More government bodies and large corporations are looking towards Second Life as a way of leveraging resources - an effective virtual presence can be had for a little under USD5,000.00 per annum [1] plus staff costs.
Why would you bother?
There are several reasons:
- because it is a low-cost channel for connecting to potential and current clients.
- because being an early adopter in this channel is a remarkable thing in and of itself.
- because Linden Labs, owners of Second Life, want to help make it happen.
For more background on why large organisations (including government) are looking to Second Life, please see:
And it should be noted that not every organisation is suited to Second Life. Some disqualifiers include:
- no potential client base on Second Life: while this does not apply to most organisations, there are some (such as local government or intelligence) that might be better served by alternative means.
- low organisational will: if you do not have an organisational website, chances are that your corporate culture does not support early adoption, and it may be a difficult thing to manage a Second Life implementation.
So what is involved?
Costs can be broken down into:
- Land: this can be the “big-splash - let’s buy our own island” model - this is USD1,675.00 plus USD295.00 a month. A 16-acre virtual territory on the “mainland” is around USD4,000.00 for a good location plus USD295.00 a month in maintenance. You can set up a presence in someone else’ building for a lot less. How notable a presence do you need? For more information see Real estate: buying and selling land in Second Life
- Setup costs: It is possible to spend a lot of money setting up a government office in Second Life - costs in the low nine figures are bandied about for the likes of setting up the virtual corporate HQ for Dell and IBM. That said, there is a lot of help in-world for those interested in learning to build, as well as plenty of people that will create custom designs for you (for a fee - like every other builder, you should ask for references and examples of their work). For an illustration of how easy it is to get started and create simple structures, read Mitch Wagner’s article on Building in Second Life. You can get your corporate IT providers to create the whole thing for you, or utilise in-world experts.
- Maintenance costs: Apart from the USD295 a month that owners of islands and 16 acre quadrants pay to Linden Labs, what costs are there for maintenance? At a minimum, none - unless you want to add more functionality (i.e. a bigger virtual shopfront, more online information, and more staff members).
- Staffing costs: Depending on how you staff your virtual shopfront, this is probably the biggest single cost to the organisation. Do you have volunteers that can be rostered on at opportunity-cost only for eight plus hours a day? Most organisations do not. In-world labour varies (as in real life) in quality and cost - you can hire virtual receptionists with reasonable language skills from a few (USD) dollars an hour and up, or have the best client service/sales/marketing minds in your organisation. Help desk operations are probably a good comparison - first-level operators help with the simplest enquiries and ensure that calls are logged and escalated as required. Fourth-level support pulls the system to pieces and rebuilds it - with all the graduations of specialisation (and cost) in between.
The early adopters are making hay while the sun shines in Second Life - the fad, if it is one, does not look like failing soon. Do it properly by all means, but think about doing it soon.
[1] calculated at an island “purchase” cost of USD1,675 plus USD295 a month thereafter.
Matthew Hodgson warns against the folly of inadequate needs analysis. He speaks of the hardship experienced by many evangelists and users of Web 2.0 tools - I know where he is coming from there - and against knee-jerk reactions to adding a blog or wiki just because everyone else is doing it in a corporate environment. If you are a decision maker in a large organisation, and you don’t have a solid business reason to put a public or even intranet-only information sharing system in place, chances are you shouldn’t be doing it.
To find out if there is a solid business case, you need to write some kind of plan.
Do you need to undertake an audience needs analysis?
The simple answer is this: Yes! You need to be able to defend your position - whether it be within your own organisation, or at Senate Estimates, or to your web-publishing peers in industry - and you can either be reactive (wait until you’re asked and then think about it) or proactive (undertake an audience needs analysis as soon as possible for an existing project, or as early as possible in a new project). Guess which way is more efficient?
How do you undertake an audience needs analysis?
There are many ways of undertaking an audience needs analysis - the simplest is to find some representative audience members (AKA “users”, although this term is becoming less fashionable in the last couple of years) and talk to them. Funds and time allowing, you can also go the whole hog and engage a market research firm (one such that I am happy to recommend is Inside Story).
Some points to consider:
- Please accept that you may not know the full depth of your potential audience until you’ve launched your project. That said, you will easily find some audience members, and they will be able to refer you to others.
- There is no one right way to perform audience needs analysis - some ways are more efficient than others.
- If you are honest and transparent in what you offer audience interviewees they will be more forthcoming. Say what you have in mind, and accept all comments.
- Analyse comments for “doability” and congruence with project and organisational policy aims.
- Be honest with your own feelings throughout the process - it is normal to feel defensive when someone is attacking a concept that you have an emotional investment in, and understand that acceptance of any idea has no correlation to its worth (that said, acceptance makes the process easier).
- Record audience member comments and suggestions - follow up on specific requests for further information where you have undertaken to provide them, and keep in mind that everyone likes validation of their ideas by seeing them recorded and referenced.
Once you understand who you are putting the project together for, you can work out how best to undertake it - there are often small ways to include the needs of a diverse range of audiences such that all feel included in the process. More on that in a later posting.
One of the things that government bloggers share with their equivalents in industry is that both may face objections within the organisation. A big policy issue for any corporate blog is around control - some questions that need to be asked are:
- who owns the information?
- who owns the information dissemination process?
- who is responsible for any issues arising from distributing the information?
Chances are that there are clear cut answers within your organisation for question number 2: you probably have a corporate communications/public affairs/corporate web area that sees themselves as having ownership of the dissemination process. In plain language, any outward-facing content has to be in a form that they are happy with. Perhaps they control the process directly.
If you are not in this area, and are seeking a way to work with rather than against various stakeholders, rest assured that there are resources available.
One of my favourites is a book called Cubicle Commando - and I am happy to recommend it in accordance with my advertising and affiliation policy (in other words, if you buy it, I will not make a cent off the sale). Cubicle Commando is about being an intrapreneur - someone who wants to make a difference in their organisation. Chances are, if you are reading this post, you are an intrapreneur. Cubicle Commando has tips and tricks for engendering change within large organisations - one of my favourite parts is “Sleeping with the enemy” that talks about working positively with people who have negative perceptions of your work. It applies itself beautifully to the needs of the would-be corporate blogger, and doubly so to those of us who work in and around government. It is one of those books that is both inspiring and powerful. One of the authors, Zern Liew, has his own blog over at eicolab, and the other, Lisa Messenger, is working on getting one going.
If you have a “dealing with difficult people” success story that you’d like to share, please leave a comment.
