The Time for Work Avatars has Arrived

By Amanda Linden

A few weeks ago, there was a lively discussion on the Government Use of Second Life email list on the benefits and challenges around maintaining separate personal and professional avatars and everyone who chimed in was in agreement—the time for work avatars has arrived.  IBM announced their virtual world guidelines for their employees back in 2007. And, last week Jim Lundy at Gartner published a report on this topic, advocating the same position and recommending that organizations create rules around corporate avatar behavior and appearance. According to the WSJ blog on the topic, “He predicts that by 2013, most of them will have such guidelines in place.” When I twittered about the report last week, I received a slew of responses—mostly all in agreement with the basic “work avatar” premise.

Speaking as the person leading Enterprise Marketing, and the Second Life Work brand at Linden Lab, I believe that the professional avatar is an imperative on the road to enterprise-wide adoption of immersive environments as a powerful collaboration and work tool.  If virtual work is to be taken seriously, then our avatars need to look–and act–as professional as we do in a physical workplace. Of course, there are times when I want to have fun in Second Life–go to a jazz concert or shopping. When doing those activities, I have an “alt” or personal avatar–completely separate from my work avatar (SL: Amanda Linden). This concept should sound familiar. For example, most of us already maintain personal and professional email accounts and separate IM traffic streams.

Two weeks ago, Sam Driver, Principal at ThinkBalm, an independent IT industry analysis and consulting services focused exclusively on the work-related use of the Immersive Internet, and I chatted about this very topic. I’ve shared our conversation below and look forward to lively commentary on this hot button topic.

Amanda: Do you believe that people should have personal and professional avatars/personas? If so, why?
Sam: Wow, tough question. I’ll answer these questions in the context of public virtual worlds like Second Life. For immersive environments that are behind the firewall or designed from the ground up for work-related use, issues of avatar and identity are pretty much a non-issue.

Should I have multiple avatars, one for work and one for play? It depends on what makes the most sense for an individual’s career. The answer is generally yes if you: 1) use Second Life or other public virtual worlds (e.g., Activeworlds or an OpenSim grid) for both professional and personal activities, and 2) feel the need to keep your professional and personal activities separate. Otherwise, the answer is generally no. I, for example, have only one Second Life avatar. I use the same avatar no matter what I’m doing in Second Life. The same is true for the other virtual worlds I use; I have just one avatar in each.

Another issue to consider is whether avatars have to look corporate and do they need to be connected to a real professional identity. Transparency of identity is the norm in the workplace (in most situations; I recognize there are exceptions). Most organizations require employees and contractors to identify themselves by their real names for legal and financial reasons. Still, people go by nicknames or middle names at work. People customize their email signatures and outgoing voice mail messages. They upload photos of themselves to the enterprise directory and portal. These are little flourishes to add personal expression to the mix in a digital world where otherwise we come across as black text on a white background.

It’s the same in the virtual world. An avatar is, among other things, the 3D visual corollary to an email signature or recorded outgoing voice mail message. It’s a way of customizing our professional communications. As long as the way our avatars look is in compliance with organizational policy (or, if no policy in place, the avatar’s appearance doesn’t offend others with whom we’re meeting in a professional context), and our avatar is connected with our real professional identity, there’s quite a bit of room for personal expression.

Keep in mind that personalizing the way we represent ourselves in these professional communication contexts doesn’t change our professional identity. Employees’ real professional names are in the enterprise directory, and enterprise directories are tied in with the applications people use every day to get their jobs done. In the workplace, peoples’ real names appear everywhere. As more organizations deploy immersive technologies in the workplace, it will become common for people to use their real names in immersive environments, just as real names are used with other kinds of applications. It will become automatic as immersive environments become integrated with enterprise directories.

The challenge right now in Second Life is that Second Life was originally built on the premise that people shouldn’t use their real names in the environment. Second Life was not designed as a work tool. The workaround we recommend, until we can use our real professional names for our avatars in Second Life, is to list your real professional name on the “First Life” tab of your Second Life profile and wear a name tag that displays your real name and affiliation. Again: this advice is targeted at people who are using Second Life for professional, work-related reasons.

Amanda: Great suggestion. I have another question regarding corporate policies around avatar identity, appearance, and behavior—should businesses create them, like IBM did?
Sam: Yes. It’s common for employers to have employee handbooks and acceptable use guidelines, which dictate the behavior that is expected of them (or lays out the behavior that is verboten). By now, many of these documents have been updated to include employees’ online behavior. These documents will eventually be updated again to take into account peoples’ behavior in virtual worlds, when employees are representing the organization, or are on company time, or using a company computer.

