Business Casual

Rookie Trainer - Day 8: Second Life With ASTD

I attended a couple of meetings in Second Life this week.  Wednesday's meeting was a New Resident Q&A hosted by NCI.  The one on Thursday was a session hosted by ASTD on Training and Second Life.

The meeting hosts were great on both occasions.  Overall, my new exposure to meetings in Second Life (SL) would have to give a nod to the ASTD session.  Though unintentional (I'll explain below), the ASTD session ended up using a virtual meeting format that was different from those I was otherwise already accustomed to with chat forums, teleconferences and virtual desktop sharing applications like WebEx or GoToMeeting.

Rookie Trainer - Day 3: It's a steep learning curve.

Day 3.  This is the second posting since Nikko LeFavre started his trek into Second Life to find answers to our mission:  how 3D virtual worlds like Second Life might benefit real estate professionals and learners in the real world.

Day 3 impressions:  There's a steep learning curve.  One that I think few mainstream consumers will have the patience for.   It's not surprising that despite SL's 20% month-over-month growth rate in new "Residents," only about 10% come back at least weekly at the three-month point following initial registration.  Yet, I'm not saying it won't have benefit for learning or real estate businesses in the real world. 

It's just that I think the jury's still out about the magnitude of those benefits -- at least for real estate professionals trying to grow a business in the "first life."  (Although, I have to say I was pretty impressed with Re/Max's presence.  There's a sprawling complex, for example, in Re/Max's Parklife village (in Second Life) sporting condos with large windows and ocean views.  Each condo can be purchased by Second Life residents. 

But, not immediately clear to me is if the online presence carries tangible benefits to the agent's business in the real world. 

Learning benefits, on the other hand, I'm more optimistic about.  Yeah, there's still that steep learning curve to hurdle for students who are in SL for the first time, but you can get around that a little easier in a teacher/student environment by designing the learning module to include SL orientations.  Subsequent learning modules can then be designed to build upon those earlier orientations and modules as a pre-requisite.

In any case, steep learning curve or not, there's a growing consumer demographic here that I think is worth keeping an eye on.   As Gartner Inc.'s analysis summarized it, "...By the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (including
Fortune 500 companies) will have a 'second life'..."

On the elearning side of the house, I was pleased to find groups for ASTD (American Society for Training and Development), as well as the eLearning Guild.  (Professional organizations I'm affiliated with in First Life.)  There's also Second Life content I found for Education & Non-profit Organizations that's looking to benefit distance learning, computer supported cooperative work, simulation, new media studies, and corporate training.

More to discover.  Till the next chronicle...

Rookie Trainer - Day 1: Waking up naked in town square.

Nikko LeFavre is my avatar.  For over a year now I've thought about creating an account on Second Life.  Mainly to see what all the hubbub was all about.  Then, after reading more and more about how some companies are experimenting with Second Life as a training venue, my curiosity continued to grow.  But, for some reason, First Life kept getting in the way of the Second.  Besides, with memberships on about a dozen social networks, group blogs, discussion forums and chats, it just seemed unfathomable to add yet another network to my list. 

So, this year, I culled the list down to a few.  From about a dozen, I've decided to focus on:  LinkedIn, a local chapter of ASTD, RealBlogging and, of course, Business Casual.  I figured I should now have a little more bandwidth to find out what all the hubbub is all about on SL.  Then another few months went by...