Interview with Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon

Kingdon: I think there are so many, but I'll focus on one to start and we can get you a case study also if you want to explore it further in an article if you're working it out.

IBM has been a long-term partner for Linden Lab well before I arrived on the scene. They've been very interested in adding virtual worlds to the mix, to their mix, because they see it as an amazing way for people to learn, for people to collaborate, to drive business productivity.

They've done it to demo data centers, which I think is a really interesting approach that we've seen a lot of other companies do as well, which is they'll build a facsimile of a physical building or a physical space, then engage people in world in the tour, in the dialog, in the experience.

For them, it's demoing a data center, but there have been hospitals that have been built in Second Life so that you can show prospective patients the path that they're going to follow through the human process. Before you go into the hospital, maybe for a series of tests or a serious illness, it's kind of good to know what to expect, right? Because you can go to a hospital physically and feel like you're shuttled from place to place, but if you experienced it virtually, you know what's coming next. You reduce the fear factor. So that's an exploration I saw that I thought was really, really clever.

What IBM has done, I think, has pushed the envelope from a learning and education perspective. We recently hosted IBM Academy. The thing that I like about it is IBM Academy is the IBM training center. They hosted it in Second Life for a bunch of their students.

The thing that I liked about it was that when you're in a corporation, and you go to a training event, probably 60 percent (I'm giving the benefit of the doubt here) 60 percent of the value is in the content that you receive and 40 percent is in the networking opportunity. Meeting folks at college and other parts of the world. And you build relationships that help you in your career.

Well, the cool thing about the IBM Academy experience was that people attended, they absorbed the content -- and you can do really interesting things around simulation, data modeling and data virtualization and everything else that you can't do in the real world. They did all that.

But then on top of that, people stuck around afterwards and socialized and made connections, hung out, and did things together in-world that showed the power of the medium. They are making a human connection as well as absorbing the information we expect them to absorb in corporate training.

Industry Standard: For doing this type of activity, socializing, is Second Life really optimized for that type of thing right now? For instance, we are having this conversation now, we can cross relate. You are smiling right now so I can see your expression. Second Life doesn't have as rich of an experience as that unless you are a really pro user and you know how to do all of these things right off the bat. For dragging a bunch of people into this space to have a meeting, you will have different levels of skills with Second Life. Doesn't that present a big barrier to doing this type of thing?

Kingdon: You know it's odd. You might think it would, right? And I did before joining the company and I quickly got past that and saw that it was incredibly powerful. It's true you can't necessarily see someone's facial cues unless they're an expert user or communicating a raised eyebrow or chuckle, but people express themselves in different ways through the avatars that they use.

And I spend probably between one and 3-4 hours a day in Second Life because we have distributed offices and I rarely travel to them. And every week I sit with one of our offices in-world and we have a fireside chat. And some folks I have never met in person but I feel I know them because of the way they express themselves through their avatars and the conversation that we have.

So it's not the barrier to connection you think it would be. It is actually the opposite. And the reason it is the opposite and I think it is so much better than a video conference for instance, is that people are free and feel comfortable expressing themselves.

So sure there is a tradeoff. I can't read all of your body language. But, at the same time, what I found in the virtual world is because you have a degree of separation through the interface, and the opportunity to text as well as voice chat, people are much more likely to express themselves, ask questions and have dialogue than they are in the real world.

I say that because I have done this test. I have gone to town hall meetings if you want to call them that in our offices. And I will sit down, even if I have met a lot of people. We are sitting on the floor. Everyone has got something to eat or drink in their hand. It is a very casual environment. We have a casual culture. It's very hard to get Q&A kicked off. When you are there and present in real life, there are a lot of inhibitions, right? When we're in-world, no problem.

First of all, I always take snapshots of these because they are mind blowing. People show up in fantastic avatars. I mean, unbelievable avatars -- giants, dragons, tugboats, green frogs. They go and they buy an avatar that they feel expresses who they are. Our CFO comes as a beagle.

And you know what? The first time, the icebreaker in every conversation is visibly apparent in the avatars they have chosen. Usually we are laughing, cracking up, looking at the avatar and asking questions and immediately the conversation starts flowing. And then because people can text chat, people will ask questions. It's really profound and it's the simplest of things. People text chat their questions in a rolling scroll and they agree and we do polls and all kinds of fun things and the dialogue is terrific. Some people will use voices. Some people will use text. People will pile on. You are never short of topics for conversations in that environment.

I haven't seen anything in a real world that is as powerful. Video conferences are far worse in real world because everybody sits still for the camera, maintains perfect posture and doesn't move around too much. Why? Because you are on video and we all know what that's like even in the most high-end video setups. So I am a huge believer in Second Life as a business application.

Industry Standard: Let's talk about the video for a second. I actually saw one of your executives making a comment in response to a question. The question was is Second Life a competitor to Cisco Telepresence? The Linden Lab executive said yes. I can't remember who it is off the top of my head. Are they?