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Second Life and the Voluntary Sector

By Pauline Woolley

There has been a great deal of media coverage of Second Life, with media stories coming out almost daily. Some people see it as a game, others as a tool for education, collaboration, fundraising or marketing. This article explores what Second Life is, why the sector should be interested, how it can be used, training, costs, time, accessibility issues and problems.

What is Second Life?

Second Life (abbreviated as SL) is an Internet-based virtual world designed and run by Linden Lab.  Users download a free client program called the Second Life Viewer which enables users to participate in the world using avatars - figures that represent the users on screen and in interactions.

Users are called 'residents', and when they are 'inworld', they can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities (including conferences, presentations and training sessions), and create and trade items and services from one another.

Two key aspects of Second Life:

• Residents retain the intellectual property of all they create inworld

• The currency of Second Life (the 'Linden') has a real world value that can be exchanged for real pounds or dollars

Significant features of Second Life:

3-D Virtual World

• It echoes the real world in some ways - with people interacting.  But people may choose to have animal or fantasy avatars.
• There are locations which resemble the real world.  But there are also fantastic castles, tropical paradises and skyboxes set above the clouds where people can 'live' and work.
• Travel can be by conventional means such as walking or vehicles.  But people can also fly or 'teleport' from one area of the world to another.

Persistent

SL doesn't stop when you log out of the world.  Like real life, SL goes on when you're not there.  But your actions persist so if you plant a tree in SL, it stays planted, or if you display leaflets in your building, they will stay there - unless you let people take them away.  However, you can leave an inexhaustible supply of material so that no matter how many people take leaflets, there'll still be more available.

Massively Multi User

At September 2^nd 2007 there are 9,242,070 residents. 65% are non-US citizens; the predominant language is English, but inworld translation tools are widely available. 1.5 million residents logged in within the last month.  Over 1.5 million US dollars was spent within the world within the last 24 hours (that's over £750,000 - every day).

Resident Built, Textured, Scripted and Animated

Everything you see in SL was created by residents: clothes, buildings, plants.  Resident scripts (computer code) make trains run, planes and hot air balloons fly, dogs bark, and shops take money and give goods in exchange.  Resident’s animations can change the way you move, sit or jump.

Linden Lab sells Land and Services - everything else is devised by residents.

Why should the Sector be interested?

Second Life is a web-based system that allows:

• Group Chat and Instant Messaging 1-2-1 (text and voice)
• Streaming audio and video content
• Video Conference potential
• 3d modelling in an easy format
• SLURLs (SL URLs) to send people directly to a SL location.

All this comes at no charge to individuals

Much media coverage about Second Life emphasises how it offers opportunities for connection with the public. Potential uses include:

• Fundraising

• Awareness raising

• Development Projects

• Communication

Fundraising

• Groups such as Relay for Life have raised money successfully for charity within SL - see http://www.slrfl.com/  - through events, sponsored sales, inworld kiosks and an annual special 'sponsored walk', this year it raising over US$458,000.
• An art auction held within SL to auction real life paintings raised approximately US $4,500 for St. Jude Children's Hospital Research in Memphis, Tennessee
• An inworld auction for SL virtual artifacts (including a pirate ship) raised nearly US $524.

Relay For Life on Second Life - Raising money for cancer research:

View larger image of Relay station on the Relay for Life

However, fund-raising may not be the greatest strength of Second Life. 

These are key points to bear in mind:

• Successful events in SL take as much (if not more) planning and organization as they do in the real world.  Fundraising in SL, means either being prepared to make a major commitment of time and energy, or finding someone inworld willing to make that commitment for you.  Relay for Life, for example, employs a huge team of inworld volunteers.
• People in SL operate on a different financial scale.  Linden dollars are currently approximately 270 to the US dollar; a donation of $100 Lindens would look reasonable inworld, but would only be worth about 19p in UK money.  One needs a careful strategy to make fundraising cost effective.