Amanda: Assuming that Second Life will eventually offer the option to use real names, how will avatar identities shift?
Sam: Offering people the option to use their real names for their avatars is one of the best strategic moves Linden Lab can make to bring Second Life into the professional limelight. Second Life is already being used for collaboration, learning and training, and many among things. Second Life and other immersive platforms are attractive to business people because this technology can solve real business problems. (For more insight, see the May 26, 2009 ThinkBalm report, “ThinkBalm Immersive Internet Business Value Study, Q2 2009”). But, as I highlighted above, transparency of identity is the norm in the workplace and this will not change. As a result of Linden Lab enabling the use of real names, I expect to see people create “alts,” or additional alternative avatars, to help keep their personal and professional lives comfortably separate — the same way some people separate their professional networking into LinkedIn and their personal social networking into Facebook.

Sam, thanks so much for taking the time to share your thoughts.  This blog post is meant to catalyze conversation—so share your thoughts and let’s continue the dialogue in comments.

UT San Antonio leaps into Second Life education initiative

By Kris Rodriguez

Public Affairs Specialist

(Oct. 9, 2009)–The University of Texas at San Antonio is joining 15 other UT System institutions in a new $250,000 University of Texas System initiative designed to transform undergraduate education. As a part of the Virtual Learning Community Initiative, the UT System purchased a 50-island archipelago for its components to share in the virtual world of Second Life.

>> To learn more about the Virtual Learning Community Initiative, the UTSA community is invited to attend a demonstration at 9 a.m., Friday, Oct. 16 in the Main Building Auditorium (0.106) on the UTSA Main Campus.

“The purpose of this project is to stimulate creative approaches to instruction that increase student access and success while being cost efficient or reducing instructional costs at all 16 campuses,” saidLeslie Jarmon, UT-Austin senior lecturer in the Division of Innovation and Instructional Assessment and project organizer.

The project is the largest higher education, systemwide project of it’s kind in Second Life. Under the initiative, UTSA administrators, faculty staff and students will benefit from the virtual interrelated tracks put in place.

A systemwide virtual collaborative learning community of faculty, researchers, staff and administrators will communicate in the virtual world.   At the course level, the project allows students to improve the learning experiences and opportunities for individual graduate students and other interested learners. In August, participants from all UT System institutions met in Austin to review the grant and assorted initiatives. There will be bi-monthly virtual meetings via Second Life until the grant ends in July 2010.

“This is the most exciting project I’ve ever been associated with in more than 30 years in the higher education arena,” said Joe DeCristoforo, UTSA assistant vice president and registrar. “Dr. Jarmon is an inspiration to me and my project team, and we look forward to working with her and learning about how to exploit this fascinating technology.”

The UTSA project team members include James Adair, Sara Bordelon, Carmen Fies, Lee Gildon, LaVonne Grandy, James Groff,Linda Lindsey, Pat McGee, Barbara Millis, Malena Salazar, Tara Schmidt, Crystal Sperber, Lloyd Swarz, Eduardo Valenzuela,Mimi Yu and Alfredo Zavala.

Imagine Peace Tower opens in Second Life

On Friday 9th October 2009, Yoko Ono was in Iceland (in the real world) for the annual lighting of IMAGINE PEACE TOWER.

Later the same evening, at 10.30pm (Reykjavik time), Yoko unveiled a new IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in Second Life

Imagine Peace Tower

IMAGINE PEACE TOWER UNVEILING SPEECH
by Yoko Ono Lennon

All spirits of goodness of this magical land, of the planet, and of the universe,
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for witnessing our humble gathering
For the unveiling of IMAGINE PEACE TOWER.

They say, if all the people in China were to jump up and down at the same time,
The axis of the globe would shift.

Well, we are here together. Billions of us.
Standing at the dawn of a new age determined to shift the axis of the world to health,
Peace and joy by loving and caring for all lives on Earth.

Some of us are here physically, some are joining us in spirit.
Some of us are imprisoned, tortured, maimed and silenced, but they are also here today with us.
Some of us have passed away before being able to enjoy a new age of love and peace.

But we are all here today standing together with hope.

The light is the light of wisdom, healing and empowerment.

