What’s the business case for a company researching and even investing human/financial resources in Second Life or other virtual worlds?

Does the potential upside outweigh the risk?

What will peers – or shareholders – have to say about executives who argue for more engagement with the metaverse?

This interview with David Holloway, Editor-in-Chief of The Metaverse Journal, touches directly or indirectly on these and related questions. Of course, in the space of a 30 minute or so interview it does not provide all the answers. But it does provide some context and illustrations for a sensible discussion on the subject.

In Metaverse Journal Partners With Enterprise 2.0 Thinkfest on my deswalsh.com site, I’ve posted summary notes of the interview and some comments, and a couple of pictures, including one of David Holloway.

Click here to download…

This is the second interview to be posted here on the Social Media Show and the second in a series relating to the upcoming Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum – Sydney, February 19, 2008.

The idea of setting up this site was inspired by my attending the superb keynote by award-winning podcaster Leo Laporte, at last October’s BlogWorld and New Media Expo in Las Vegas.

Up till then I’d had the idea of doing interviews and other podcasts and posting them on my deswalsh.com site. But after listening to Leo I decided that I would either start a show on an existing network or else set up my own site. That firmed up into a decision to start my own site. More work in setting up, but I like the idea of being answerable to myself on this project.

It won’t stop me looking at network podcasting later.

Interviews galore

As part of the process of thinking about the site, I sat down one day last year and, over a cup of coffee and off the top of my head jotted down the names of about fifty people I would like to interview for this show and whom I felt confident would be willing to be interviewed. So I don’t see myself running out of people or topics any time soon. And looking at some of the names, I know there are going to be some stimulating and informative conversations.

An initial round of interviews is already underway, in connection with the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum next Tuesday, February 19, primarily in Sydney, Australia, and with speakers also via streaming video from the USA and Europe.

Inaugural interview

I’ve already done one of those interviews, with knowledge management expert Stephen Collins. So Stephen is the inaugural interviewee. Here is the interview:

Click here to download…

Moving right along

Tonight I’m interviewing someone who is very knowledgeable about Second Life and the metaverse story generally. That should be fun as well as being informative.

If you have topics you would like addressed, and/or people you would like to hear interviewed, please leave a comment here or drop me an email to deswalsh (at) gmail (dot) com. Yes, you can nominate yourself if you feel you have a good story to tell about social media and business.