Final Assignment

Definition of Second Life:

Second Life, which can be installed on your computer through an internet connection, is a virtual world where you create an avatar that becomes your virtual person. In Second Life you interact with other avatars, or "residents" as they are called in Second Life; this allows you to meet people, socialize, create virtual property and services, and travel all around the world.

My experience with second life was very enjoyable. Second Life is an online, 3D virtual world community, created by it residents. The residents use Linden dollars to pay for goods and services provided by other residents. The Linden dollar can be exchanged for U.S. dollars and other foreign currency. Second life is a place where you can do just about anything you can imagine. When you first signup, you create your avatar, which is an animation character that you control to move around in second life world. Your avatar can take a form other than human, such as a dog, tree, car and other inanimate objects (would'nt it be fun to be a puppy?). You can visit some of the greatest locations in the world, and if that is not satisfying enough, you can use your imagination and create your own locations. You can host community events, announce, and invite all members of the site to attend. These events can range from informal parties to formal business conferences. (IBM holds professional meetings and training on this site and reports it saves the company lots of money.) Also I might add that with your permission, friends can host events on parcels you own. This 3D world offers you the opportunity to participate in unlimited activities, like sking, car racing, bungy jumping, and there is even an academic environment there (Yes you can actually get that MBA!). Second life offers a free membership, that provides limited access, and participation, but, it is enough for you to decide if second life is for you.

Ease of Use

Second Life can also present some difficulties in navigating for those who are unfamiliar with this type of technology and interface. Navigating and interacting with others on this site is far from instinctual for the those who typically use their computers for text based applications such as email and word processing. For this population/user, Second Life provides adequate online help, but the number of features and options available to the user can be overwhelming and time consuming to learn.

Potential Uses of Second Life as a Corporate Collaboration Tool

Second Life provides companies a tool to create virtual workplaces to allow employees to do any number of activities that involves information exchange including the following:
• Hold virtual meetings
• Hold events/presentations including regular updates
• Practice corporate communications
- Real-time multi-language support and translation
• Simulate business processes
• Prototype new products
• Training development
• Conduct general training sessions in 3D immersive learning spaces
• Conduct company specific training
- Employee Product training
- User Training
- Human Resources Training
- Sales Training
- Safety Training
- Quality and Compliance Training

In health care, Second Life provides a potential opportunity for providers to consult with patients and colleagues about an infinite number of diagnoses and interventions without the time consuming activities of meeting face to face and coordinating the individual schedules of a multidisciplinary team. Second Life may have numerous implications for the behavioral health, allowing clients/patients to meet with their provider for counseling and psychotherapy in a virtual office setting. The use of virtual reality and other imagery based interventions has already proven efficacious in treating some anxiety disorders and trauma related disorders. Second Life may serve as another tool for delivering these types of interventions. Additionally, the barrier of the computer monitor may help allay some of the anxiety clients/patients face when meeting with a psychotherapist/counselor face to face. Like many other forms of telemedicince, however, there are some limitations. See below.

Issues and Limitations

The biggest issue regarding the use of Second Life in a corporate or health care setting is security and confidentiality. The limitations are based upon the management controls for processes used within Second Life. Who has access to information? Who owns the information resident there? How can we ensure the security/confidentiality of proprietary information? It is not clear to me at this point as to how these issues will be accommodated in order to allow a company to confidently use Second Life to its full or imagined potential without the fear of compromising any competitive advantage resulting from Intellectual Property.

As the security and data integrity tools evolve within Second Life and as companies develop the virtual tools for their own security and integrity, things will improve. However, companies with high risk business processes may choose to not use Second Life as a tool for activities that are above a certain risk threshold. Business simulation and product prototyping details are examples of information that companies may not want to risk information leakage to competitors in the real world.

Confidentiality is likely the greatest concern in health care. Communicating personal and confidential information on Second Life poses major risks and potential HIPAA violations for health care institutions, providers, and consumers. Although access can be limited to virtual offices and meeting spaces, this only partially limits the access of other users/registrants. At this time it is unknown how securely this information can be protected from potential hackers. Additionally, it is unclear how effectively an institution or firm can protect confidential information from the creators of Second Life, Linden Labs.

