Second Life...

Reading some trade mag articles over the weekend and ran across one article in particular that was particularly interesting to me. The article was about one of the newest on-line experiences called "Second Life." O.K....so it's not so new to many of us who spend some time on the web, but relatively speaking it is new.

The jest of the article was two fold. First was the daily issue that IT Staffer's have trying to stay on top of technology itself and secondly the issue of trying to stay on top of employees who bring some of that new technology into the work environment--BEFORE it's enterprise ready. Examples over history were given about the types of technology that non-IT employees were eager to embrace long before the software was enterprise worthy...such as, the web, email, and IM ...just to name a few.

Second Life now appears to be catching on amongst some of the more IT savoy end users. They like the concept of using Avatars to represent themselves during virtual meetings. Some larger corporations (Toyota, IBM, Adidas) are even experimenting with the technology internal to their orgs. Second life appears to be a marriage of the younger generations idea of how to communicate effectively and use the latest technology. (another example of how the workplace will be (IS) changing.) The "virtual world meetings" are relatively easy to configure and moderately effective.

SO, what does this mean to us? Well, how many of you know of this technology's existence? How many of you have thought about it's relevance to MDC? How many of you have dismissed it? How many of you thought it has some potential application to helping move MDC forward??--if you did, have you discussed that potential with Management?

A couple take aways I think from this: 1) We have to stay current in our information and understanding of technology changes...which equals OPPORTUNITY, in my mind. 2) By staying current we can answer inquiries, we can protect the Agency's assets from renegade software by knowing what to look for, and perhaps add value if the tool makes sense to us. Many opportunities exist to provide value to our Org by utilizing technology. Most of us would agree, bleeding edge isn't necessarily the best place to be....but I think there is value in having "bleeding edge" knowledge and understanding.

Enjoy your week and make an effort to read something that will help you gain a better understanding on a new technology or one that you know little about today.

(side note---refreshing to see our Org has an official Blog now, http://blogs.mdc.mo.gov/blog/ another example of how our Org is changing in how we communicate with the world. )

TAFN