I had an interesting experience recently that reminded me of Surinder’s post on what he sees as some negative trends in email communication, only this experience happened in Second Life. I was visiting an area dedicated to online learning when I ran into another avatar–I’ll call him Mike–who began speaking with me. Mike immediately told me that he was demonstrating Second Life to a class of about 25 students, who were not there in avatar form but I can assume were watching our interaction on a screen.  I texted “hi” to the class and informed them that I conduct research on virtual worlds and their use for collaboration and training. Mike proceeded to ask me questions about Second Life and how it is and isn’t useful for student learning. He also asked me about any potential legal or other types of issues that I anticipate or might have already encountered with students. I gave answers from my point of view and current knowledge in hopes of contributing something worthwhile to Mike’s demonstration of Second Life. After about 10 minutes Mike said, “well, we need to move on,” and left.

This situation left me a little disconcerted, and led me to think about what constitutes etiquette in professional or semi-professional interactions between strangers in Second Life or other virtual worlds, or if there is such a thing.  Mainly I am left with questions, not answers. I am hoping that others in the leading virtually community will have input regarding how these types of random interactions might be made beneficial to all involved. In this post I will cover:

• How much should be disclosed about one’s real situation?
• What opportunities for feedback should exist?
• Is “thank you” necessary?
• Should the rules of engagement from the real world be carried over to the virtual?

I said that the experience left me a little disconcerted because I had spent some of my time and energy to assist Mike in his class demonstration and to give answers to his questions that were as thoughtful as possible though off-the-cuff. Afterward I found that I didn’t feel very satisfied by the experience, however. It was not like meeting a person at a conference and discussing pros and cons of virtual worlds face-to-face and it was not like being invited as a guest speaker into someone’s classroom. I had no verbal or non-verbal feedback.  I didn’t even know who I was talking to! I was left wondering what Mike or the students’ reactions were to my answers. Did they agree or disagree?  Was I telling them things they already believed or knew, challenging their assumptions, or talking about concepts that they had no interest in? Deliberation over the incident led me to the three questions above regarding virtual world etiquette and norms.

How much should be disclosed about one’s real situation?
In this situation Mike immediately informed me that he was demonstrating Second Life to a class. Therefore I knew immediately that there were other people observing our interaction although I could not see them. He could just have easily begun asking me questions he was interested in without informing me of the presence of the others or his purpose. Had I not known that others were “listening in” would I have felt better about our conversation in the end and assumed it was just a conversation with another person interested in the same subjects?

On the other hand, I was not informed of the type of students that were being given the demonstration and the purpose behind the demonstration. This didn’t give me a chance to tailor my answers to the appropriateness of the situation or the audience. For example, if I had known that the students were masters level students already using Second Life, I could have given answers as a higher level, or had I known it was a demonstration wanting to show the ultimate “uselessness” of Second Life, I could have highlighted ways in which Second Life is beneficial to people. This feeling of uncertainty led me to my next question.

What opportunities for feedback should exist?
My communication with the unknown students was completely mediated by the avatar Mike. I had no way of knowing if the questions were coming directly from Mike or from the students via Mike. I also had no way of knowing if the students found my answers helpful, nonsensical, or somewhere in between. But since I was blind to the reactions of the others, I think that Mike should have shared either critical or supportive feedback from the class regarding the discussion since I had agreed to be an impromptu speaker for the class. Such feedback doesn’t have to be detailed but could be as simple as “they are nodding their heads” or “they disagree with that idea.” This type of feedback shows that the speaker (me) is being listened to and also engages the me in the dialogue as an active participant.

Is “thank you” necessary?
Lastly, my conversation with Mike’s class ended with a “we need to move on,” rather than a “thanks for your time.” This brought me back to Surinder’s post regarding the trend in a lack of a showing of appreciation for work accomplished. This would have been an opportunity to say that the outside insight was beneficial, even if they didn’t agree with me or that they appreciated the effort I took to engage with them. I’m sure that Mike was busy running his class, and I know it can be difficult to run a demonstration of Second Life while also engaging your class, but I know that this type of dismissal wouldn’t happen in a non-virtual environment with a classroom guest.

Should the rules of engagement from the real world carry over to the virtual?
Finally, I’m left with the question of whether we should be conducting ourselves in the virtual world as if we are in the real world when asking others to contribute to our projects, presentations, or inviting speakers in-world to address our teams. My personal opinion is that we need some of these real world social norms to persist in the virtual world in order to maintain positive relationships and reputations. What do you think? I’d love to hear other experiences and opinions.