A second issue, that may have legal implications, arises from the use of the virtual universe within a “real” methodology such as the product development life-cycle. Do the product user and safety requirements as developed in the virtual universe translate directly to the real world of product development? What testing and validation must be done in the virtual world and subsequently in the real world in order to meet regulatory and/or contractual obligations? Who has process ownership, responsibility, and liability? Furthermore, as the virtual controls mature, there will be a need for harmonization of standards and regulations between the universes.

A major issue that has arisen with the use of second life is the legitimacy of a virtual world where there is no governance beyond the corporate architecture that created it and the international laws that corporation is afraid to violate. After the perusal of the 10+ page Terms of Service, one of many manuscripts of by-laws and employed by Linden Labs to "gove3rn" their virtual realm, it is very clear that the code of conduct in the virtual world is written to prevent Linden Labs from being found liable for anything that occurs "in-world" It is also very clear that Linden Labs has written themselves a "complete ownership" clause into the terms of service that gives them "..a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce and distribute your Content within the Service as permitted by you through your interaction on the Service…" suggesting that by using this service you are granting them the entirety of your work for their use. Such a broad based governmental ownership is of little consequence to those who use Second Life as an entertainment outlet but to those virtual moguls, the idea is very frightening. The ability of this Linden Labs 'government' to grant itself "…the absolute right to manage, regulate, control, modify, and/or eliminate such Currency as it sees fit in its sole discretion…" deters possible virtual entrepreneurs when real-world money is required to build business in virtual space. The recent activity of many real-world companies and the in-flux of educational institutions indicates that the private contracts these entities hold with Linden Labs are under different terms and conditions.

Another issue that erodes the legitimacy of Second Life as a genuine opportunity for real-world business in the virtual environment is the plethora of unorthodox and outlandish characters and activities there. One of the more obvious deterrents is evident after only moments in the environment. The majority of characters are not of appropriate appearance to conduct professional business. As is often the case with censorship protest and dress-code violation, the need for a professional code of conduct is very difficult to maintain in a virtual world with no controls over interactions, character visual appearance and activities. The attendees of a meeting may be animals or animal-like, or in-human, personified inanimate objects like trees. A famous example of an unorthodox character invading the fledgling corporate presence in Second Life involved a real-world CEO's speech to his workforce interrupted by a large fantasy creature. Such interruptions, combined with an unending variety of often-distracting, non-mainstream behaviors make business in a virtual world with no boundaries very risky when large sums of real-world money come into play.

Second Life Summary

While the potential is almost limitless for Second Life in the corporate world, there is a huge need and a lot of work to be done to develop and implement the process governance and management controls to confidently use Second Life as a tool that is integrated with the real corporate world. This will take time but as people learn to exploit the tool more effectively, confidence and use will increase in ways we can now only imagine.

Definition of Social Networking Sites:

Social networking sites like classmates.com and facebook.com are used to connect with old friends. They also give you the ability to create a presence on the web without having to build and pay for a webpage. LinkedIn.com is another example of a social networking site that is used more for business purposes. People have the ability to connect with and build their business network online and create a presence in which they can market their skill sets to potential employers.

Students experiences with Social Networking sites:

LinkedIn.com:

I signed up for LinkedIn after two co-workers and a former classmate sent me requests. Once I entered the required information, I saw that this particular form of social networking was better geared towards professional advancement in lieu of other social networking sites such as Face Book or MySpace. While on there, I found other co-workers and friends, and was able to connect one of my friends looking for a job to another friend of mine that is a recruiter at Toll Brothers. By being on LinkedIn, it allows people to view who is in my circle, and get information on their career experience. The one example of employment opportunity I provided was solely based on my LinkedIn connections; however, I have received emails from head hunters in the Defense Industry, and have been able to set up some interviews with some of Boeing's competitors. Another benefit of LinkedIn, is that it allows the user to search by profession and find possible mentors. I utilized LinkedIn to find a mentor within the Boeing Company that I would not have normally had the chance to and I am now getting insight on how to enter into the Business Development field