Second Life may actually be more useful as a tool in other ways:

Awareness-raising

• Possibilities exist to create information points and interactive exhibitions in world. These will take significant set-up time (at least as many hours as a real life exhibition), but with care can reach a wider audience than real world exhibitions.
• Events can become a focus for awareness-raising

Some examples:

• Locks of Love used an inworld Hair Fair to raise awareness of cancer research campaigns
• Camp Darfur, an interactive inworld media project, designed by residents, was used to inform about the situation in Darfur.  Both this and the media project Streets of Baghdad can be visited in SL at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Better%20World/177/248/21/
• Save the Children set up a virtual yak project in SL where people could buy a virtual yak and learn about the work of the organisation (which their donation would be funding).
• Non-Profit Commons is a virtual community for not-for-profit organisations to explore opportunities and benefits of SL. (visit in SL at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/2/203/26/ or see the Non Profits in Second Life Wiki - where you can also see a useful YouTube video)

Camp Darfur on Second Life - Raising awareness of events in Darfur Region of in Sudan:

View larger image of Camp Darfur on Second Life

However, the role Second Life can play in internal communication within and between organisations has not received such wide coverage, even though this may ultimately be more useful to small and medium sized organisations:

Development projects

• Potential for real life modelling – e.g. building a community centre inworld as a exploration of the issues and problems that will be involved in doing it in the real world
• Potential for simulations – e.g. health projects, such as demonstrating the effects of schizophrenia or exploring issues of disability
• Opportunities for shared projects with other organisations

Communication

• Brings people together without the need for expensive software
• Gives people physical entities to interact with
• Wide range of web tools available within SL - it is easy to show videos or give PowerPoint presentations, for example.
• An active and expanding not-for-profit sector already inworld

Eduserv conference on Second Life - live streaming to five different Second Life locations. Avatars can attend real life conferences and network without having to leave their offices:

View larger image of Eduserv conference on Second Life

Training

• There is an initial learning curve, but everyone starts their SL experience with a training session. 
• Excellent in-world training opportunities, usually free - (Search Events >> Education when inworld, or visit Education Island for information).
• Video training sessions provided by Linden Lab - and others.

Costs

Second Life’s minimum requirements call for fairly high end computers with a compatible graphics card and a broadband connection. Windows Vista is not currently supported. The free viewer is easily downloaded (32 Mb) and installed.

Individuals and organisations can have completely free accounts. However, to become seriously involved in the world (e.g. setting up an island or region of land with the help of Linden Lab), requires as least one account to be purchased.

Individuals can buy or rent land anywhere - mainland or islands. The popular way for organisations to register a presence is to have their own island. Linden Lab offers special terms to not-for-profits (and educational institutions). There are also a number of in-world locations that offer space and support to not-for-profit organisations, such as TechSoup which is behind Non-Profit Commons, a 'sim' (specially designated area of land) dedicated entirely to providing free space to non-profit organizations.

Time

Establishing a SL presence will take time. Think of it as setting up a new office in another country where the natives are friendly, speak a dialect of English but have their own unique customs. So:

• You need to put in development time
• You need to remember things you do in SL will take as long as they do in real life if not longer (e.g. putting out a press release, arranging a conference etc.)

However, just as in the hypothetical foreign country, you may find help:

• You can make use of supportive local workers and volunteers
• You might even find some of your own employees are also SL natives!

Accessibility Issues

• Second Life is a visual game – and not fully accessible
• It does offer exciting opportunities for some forms of disability, although it excludes others
• As time goes on, the open nature of the development means there are opportunities for increased accessibility

Problems

Some of the problems with Second Life are misrepresented in the media. It is a very new medium, and has some of the problems that the Internet itself did in its early days with regards to open access (i.e. there are unpleasant areas out there; Linden Lab is policing these and closing down those that abuse the Terms of Service).

Other problems - such as inworld sabotage (called 'griefing') and development limitations - pose more serious threats to usage. Remember that this is a new and developing medium and is prone to the kind of hic-cups that the World Wide Web experienced in its early days. 

Second Life can be infuriatingly slow, and things can go wrong (the search engine may be unavailable for example, or it might become impossible to 'teleport' from one area of the world to another).  Frustrating as all this is these are teething troubles that will gradually improve as the Web itself has done.

Further Reading

Second Life Website 

Techsoup

• Change the world by working in a virtual one
• Online virtual worlds - a mini guide
  

Second Life Insider – Second Life users’ blog

Issues of accessibility are discussed in the following articles at IT Analysis.com:

• Second Life Class Action
• Second Life open source accessible client