Yesterday I gave my rather flabby and under-used live blogging muscle a bit of a workout. I was over at IBM's big offices in Feltham, near Heathrow, checking out IBM's Second Life "Virtual Worlds European Media & Influencer Event". I'm still not entirely sure what that means, but it seemed to involve a room full of UK and European journalists, some guys from IBM and a handful of PRs, all sat round IBM laptops, hooked up to Second Life for a day. After a morning of real life discussion, we all moved into Second Life to continue debating. Here, we were joined by numerous journalists from around Europe, who all congregated on IBM's SL island (in the IQ region) for more virtual chit chat. Keep reading for the main highlights of the day - or head over to Tech Digest to read all my live blogging entries.
The IBM people were: Roo Reynolds "metaverse evangelist" which has to be the best job title ever; Rob Smart, "emerging technology specialist"; Holly Stewart "infrastructure architect" and Andy Piper "software services specialist". I've put all personal commentary in italics.
Just why is SL so popular right now?
With around 1.6million users it's not actually all that popular. Personally, I suspect a lot of it is down to some very good PR recently that has provided a few easy stories for mainstream journalists. Every time another of those stories goes out - the Reuters news desk, the first virtual millionaire, the Copybot controversy - membership shoots up. The BBC concert that was put on a while back saw UK subscription increase significantly, and popular musicians such as Ben Folds and Duran Duran have also got people signing up who maybe wouldn't have before.
And what is IBM's interest in SL?
Back in March a few of the IBM "central core" started to pay an interest, seeing it as a place that could potentially be useful for some of their clients. From that small gang, there are now over 600 IBM staff members using SL. They originally had their own pocket of land, but now there's a giant IBM island.
IBM has done some consulting work on virtual worlds, helping out with things like Wimbledon, which had a virtual centre court, using data from Hawkeye (the ball tracking camera that gives us those fancy virtual replays). Their view is that using it in this way makes the event more of a collaborative experience, and IBM users have begun to see this as a more sociable way of IMing other staff, having internal meetings as well as meeting non-IBM people in a social capacity. What I found strange about the day was that we all left feeling none the wiser about what IBM is actually doing with SL. This large company, which has dealings with huge business enterprises, seems poorly equipped to work with the smaller, boutiquey type businesses that are currently finding homes in SL - and in the online space in general. And while the staff seem genuinely excited by the technology, it was strange not to hear any specific annoucements about IBM's plans for the space.
Interesting titbit.
After a few IBM staff members were put off SL thanks to too many normal punters approaching them with offers of virtual intimacy, IBM now has its own personal orientation trail away from the prying eyes of the public. Which leaves me thinking "ooo, get you".
All this and more over on Tech Digest
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FIRST VIRTUAL STRIKE ON "SECOND LIFE"
The people of Second Life is moving to defend IBM employees rights.
It is announced as the first "virtual strike", the first online demonstration in the famous virtual world of Second Life.
And it will involve in September one of the biggest worldwide corporation: IBM.
The unions are mantaining the silence on the organization of this event, but we believe that the effects will be really impressive.
IBM is a globally integrated company with over 300000 workers worldwide, and since many months is pushing the mass-media with a strong campaign based on the innovation.
The italian IBM employees should have well understood the concept: at the "old-factory-style strike", they are substituting the new "virtual strike".
It seems that the reasons for this first virtual strike are related to the renew of the internal agreement: while IBM is one of the company with major profits, its employees are receiving very few fruits of this big mountain of money.
The internal climate is below all the IT industries (taking advantages for the famous IBM's competitor: HP), and the drop that overflowed the glass is the long and inconclusive negotiation for the internal agreement.
While the workscouncil, supported by the majority of IBM Italy employees, was asking for a small salary increase, IBM responded with the complete suppression of the "productive results benefit", with a loss for a single employee of 1000 euros per year.
For a company that wants to lead the corporate social responsibility, this is really too much.
So this is the reason for the innovative virtual demonstration, the first in absolute in the Second Life world.
The high offices of the company are worried..cause this action will turn on the lights on the project of creation of a global union alliance, that is engaging the unions from over 16 countries worldwide, including the new IT boundary: India.
IBM will succeed to avoid this explosive initiative of its "too much innovative" employees ?
Investors and stakeholders hope so...
Breakthrough at IBM Italy
One month after a virtual protest staged in Second Life with almost 2’000 avatars demonstrating on IBM islands, a new contract with IBM Italy has been signed.
The new agreement, which still needs to be approved by the IBM Italy workforce, reinstates the performance bonus that was cut unilaterally by IBM Italy management.
The agreement signed by IBM Italy and the trade union Rappresentanze Sindacali Unitarie (R.S.U.) not only includes the performance bonuses from 2007 up until 2010 but also payments by IBM into a national health insurance fund and also states that negotiations will continue with respect to IBM industrial and business strategies in Italy and the improvement of internal communication policies.
The situation abruptly improved and negotiation resumed after the former country manager left IBM in the mid of October, who had signed responsible for the pay cuts in the first place. His departure cleared the air and facilitated constructive negotiations between social partners as this could be expected from a professional management of a high-tech company.
The virtual demonstration organized on 27 September for a whole day has certainly had an impact on the positive development. Almost 2’000 virtual protestors from 30 countries populating IBM premises in Second Life solicited an unprecedented media echo from all over the world, including TV and radio stations, daily news papers, computer and business magazines. The virtual protest had been supported by global unions such as the International and European Metalworkers Federations (IMF and EMF) and UNI Global Union.
The threat of strike action in the “real world” by the Italian unions after the virtual protest has certainly also helped to break the deadlock. Yet, the impact of this historical action in Second Life must not be underestimated.