An Hour in Second Life “Learning About Yourself”

When business people enter Second life in an attempt to broaden their marketing approach they often miss the essentials. Often they don’t see the creativity and imagination taking place around them. They are surprised at how total immersion into a 3-D environment can become so “real.”

On her personal blog, ATR International’s Marketing Programs Manager, Lisa Amorao discussed her first Second Life experience.

I flew around and stumbled upon a couple of “people.” I went in there thinking I was going to do the social networking thing (meet people) but something strange happened. I wasn’t in the mood for any “networking” at all (which, of course, I didn’t realize until after I left). A couple of people were following me and maybe they were trying to talk to me but I felt like I was being stalked. Because in real life, if you walk away from someone and they keep following you anyway and they don’t say a word, that’s kinda how it is. You’d think that person was creepy and you’d have no interest whatsoever in talking to that person. And then a few minutes later I encountered a half-something (horse-like creature) and half-man thing who said hello but really, I was just creeped out that I “flew” away.

I’ve always thought I was forward-thinking enough to interact with other people online and not have irrational fears about stalkers and such, but as this experience proved, irrational behavior (it’s not real, so what was I so afraid of?) isn’t always so apparent.

One hour in Second Life and already Lisa is discovering things about herself she had not been either able to recognize or admit to herself. She came to work the “network,” but appears to have been overwhelmed by it. Totally missing the creative, imaginative, tech edged personalities around her.

I think most marketers are completely missing the mark. They seem to be wanting to stay in the “print age” mind set. They want to know peoples credentials and experience first… before they decide if “someone” is ok to talk to, sale to, or get involved with in any way. Totally missing the fact that “the ways, they are a changing.”

The inhabitants of Second Life are usually pretty sharp, many on the cutting edge of tech people, and standard “branding” practices are not going to be as effective as in the past. Companies will come to realize that their “requirements” for maintaining their brands will become an anchor to them as standards are adopted which will allow for our avatars to “teleport” amongst different virtual worlds.

We the modern computer user now consumes and process so much information so quickly; marketers will have to learn to grab our attention with something creative, inventive, and allowing for a personal experience… build a confidence with us. Enough confidence that we might consider letting them become privy to our personal details.

Lisa states that she will come back to second Life, but not without planning more for the entering of an environment which over powered her senses on her first try.

I will use it to enhance my offline and online networking experiences — check out a SNS connection’s creations on SL, participate in SL events by “reputable” “real-world” companies like Cisco, IBM, Wells Fargo, just to name a few, and maybe learn to create new things.

Does anyone have any beginner’s tips on Second Life? Any islands I should visit? Where do I set up camp? Is there a real estate office

Yes, Lisa there are real estate offices in Second Life (lots of them)… and many wonderful islands to visit… several have been reported on here in this blog. Rather than go into which ones I like and where I will ask readers of VTOReality to tell you about places to visit.

I think it would be nice if you the readers would help Lisa out with tips for newbies, and interesting places to visit. I will simply try to encourage Lisa to enjoy the creativity, and uniqueness of the people around her… most everyone you meet will be nice, interesting, and good people to get to know… but you should also know there are some real a**holes also.