Second Life Virtual Environment for your Business Aditya Zutshi (09BM8005) & Vikas Kumar (09BM8090), VGSoM, IIT Kharagpur Vikram Bhardwaj, CEO of Redileon, a Mumbai based HR Firm, gets a hiring contract from a global BPO which wanted to hire a general manager to run its private hotel in Hyderabad. His agency puts a recruitment hoarding on top of a hotel for less than $1. The neon sign ad flashed: “Want to earn $125,000 per annum. We are hiring a GM to run a hotel in Hyderabad.” Within 24 hours, four candidates from Ireland, Philippines, Czech Republic and Dubai are shortlisted and the applicant from Dubai joins next month. Does it sounds like any other recruitment process and doesn’t get your attention? Well not exactly! The hotel and the neon sign ad existed not in the real world, but in Second Life, a Virtual Environment. The job however was real. What is a Virtual Environment? A virtual environment (VE) is a shared, persistent computer simulated space into which multiple users can interact with each other in real-time. The environment of a Virtual World is governed by a set of rules or physics laws that allow users to cause changes in it. As the user navigates through the environment a view of the current state of the world is presented to him. Users in the environment are represented as avatars which are customizable 3D graphical models, usually with a human-like appearance. The user’s interaction in the
virtual space is through the avatar. The user navigates the avatar to move around in the space. Avatar may be animated to perform gestures and actions to make the interaction more meaningful and engaging. Users can communicate with each other through private or public text messages or VoIP calls. Mostly the 3D Virtual Environments are built on the client-server model. The server maintains all the information about the world and sends regular updates to all connected clients. The clients have a graphical rendering engine that uses the information sent by the server to render a view of the world according to the preferences, e.g. camera view etc., set by the user. Second Life (SL), launched on June 23rd, 2003 is a virtual world developed by Linden Labs and is accessible via the Internet. Second Life Viewer, a free tool downloadable from the Second Life website, enables its users, called Residents, to interact through avatars with each other. Residents can visit new places, socialize with other residents, socialize and take part in individual and group activities. It also allows the residents to create and trade virtual property and services with one another, or travel throughout the world (which residents refer to as "the grid"). Second Life is for people aged 18 and over, while Teen Second Life is for people aged 13 to 17.
Second Life has a 3D modeling tool based on simple geometric shapes that allows a resident to build virtual objects in the Virtual Environment. More complex threedimensional sculpted prims (colloquially known as sculpties), textures for clothing or other objects, and animations and gestures can be created using external software. Second Life has an internal currency, the Linden dollar (L$). L$ can be used to buy, sell, rent or trade land or goods and services with other users. Virtual goods include buildings, vehicles, animations, clothing, skin, hair, jewelry, flora and fauna, and works of art. L$ can be purchased using US Dollars and other currencies on the LindeX exchange provided by Linden Lab, independent brokers or other resident users. Money obtained from currency sales is most commonly used to pay Second Life's own subscription and tier fees; only a relatively small number of users earn large amounts of money from the world. The Economic Times ferreted out some Indian’s also living a virtual life, including a group called VR1 which intends to explore Second Life’s business propositions. Rahul Dutta, one of the founders of VR1, said that they are planning an educational network hub, solutions for MNCs, assistance with island acquisition, world modeling, scripting, animation and graphic design services for Second Life. Child Rights and You (CRY) opened a virtual action centre in Second Life. Indusgeeks partnered with CRY to conceptualize, design and create this presence as a part of an overall initiative to raise awareness about CRY online. This made CRY the first Indian NGO to open a
space in Second Life. The CRY office consists of an auditorium to display movies and hold events etc, a CRY shop (Expressions of Childhood), outdoor café, gallery showcasing child rights posters and materials. It has donation boxes which direct users to the website or pay in Lindens.
Wipro Technologies is bringing new capabilities to corporate recruitment via its Innovation Isle Island in Second Life. To begin with, the prospective candidates will be able to submit their resume at Wipro’s virtual campus and the initiative will be later become an integral part of Wipro’s recruitment drive.
Software major IBM announced that it was expanding its business centre for India in ‘Second Life’, by adding sales representatives based in the country. The business centre in Second Life would allow customers to visit IBM virtually and see products and solutions in 3D. It also offers a platform for IBM sales people, clients and partners to meet, learn, collaborate and
conduct business together virtually without the time and cost of travel. Amul (An Indian Dairy), which established its presence in Second Life by setting up its virtual parlor, is now working to expand its presence in the virtual world. Trimensions, a Gurgaon based company, is helping Amul to develop its existence on Second Life. Rahul Dutta, chairman and managing director, Trimensions, says, “Amul is planning to buy eight-10 islands, equal to 160 acres of virtual land, in Second Life to set up a simulation of its production and distribution facility. The objective behind launching a virtual setup is to demonstrate its functioning to the consumers, and experiment with any change in the production or distribution system virtually before executing it in the real world.”
