Advantages of Meeting in Second Life

Before elaborating on the functional requirements of meeting support software in Second Life, it is useful to articulate the advantages of meeting in Second Life. With the advantages in mind, it is easier to define the capabilities necessary to support those advantages.

First, and foremost, the advantage of meeting is Second Life is logistical. Getting people to show up for a meeting in a conference room half a hallway away from their office can be a challenge. If people work on different floors, in different buildings, in different cities or different parts of the globe, this challenge becomes even greater. So, just the fact that you don't have to get up from your desk, whether at home or at your office, is an enormous benefit of meeting in Second Life.

The second advantage, convenience, is related to the first but distinct. When attending a meeting in Second Life you don't have to worry about transportation, parking, lodging or any of the usual hassles associated with traveling to a meeting. Further, you don't even have to get out of your pajamas. You don't have to shave or fix your hair. You don't even have to bathe. You can dress your avatar as you see fit and what you actually look like is irrelevant.

Third is the ability to multi-task. Normally, it would be considered to be rude to bring work into a meeting and then work on it while the meeting was going on. And yet, we all know how deadly boring meetings can be. However, while your avatar is respectfully sitting there appearing to pay attention, you can be working on something more interesting keeping an ear tuned to whatever might come up in the meeting. In addition, you can have side conversations with other people in IM, another feature that would be awkward in a typical meeting. Your confederate can even alert you if the topic of discussion turns to something you care about.

And, fourth, is the ability to record the meeting. Nobody likes to take minutes so meetings are often convened and dismissed with nary a note taken. Open chat and IM are easy to log. However, you could also record the meeting as a Quicktime movie for anyone who missed it or for later reference. If somebody does actually take minutes they can be used later to search for comments on a specific topic.

At the same time, there are three drawbacks of having meetings in Second Life. First, is the learning curve. Second is lag and the limitation on the number of avatars in a sim. And third is observation that in Second Life you don't get to see the faces of the people in the meeting. However, none of these drawbacks are hard to fix. And the benefits so far outweigh them that even if they couldn't be fixed they wouldn't be major detriments.

Next time I will address these drawbacks and begin talking about the functionality required to make Second Life meetings successful.