First Life Meetings, the future for business collaboration?

Although a few things - if you want a ‘behind the firewall solution’ you need to pass through RRR, amongst others - can be held against the current Immersive Workspaces, Jon Brouchoud points out it can be much worse: First Life Meetings. A superb excerpt:

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Jim: What do they do at their cubicles?
Bob: They sit at computers.
Jim: All day?
Bob: Yeah, most of the day.
Jim: So, how is that different from accessing Second Life?
Bob: We can shake hands, Jim. And here’s where it gets really interesting.. if I fidget with my hands, you can ‘read’ that signal and make business decisions based on that body movement!
Lucy: How many fingers am I holding up, Bob?
Bob: Very funny.
Jim: So, when they attend conferences or larger meetings, how do they do any networking if they don’t have profiles to click on?
Bob: They shake hands! Duh. That’s where the real magic is. Then, they give each other what they call a ‘business card’. They then take those cards back to their cubicles and look each other up on the web, and send each other emails. Priceless.
Jim: We can communicate much more efficiently here, it seems. They can’t just send each other messages, or share references, or have a group chat with a few like-minded people during the conference?
Lucy: No way. I’ve seen these so-called *First Life* conferences. Most of them sit at their laptops, or texting on their iphones or Blackberries the whole time anyway. You should see them clamoring around these wireless stations sitting on bean-bag chairs. What’s the point?
Bob: I’m just saying, First Life is the way of the future for business collaboration. You can get started now, or be left in the dust. You decide.
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