A Surreal 'Second Life' Experience

The only difference about my public appearance yesterday was it didn't really happen -- at least in the conventional way.

Yesterday was my first experience with public speaking in Second Life, the virtual, 3D universe where more than 6 million people engage in everything from fabulous alter egos to social networking and -- in increasing amounts -- commerce. Major IT vendors, such as IBM, Microsoft, AMD and Sun, are spending huge amounts of money to build out their Second Life presences for networking with customers and educate their solution providers.

Cisco was generous enough to host my presentation/town hall on Channel 2.0, my pet project to map the channel's evolution over the next five years. Holding it in Second Life would both give me an opportunity to see if solution providers saw the new medium as a viable vehicle for conducting business and if it was a good platform for communicating with my audience.

The results were simply outstanding. With little recruitment effort, VARBusiness and Cisco attracted more than 30 solution providers to the Cisco Amphitheater to "hear" me wax poetically for nearly an hour about channel evolution.

I put "hear" in quotes since no one hears a thing. Second Life, itself, is still maturing and doesn't have audio capabilities yet (that's coming in a matter of weeks). My host -- Andrew Sage, Cisco's senior director of worldwide channel marketing " and I had to type the entire presentation; of course, the audience had to read it. As one VAR said, "It was like reading an article, only at a slower pace."

Except for having to do a lot of reading and waiting for me to finish typing a sentence (yes, I wrote the presentation on the fly -- no cutting and pasting), the only real complaint I heard was that it was too much like being at a real-world conference. As another VAR said, "I sat down and I couldn't see the slides over the person's head in front of me."

For a first-time event, this was a learning experience. Second Life definitely needs a few more features and capabilities to make the simulation more like the real world. But, it had all the dynamics of a real-world event. The audience liked the content and gained knowledge, and the host and I received the exposure we sought.

What was strangely funny is the air of anonymity did nothing to shield the audience's shyness. Designed as a town hall, I wanted the audience members to participate in the discussion, share their ideas and challenge some of the theories. Only two people were brave enough to speak up.

As Christian Reynaud, Cisco's chief architect for Network Virtual Environments, explained, the same social dynamics we see in the real world often apply to Second Life. He predicted that a few people would gravitate toward me as soon as I left the stage. He was right, but grossly off in the numbers. I was swarmed by people who wanted to talk to me about which vendors were doing a good job in Second Life, what I thought about the virtual world as a business platform and, the all important question, could they have copies of my slides?

The answer to the second question is "yes." Second Life and other virtual worlds have the potential for being alternate venues for events, training and conferences. Many solution providers and vendors are already using Second Life as a social networking tool to form partnerships between complementary VARs in different parts of the country and world. In time, I can envision solution providers building virtual solution centers to exhibit their systems and demonstrate their services.

Yes, Second Life has some doubters and detractors. Despite this, more vendors are coming online every day. Since I wrote my first Second Life article, "Making the Second Life Connection," Microsoft and Autodesk have opened their islands to the public. During the event yesterday, a person from Avnet was there to check out the capabilities because -- you guessed it -- the distributor is planning a Second Life launch.

I'm more convinced than ever that there's something to this online playground and, over time, the channel will learn how to leverage it for business purposes. I expect more vendors will follow the lead of these early adopters, and innovative and pioneering solution providers will be close behind.

I know I'll be back -- virtually speaking.

Would you attend a Second Life technology or business event? Can you see your business using Second Life as a communications or demonstration platform? Or do you think Second Life is child-like foolishness? Share your thoughts with me; I'm a sucker for a good conversation.