I was somewhat apprehensive to join because I didn't fully understand how to use LinkedIn. Recently I joined and can say it can make the job process much easier. Anyone who has gone through a job search recently can attest to the fact that you spend hours upon hours uploading your resume; a lot of time having to adapt the font and format, only to get back an automatic response, just to never hearing from the company again. It basically feels like you're sending your resume into the abyss. Linked in is user friendly and useful. It uploads all your email contacts directly from your email, so it basically inputs anyone you've ever had an email with and will connect you to them if they have an account. Within the first day I received 3 emails from direct higher ups at organizations I'm interested in for positions. It basically puts you in direct contact with the right people. I think this is a powerful tool that brings back a lot of the personalization to the job application process. You are also able to search by company and location, so if you have an interest with X company, you are able to look up and see who the recruiter is and contact them directly! Being unemployed right now I think this tool has really opened the doors to numerous opportunities!

In the past I have heard about LinkedIn from a number of friends and colleagues from work. It seemed like a great way to build upon your existing network of contacts and then to grow your future contact listing. I was skeptical about joining as I am with anything in which my personal information is placed available on a site, but as part of this Wiki experiment, I finally was pushed to join. Navigating the site is fairly easy, in my initial signon and subsuquent visits to the site, I updated my profile, but have yet to include any other information except for the required information that is required when joining the site. AI on the site seems to be somewhat advanced in that when I signed on for the first time, I entered my company information, it populated many of my co-workers that have also joined the site.

From a business perspective this system is ideal. First, the cost is almost half of the cost of using other recruiting resources. Second, recruiters are able to connect with users that they may have never connected with before. They would be able to search for a specific talent or experience and target a more qualified candidate. And lastly, both the recruiter and the job seeker are able to accomplish their goals. The organization looking to recruit is able to search for candidates from a trusted professional network and the individual seeking employment is able to get the exposure needed to get the opportunity for the job.

Classmates.com:

My experience is with classmates.com, the online social networking services.
It is a relatively easy site to navigate around, and it offers plenty of activities, suchas reuniting classmates, military, friends, co workers, and basically any one that's a member of classmates.com site. Since joining I have been able to maintain a distant relationship with friends, coworkers, and classmates. I would like to share some of the interesting experiences I have had as a member of the site. Its when I became part of a listserve that included only members from my high school graduating class. This enabled us to keep in touch with each others, track events, and stay up to date with what's going on in each others lives, such as Marriage, Children, Career, and Higher Education. This list serve consist of an email system that has only one email address, however, all members receive, write and reply from this same email address. This system informed me of the dates and locations of our class reunion in time, for me to make plans and attend them. Also when one of us travels, we inform every member of the site our destination and if any one from our class is there or have been there previously they provide us with beneficial information.

Facebook.com:

Facebook is a privately owned social networking site that allows users to set up profiles , join networks and groups, add friends, post and tag picture, send messages, update current status and interact with everyone that approves your friend request. Facebook was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and co-founders Dustin Moskovitz on the campus of Harvard University, as thefacebook.com. Initially the site was only available to Harvard students, and expanded to other ivy league schools. In 2005, the site was officially changed to Facebook.com then expanded to include high schools, work, city and country networks, and today boasts over 300 million active users.

I began as a “extremely lite” Facebook user, after watching the Myspace.com craze a few years ago and seeing how many hours of people lives were lost just sitting on that website, I was not sure if I wanted to be apart of the Facebook “Trend”. Once I began this class I started to monitor my Facebook account more often and make an effort to except friend request, join groups, and use the people you may know functions. I must admit that Facebook has been a very useful networking tool. In addition to connecting me to people that I have not seen or spoken to since high school and even elementary school. It has also allowed me to keep in touch and up to date with many of my friends from my home town.

Facebook has also found many uses by companies and organizations, and have helped them increase communication with members, downers, alumni, and employees. Facebook allowed me to join a group for my high school class, and through joining this group was not only notified of my upcoming 10 year reunion, but I was also able to see who would be attending so that I could determine if it was worth making the trip back home. Also, in my field of college admissions, my office uses facebook groups to not only keep in contact with admitted students, but also remind them of important dates, and provide them with a forum to have their questions answered almost immediately.

