Companies will need dress codes for employee avatars

By Mitch Betts

November 2, 2009 06:00 AM ET

Comments

(1)

Top Stories

Computerworld - Managers don't want an employee showing up at a company function on Second Life as a green spiky animal or wearing barely-there club attire. So analysts at Gartner Inc. recently recommended that as more companies conduct business in virtual worlds, employers should establish ground rules regarding employee avatars.

Gartner predicted that by the end of 2013, 70% of companies will have set behavior guidelines and dress codes for employees who use the remotely controlled online characters in business settings.

"We advise establishing codes of behavior that apply in any circumstance when an employee is acting as a company representative, whether in a real or virtual environment," Gartner analyst James Lundy said in a statement. For example, whatever rules apply to Web activities such as blogging can be extended to cover virtual worlds, except that visual environments also require a dress code.

To avoid problems with employees mixing their personal and professional virtual lives, companies should suggest that employees use one avatar for work interactions and a different one for personal activities, Gartner said.

Amanda Van Nuys, head of enterprise marketing at Linden Lab, which operates Second Life, agreed about the need for separate work and personal avatars.

"If virtual work is to be taken seriously, then our avatars need to look -- and act -- as professional as we do in a physical workplace," she said in a blog post.

Read more about management in Computerworld's Management Knowledge Center.

Comment Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Jump to comments

code of conduct

Additional Resources

Microsoft

DirectAccess and UAG: Better Together

Here are some of the key reasons why you would want to run Unified Access Gateway with DirectAccess.

Microsoft

Case Study: Energy Firm Tightens Protection, Simplifies IT Work

Review how one energy firm tightened protection and simplified IT work using business-ready security solutions.

Sybase

NEXT-GENERATION MOBILITY PLATFORMS

In this white paper, IDC analyzes the role of next-generation mobile enterprise platforms as organizations seek a more strategic deployment of mobile solutions.

Learn the important issues you must consider before starting your next mobility initiative. Get your mobility white paper from IDC now, compliments of Sybase.