More Japanese Intelligence

Yesterday I checked out a particular sim in the Japanese cluster, called Intelligence. It belongs to yet another Japanese employment company, residing on the Doda website. I can't tell you much about the company, as there was no English page on the website available.

Wikipedia wasn't much help either, as it only writes:

"Doda (Dogri/Hindi: डोडा) is a town and a notified area committee in Doda district in Jammu & Kashmir of India. Or Job change information site in Japan"

As said, the sim is setup in the busy Japanese cluster, next to the marvellous sims of Mirai and Suntory, and is crafted as a futuristic urban sim, which is strengthened by the skyscrapers from some of the other sims surrounding it. There appear to be two main buildings:

A number of smaller buildings and stands can be found across the sim. Some with information and promotional stuff, some with unknown purpose.

As for the jobs... in the two main buildings there are several signs with avatars depicting jobs and japanese advertisements. Inside the main tower, at the center of the sim, is an information room, which I'll call the 'warp core room' as the central information pillar reminds me somewhat of a Star Trek warpcore.

From inside the main Intelligence Tower, the 'warp core room' you can also teleport up into the tower to a room in which you can experience a job, in this instance a Chinese Language Teacher. You have to look hard though, I needed a little help from a Japanese friend to find the teleport. It's located in the 'warp core room', look for a blue door, click it and answer some questions.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/intelligence/126/72/42

Pasona Recruitment

Remaining in the employment branch, but crossing an ocean in Real Life, there's Pasona which first started as Temporary Center Inc. in 1976 and now is one of the leading Employment services in Japan.

Ever since its inception, PASONA GROUP has used job creation to pursue a clear corporate philosophy of building a better society and creating a system of employment infrastructure that provides each individual the opportunity to work and the freedom to find the job of his or her choice.

There isn't much to tell about this build. Like many other Japanese firms they've decided not to build a dedicated island, but take a parcel in the busy Japanese cluster. And seemingly it works in this case. Today is just a regular Tuesday and the agency had a crowd of 25 avatars looking for a job, which is more than I've found in many many corporate sims on any given day except for 'grand openings'

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Shibuya%20West/128/181/22/

Best Practises for employees

Thursday, 1:30pm - 2:30pm

Best Practices for Employees in Virtual Worlds

With companies issuing avatars to large groups of employees what are the best practices required to create a smooth operating environment for those individuals. What standard operating procedures should be implemented to create the best experience a company projects when sending employees into public virtual worlds?

Speakers:

• Bob Ketner, Creative Director, Studio SFO
• Adrienne Haik, Metaversatility, Inc.

Bob gave a pretty fast ramble on best practises, kind of hard to keep up with taking notes. Here's a few tidbits though:

Why is doing Business in a VW a good idea?

• Employees are already there
• It can solve problems
  - I can't reach you
  - too little time to come over
  - info retrieval
• Gamers are doing it better
  - Gamers focus on getting the job done (single action focus)
  - Gamers are selforganising folk
  - Your new (young) employees are aleardy gamers
  - Are using PC's a lot more effectively

Work can be a drag. How many of you say "Hey I can't wait to get to work on monday", and how many say "I can't wait to play World of Warcraft tonight".

IBM is currently looking into World of Warcraft Guilds, as it takes Guildmasters a lot of experience and compentence to manage all these guildmembers. These Guildmasters are actually people that distill and manipulate digital info in an advanced way. So which skills are involved?

The Avatar as a Uniform

Metaversatility's Adrienna Haik gave an insight as to how serious business in a VW can get.

• It's important for employees to understand they are in a virtual workspace, and not a game.
  -Let your people take it serious and avoid them flying around during discussions and stuff.
  - Visible clues like chairs, desks and other office furniture may help.
  - Set up different spaces for different forms of communication and interaction.
• Interaction guidelines, rules of engagement for the natives
  - How do you react to weird encounters? Your clients my come in as Furry's. A client new to SL can go ballistic if he's shocked by some appearances.
  - Take time for clients and new employees to acclimate. Take them shopping for instance.
  -Respect the community. You're on their turf.
• Your avatarname is associated with your business.
  - Like with email, use a personal and business avatar.
  - Think about sexual harassment by avatars representing your brand
  - Your employee is your best marketing instrument inworld. Have them take the brand serious and advocate it.

There were several things in here which I didn't agree on. Especially the private and professional avatar distinction. I've only got one avatar as the lines between work and play are blurring. We're in a global business now and shifting timezones lead to business encounters at many different hours. Nor do I see the leaders of the industry, like Ian Hughes (IBM), Jeff barr (Amazon) and Christian Renaud (Cisco) have different avatars.

When speaking to Jeff Barr on this after the session was done he came up with several good reasons. First of all, these are community leaders. They've got a very professional attitude towards second life and have to build relations on their reputation. Switching Identities makes you have to build multiple reputations. Another thing (which at least goes for Jeff himself) is that they've probably all had PR training and know what they can and can't say. A third reason why you may not consider switching avatars is by self-protection. For some people there might be tempting stuff in Second Life. If you want to stay away from that, it's a strong motivator if you've got a reputation to think off.

It might be different though for regular employees who come into a virtual world to do some work then go off again. They have a completely different precense than their community leaders.

Text100 to bring Manpower to Second Life

After Randstad, Content and Kelly Services there's a new employment agency entering Second Life: Manpower.

The promotional force behind this entry is different though and is handled by Text100. Yesterday I - and quite a number of other bloggers - received a press release:

"The world of work is changing - it seems as though each new day brings a new and innovative tool for businesses and employees to communicate and interact in the virtual workplace – from telecommuting to outsourcing and, more recently, virtual worlds such as Second Life.

But as the novelty of the virtualized workforce wears off and real business starts to get done, big questions call for a response: What does success look like in this emerging “World of Virtual Work?” What are the opportunities, what are the risks? And what are the rules of engagement for employers, employees, entrepreneurs, customers and job seekers?

In celebration of the launch of the company’s island in Second Life, Manpower, a world leader in employment services, will host a virtual panel discussion this Thursday to explore these important issues. Several prominent Second Life avatars who are active in the virtual business community will address the many open questions on the “World of Virtual World.”

The World of Virtual Work – A Discussion in Second Life

When: This Thursday, July 12, at 3 pm Eastern/12 pm Pacific Time
Where: Manpower Island in Second Life
How: Click the following SLURL to be transported to the event -

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Manpower%20HQ/100/89/27/

As a Second Life resident reporting on the virtual world, you are invited to attend the discussion - and even participate - on how the virtual workforce is being shaped today. In addition, you will be among the first avatars to explore Manpower’s newly created island."

Opening parties are usually a bit crowdy, hence laggy, so I may skip this one to come back later to blog it.

Randstad Uitzendbureau

Okay, I'm a bit slow in adding things to my blog. The Randstad sim has been active for over a month now and I din't write about it. Well, what's there to say anyway?

Randstad received a lot of media attention in the Netherlands because they were the first of the major dutch job agencies to go SL. The sim itself is crude, but perhaps efficient. It does what it does, but certainly no architectural beauty. Basic white walls and default wooden planking and basic shapes... no, you should watch for their competitors, Content, to go public within the next months, those really invested in design!

Randstad hires "greeters" to welcome visitors and help them out. The greeters can be grateful, Randstad pays them normal wages as if the were regular employees. The jobs offered though pose a new problem for Dutch employment laws as jobs earn an average of L$300 per hour, which is way below minimum wage.