October 15, 2007 Second Life Virtual World to Teach Students How to Navigate Wall Street and Main Street

Cornell’s Business School Ventures into the Online Virtual World of Business

NEW YORK - Cornell University has recently initiated a breakthrough course that will give Johnson Graduate School of Management students the opportunity to explore the financial “wild west” within a completely virtual community.

Professor Robert Bloomfield’s Business and Oversight in Second Life course will allow students a unique opportunity to study business in the absence of regulation and to examine the complex issues surrounding business interactions- all within the virtual internet world of “Second Life”.

"Second Life allows students to actually participate in business and study the effects of their financial decisions,” said Bloomfield.

San Francisco based Linden Lab created Second Life to be a virtual world created and managed by its resident. Residents buy and develop real estate, make clothes and animations for avatars (graphical depictions of residents), and create in-world forms of entertainment, from role play games to dance clubs.

All of this business activity has encouraged the development of a flourishing financial sector, with banks, stock exchanges and financial press coverage. Despite the burgeoning industry, there remains one catch: there are no set regulations or laws to govern the Second Life world.

Because Linden Lab takes a very passive role in resolving business disputes, residents are actively working to create institutions for law, regulation and oversight, including versions of a Bar Association, Securities and Exchange Commission, and Better Business Bureau.

This absence of law will allow students to learn how regulation within Second Life is becoming a hot topic. Along these lines, Bloomfield’s course will use the virtual world to teach real world principles about business, law and economics.

“Students are granted the opportunity to experience regulation, and witness the natural forces that drive it into existence," said Bloomfield.

The course will require students to write an analysis of any oversights or issues that they observe in this virtual world. Each event will be recorded live, and streamed into other areas of Second Life, as well as to the web, creating a variety of ways people may participate.

To help facilitate the course, a series of in-world discussions will take place with guest speakers who are currently conducting business in Second Life. In addition, there will be a number of speakers who are experts in intellectual property, e-business, regulation, and the business of the virtual world.

Second Life first opened to the public in 2003. Today, about 11 million people subscribe to Second Life and the virtual world claims more than $1.5 million exchanges between subscribers each day worldwide.

05.03AM PST, 1015/07 - David Philips, Editor