Virtual Meetings VS Face to Face

To Linden Lab,

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your case study about incorporating Second Life into IBM’s corporate culture. IBM utilized Second Life to save thousands of dollars in travel, hotel, and conference costs by holding their AoT conference in Second Life. After reading the article about how valuable second life has been to IBM, I think it is a great program for other companies looking to learn about virtual worlds and/or utilize them to save time and money. However, the reader must recognize that Linden Labs is the creators of Second Life, so they are going to show it in a positive light. If the conference in Second Life for IBM was not successful, this article would not have been written. Moreover, it depends on the openness and willingness of the company using the program to determine how successful it will be.

Edward Castranova explains an opposing point of view in his article “Synthetic Worlds”. Castranova talks about how virtual worlds are becoming a lot more prevalent in the business world than ever before. Castranova does not specifically say whether this is an explicitly bad thing, but does caution people that if they let virtual worlds too much into the way they interact in their business, it may completely replace in person meetings. In person meetings, in my opinion, are still the most effective and influential way to meet about important issues.

Sincerely,

Chelsey Berger