negotiations training and kicked it up about 5 notches by using the strengths of the virtual environment. This program is still new, but I guarantee you are going to be hearing a lot more about it soon.

The question is not if virtual worlds are "ready for business". The question is "What can virtual worlds do for my business that can't be done somewhere else?" Mark can give you a dozen or so answers for his business, and there are hundreds of others with their own lists. Edinboro University in Pennsylvania is creating their list right now, as they are exploring the potential of Second Life for their instructional uses, business uses, and social uses.

Some folks like to wrap things like virtual worlds in nice little boxes, wrap them all up with neat little bows so they look nice and are easy to describe. But many are finding that virtual worlds are much more productive outside the box, and can provide a wide range of very powerful resources right now.

And did I mention that Mark, and Edinboro, started their work in SL as a part of our Virtual Learning Experience programs? Just thought I throw that in....

Second Life is un-boxed, and ready to go right now. How can we help you find out what it can do for you?