Presentation for the City of Littleton, Colorado, on using Second Life and virtual worlds for business, September 2008

1. City of Littleton
17 September 2008
Scott Brown

2. Agenda
 Introduction, agenda review
 Overview of BIS services
 Overview of Second Life
 Sun Microsystems background and involvement in
Second Life
 Break
 Tour of Sun spaces
 Considerations and barriers
 Wrap-up and planning for next time

3. Why virtual worlds?
 Long-standing interest
 Interactive, social environment
 “Next web”?
 New and emerging technologies

4. What is Second Life?
 Internet-based 3D virtual environment
created by Linden Labs
 Users have avatars (called “Residents”
within the universe) and can explore, learn,
socialize, conduct business, participate in
individual and group activities
 Linden Labs only provides the
infrastructure; the entire contents are
created and owned by its residents
 Second Life is not a game

5. How did Sun get here?
 Unique corporate characteristics
 Executive leadership and mandate

6. Why virtual worlds for Sun?
 Virtual worlds hold great potential
 Education, collaboration, eco-responsibility, global reach
 These environments are:
 Non- threatening
 Great ways to enhance and encourage knowledge
sharing
 Very dynamic and engaging
 Sun customers, partners and those interested in Sun
are in-world looking for Sun
 People are here – it's a high-touch environment
 Conversations are more open and honest
 Community develops at a more rapid rate

7. How is Sun currently using
Second Life?
 Create awareness of our products and
solutions
 Creation of communities
 Leverage ongoing marketing activities
 Experimenting with limited in-world support
 Sun Museum – showcase Sun's history
 Employee usage

8. Sun Open House in Second Life
• Over 600 new Sun employee avatars added
•14 Sun executives participated
• Several hundred participants in Second Life
during the course of the Open House
• Over 1700 webstream viewers
• Participation from over 40 countries

9. Pilot for New Hire
 Sun Learning Services partnered with internal
sales team and HR
 Intern New Hire activities in Second Life
 Introduce them to Sun in SL
 Enable them to learn about Sun as a company
 Create a community space for them
 Learning games
 Bots to help with FAQs
 Quest to help learn about Sun as a company – Sun Mission
books and team oriented
 Phrase Invaders
 Interaction and learning

10. What’s coming?
 Second Life and Wonderland learning
activities
 In-world pre & post sales support
 New solutions area and vertical
markets area
 More events and opportunities for
collaboration and communications
 More in-world “chats”

11. Sun’s SL mission statement

12. Sun conduct guidelines
 Be aware of those around you in the Sun areas –
they could be customers and prospects
 Remain active if you're in the Sun areas
 Remember to set your avatar to Busy or Away when
you're busy or away (under World menu)
 Practice flying in the Sandbox area
 Move away from Sun areas to change
clothes/appearance
 If you're new, before teleporting to the main Sun
space, IM the Sun Employee group to see if
someone can meet you
 Use the Sun mentors in Second Life for help: simply
send an IM to the Sun employee group and
someone will respond

13. Break

14. Tour of Sun spaces

15. Sun employee areas

21. How does Second Life work?
 Download Second Life's software package onto your
computer
 Currently clients for Windows, Mac OSX, Linux & Solaris x86
 Launch SL software and log in there – not on secondlife.com
 Must have a broadband Internet connection of some sort
 Cable, DSL, etc. - Dialup will not work
 Must have a fairly powerful computer and connection
 Windows XP 2000, XP, or Vista
 800MHz Pentium III or Athlon, or better; 256MB memory or better; nVidia
GeForce 2, GeForce 4mx, or better video card ATI Radeon 8500, 9250, or
better
 For Mac, Mac OS X 10.3.9 or better; 1 GHz G4 or better; 512MB memory or
better
 Linux system requirements also available on Second Life site
 These are MINIMUM requirements; RECOMMEND even more power than
this
 See http://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php for full requirements

22. Once you’re in…
 Communicate by instant messaging
 Voice available, but you need headset for this
 Move through Second Life by using your
arrow keys, flying and teleporting to
different locations

23. Benefits: discussion
 Global audience
 Eco-responsible alternative
 Leading edge
 Serendipity
 Others?

24. Considerations: discussion
 Technology barriers
 Time commitments and constraints
 Shift in thinking about virtual worlds
 What kind of space(s) do you want?
 Shift and evolution of virtual worlds
 Others?

25. Learnings
 Think differently about learning, training,
connecting in Second Life – it’s a virtual
tool, but not simply a replication of a
physical space
 Events are a great entry point into
Second Life
 The technology is still evolving
 Effective participation requires a
committed team effort

26. Getting ready to meet in-world
 Create your avatar
 http://join.secondlife.com
 Launch SL software and log in there – not on
secondlife.com
 Send me your avatar name: scott_r_brown@comcast.net
 Get in-world and play around – a lot
 Second Life takes getting used to - learn how to move, fly,
teleport

27. Gov 2.0 event in Second Life
 http://tinyurl.com/gov20
 Gov 2.0 and Beyond: 19 September 2009
8am - 11:45am ET (6am - 9:45am Mountain)
http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/sla_in_second_life/2008/09/gov-20-and-beyo.html
 IRMC Government Center (in Second Life)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/IRMC%20GovCenter%201/4/3/30
 Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds website
(w/Quicktime streaming video)
http://www.ndu.edu/irmc/fedconsortium_broadcast.html
 IRM College website Government 2.0 page
http://www.ndu.edu/irmc/anniv_symposia.html

28. What’s next?

29. Resources: Sun and other
companies in SL
 Virtual Worlds at Sun blog
 http://blogs.sun.com/vw
 Search for Sun Microsystems and other
companies in SL Search > Places and
visit
 Cisco Virtual Worlds blog
 http://blogs.cisco.com/virtualworlds

30. Resources: Islands in SL
 Real Life Government/Examples in SL
 http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Real_Life_Government_in_Second_Life_Examples
 Alliance Virtual Library: Info Island
 http://slurl.com/secondlife/Info%20Island/128/128/33/
 Sun Microsystems Main Pavilion
 http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sun%20Microsystems%201/12
8/80/71/

31. Resources: Groups,
listservs, newsletters, etc.
 Virtual Worlds News
 http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/
 Clever Zebra: events, news, etc.
 http://cleverzebra.com/list
 Google Groups: Real Life Government in
Second Life
 http://groups.google.com/group/real-life-government-in-second-life?lnk=srg
 Virtual Worlds BusinessCast
 http://www.virtualworldsbusinesscast.com/

32. Resources: Groups,
listservs, newsletters, etc.
 Caleb Booker’s blog
 http://www.calebbooker.com/blog/
 http://www.calebbooker.com/blog/category/business/
 Also,
search for “small business” in
Second Life

33. Resources: Second Life
 System requirements
 http://secondlife.com/support/sysreqs.php
 Build your own SLURL
 http://slurl.com/build.php

34. IBM

35. Cisco