Plenty of good discussions lately, including one on C.C. Chapman’s Managing the Gray podcast blog, about whether Second Life marketers should be spending some of their time in Second Life.

C.C. would say yes, and Ken would say no.

I fall more into line with C.C.’s thinking, as well as Mitch Joel’s:

As Marketers, we have a duty to understand every channel of communication that people are using. When we make statements like “my schedule is too busy to add another appointment, like meeting in Second Life,” what you’re actually saying is, “I’m closed minded.” Our roles are to help our clients understand the world of new marketing and social media. Like it or not, it is greatly impacting how consumers live with brands and there’s no stopping it.

Is Second Life time-consuming? Yes. Is there a steep usability learning curve? At this point, yes. But if you’re a communicator who spends any time at all in the social media space, you’re doing your clients a major dissservice if you don’t at least explore Second Life and grasp some of its key concepts:

  • Second Life is a virtual world and not a game. You don’t “win or lose”. Instead, you move around, you engage in conversations, you attend meetings, you buy clothes, you buy land, you build an office, you throw a concert, you open a store.
  • “Real life” companies and organizations such as the BBC, “>Lego, and American Apparel are entering Second Life and doing “real life” business.
  • Second Life’s currency of Linden dollars can be traded for American dollars, which means there’s an associated real-life economy. And as cover stories in both Business Week and the Boston Phoenix have shown, several enterprising inidividuals are already earning some decent coin there.

And when you do head into Second Life, offer to buy a drink for a certain handsome avatar named Zeke Barber, who’s still finding his way :)

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