Meetings strategist Mary Boone specializes in incorporating technology, especially collaborative technology, into meetings. Yet for the virtual meeting she did last month at New York City's Asia Society, she didn't use Second Life. Why not?

"Second Life is appropriate when an appealing visual component is important, but not distracting," says Boone, who co-facilitated a conference in February called Design With India that brought together U.S. and Indian design leaders both here and in Asia for a discussion about environmental sustainability. "We used Microsoft LiveMeeting" -- a Web-conferencing tool that lets people attending remotely see applications, photos, and other documents -- "instead. Representing attendees visually with avatars wasn't so important, since most of them had met before." Boone also used unique software called HyPerform that allowed her to capture the content of the face-to-face part of the discussion and organize it into an outline.

Meeting planners should think twice before incorporating a Second Life element into their meeting just because it's a cool tool, believes Boone. "If you focus people on Second Life, they can miss the point of the meeting if you haven't carefully thought it out," she warns. "When planning any interaction, whether it's in real life or Second Life, think about the human side first -- you don't need 3D graphics necessarily to make it engaging and fun."

Boone notes that Second Life was used effectively at Pop!Tech, a science and technology conference, to welcome conferees attending remotely into a virtual environment that looked like the Maine opera house where the real meeting was taking place. "In that context, since attendees were interested in experimenting with new technologies, it was a good way to use it. But with other groups it might not add anything, or be a distraction."

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