Even in the moments of confusion, fear and the darkness of your souls,
Hold the light in your hearts,
And you will know that you are not alone,
That we are all together in seeing the light of peace.

I thank the people of Second Life, for giving so much love to this tower from its inception.
IMAGINE PEACE TOWER was visualized with love, and realized by love.
It is a gift from John and Yoko and the people of Second Life to the world.
I know that John is with us, too, in this land of Nutopia,
happy that the light tower is finally a reality after 40 years.

Let’s make a wish as the light goes on.
Let’s send light to each other and say I love you!

i ii iii

John, we love you!

Yoko Ono Lennon
IMAGINE PEACE TOWER unveiling in Second Life
9 October 2009

‘I dedicate this light tower to John Lennon.
My love for you is forever.’
Yoko Ono

‘Imagine all the people living life in peace’
John Lennon

‘A dream you dream alone is only a dream.
A dream you dream together is reality.’
Yoko Ono

LIGHTING UP TIMES AFTER THE CEREMONY

After the opening ceremony, the Second Life IMAGINE PEACE TOWER will begin its cycle of illumination approximately 15 minutes after sunset on every Second Life day and will remain illuminated until dawn. The days are much shorter in Second Life than in the real world. Sunset happens in Second Life every day at the following times, both am and pm:

• 01.30, 05.30, 09.30: Chicago, Baghdad, Bangkok, Vladivostok
• 02.30, 06.30, 10.30: Anchorage, Montreal, Toronto, Reykjavik, Moscow, Shanghai, Suva
• 03.30, 07.30, 11.30: Los Angeles, Rio de Janiero, Liverpool, London, Karachi, Tokyo, Auckland
• 04.30, 08.30, 12.30: Guatemala, Europe, Dhaka, Sydney, Kiritimati

IMAGINE PEACE TOWER ISLAND in SECOND LIFE

Visitor Center

When you arrive at the island, you will first visit the VISITORS CENTER.

IN THE VISITORS CENTER:

• IMAGINE PEACE TOWER DOCUMENTARY FILM
  explains the history and philosophy of Yoko Ono’s IMAGINE PEACE TOWER.
• IMAGINE PEACE POSTCARDS, BUTTONS, T-SHIRTS etc
  are free and for you to share with your friends.
• IMAGINE PEACE & IMAGINE PEACE TOWER BOOKS
  are available to read in the VISITORS CENTER.
• ONOCHORD DOCUMENTARY FILM
  explains more of the history and philosophy of Yoko Ono’s ONOCHORD.
• ONOCHORD TORCHES
  are to hold in your hand and flash “i ii iii” (I love you) to one another.
• ONOCHORD POSTCARDS
  are to explain the message and send to your friends.

Wish Tree

WISH TREES
Outside the VISITORS CENTER and around the island you will find WISH TREES.
Make a WISH and your wish will also be sent to the real life IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in Iceland.

BOAT RIDES
Also outside the VISITORS CENTER are some boats in which you can travel around the island.

CONTROL PANEL
These are stationed around the island,  and teleport you to different vantage points on and above the island. It also enables various modes of dancing. Here’s the locations you can teleport to:

IMAGINE PEACE TOWER WISHING WELL
The wishing well of IMAGINE PEACE TOWER consists of white panels inscribed with the words IMAGINE PEACE in 24 different languages


CLOUDS
There are 4 CLOUDS – at 125m, 225m, 300m and 500m. Inspired by the writings from Yoko’s GRAPEFRUIT and her album artwork for IMAGINE and LIVE PEACE IN TORONTO, these are platforms where you can take in the view, meet, talk and dance, while clouds magically form under your feet. You can fly or teleport between these platforms using the CONTROL PANEL, and from the top platform, you can take a parachute jump back down to the base and enjoy the view.

Spa

HOT SPRING SPA
Volcanic springs are common in Iceland. In fact, the real IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is entirely run on Geothermal Energy – from naturally occurring hot water. Here is a place to meditate, unwind and enjoy the view.


HOT AIR BALLOON
Inspired by John and Yoko’s film ‘Apotheosis” (which was all filmed from a hot air balloon) you can take a ride around the island on the IMAGINE PEACE balloon.

