Face to face with the white rabbit - sharing ideas in Second Life

The popular virtual world, Second Life, presents a number of opportunities and limitations for the sharing of ideas in the information economy. In this paper we ask the question, ‘to what extent can Second Life simulate an actual face-to-face meeting?’ Many authors have written that tacit knowledge transfer requires face-to-face meetings, however, virtual reality technology can provide tools that enable people to show facial expressions, body language and concepts in graphical form. In this way it is possible to use computer mediated communication to convey nonverbal information that would normally be very difficult to share remotely. In this paper we explore how closely Second Life can simulate actual face-to-face communication. We give examples of lessons learned from students learning in Second Life, and make recommendations on how to support natural communication in online environments.