Some of the features that I found to very useful were Facebook privacy settings. Facebook users have more control over who see what on your Facebook profile and really helps user maintain their privacy from strangers. Many people fail to realize there is still definitely a need to “self censor” your comments, status updates and pictures that you post, because you never know how that they can affect the 130 friends that the average facebook user has. Otherwise, I think Facebook is a very good social networking tool, with many benefits to the majority of its common users.

Definition of wiki:

A wiki is a collaborative document or website that allows multiple users to edit, format, and contribute to the content of the document. Wiki is a particular type of software that refers to the ability of a webpage or document to be edited by multiusers at once. An example of wiki are wikipedia where users create an online encyclopedia that is edited and maintain by volunteer users.

Student Experiences with wikis:

Google documents is a type of mass collaboration document application where users can create, word documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. The original creator can aloow only approved users to view the document or the document can be public for anyone who has the link to access and edit. A public Google document can be beneficial in the workplace.
I was able to create a moonlighting sign up sheet for an emergency overflow moonlighting shift. It is a new shift that was added because of the expected increase in volume at the hospital due to the H1N1 virus. All of the available shifts and the linkwas sent to the moonlighters so that they could sign up for the shifts themselves. The creation of a form that the moonlighters could submit after they have worked their shift allowing for reimbursement their time based on the rate and the hours that they worked. This forum for moonlighting sign up was very helpful because I no longer had to spend a long time printing emails from the moonlighters and signing them up for the shift on an excel spreadsheet. The moonlighters were able to see what shifts were available in real time and sign up for what would work with there schedule. The moonlighting reimbursement form worked really well also. The form cut out a lot of steps that I usually have to take, such as entering in everyone's moonlighting rate and reimbursement amount then I was just able to directly email the timekeeper for each department. This public forum was very helpful, however, we are now going on the honor system. We are trusting the moonlighters to sign up for shifts and be responsible. So far the google documents has worked and we haven't had an issue of moonlighters removing themselves from shifts they have signed up for without back-up available.

Issues and limitations of a wiki or mass collaboration document

As with anything there are limitations to wiki or mass collaboration documents. The biggest issue is that everyone can edit the document and they can put in or remove whatever they want. It is up to the community of users to maintain the standards of conduct for the website or document. It is important to note while the biggest downside is that anyone is allowed to edit and make changes that is also the point of a wiki.

Digg:

Digg is a social news website in which users can submit and vote on internet news stories. It is to news articles what YouTube is to videos. The main attraction of Digg is the “Digg It” or “Bury It” feature in which news stories can be constantly rated and re-rated in terms of popularity. Since any internet article can be tagged and submitted to Digg, there is some danger that people will rely solely on Digg for breaking news. However, internet users are savvy and can determine the accuracy of the article by the reputation of the linked website.
When registering on Digg I noticed the integration of technology that I was familiar with on other wiki websites. Much like Amazon.com, articles can be filtered by categories: Technology, Business, Science, Sports, etc. Digg also offers you recommendations for news articles based on which articles you previously “Dugg.” If you are so inclined, you can attach articles you “Digg” to your Facebook or Twitter page for all your friends to see. Submitting articles to Digg is simply a matter of hitting the “Digg It” feature on a number of websites on you could even download a Digg toolbar for your internet browser. In terms of business applications, Digg can be used to keep track of important business news developments as well as free market research of what articles and issues people are interested in online.

Twitter

Twitter has many negative connotations. Most people believe that Twitter is just a social network that is used to inform the world of your current availability. This connotation cannot be further from the truth. In fact, Twitter is very valuable to many of us in the business world. Lawyers are very skeptical of where they obtain information. Lawyers spend countless hours researching their sources to ensure that they are valuable and credible. Twitter can be useful in this search.

Twitter is not solely just about social statuses. I use Twitter to follow bankruptcy updates. I am able follow these updates and incorporate these into my research and I can google the person whose status I followed and easily determine his credibility.

This process can be done within an hour. Lawyers use the billable hour to create their client invoices. Since Twitter allows research to be almost instantaneous, Twitter can help both the lawyer and the client. This will actually increase the amount of people that seek lawyers' services.

Lawyers are very skeptical of their sources; however, after using their due diligence Twitter can be very valuable to a Lawyer's practice.

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