Our Generous In-World Community

By Greywolf Mornington

One of the great pleasures of my job as a reporter for the Second Times Newspaper has been my involvement with the various volunteer and charity groups that dot the Second Life landscape including Relay for Life, Virtual Helping Hands, Veterans Groups, Rape Crisis Scotland and Boomer Esiason Foundation for Cerebral Palsy for example.

“Whether you are a Mentor, Translator, Wiki expert or a helper in one of Second Life’s many awesome help groups, volunteers all have something in common. Each and every volunteer helps improve the lives and experiences of Second Life Residents in very powerful ways.” Said SL Liaison and Volunteer Specialist Lexie Linden.

American Cancer Society

“We all have our stories of our first day in Second Life. They are often memorable, maybe a bit funny and usually are touched by some kind of volunteer effort even if we didn’t realize it at the time. Some of these efforts are more visible, such as those volunteers who welcome new Residents in-world at the Help Islands and Welcome areas, everyone sharing their knowledge via Second Life Answers and those who flex their writing and editing chops in the Second Life Wiki. But, volunteers also do good deeds that are not immediately seen. These contributions have high impact as well.”

Plush Non-Profit Commons Center

We have an amazing power to harness as individuals in the Second Life community.  In 2008, Relay for Life received contributions totally about $250,000US for their fight against cancer. A contribution of merely 250L per month by an average of 70,000 residents, would generate over 210,000,000L (over $840,000US). The emergence of philanthropic interest in this brave new world is also a sign, experts say, of its growing popularity with older professionals—and their growing interest in conceiving ways to use this virtual space to attract younger consumers and ideas to their causes.

“This isn’t just some fad or something new and interesting that we’ve grabbed onto,” says Jonathan Fanton, president of the MacArthur Foundation, which has given the Center on Public Diplomacy of the University of Southern California $550,000 to stage events in Second Life, including discussions of how foundations can address issues like education. “Serious conversations take place in Second Life,” Fanton recently told The New York Times. “People are deeply engaged and that led us to think that maybe a major foundation ought to have a presence in the virtual world, as well.”

So should more charities, says Randall Moss, a technology strategist for the American Cancer Society, one of the first traditional nonprofits to raise money for a cause in Second Life. Moss established an avatar in Second Life in 2004—R.C. Mars (“it looks pretty much like me, maybe a little bit more muscular,” he says) and once there, in Second Life, he met another charity-active avatar named Jade Lily, and persuaded her to organize a virtual Relay for Life, as the cancer society’s annual walkathons are known. A couple hundred avatars did that walk in 2005, raising $5,100. About 1,000 avatars showed up in 2006 and raised $40,000. This year’s walk in July raised $115,000 from 1,700 participating avatars. “

Other regions exist for nonprofits to create a virtual toehold, most notably the forested Camp David-like SIM known as Commonwealth Island, which hosts small displays for a couple dozen environmental and political activism groups. Another region known as Better World Island is home to a gathering of international aid and awareness groups. Individual efforts within Second Life have included a virtual Camp Darfur, which lets residents experience what it is like to be a refugee; Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, a walk-through tour of a malfunctioning human heart created by the American Heart Association; a profitable “fly-a-thon” to support multiple sclerosis research, and the Common Grounds Non-Profit Center.

Virtual Corporate Change

By Greywolf Mornington

In a time when belts in corporations are tightening, companies such as IBM, Dell,  Cigna Corp., Intel Corp., and Wells Fargo & Co. are increasingly looking to Second Life as a setting for trade shows, employee meetings and other corporate events such as training sessions.

IBM Business Center

International Business Machines Corp has invested deeply in the virtual world. Last year in October, IBM hosted a three-day annual gathering of its leading thinkers in Second Life. An event would have otherwise been scaled back because of the recession. The event, which peaked at about 250 concurrent users, helped demonstrate the promise of virtual reality to many within IBM who were having doubts about this method, “We turned hard skeptics into true believers,” says Neil Katz, Senior IBM engineer, who noted that these venues have since been used for other IBM events. IBM says it saved about $350,000 by hosting its October conference in Second Life.

The IBM Business Center located with-in Second Life, created 3 years ago, is a place where people come together and come alive in an environment that makes it easy to learn about complex processes in a visual way. Hold a meeting, share your opinion in a forum, attend a presentation or visit the library stocked with IBM Redbooks®.  Concierge Staff are available 24 hours a day/ 5 days a week.

