Friday Afternoon Before A Long Weekend And Still In The Office......

It's the Friday before Labor Day and I'm still here..... need a laugh and this does the trick.



Enjoy your long weekend!

Virtual Worlds in the Workplace

NCTT has recently purchased a Second Life Island and we are in the process of partitioning and building out the sixteen acres of virtual space.

We'll formally announce the island on July 28 at our summer conference in Austin. We believe virtual world use will continue to grow - especially as the price of fuel continues to rise and travel costs grow.



Here's a few interesting virtual world quotes from an online Special Report at BUSINESSWEEK.COM:

• IBM uses different virtual worlds for a range of activities, including project collaboration and welcoming new employees.
• On any given day, more than 50% of employees at Sun Microsystems work remotely.
• A group of Xerox researchers from across the globe meets in Second Life each week to explore how they can use virtual worlds in various areas of their business. One idea is to use these spaces to demonstrate new technologies to customers.
• When Cisco held a summit for international partners in Honolulu in April, it wanted to include participants who couldn't be there in person. So it held a virtual summit in conjunction with the physical one.
• Architect Jon Brouchoud has used Second Life for about two years to help clients of his Wisconsin-based firm Crescendo Design visualize what their homes might look like.
• Some health-care professionals see virtual worlds as a way to help train doctors and nurses in a setting that doesn't jeopardize patient safety. The spaces can also be used to train drug salespeople in a realistically busy setting, with patients and nurses bustling about.
• Retailers are using virtual worlds to experiment with different configurations for new or existing stores. The software also lets consumer product manufacturers gauge customer reactions to new promotional displays or to the relocation of their favorite products.

Colleges that have lots of commuter students (like community colleges) have an incredible opportunity to offer classes, in part, using virtual worlds like Second Life. AT NCTT we look forward to offering our partners space on our island. For more information on how you can participate write to me via email at gsnyder@stcc.edu or say hello "in-world" on Second Life using "Gordo Book".

And....... know you read here....... HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOM!

Virtual Credit Cards in Second Life

If you are a Second Life (SL) Resident buying virtual things you may have another option. Most Residents currently obtain SL currency by using their Real Life (RL) credit cards to purchase Linden Dollars, the Second Life Currency but now there's another "plastic" option.

Singapore company First Meta recently launched the MetaCard that members can use in SL to make purchases in Linden Dollars. A standard MetaCard gets you a L$5,000 (read that as 50 thousand Linden dollars) monthly limit which is around $19 U.S. If you are a big spender you can also get a Gold MetaCard with a L$10,000 monthly limit. Both cards carry a L$300 monthly fee that is waived if you spend L$500 that month. The Gold card carries a standard daily percentage yield (DPY) of 0.09% and the standard card has a DPY of 0.06%. There is also a corporate card.

The September 24, 2007 edition of Business Week reported that only about 100 SL members are currently using the cards and there are approximately 140 SL merchants currently accepting them. According to Second Life insider:

It requires signing up with your RL name as well as your SL name, and for the corporate credit card a link to your RL credit card ..... Merchants will pay a fee for their credit card transactions too, just like RL credit cards.

We'll see if this concept takes off!