Presentation from a panel discussion on the business case for HR in the virtual world at a Human Resources seminar in Boston in January 2009. Panelists were from Duke CE, Duke, IBM, and the Stockholm School of Economics. Please note that part of the panel discussion included a tour to various places in SL.

1. Second Life: The Business Case for HR in the Virtual World

3. Should I be worried about it? Should MY organization be there? Why would we?? What IS this?? Is it a game?? Who ARE these people that spend their time and MONEY there – and what the heck do they DO there? How is it different than MySpace or Facebook? Should I let my kids be on it? Should I let my EMPLOYEES use it? Isn’t it just a big WASTE of time? I heard someone made $1M in Second Life…say it isn’t so? Is it SAFE? Is it secure?

4. Sources: Business Week April 2006, The Economist. Living a Second Life, Sept. 28, 2006 Second Life is some unholy offspring of the movie The Matrix , the social networking site MySpace and the online marketplace eBay.

9. Source: e-Learning Guild

10. By the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a “second life”, but not necessarily in Second Life, Steve Prentice Gartner Source: Gartner Consulting, IBM EBO

12. What companies are striving for… Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. - Steve Jobs, Apple Our competitive advantage is our ability to attract talented people to collaborate and innovate together . - Aleksander Farstad, eZ Systems The goal is to always build a diverse group of people – good decisions are a result of diverse people coming together examining every point of view in a deliberate process and then making a decision. - Carly Fiorina The rate at which individuals and organizations learn may become the only sustainable competitive advantage , especially in knowledge-intensive industries. - Ray Stata, Analog Devices

13. While we know what to do…. Network picture from http://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/blog/?m=200712 Hierarchy Linear, static, process-based organization Heterarchy Dynamic, integrated collaboration networks … .getting there is hard to do!!

14. Communication still occurs primarily within formal silos Stockholm London Brussels Helsinki Madrid Copenhagen Teigland 2003 San Francisco

15. Creativity and innovation come from individuals spanning diverse networks Firm A High creative Low on-time High on-time Low creative Teigland 2003 High creative Virtual community Firm B

16. Two employees with the same number of contacts… B A

17. … but with very different access to resources B A

20. External networks are growing in importance! Other people around the world Other employes around the world Other employees in your country Co-Workers Friends Large portion of new ideas and formal collaboration relationships come from external contacts You Alex Eyal Your manager Rami’s manager Hila Yaron Yuval Eduardo Ed Muriel Peter Frequent e-mails Infrequent e-mails Web 2.0 Collaboration

22. HSB is creating tomorrow’s solution while attracting employees and customers today Building the house of the future in a competition with architecture students HSB: One of Sweden’s largest real estate management companies

25. Convergence In Virtual Spaces mentoring Green Data Center SOA Training Play is how we principally learn and principally create " Ray Kurzweil many to choose from IBM Lotus Tools BMW Training Media Brain Thinking

30. Take 20 minute break … and come back for the panel