Dell Business Center

Dell has an island within Second Life, complete with avatars who, can help consumers assemble the perfect computer for a perfect virtual world. Still, Dell believes its island on Second Life will be different from the other companies setting up shop on the virtual world. Dell will enable its customers to come to the Dell Island and visit a virtual factory where they can build a customized PC and have it delivered to their door.

In addition to the factory, Dell is building a computer museum on the site, along with a virtual copy of Chairman Michael Dell’s old college dorm room, where he founded the company. Visitors will be able to check out Mr. Dell’s old bathtub, where he used to store the computer parts he assembled into finished PCs for his first customers. “The content is fundamentally created by the people there,” said Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale. “We’re learning how people’s relationships with each other keep them coming back, seeing the power in numbers. We want to understand that better. It will be fascinating to see what Dell does with that.”

If desired, companies can hire a virtual conference organizer, like Dan Parks, a real-life conference planner who has created Virtualis, a Second Life “island” on which he has built a giant dome, various exhibit halls, ballrooms, an outdoor entertainment center and even a yacht. “Anything your mind can imagine, we can create in here,” Mr. Parks says. For about $7,000, he will run a two-day conference for 75 people from around the world. A similar event in real life would cost about $150,000, he says.

Intel Business Center

Linden Labs is giving extra focus to making Second Life more business friendly, says Linden CEO Mark Kingdom. Creating a site to introduce Second Life to business users and it is redesigning the “first hour experience” to make it easier for users to create accounts. Linden is also planning to launch a service allowing people to call into virtual meetings from their landlines or mobile phones. Linden Research is developing new applications targeting business users with new products and services, including a feature that will let users call into virtual meetings from their cell-phones. It is also testing hardware that companies can plug into their computer networks to create private virtual venues and will continue to develop new applications to further meet the needs of both residents and corporations as new uses for the virtual world are discovered.

The virtual body illusion and immersive Second Life avatars

SECOND LIFE is an online “virtual world” which enables users to create a customised avatar, or digital persona, with which they can interact with each other. It has become incredibly popular since its launch just over 6 years ago, with millions of “residents” now using it regularly to meet others, socialize and even to have virtual sex. Second Life is now filled with virtual communities and institutions – it has businesses and universities, and its own virtual economy.

Now, imagine a futuristic version of Second Life, in which avatars can transfer sensations to the bodies of their users. Such a scenario may seem far-fetched, but a team of European researchers has just taken us one step closer it. They demonstrate a perceptual illusion in which a computer-generated virtual body can be made to feel like one’s real body, so that one can feel sensations from it and respond to it as if it were real.

The new work, led by Mel Slater of the Experimental Virtual Environments for Neuroscience and Technology (EVENT) lab at the Universitat de Barcelona in Spain, builds on earlier studies which demonstrate that the brain’s representation of the body can be manipulated very easily. The first of these, published in 1998, described the rubber hand illusion, whereby the brain incorporates a prosthetic limb into the body (or takes “ownership” of it), so that stimuli applied to the prosthesis are perceived to originate from one’s real hand. More recently, it has been found that this effect can be induced for the whole body, resulting in the body swap illusion, in which subjects perceive the body of another person to belong to themselves, so that tactile sensations appeared to arise from the other person’s body and not their own.

Following on from this earlier work, Slater and his colleagues now show that these illusions can be easily reproduced in virtual reality. The virtual hand illusion was induced in almost exactly the same way as the rubber hand illusion. Participants placed an arm out of sight behind a screen, and looked at a three dimensional computer-generated image of an arm, which was projected onto a large screen directly in front of them (below). An electronic wand was then used to stroke the participants’ arms. In some cases, the movements of the wand were synchronized with those of a small yellow ball on the screen, so that the participants saw the ball touching the virtual arm as they felt their real arm being touched in the same way. In others, the movements of ball on the screen were pre-recorded, and did not correspond to the touches applied to their real arm.

During the condition in which the movements of the wand and the ball were synchronized, but not in the asynchronous condition, the participants reported that the virtual arm felt like their own, and that the sensations they experienced were caused by the ball on the screen rather than by the wand. Five minutes into each trial, the virtual arm was rotated back and forth; at the same time, electrodes placed on the participants’ real arms recorded electrical activity from the muscles, as if they were also moving. The brain had incorporated the virtual arm into its representation of the body, treating it as if it were part of the body. In other words, the participants had taken full ownership of the virtual arm.