Zensar Technologies, a leading software services and business process outsourcing organization has announced its second life. Kiran Karnik, former President of NASSCOM at his recent visit to Zensar launched the virtual estate of Zensar on Second Life and said, “I really enjoyed my visit to Zensar on Second Life and will keep my Avatar alive there and will visit the Zensar facilities from time to time. It has been a great effort by the team.”
Text 100 opened its Second Life office in August, 2006. To introduce SL to employees in the company’s 30 global offices, Text100 held a worldwide meeting to celebrate the company’s 25th anniversary. The meeting included a presentation by the CEO, accompanied by a slideshow, a video featuring an interview with the company founders and a Q&A for employees with the CEO. Indusgeeks has built a platform on Second Life that enables students in distancelearning programmes to plug into a simulated environment replicating and enhancing real life learning processes. By assuming an avatar (a virtual identity), each student can attend classes, go on field trips (to say, ancient Rome) and perform experiments in labs, all in the virtual domain created by Indusgeeks. Indusgeeks has also started Bollywood Masala, a forum on Indian films and music on Second Life. Filmmaker use Second Life for making films for first life thus saving on a lot of effort, time and cost especially in special effect and background rendering. Here is one short film, a Mash up of Second Life and Real Actors10. During a virtual meeting with David D’Angelo (HR Analyst at Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) who has expertise in Talent Acquisition Systems and Recruiting in Second Life & Virtual Worlds, he mentioned that in US, there will be large number of retirements and the competition for talent is leading to recruitment in social networks and Second Life. He mentioned that for organizations, Second Life is a great place for screening of Applicants especially
over a large geographic area. This is followed by a real world interview on the phone or in person. There are confidentiality issues and legal issues about doing all the work in SL right now. There are primarily two models in Second Life for the talent hunt - Islands and Job Fairs which give candidates a few choices. Companies like IBM have their own islands in Second Life where candidates can pass on their resume. Example of a job fair in Second Life includes the food service firm, Sodexho, which was covered by MSNBC in the September 10, 2007, article, “How your fantasy life can get you a real job”. The article details how a job candidate rather new to SL prepared to participate in a Sodexho job fair at the suggestion of a Sodexho recruiter he sent his resume to. His efforts at learning the nuances of SL paid off and led to a job as a chef in the senior services division of Sodexho. During an interview, what the interviewee says is not the only important thing but how he handles the situation is equally important. Many interviewers want to see how the interviewee acts under stress. If the candidate looks confused like a fish out of water then the chances of his getting the job reduce. This measure is not possible in Virtual Environments like Second Life, which fail to observe the non-verbal communication/facial expressions of the candidate being interviewed. A Virtual Environment such as Second Life is a fairly newly discovered jungle to do a talent hunt. Since 2003 the online system has more than six million registered users, of whom around the clock an average of 15,000 to 38,000 actively uses the system. Of the 50,000
registered Second Life users in India, Siddharth Banerjee, Founder Indusgeeks Solutions Pvt. Ltd. estimates an active base of 1,500-2,0009. When compared to more than 30 million active internet users in India8, the number of active users of Second Life is insignificant. The possible causes are: 1. The concept of 3D Internet and Virtual Worlds still hasn’t become popular among the common people. Because not many people are regular on Second Life for Social Networking, people resort to build social network on Facebook etc. 2. Mediocre Graphics Card PCs/Laptops: For a lot of people, such a Virtual Environment won’t even be supported on their machine! 3. For Personal Use, people generally take Dial up Internet or up to 256 Kbps Broadband. It doesn’t give the performance required to immerse people in Second Life. Mumbai may be India’s financial capital but it is New Delhi which rules virtual reality finance. “More than 90 per cent of the active users, mostly from the National Capital Region, are also investing in the currency exchange,” revealed Daniel Dias, director, Research Lab, IBM India, one of the companies with a massive presence on the system. “We have been informed that the ratio of active residents to registered users is one of the highest in India and China,” said Joe Miller, vice-president, platform and technology, Linden Labs. Way to go India!!!
References: 1. Bartle Richard R.: Designing Virtual Worlds. New Riders Publishing, (2004) 2. EverQuesthttp://everquest.station.sony.com/ 3. OpenSim http://www.opensimulator.org 4. Project Wonderland https://lg3d-wonderland.dev.java.net/ 5. Second Life http://www.secondlife.com 6. The MUD Connector http://www.mudconnect.com 7. Ultima Online http://www.uoherald.com 8. http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/indias-internet-users-reach-30-million-637/ 9. http://www.livemint.com/2008/09/29214006/Creating-a-real-life-learning.html 10. http://www.filmaka.in/watchvideo.asp?id=63974562-8C76-4715-A35A-2B1EEA501FFC