Tailorable blog

The joy of doing “embedded research”

Recently I have been doing “embedded research” in Second Life. It started with me exploring this 3D social environment in the evenings, trying out how to construct things there and how to earn virtual money without getting tired. Pretty soon, I was also interested in the real value of such virtual social environments for organizations. This could well be a hype, but I believe that the underlying idea of a 3D environment where people can interact, explore and perform activities together is likely to stay - even if a Second Life turns out to be finite too. As such, I was very excited when the Telematica Instituut started a project into the business options of Second Life and I happily volunteered to be the leader of the pack.

For the project we chose an “embedded research” aproach: we created avatars for all project members, explored the environment, did interviews with organizations in Second Life and attended virtual meetings there. Basically, the stuff I was doing anyway in the evenings, but now a bit more structured, and using my serious avatar: RJ DeSantis.

I strongly believe that great things can happen when personal passions and professional activities are aligned, and this was certainly the case in this project. It was a lot of fun - the only sad thing now is that it is coming to an end. For those of you interested in the results: they will soon be made public, in real life as well as in Second Life.