In a second set of experiments, the participants wore a data glove which detects finger movements and transfers them to a computer in real time. In one condition, the data were used to control the movements of the virtual arm, while in another, the virtual arm performed a series of pre-recorded movements which did not correspond to those of the participants’ hands. Only when the movements of the real and virtual arms were the same did the participants report feeling that their arm weas located where the virtual arm was, or that the virtual arm felt like their own.

Finally, the researchers found that the illusion could also be induced when the virtual arm was controlled by a non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI, bottom right panel in the figure above). Participants were first trained to use the BCI to open and close the virtual hand, by imagining that they were performing the movements. The BCI records the electrical activity associated with this motor imagery, and translates it into computer commands which can be used to control the movements of the virtual hand. In one condition, the movements of the virtual arm were synchronous with the participants’ motor imagery; in the other, they were not. Again, only in the synchronous condition did the participants report a sense of ownership over the virtual limb, and only in that condition was electrical activity from the arm muscles recorded. The illusion was somewhat weaker, but nevertheless still robust.

The illusion has not yet been extended to a full virtual body, but there is good reason to believe that this is possible. In the body swap illusion, ownership of the participants’ entire body was transferred to that of another person, and out-of-body experienceshave been induced using a similar method (both involve viewing one’s own body from a third-person perspective). This strongly suggests that the illusion of ownership over an entire virtual body could easily be induced, and Slater and his colleagues are already working towards this, using head-mounted, movement tracking displays to project virtual bodies into the spaces normally occupied by real ones.

And what of Second Life avatars which can be perceived as being real? These findings show that this is possible, at least in theory. Some of the necessary technologies are already available, but in practice, it cannot currently be achieved. Sensations could be transferred from the avatar to the user by a full-body haptic suit, but the experience would only feel “real” if the suit could also transmit the movements of the user to the avatar, precisely and in real time. Immersive avatars are, therefore still a long way off. Meanwhile, control of virtual bodies with BCIs could prove to be very useful in enabling fully paralyzed patients to communicate with others in virtual environments.

Out-of-body experienceshave been induced using a similar method (both involve viewing one’s own body from a third-person perspective). This strongly suggests that the illusion of ownership over an entire virtual body could easily be induced, and Slater and his colleagues are already working towards this, using head-mounted, movement tracking displays to project virtual bodies into the spaces normally occupied by real ones.

And what of Second Life avatars which can be perceived as being real? These findings show that this is possible, at least in theory. Some of the necessary technologies are already available, but in practice, it cannot currently be achieved. Sensations could be transferred from the avatar to the user by a full-body haptic suit, but the experience would only feel “real” if the suit could also transmit the movements of the user to the avatar, precisely and in real time. Immersive avatars are, therefore still a long way off. Meanwhile, control of virtual bodies with BCIs could prove to be very useful in enabling fully paralyzed patients to communicate with others in virtual environments.

Stretching Virtual Horizons

by Jasmyn Zanzibar

In an unprecedented event, Beth Noveck, the Duputy Chief Technology Officer at the White House, and the person responsible for Open government, held a mixed-reality event co-sponsored by the Markle Foundation and Global Kids, to discuss her new book WIKI GOVERNMENT: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and the Citizens More Powerful.  Noveck presented in a physical conference room in New York with roughly 50 people in the audience.  Meanwhile, over 100 people congregated at the MacArthur Island conference amphitheater in Second Life.  After being introduced, Noveck began her 30 minute discussion on using emerging technologies and social media to help our government institutions make better decisions and solve problems more effectively.  This ‘click heard ‘round the world’ event marked the first time that the US Government used a virtual reality platform to reach a broader and more responsive audience. 

Social networking, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkdin, to name only a few, has changed how communication occurs across the gamut of political and social arenas.  Virtual reality platforms, such as the foremost, Second Life®, have taken this social networking to the next level, offering participants an immersive environment that propels them from being the mere observers of the television age, to active partakers in social and economic arenas that would not be available to most people any other way.

The US Government is a late-comer, actually.  Other groups and organizations that have recognized the value of virtual reality in reaching their objectives include universities, non-profit organizations,  and public action groups (among which Loyalist College reported a surge in test scores after implementing a Second Life® training program for border guards, the University of Texas announced a roll-out of 8 new regions boasting a presence of all the University of Texas campuses, and the American Cancer Society which broke all records for fund-raising in a virtual platform, as they raised well over $274,000 USD in their 2009 Relay for Life in Second LIfe®).